I like to fish.  I don’t like to bait the hook, touch the worm, get fish blood on me, or touch an actual fish. I absolutely love, love, love releasing the fish line in the perfect way that I learned when I was a little girl.  I remember, it took me so many tries to actually get the line to stay out of the tree behind me. It would not go in the lake where the fish were.  I can still hear my dad saying, “Keep the pole still and stop reeling it in so much.”  Every motion of the lake felt like a guaranteed fish on the line.  I would quickly reel in the line and try to act sad that there wasn’t a fish. For my normal excited self it was really hard. The joy was in the catch.

I remember the time I took my kids to a trout farm and we got to fish with corn. The fish catching was inevitable. I like fishing with corn. I can totally put that on the hook. My kids were so excited because every single person caught a fish. It required little effort and we didn’t have to get our hands dirty. It’s just the joy of casting the line and reeling in a fish.

“Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” I wonder what the disciples of Jesus thought when they heard Him say this. Did they imagine the mess it would be to actually fish for men?  If someone asks me to go fishing, my first question is always, “I won’t have to touch a worm, will I?”  I am ready to fish, I love everything about fishing. I just don’t like the dirty part.

 I was talking to my niece once and she was saying how hard it is, when it seems like Christians are judging her. She always feels like someone is trying to clean her up before they will accept her in the church.  I made the comment, “Yeah Jesus is the one who cleans us up, not people.”  Then it hit me, Jesus NEVER said, come I will make you the person who guts and cleans the fish. He simply said, “Come and I will make you fishers of men.”  His intention was that we hold the pole and catch the fish. We do this through the love and tenderness that He demonstrated. Then He takes the fish gently off the hook and through His Holy Spirit, removes the gunk and dirty blood and fills us with His blood.

Why do we, as fishermen try so hard to gut our fellow Christians with our spiritual knives? We are so sure we know the way they need to be cleaned and made presentable for the Lords table. We are so wrong!

Jesus doesn’t need gutters and cleaners. He asked for fishermen. He wants us to bait the hook by telling and showing people the amazing life they can have in the kingdom of God. Then He wants us to gently reel them in from the murky waters and He will take them off the line with His nail scarred hands. He will begin the process that gives them eternal life at His table. He alone does the cleaning. It is a lie to believe that we have to gut a person to bring them to Jesus. He just wants us to love them and catch them.

WOW Jesus is going to let me fish the way I love to fish! I love Jesus! I love to fish! Hang on, I’ll get my pole!

©2021 Marsha L. Brown