Several months ago, I went fishing for the first time in a long while.
This was mostly because the guys I work with are outdoor enthusiasts, much like myself, however, they lean more toward the fishing/hunting aisles at Academy whereas I roam the camping/kayaking/outdoor sections. I enjoy doing most anything outside and have recently picked up hunting as a hobby, partly to join in the badgering of my co-workers and partly for the experimentation of a new sport. The talk of hunting in our office is probably on the top 5 Frequently Talked About topics and so I couldn’t help but loading up and jumping on the old bandwagon.
Fishing is up there too, but not anywhere close to hunting. Something happened a few months back that boosted fishing in the rankings. I never really paid attention to the conversations on the matter because fishing to me is… well its boring.
Maybe this is due to my memories as a kid making a fishing pole out of a long stick, rolling up Frosted Flakes mixed with Big Red into little pieces as bait, and hiking back to the little tank behind my grandparents house in the country. The construction of this rod was pristine, as I had whittled the bark bare with my trusty Swiss Army (thanks Mac), carving a loophole in the end, and even using duck tape for the grip. As I put my homemade bait on the rusty hook at the end of the line I thought to myself, “This is gonna be great. I’m going to catch the big one!” For the next hour I stared with intent at the mocking red and white bobber, ready to yank the heck out of the rod the moment it went under. Either all of the fish in the pond were brilliant and knew this was some sort of trick, or possibly they all could not stand the taste or smell of Big Red Frosted Flakes, or God forgot to put fish in this tank where fish should naturally be. At the end of that hour I found myself thinking, “The best part of fishing is building the pole. Maybe I could go back and make another rod….”
Nonetheless, fishing has never really been my thing. So when the guys at the office started rambling on about there fishing adventures, I never really paid much attention. This changed, however, with the addition of one adjective.
Kayak fishing!
This culmination of two completely separate activities, one of which I absolutely loved and the other that I hated with equal enthusiasm, somehow struck a melodious chord in my outdoorsy soul. I thought that this was something that I needed to try. I could handle fishing with the guys as long as it was coupled with paddling out on my kayak and the sound of waves breaking out on the banks.
And a strange thing began to happen at the office. Kayaks began to show up everywhere. I was being asked what kinds of kayaks were good? Which ones sucked? Which ones could track well? Which ones had good storage capacities? Kayaking jumped to the top of FTA list in a matter of days, and I loved it. By the end of the week, our whole staff had kayaks in the backs of their trucks and had made plans to kayak fish within the week.
One day, I decided to go out with them and give this newfound sport a try.
I packed my kayaking gear in the back of my Xterra, threw the boats on top, and headed for the lake. One of the guys I worked with lent me a rod and reel because, naturally, I did not own one. We met at the lake and unloaded our massive boatloads of gear. As we put in and began to paddle to the far cove, I found myself so far enjoying kayak fishing. We spread out in the cove and began casting. A few of the guys had several lines dropped in the water and their rods were in custom rod holders attached to their boats. This impressed me as I fumbled around with the one rod I had, trying to figure out how to make the little worm look real as I violently shoved the hook through its fake head. After making sure the weight was at the end of the line, the hook was properly attached, and the “real-looking” fake worm was in place, I began to cast it out and finally sort of got the hang of the motion. I began a contest with myself to see how far out I could cast the hook. After thirty minutes or so, and not even a nibble, we paddled to the next cove hoping more ambitiously hungry fish were ahead. To no avail, the fish remained full and refused to take the bait. At one point I thought I had one when I was reeling it in and my pole started to bend. I pulled and reeled as your suppose to (at least on Wii fishing), and my kayak began to move towards the fish. In my head I thought that it was the big one from back in the day that I always planned on catching, but as I moved closer I realized that my big fish was really a big branch right under the surface of the water that my hook was caught on. That remained to be the most excitement I had all day. We paddled back in and despite not catching a thing I actually had fun kayak fishing.
A few weeks after that adventure, I was at a prayer gathering with a few others and God was really speaking to us and drawing us closer to him. I was praying for a friend of mine who has a ministry that reaches out to several communities across Central America and God began to speak clearly to me what to pray for him. God was pressing on me to pray for my friends “burden,” which sort of confused me. I kept saying to God, “No Lord, you say that your burden is light and your yoke is easy. How can I pray for you to increase his burden? It just does not make sense.” Then God began to assure me that this burden was not a bad thing, although it was both necessary and heavy.
And then almost immediately, God took me back to that memory of fumbling around with the fishing lure. He highlighted in my mind the weight at the end of the line, and I suddenly realized what God was saying to me for my friend. The weight is necessary to catch fish and without it the hook is completely useless. It has nothing to make it sink. For my friend, God was showing me that Christ is the bait and the hook and the reason to fish in the first place. But there has to be weight on the end of the line to make the hook sink. What the Spirit was teaching me was that God sometimes allows our hearts to be burdened, to be heavy, and to feel weighty for the sake of the Gospel. It is not burdensome. It is certainly not condemning. And it is not to load us down with worry, regret, anxiety, or whatever else. Jesus does say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”1 But I believe God does let us feel pain for other people. He allows us to be touched and moved by the broken hearted. He gives us hearts to feel pity and mercy for other people. And he allows us, in a sense, to be burdened in order to bare each other’s burdens. He gives us the heart, or the weight on our heart, we need in order to go out and cast our line and fish for the sake of the Gospel.
As I told my friend what God was showing me, he shook his head in agreement and was deeply moved by what God was saying to him. He was affirmed in his calling and encouraged in his spirit.
What is God putting on your heart? What areas is he weighting, not weighing, you down in order for you to cast your line in HIS name?
1 Matthew 11:30.
