What Fly-Fishing Unhooks Me From

I fish on a weekly a basis, sometimes on a daily basis. I fly-fish to be specific. If you don’t know what fly-fishing is, just think “A River Runs Through It” with Robert Redford. And if you haven’t seen “A River Runs Through It” with Robert Redford, than please do me a favour and go watch that marvellous movie.

I love fly-fishing so much. I love everything about it. Being in/on a river, being away from buildings and traffic, hearing only the noise of water passing over the stones in the riverbed, and the beautiful sight of that fly dancing in the air above me and then coming to gently lay down on the water’s surface.

Truth be told though, according to my fish-record, I am a terrible fly-fisherman (don’t tell my four-year-old son). I have the patience for fly-fishing as well the love for it. After many years of casting, I have acquired the skill for it too. But I rarely land a fish on the shore, and I mean rarely.

Getting unhooked

You know what my problem is? I just don’t care enough about the fish. If I really cared about catching them, I would spend more time thinking about the layout of the river. I would start checking the insides of the few fish that I do catch to see what the other fish are eating. I would widen my catalogue of flies to choose from, and I would put far more care into my presentation of the fly to the fish. But I just don’t care.

I don’t go fly-fishing for the fish. I never have, even though it is an incomparable rush when I finally get one hooked. No, I go fly fishing because of what fly-fishing unhooks me from.

It is impossible for me to fly-fish and hold my phone, and that is the beauty of it for me. The modern world seems to be making it harder and harder for a person to find solitude; to find space to be alone with the Lord in prayer. What fly-fishing offers me is a glorious landscape, and an activity that keeps my mind free and my hands busy.

When my fly rod is in hand, my phone is not. Most often it is nowhere near me, because there is no use for it on the river and no room for it in my hands. Fly-fishing forces my phone out of the picture, and it creates space for me to talk to my heavenly Father without any noise or distraction except for the rare and sudden splash of a rainbow leaping out of the water with my hook in its mouth.

Its Never Been About the Fish

I am a terrible fly-fisherman and I always will be. I know I will never when a trophy for fly-fishing, but I will never stop doing it, because frankly it’s never been about the fish. It’s always been about Jesus.

As Wendell Berry once wrote, “He [God] goes fishing every day in the Kentucky River. I see Him often.”

So, what is your fly-fishing?

Whats the Point in Praying?

Sometimes I wonder about the power of prayer, and then I read Acts 12.

Herod has just killed James, the brother of John. Noticing how pleased the Jews seem with his actions, he goes ahead and arrests Peter in preparation for killing him too. Because its Passover, Herod thinks it will be better to wait until after the weekend to carry out his plan, and so he locks Peter up for the time being.

What comes next in Acts 12 is almost hyperbolic. Peter is put in prison, he is delivered over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, he sleeps between two of the soldiers, he is bound with chains, and sentries guard the prison door. The amount of precautions Herod takes to prevent Peter’s escape or attack seems like something out of a cartoon. Its just feels so over the top. Nevertheless, you know as the reader that there is no way anyone is getting in to grab Peter and there is no way that Peter is getting out.

The Great Escape

But then it begins. An angel of the Lord shows up and a light shines into the cell. The angel strikes Peter on the side and tells him to get up. Peter gets up from between the two soldiers without waking them and the chains around his hands miraculously fall to the ground. He quietly gets dressed, gets some sandals on, and starts following the angel out of the cell. They sneak past the first guard successfully, and then they sneak past the second. Finally, they arrive at the iron gate leading into the city, and to quote Luke, the gate opens for them “of its own accord” (Acts 12.10). And with that, like a scene out of Shawshank Redemption, Peter is free! He heads to Mary’s house and the story continues on from there.

What an incredible scene! All those barriers to keep Peter securely inside of his cell, and somehow, with the help of an angel, he overcomes all of them. Of course, the ‘somehow’ is not really a ‘somehow.’ God is how. If you made it this far in the book of Acts, you know that God has been doing miracle after miracle in and through this early church. It is not all that surprising that now He springs Peter from prison. And yet, there is something else at work in this scene, that can easily go unnoticed.

The Praying Church

Back it up to verse 5. Luke is telling the reader about all about Peter’s arrest, and he includes this little, but substantial detail, “But earnest prayer for him was made to God by the Church” (Acts 12.5).

Now, why include a detail about prayer in a story about God’s wonder working, prison escaping power? Well, maybe because the two are connected. Maybe because this story is about something more than simply a display of God’s power. Maybe it is a story about the power of a praying church and God powerfully acting in response to those prayers.

I say maybe, but I don’t mean maybe. This is a story about the power of prayer. Peter is imprisoned, chained, guarded, and then the Church prays, and all of the walls between him and the outside world fall down. That is the order of events. Would Peter have been released if the church wasn’t praying? Who knows. All we know is that that were praying and God did something miraculous in response to their prayers. And what else does the church need to know then that?

The Power of Earnest Prayer

The reality put forth by Acts 12 is that when the church prays and prays earnestly, she can be confident that God both hears those prayers and will answer those prayers. Of course sometimes He may answer in ways we were not necessarily wanting, but other times He may answer in ways far beyond what we were expecting.

Remember Church, you are praying to an all-powerful God. So don’t underestimate the power of earnest prayer.

Spiritual Devolution

I often hear people speak of the deconstruction of their Christian faith as spiritual evolution. When I hear that title given to it, I wonder, what if it is actually spiritual devolution?

Why do we always think that any movement is forward? Or that going forward is always progress? Or that we are always nearing the correct destination?

What if we are actually just getting more lost?

Why is it that simple faith, clear convictions, unwavering obedience to Jesus’ commands, and white-hot passion for him is the embarrassment? What if this is the real embarrassment: the palatable, shape-shifting, powerless Jesus that we call thinking clearly?

What if fifteen-year-old you was closer to the centre than you think?

Maybe it is worth deconstructing our deconstruction sometimes, instead of just assuming we took down the right building and built a better one.

Maybe not all growth is good growth, and not all movement leads you home.

When Words Fail

How do you speak of One of whom no human word or words can contain? One who says rightfully and rhetorically of Himself, “To whom will you compare me?” (Is. 40.25)

I guess you try to go beyond words. Use words to point to something infinitely further.

He is great like nothing else is great. Greater than the greatest that anything or anyone ever will be. He is the mountain range that towers over top of the Himalayas. The light that shines brighter than the brightest stars wrapped around the sun and shining at their brightest. He is that series of notes strung together, more beautiful, melodic, poetic and angelic than our brains can register, than our ears can even hear. He is the colours that sit on a canvas that our eyes aren’t even capable of seeing, much less our minds capable of understanding what it is we see.

He is simply infinitely greater than all that the language of greatness can convey. Maybe that is why John resorted to speaking in precious stones, “And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald” (Revelation 4.3)

Economy of Generosity

The apostle Paul’s parting words to the Ephesian elders: “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (acts 20.35). Could Jesus (or Paul) say anything more counter cultural to our culture today, particularly that last part? We might not like to admit it but practically speaking, don’t most of us live as if the opposite is true? That it is more blessed to receive than to give?

The materialism that invades our lives is not about how many material items one is able to distribute but how many he/she is able to accumulate. The aim of the American dream is not about another person’s prosperity but about one’s own. And its not about one’s own prosperity for the sake of enriching other people’s lives, its about prosperity for the sake of enriching one’s own life.

Yet clearly, based on Paul’s quotation of Jesus, God’s economy works so radically different than ours. It always about the other. It’s always about giving over receiving. And ironically its in this upside-down economy of generosity that one finds himself/herself truly blessed. Or according to the Swiss theologian Karl Barth’s favourite translation of blessed, the one who gives rather than receives is truly the lucky bum.