Lost Fishing

Lately I have been fishing. A lot. Too much, to tell the truth.

Don’t get me wrong – I love fishing. I had, for quite some time, forgotten just how much I love it. It is reclaimed territory in my life – a true and recent gift from God that has, in many ways, been His means to convey to me a sense of His fatherhood.

Fishing is something I enjoyed with both of my grandfathers in my youth. It springs to the forefront in my earliest memories of childhood and sprang off the page in my first efforts at writing. My favorite poem remembers fishing. The only short story I care to share with anyone (though few have read it) explores it, too.

I live equidistant from two great rivers -- The James and The New -- and just minutes from the lesser Roanoke River, to say nothing of countless streams and several lakes throughout Southwestern Virginia. Opportunity to fish abounds and I’ve readily taken advantage of it. I’ve found time and borrowed time…stolen time even. As I’ve said, I believe this rediscovered joy is a gift from my Father. So how can I be pursuing it “too much?”

I guess part of this problem is really just a “gut feeling.” Perhaps even the entirety of it comes from the gut. I mean I could probably detail the process of any one fishing trip – the circumstances, the consequences – and easily reveal some specific sin or sins, some aberration of joy. But for me that exercise misses the point – it labors through the rules looking for broken lines and laws when something deeper and more important is really going on: something in my gut tells me that I’m missing God’s gift – that I’ve lost something.

This is a familiar feeling. For me at least.

“The same path that leads into the kingdom can also lead out of it.” That is a likely misquote of an unreferenced CS Lewis passage that my friend Karl said came to mind when I shared my concerns with him. Regardless of the specific source (or even the language), the sentiment is clearly on target – I’ve come to expect this from Karl, by the way, he is in the habit of delivering targeted quotes.

So here’s the thing. God reclaimed the joy of fishing in my life in order to demonstrate to me the joy of freedom in Christ. He offered this experience to me because it connects so readily to my heart, through my history – my unique memory – giving Him the chance to show me His love. Fishing is my road into the kingdom. One road among many. For me.

But I am easily preoccupied. I am easily lured into pursuing the road rather than following it into the Kingdom. I am easily fooled into believing that the road is the promised land, when it clearly is not. And lingering on the road really just keeps me from arriving. Lingering on the road is really quite the same as using it to leave.

So God gives me the gift of fishing in order to show me something greater…but I begin chasing after the activity of fishing as though it were the gift. Does this make any sense? It’s not unlike God’s offer of intimacy through sex in marriage…that translates so readily (and poorly) into empty pursuit of sex or even the relentless and unrequited quest for online lust. Sure I can hear about that sin on any given Sunday – and it surely is a sin – but isn’t the real sin the missed relationship…the lost gift?

In this context, isn’t fishing every bit as sinful…every bit as lust-full?

I want to look forward to the kingdom and walk toward it and enjoy the journey of discovering it. I want to linger there and then discover new roads to greater kingdoms as God works to reveal Himself more fully to me…and to reveal Me, the real Me, in it all. I want to enjoy looking forward to a fishing trip, enjoy a sudden opportunity to unexpectedly enjoy fishing, enjoy setting aside time and really fishing…but, man, I don’t want fishing to be my life.

I have some important living to do that really isn’t about fishing.

I’ve heard that a common and candid truth among mountain climbers is that they are constantly driven to best their last effort either in speed, height or danger. Constantly. Laboring to achieve even in the sure knowledge that they can never fully achieve…because it all starts again as soon as they “arrive.”

Golfers chase handicaps down toward scratch. And maybe beyond.

Fishermen seek the big catch. A trophy or a picture or just a great story to share over a beer.

Is that really all there is? This “relentless pursuit” of the next “relentless pursuit” (my apologies to Lexus)?

Through God’s offer of freedom He reveals opportunities for life and joy because they are the clearest manner for Him to demonstrate to us…His Life and Freedom! This chase?…well, to me it just feels like slavery all over again.