I love to fish. Cheryl and I have gone out with a fishing guide on Lake Texoma several times and caught a bunch of stripers. We also love to go out on our boat and try to do the same. I like to fish down on the Gulf Coast. Sometimes I go out on a boat in the Laguna Madre, other times I just stand in the surf and cast out into the waves. I like to fish in the little streams up in Colorado.

Growing up, my dad didn’t take us fishing much. I remember one time when I was little, he took us fishing on the coast. He was trying to teach me how to cast. I didn’t listen very well and ended up hooking him in the back. Ouch!

When I got a little older, I started fishing in the ponds on a golf course near our house. Sometimes I’d catch a catfish, but mostly Blue Gills. While I was on vicarage, a member of the congregation is was serving in Las Vegas took Cheryl and I fishing out on Lake Mead. When I moved to my first parish in Watonga, Oklahoma, several of the farmers would let me fish in their stock tanks.

But my love of fishing really set in when I moved back to Texas to serve Grace, Denison. A member of the congregation took me fishing as often as I would go with him. He taught me much of what I know about fishing. Let me rephrase that. He taught me most of what I know about catching. I’ve been fishing most of my life, but not always with a lot of success in the catching department.

One of the important things I have learned is that you will not catch anything if you are not out there fishing. And I don’t do it often enough!

On most days the fishing is fantastic. The catching may not always be, but I enjoy being out there trying. And I’ve learned to have that attitude when I go fishing. You may have heard the phrase, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.” I would beg to differ. I prefer to think there are no bad days fishing. I enjoy the opportunity to be out on the lake, usually with a good friend, taking in the beauty of creation, searching for the combination of the right lure and the right spot, talking with my friend, talking with God, and sometimes just doing nothing other than relaxing and enjoying the moment.

Maybe these thoughts can help shape our attitude about being fishers of men, too. You may mess up sometimes, but you still need to be out there fishing. Your labor will not be in vain.

Matthew 4:19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”