fishing

When I was at the beach with friends last week, I watched this guy for quite a while. He was out there for hours, in fact the water between him and me wasn't even there when I first saw him as the tide was out. As far as I can tell, he didn't really take anything out of there with him. I don't know. I've never really understood fishing...I would rather just sit and look at the water than to fish and never get to take anything home at the end of the day. In both cases, the outcome appears to be the same.

Last night, at Bible study, we were discussing faith and what it really is. Trusting in God. Relying on him. Spending time with him. As we look at the lives of people we would describe as having faith, they all had one thing in common. They were acting on what they believed to be true. They weren't talking about what they wanted to do or how much can be done but they were doing. Not that "doing" is the most important thing but they took what they knew and acted on that. Most of the time they didn't have the full picture and sometimes they didn't even know more than one step in their journey but what they knew to do, they did.

Fisherman often fish because they like to fish as much as they like fish. They know that there are no guaranteed catches but only that they are fishing. There are lots of people who live life just sitting by the water, judging the fisherman for his futility. Maybe he knows something we don't know.