My wife and I were taking a short vacation in Destin, Florida, and the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico enticed us to want to go “deep-sea fishing”. We got up at four a.m. to depart from shore at five for a day-long fishing trip on a commercial party boat. Thirty other tourists joined us as we all joyfully headed into the deep waters of the gulf at sunrise.
My personality is what they call “type A”, and it really shows whenever I go fishing. I work so extremely hard to try to catch everything I can as if my very life depended on it. After a few hours I am always the dirtiest, slimiest, bloodiest person on the boat! By mid-day I had a string of small snapper and a few other odd fish, and was still working in hopes of landing at least one fish that was larger than three pounds.
I’ll never forget what happened next on that beautiful day. A young lady who was on the boat with us, in contrast to the rest of us, wore a nice dress with a matching white hat and white gloves. She enjoyed the ride on the boat but didn’t fish at all, simply exclaiming, “ I don’t want to mess up my nails that I just had done!”
I rolled my eyes and thought to myself “Oh brother! What in the world was she doing on a fishing boat all day long if she didn’t want to fish?” It was the most absurd thing I had seen on the entire trip.
A little later she said, “Well, I guess I need to fish a little bit. I just hope I don’t get my nails dirty.” I laughed to myself as I pulled in a one-pound snapper. “She will never catch anything! What a joke!”
Within just a few minutes, however, I heard a loud squeal from where the lady was fishing. My jaw dropped as I actually saw her pull in a huge, beautiful forty-pound grouper! It was the biggest fish anybody caught that day, and far bigger than any fish I had ever caught in my life! The lady was thrilled beyond belief. The entire crew cheered and applauded. Her nails and her clothes were still clean. Everybody was smiling and laughing. Everybody but me.
From the moment I saw that grouper I began to develop what some people call a “slow burn”. I continued to fish for a short while, but jealousy and resentment gradually took over my attitude until it showed on my face. I was no longer having fun.
Snatching the rod and reel from the water, I walked away and stumbled up to the sundeck of the boat. Looking up into the sky, with bitterness and exhaustion, I shouted “ WHY? WHY? WHY!! God, you KNOW I work so hard to catch fish, and you have NEVER let me catch a fish like that! And this girl didn’t even try, and you gave her a bigger fish than I have ever had! WHY?”
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I think that getting some kind of an answer from God has very little to do with the piety of our lives, but much to do with how desperate we are to hear. Such was the case that day on the boat. I didn’t like the answer at first—actually I hated it. But in the midst of my selfish anger, I think I heard him laughing! He was saying, “It’s my ocean, son, and they are my fish. I can do what I want with them, and you’ll just have to deal with it.”
No matter how much I cursed the whole situation and spit in the ocean and kicked the boat, He was right. I could complain that it just wasn’t fair, and I could pout and say that I would never go fishing again. That would really show Him! But in the end I had to learn to deal with it.
Looking back now I realize that I learned two valuable lessons that day. One was the lesson of Matthew chapter twenty, where the owner of a farm decided to pay the same amount to those who worked for one hour as he paid to those who worked all day long. Essentially, he said, “ I can do what I want to with what is mine, and you don’t get a vote.” It is a lesson in sovereignty. He owns it and runs it, and I don’t. There is only one God, and I’m not it.
The other lesson is of the elder brother of the prodigal son. (On the boat that day, I was just like him.) He had worked hard and been good, but resented the fact that he never got the big party that his undeserving brother got when he came home. It is the lesson of grace - grace that could not be the reward of hard work, but is a gift to the undeserving, the unqualified, the unrighteous, who know that they could never ever pay for it unless it was absolutely free.
I’m glad now that I didn’t catch the big fish. If I had, I would probably still be boasting about what a great fisherman I am. Besides, He gave me something a lot better than any old fish!
As the little song goes, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”
That includes the oceans, the fishes, and you, and me.
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