Parents, Don't Throw the Hook!* Words From Covid 19 quarantine

 Parents, don’t throw the hook. When I graduated high school, a wonderful and generous friend of my father was going on an ocean fishing trip to the Bahamas and invited us to go with him and his son. We left West Palm Beach in a fancy 24 foot Mako boat and joined a regatta of about 30 boats toward Walkers Cay, which was about 100 miles East. It would take us about 4 hours to reach the island, which would be our home base for fishing in a Blue Marlin tournament for a couple of days. I love the ocean, but most of my experiences had been close to shore, so this trip was an amazing experience. Once we reached about 12 miles away from shore, we could no longer see land… this was an eerie, slightly agoraphobic feeling, but the regatta with a few larger boats and radios were some comfort. The skies were a beautiful blue and the ocean was an amazing blue-green. At one point we passed an old shipwreck of a vessel run aground, its hulking, rusted ugly hull stood in stark contrast to the beauty of its cerulean resting place. The water was so clear, most of the time you could see all the way to the bottom of the comparatively shallow ocean though you couldn’t always make out what you were seeing. Once, as I was watching the bottom as we travelled at about 22 knots (or about 25 miles per hour for us land lubbers), the whole ocean floor under us was covered with a giant black "something" for a few seconds until it swam another direction. I still don’t know what it was, maybe a giant manta ray or large fish, but whatever it was gave me a vulnerable, “sinners in the hands of an angry Poseidon,” perspective aboard this tiny ship… “the mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper brave and sure.” (Sorry, too many episodes of Gilligan’s Island!) I had a little thalassophobia, i.e. fear of the sea, its waves, depths and creatures. I began thinking, it would only be by the grace and mercy of God that we would make it to our destination and back. (What great faith it must have taken our forefathers to sail across the entire ocean for days of uncertainty to reach a new world of uncertainty for freedom.) Later, as we began to see our tiny island destination, we all got excited about fishing the next day, about our island stay, and to be back on dry land for a moment. The water was even clearer, so clear you could see conchs 25 feet below at the bottom, and the young local as he swam from the dock to collect it for his dinner. We disembarked and found our lodging. It was so hot that day, I went straight for the pool. It was salt water, so it smelled, felt and looked different, but somewhat refreshing all the same. I took a bounce on the diving board and the salt rusted bolts holding it snapped, sending me into the water with the board hurling in behind me, hitting me on the back. This was a fishing village, not a luxury vacation spot at the time, so pool maintenance was obviously not a big priority. We got some sleep and began fishing early the next morning. We trolled all day in great anticipation of catching a large billfish, but with no luck. The ocean and skies once again, were marvelous. The next day we trolled, but gave up on the Marlin and started bottom fishing at some point. BAM! Something hit my line and took the tip down toward the water unlike any fish I had ever caught in the lakes around my house, one that, for all I knew was big enough to swallow me were I in the water rather than a boat. I began trying to reel, but the fish just unspooled the line like it was nothing and it was a strong deep sea line, with the drag set accordingly. They strapped on the fish fighting belt, and the captain fired up the engine and we chased this fish to get some line back on the reel. Eventually, it was just me and this fish, I wrestled this sea monster for hours and it pulled the boat over a nautical mile. Finally, as we knew that we didn’t want to be out after dark, we tightened the drag and I began to pull and reel with all I was worth, we would either get this fish in the boat or snap the line trying. Just as I thought we may get to see this fish, he threw the hook. We guessed it may have been a large tuna, because of the way it was running and sounding, but we will never know. My Hemingwayesque adventure of the “(young) man and the sea” is one I will never forget...the beauty of the experience, the generosity of our host, the unique and new experiences, and the realization of God's grace and mercy to provide for us keep us safe and in His hands everyday.

God’s people were on a horrible misadventure, swallowed up by the World’s dominant earthly power of the time, Babylon. As a result of their own sin and rebelliousness, their lands and lives were destroyed and they were taken captive to another country with a hook in their nose and bit in their mouth (Isaiah 37:29). And yet the prophet Jeremiah tells them of God’s faithful love and sustaining grace for them. He tells them that God still loves them, doesn’t abandon them and even works in their hearts to change their lives. He says, “They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them integrity of heart and action so that they will fear me always, for their good and for the good of their descendants after them. ‘I will make a permanent covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put fear of me in their hearts so they will never again turn away from me.’” Jeremiah 32:38-40 (CSBBible) I wish I could say that my wonderful high school graduation gift of a deep sea fishing adventure and realizations of God’s sustaining grace through it kept me from rebelling against God and the foundations of my faith in the “coming of age” years that followed, but I can’t. God, however, is faithful, and He did (and still does) pursue me when my heart got fickle. Even in God’s great displays of grace and mercy in the midst of all the dangers we face, seen and unseen, our faith can still drift around like untethered buoys. We sometimes choose to throw God’s hook and go our own way. God’s got us hooked though, He’s fighting for our salvation, He’s not letting go and He’s not letting us throw the hook. We gotta refocus on Him, His love and sustaining grace for us rather than the dangers and enemies around us or even worse, the sins that so easily entangle us.

Hang in there people! God is with us! I’m praying for us all!