With My Word as My Bait and God as My Rod PART 2

The thing about fishing is, you need to fish even if there’s only one fish in the lake. The same goes for teaching. You cast, you cast again, and you keep casting your line until you get that fish, and if the fish just won’t bite, then at least you know you tried. So just move on to the next lake. 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted Apollo’s water, but God gave the increase.” God commands us to try our best, and if our best can’t make a non-believer believe, then it’s not our fault, because in the end, it’s up to the fish and God.

In both cases- dealing with catching fish and teaching the gospel, you must be persistent! There is never a grey area! You cannot cast your line and then leave it unattended while you go in for a dip, you’ll never catch a fish that way! Be willing to sacrifice and give up pleasure to work towards the greater goal. This includes temptations. There will be plenty of obstacles in your way as you try to go God’s will, metaphorically, things like old tires, boots, and weeds that hook onto your line and tangle it, trying to pull you under. Do you remember that playground I mentioned earlier? Well, let’s compare it to the devil. It drew me away from my duties, presenting me with something much more exciting and appealing than what I was already doing. This is exactly what the devil does. He doesn’t like Joshua 1:16, he wants us to disobey God as much as we can, so he presents new schemes to ruin our ties with God with each new generation. But you don’t have to go it alone. We can relate my parents to fellow Christians. They helped me to stay on task, and smudged that tempting playground right out of the picture. You can always lean on other Christians to help you out, just as my parents encouraged me.

Motivation, persistence, commitment, discipline, and especially enthusiasm are all virtues necessary to carry out God’s will, and catch as many fish as you can. Like I said, enthusiasm is probably on of the most important characteristics. Just look at the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, he didn’t know God, but he was so willing to, that he tried to learn on his own without anyone to teach him. That is how we need to be when teaching the gospel. We must want to teach it! It’s no good if you go out fishing just because your buddies want you to. In that case, you’re not very likely to have any fun and you probably won’t catch many fish. If the Ethiopian Eunuch hadn’t wanted to learn, he wouldn’t have been baptized that very same day. If you are truly enthusiastic about what you do, you’ll catch a whole ocean of fish and have a blast while doing it.

It’s funny how after 14 years of fun and exciting memories, I choose an old childhood fishing trip as my topic. Maybe that’s because it taught me an important lesson, one that I still haven’t forgotten. If I put effort into what I do, and truly care about my goals, I can accomplish anything. People fish for a lot of things: money, clothes, maybe even friendship. As for me, I fish for God, and I fish to lead others to, or back to God. I’ll close with this: Matthew 4:19, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

--Kristina Kohl