Keep Your Lure in the Water

Special thanks to local member Ann Boulden, for her poetry contribution to the Women’s Corner on the last week of June. I did forward e-mail messages for that week to the right Ann. :-)

Summer is officially here, according to the calendar. Oh, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer! Our thoughts during the summer naturally drift to…. music! (Well, that is one of the things, for me, anyway.) Music moves us, no question about it. Our affinity for music comes from our Creator. The Word tells us to praise Him with the harp, timbrel, etc. (Psalms 33:2 is just one of many in the Psalms). So, it is only natural for music to influence us so much. And what better subject for a good summer song than… fishing! I guess you know by this time that I have been listening to Randy Travis again, so I may as well just tell you that the title of the CD is “Rise and Shine”, and it is well worth the $15.00 you pay for it. (All of you on my Christmas list know what you will be getting!)

Fishing is a funny thing. You can not just throw a string in the water anymore and expect to catch something. There are all kinds of things to keep in mind- bait, weather, time of day, water conditions. They have special TV shows, seminars, conferences and everything to help one become a better fisherman. It is not as easy as it first appears. Sometimes it can get down right discouraging. Patience is definitely a key element.

I was on a fishing trip in my younger days, on a river in northeastern Arizona. The four of us split up to fish the river, so each could have his/her own spot. I went to my spot and dropped my trout lure into the water. I fished my spot faithfully! I saw huge fish through the clear water around the big rocks in the middle of the flowing stream. I dropped my line in, right before their eyes. They remained uninterested and I remained baffled. I did not, however, give up. I kept my lure in the water, determined to catch a fish who was not, perhaps, already so full.

The song goes:

Keep your lure in the water

Don’t just sit by the shore

There are souls to be caught

Everywhere in this old world

Go where hearts are plenty

Don’t just drift with the tide

Keep your lure in the water

In the water of life.

Jesus told His disciples, upon inviting them to follow Him, that they would become fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19) Much like their old jobs, that He was asking them to leave behind, they would be searching out lost souls, instead of schools of fish.

That is our job, too, being fishers of men. Sometimes in life, we are tempted to take our lure out of the water. We don’t see results. People aren’t flocking to us to ask what makes us different, or why we are the way we are. Opportunities to witness do not seem to be so frequent. Sometimes we are tempted to sit down on the shore and just enjoy the warm weather and fresh air. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the warm weather and fresh air, but we must be careful to keep our lure in the water, even when we are relaxing on the bank. The opportunities to witness to others for the Lord’s Kingdom might not be obviously frequent, but there is always opportunity to let the Light within us shine- even when it appears that no one is looking or paying attention. There are souls to be caught everywhere.

There is a popular book entitled, If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of The Boat, but there are also times when we need to get into the boat. There are, after all, only so many fish you can hope to catch from the shore. Like the song says, “Go where hearts are plenty”. Could it be that we need to get into the boat, leaving the safety and security of our spiritual shore behind, climb into that boat of risk and vulnerability with the Lord Jesus, and go fishing??

Some of you are asking, “Where in this part of the world where I live and have my home, (say Datil, or Pie Town [our friends back east are chuckling at those names]) am I going to find a place where hearts are plenty? Being in a remote place like this, we have to go to other, bigger, places to do things like buy groceries, go to the doctor, shop, have entertainment (rodeos, ropings, family reunions, county fairs, malls, movies, etc.). There are souls in all those places that desperately need to find themselves caught up in the Savior’s net, and you and I can lead them there. I’m not talking about giving the cashier at Wal-Mart a sermon as she is checking you out, but a well placed question or comment can go a long way. There are many witnessing techniques and tools. The best one is to just be the person Jesus created you to be, and let Him shine through you. We have to get over our fear of being who we really are in public. One pastor I know always leaves a tract with his tip when dining out. There are also coins with scriptures on them. Maybe you are not a tract person. That is OK. You have a mouth, a smile, encouraging words, and a host of ways you can testify to God’s love in and to this world. Keep your lure in the water wherever you go!

Let me return to my fish story for a moment. You remember I was dropping my trout bait right in front of those crazy fish, and they remained uninterested. I kept my lure in the water all right, but I found out later that the fish that I was trying to catch were carp or sucker fish, that did not care one bit about my wonderful trout bait! I was using bait for other fish. Sometimes we do that, too. We need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit about what to share and with whom. But we can not let ourselves use that as an excuse to keep quiet or not be bold (which will be our first natural thing to do). If we will seriously seek the Holy Sprit’s leading on witnessing, and then follow that leading, we will become good fishers of men. If we miss a cue or mess up on a witnessing job, the Lord will gently correct and continually help and redirect us. Don’t worry. You will not be the first one who has ever thought they were doing it the way the Lord wanted it, but were mistaken. (Revisit Peter cutting off the soldier’s ear in the garden, or our friend Saul, who later became Paul) It is what we do after that mistake (get up again and keep going) and what the King of the Universe can do with a heart and soul learning from and through mistakes that is important.