"Deeper" Thoughts on Fishing...

So my post about my fishing trip I put up the other day got me to thinking more about the whole fishing experience. So allow me to share some “deeper” thoughts about fishing (pun intended).

I think that Father really used that experience for me to show me a little more about what Jesus really meant when He said that He would make the disciples “fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

I know that probably every Christian has heard this verse before, but have you ever really stopped to think about the implications of what Jesus said here? For me, I had always kind of glossed over this until I actually went fishing and experienced a few things first hand.

I had just always thought that He meant that He would simply teach the disciples to introduce men to Christ and convert them to follow His teachings (to “catch” them, so to speak), and that He used fishing as a metaphor simply because that is what the disciples knew since they did that for a living.

But I think it goes a little deeper than that. Why did Jesus pick a group of fishermen and not a group of hunters or farmers? Why fishermen?

Well, after having spent a whole day fishing, I can tell you that there are a few things about fishing that make it the perfect metaphor for making disciples out of men:


1) You have to have the right bait
To catch our yellow perch, we used live minnows (although most of the ones I used were dead at the time). Chances are, the fish would not have been biting as often if we had used some other form of bait. The pro fisherman knew just what to use to optimize our chances of catching the fish we were targeting.

I think that trying to tell people about Jesus works the same way. You have to use the right “bait.” That is, you have to know what certain people will respond to. But how do we know? The Spirit has to give you the words to say. He is the “pro” fisherman who provides you with just the right “bait” to optimize your chances. We just have to listen to Him and say what He tells us to say.


2) You have to be patient
Sometimes, it wasn’t more than a few minutes after casting into the water that we had a bite on our lines. But other times, we sat there for 15 minutes waiting for one. What was the difference? Nothing. Sometimes you just have to be patient for a fish to come along and bite.

It’s the same way with making disciples. Some people catch on right away, but for others it takes a long time. Even though you may be using exactly the right “bait,” sometimes it takes awhile for someone to “bite.”


3) You have to get your hands dirty
For those of you who know me, you know that I don’t like to get my hands dirty. So for me to have to put those slippery, slimy minnows on my hook and pull the fish I caught off of my hook was pretty terrifying at first. The first couple of times, the pro fisherman had to do it for me. Until finally he told me, “You know, at some point today, you will have to do this for yourself.” Yikes! There is really absolutely nothing appealing to me about a fish. They are dirty, smelly, and just disgusting.

When you are doing Father’s work, sometimes you have to be willing to do things that you don’t like to do. Travel to dirty and smelly places, embrace people who may not have the same standards of hygiene as you do, and even do things that are scary to you. But just like the pro that was with us, Father will help us out until we get the hang of it. But at some point, we have to be able to just do it.


4) You can’t see what you are doing
The water in Lake Erie may look blue in photos, but up close it is actually pretty murky. You can’t see more than a few inches beneath the surface. So when you cast your line into the water, you really have no idea what is going on underneath the water. And these perch apparently like to dwell near the bottom, since we were instructed to cast our lines until the line stopped. It’s like searching for a flashlight in a pitch-black room using only your hands to feel around.

I think that doing Father’s work is similar in that sometimes, you just can’t see what is really going on. Sure, He may give you a clear instruction, but you have no idea why because we can’t see what’s happening 30 feet below the surface. You just have to trust that He tells you the right thing to do.


5) They resist being caught
Here’s a flash news message for you... fish do not want to be caught! Yeah, I know... big surprise. But what did surprise me was the fight these little fish had in them. These fish averaged about 5 to 6 inches long, so they were not that big. But when we did hook them, they were surprisingly strong to resist being reeled in. A few times, we really had to work for a few minutes to reel the bigger ones in.

It should be no surprise that people also resist being “reeled in” to Christ. People get used to living their own way and they often don’t want to give up the lives they have built for themselves. Most people will stubbornly resist even the strongest testimonies of Father’s extreme love and kindness. The difference though between catching fish and catching men is that fish are snared and reeled in violently while men must be allowed to be drawn to Christ through His gentle love and kindness.


6) You will lose some of them
Even though we caught 158 fish, we lost a lot more on the way up. There were many times when someone was reeling one in and somehow, it freed itself and got away. Those were the frustrating ones.

Similarly, sometimes we can share the Word with people and they can accept it, but then later on they drift and fall away from it. As makers of disciples, we have to realize that not every one will stay the course and we cannot let that frustrate us.


7) There are obstacles
I talked about a few of the obstacles we had to overcome on our trip. We had to get up very early in the morning (which can be difficult for some people) and we had to put up with those annoying bugs. Those bugs made it very hard to concentrate on fishing.

In our lives, we will also be faced with obstacles. Jesus specifically tells us that if we choose to follow Him, we will have trials and tribulations. We have to learn to overcome these obstacles and continue living for Christ.


8) You need help
I mentioned that our group hired a pro fisherman to more or less be our “tour guide” and to show us what to do. Without his expertise, we would have never been able to even drive the boat, let alone get the right bait or find the right fishing spot or get the fish off of the hooks! For a group of people with little to no fishing experience, his expertise made things easy. Also, it helped to have friends that came on the trip too so we could help each other out when the need arose.

Well, it just so happens that Father is an expert at drawing people to Himself. So why doesn’t He just do it Himself? Well, as His children, He wants us to be involved in His plans. Isn’t any activity more fun when you can share it with other people? So if we just listen to His instruction, He will tell us exactly what to do and where to go and what kind of “bait” to use. So even someone who has never fished before can become a fisher of men. And He also places other people in our lives to give us a hand when we need it.


If you stop and think about it, it seems that fishing is the perfect comparison for drawing men to Christ. Sure, there are other activities that incorporate some of these things, but not all of them. Hunting for example shares a lot of these characteristics, but somehow fishing is just much more appropriate.

Fishing...

Continuing with my official "Busiest Summer Ever," I did something last weekend that I never really thought I would do.

I went fishing!

Now, I have fished before. But I use the term loosely. It was in my Great Aunt's pond. I remember when I was younger, we caught a few fish once and then threw them back. Nothing fancy. But this time, I'm talking about real fishing. On Lake Erie. And we kept what we caught.

My friend Kevin from work invited me to go with him and a group of his buddies on a day fishing trip up to Port Clinton last Saturday. So I figured what the heck. It sounded like fun. And going fishing was something that I had always wanted to try but just had never been serious enough to do something about.

Kevin's group had gotten us a sweet setup. We were going to be going out onto Lake Erie with professional fisherman and they were going to bring the bait, the poles, and everything we would need and they were going to take us out to the "hot" fishing spots so we could catch something. And catch something we did!

So Kevin and I drove up to Port Clinton Friday night to meet up with the rest of the group. We didn't pull into the hotel until after 10:00pm. Our boat was scheduled to leave the dock at 6:30am, so we pretty much went straight to bed. It was a beautiful sun-dripped morning on Lake Erie when we got up and we split up into two boats of 6 people and took off.

Kevin and I had each gotten a fishing license for the day that allowed us to keep what we caught. And on this trip, we were specifically targeting yellow perch. For this type of fish, we could catch and keep up to 30 fish for each person in the boat in that day. That seems like a lot, right?

Our fishing started out kind of slow. We caught some decent-sized fish early in the morning, but then the bugs came out. I guess the locals call them "midges," but whatever they were, they were everywhere! It was so bad that we literally had to stop fishing and move to a different spot. Now I know how Joba Chamberlain felt in the MLB playoffs that one year in Cleveland!

But it was a good thing we moved. At our next spot, we started hauling in the fish. We had poles with two hooks on them and we loaded up each hook with a minnow. If you've never put a minnow on a hook before, believe me it is harder than it looks! The pros make it look so easy, but those little minnows are slippery and very hard to hook. I had a few jump out of my hands, so I eventually wised up and waited until I could grab some dead ones. They are much easier to handle when they don't move!

At times, some people had double catches. That is, they caught a fish on both hooks at the same time. I did it a couple of times myself, but most of the time the fish were too small to keep, so we ended up throwing a bunch of them back.

So after being out on the boat until about 2:30pm, we finally decided to come back in. All in all, our boat caught 158 fish! Still under our limit of 180 (with 6 people on the boat). But we did manage to out-catch the other boat, which gave us bragging rights. I lost track of how many I caught myself, but it was probably about 15 or so. Not bad for a beginner!

As for the fish, we piled them all in a cooler and took them over to be cut for meat. I don't really like fish though, so I gave my fish to other folks.

But I wasn't in it for the fish. I just wanted to go and meet some new people and to try something I had never done before. And I had a great time! Although it was fun to try, I think that once is enough for me. There are some people that really like to fish. And then there are some people who would rather do other things. I am one of the latter. But it was a cool experience nonetheless. I highly recommend that everyone try fishing at least once in their lifetimes. If nothing else, it will make you really appreciate the guys who do it for a living!

Enjoy the photos!