Gone fishing
I have only been fishing once in my life that I recall. It was so memorable for all concerned that I was subsequently banned from the boat.
It started with a family fishing trip to Nimpo Lake. The rest of the extended family are all dedicated fishermen / women … so the pressure was on for me to try it too. The first clue that perhaps this sport wasn’t for me, was that my main anxiety was what I would wear. How to look like a fashion conscious Pentecostal fisherwoman?! Yeah, you see we had problems from the get go.
My husband and I took two rods and a small boat with a motor into the lake. He, of course, had to bait my hook and then he looked after the motor while we both fished quietly for a while. So far so good; then I got a bite. I was so excited! I actually had caught one big enough to keep and managed to reel it out of the water …. when it dawned on me that catching a live fish meant AHHH it was ALIVE(!!) and wriggling and desperately trying to fling itself off my hook. My husband was instructing me to bring it into the boat, but I didn’t want it to TOUCH ME!! (Eww gross!) So I had a fish dangling in mid-air and I was stuck. I couldn’t get it off the hook and I didn’t want to risk it touching me as I brought it into the boat. Husband was getting fairly exasperated with me at this point and commanded me in a very forceful whisper to ‘BRING IT IN!’ Noise travels well on a quiet lake (surrounded by homes) and he was desperately trying to avoid drawing attention to this fiasco. All thoughts of being quiet flew out of my mind as the fish came closer and touched me as it went by.
I screamed.
Hubby’s face at that point was priceless. He was trying to control the drift with the motor, hang onto his own rod and get my fish in for me, when he realized we had forgotten the fish bat. He then had to try and dispatch the fish while holding onto the motor and his rod. I, very helpfully, kept myself curled in a fetal position on the bench so the fish wouldn’t touch me again. He finally got the fish subdued and things calmed down. Looking back on it I am not sure what we were thinking when he baited my hook a second time and I actually put it in the water AGAIN. And yes, I caught another one. You get the picture.
What brought this story to mind was a thought God put in my heart in response to a sermon I heard recently on reaching the lost. When praying about it, Jesus brought to mind the promise He made the disciples, I will make you fishers of men. Fishermen dangle bait and wait for the fish to bite. Our job is to make sure we have ‘bait’ dangling for everyone we know. Brother Ted Wagner once shared that he prays daily, ‘Lord, lead me to a hungry heart today.’ I added that request to my daily prayer but today I added another one, Lord please teach me to be a skilled fisher of men. When I catch one I promise I won’t scream and duck – oh and I won’t stress over what to wear. Lord, please teach me to fish. ~ Colleen Biermann
