I love going fishing! I’ve just spent a few hopeful hours casting a line into a lake near Chipping Norton, as the dusk gradually deepened and trout began to mock me by jumping out of the water every few seconds. A series of my flies (that is, hooks tied with twine to make them look like flies) had ended up stuck in the tree behind me, and I was running out of options. I’d had several fish bite at my hook, but I was tired and my reactions were too slow. All the other anglers had left the lake, and it was so dark that I could no longer see to tie any knots, so I had no option but to keep fishing with the tackle I already had set up until it too might find its way into the tree.
I love fishing! It may seem madness, but fishing teaches me about work that requires care and effort, but where striving is of much less use than simple hope. You see, although I had not caught anything, the fish were definitely there and I’d seen other men catching them just an hour ago. I knew I was doing everything I could, and I felt a heady mixture of excitement, nervousness and freedom from the burden of making any more tactical decisions.
Then I remembered the one thing that I’d not yet done.
“Jesus”, I prayed, “Please would you give me a fish?”
And BANG! SPLASH! The rod bent over, as the line went tight and its end wove around in the water, as a fish swam around coming to terms with its fatally poor judgement. We now have a bright pink trout in the freezer, waiting for a BBQ at the weekend. As I said, I love fishing!
In 1699, Thomas Boston wrote: “Fishers may toil long and yet catch nothing; but they do not therefore lay aside their work. So may preachers preach long and yet not catch a soul, but they are not to give up for all that… Hold on, O my soul, and give not way to these discouragements. Thou knowest not but Christ may come and teach thee to let down the net at the right side of the ship, and thou mayest yet be a fisher of men.” (from ‘The Art of Manfishing’)