My heart. My passion. Let me see….
Family? Of course.
Hungry kids? Yes! Most definitely.
Oh. And fishing. Now you’re talking. I am passionate about fishing. Not the kind of fishing around here in Middle Tennessee, where you pick up a cup of night crawlers from WalMart, drop a line in the pond and hope for a 3-pound bass. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)
I’m talking REAL fishing. Thirty-mile-offshore-can’t-see-land-in-any-direction fishing. Fishing where your arms are so tired from fighting the fish that you can’t even lift it up for pictures. That is fishing.
But, guess what. That is not God’s idea of where my passion should lie. Recently, the Holy Spirit has convicted me that, while REAL fishing is REALLY fun, it is not what I need to be doing. He has convicted me that the fishing environment in which I have been involved since birth (really), is not glorifying to Him. Too much beer, too much cussing, too many bawdy stories.
At first, I was deeply saddened by this realization. I felt that if I were to go back to my hometown and didn’t want to participate as I have in the past, I would receive the treatment that Jesus received when He returned to His hometown. “Then he went home…and when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of His mind.’” (Mark 3:20-21) I grieved what I thought would be the loss of my family.
But then the Holy Spirit gave me a scripture: “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mt. 4:19) What?! So I can be obedient to God and still fish?! Hallelujah! Different kind of fishing…but even better than the offshore kind.
The key is listening to the Holy Spirit. Then obeying Him. Not until I gave Him my whole heart did He reveal how He wants me to use it. He is empowering me to do justice to the passions of my heart.
Funny, isn’t it? We latch on to earthly things with our heart – our passion. Fishing is still fun, and I’m sure I will go fishing again, although with a different attitude. But then God opens up His possibilities – possibilities “to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…” (Eph. 3:20), and that earthly stuff just fades.
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses
By Rachael Pennington