So my family’s summer vacation for 2010 is a camping trip (awesome) to the great smokey mountains in Tennessee. I love everything about my family’s vacations, especially since they have become outdoor destinations. Every time we get together we talk about stuff we have come up with to do while we are there. This weekend my mom mentioned that the boys going (my dad, bro, grandpa, and uncle) should do a guys only fishing trip. I was a little offended because I LOVE to fish. like realllly love it. It’s cool though, I’ll have plenty of time to go fishing in the mountains during our trip, but it got me thinking.
Fishing. It’s so simple and peaceful and eventful and satisfying, even if you don’t really catch anything. But when you do catch something, man nothing beats the feeling of reeling in a big ol’ bass. I can remember when I was little, my dad, grandpa and sister would go out to the clay pit pond behind my great grandma’s property. One day I was tired of fishing with my little blue mickey mouse reel, so I asked my dad how to use his. He showed me how to cast the line and how to slowly reel it it, and I can remember him telling me, “Now when you get a bite, yank the reel up right away so the hook sticks and reel in the line as fast as possible, don’t stop reeling in, even if the fish fights back, reel it in alll the way.” So, I did just what he said, threw out the line, slowly reeled the line back in and TUG… TUUG. ooooh shoot I got a bite. I waited until the third time and I yanked that reel back so hard I though I was going to fall over. I totally had a fish on my hook… I had put the line out, it took hold and I reeled it in.
PAUSE.
So every time I think of fishing I think back to the first time I caught a fish on my dad’s line. The advice he told me on how the most important thing in fishing is when they bite, to yank up the line and reel them in, no matter how much they fight back. Don’t give up until you have the fish in your hands. Sitting in church today I was thinking about that moment and CLICK my brain gets it. Here’s where I am in my life…. I have this friend who I REALLLY want to know the Lord. Like, my heart breaks so much for this that I actually cry. That’s never happened before. But little things have started to happen… The line is out there and they are starting to notice it… tug… tuuug…CLICK. So i’m sitting in chruch, thinking of all the little events that have happened.. and then reality starts to settle in. THIS is what it means to be fishers of men. Throwing the line out there… slowly reeling it back. Being patient, waiting for a bite. tug….tuuuuug. I guess it’s time for me to yank up my reel. I know that there is going to be a struggle, a fight. This is what I’m called to do. What we are called to do. Good thing I love to fish, right?
“Come follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” Mark 1:17
