First let me start my extending my deepest apologies. I realized when I woke up on Thursday morning to my much needed labor day vacation, that I had not sent the Morning Fruit distro to my home email. That being said, I didn’t want to piece meal it and end up missing someone so I just decided to take the much needed vacation and rest from everything. You will be happy to know however, that Tyrone Wheeler and I, have been diligently working on taking this to the web where we hope to open up several other opportunities in addition to the “Morning Fruit”. Please keep your eyes open for the Grand Opening email. Well without further delay here is this evenings Afternoon Fruit.
In Mark 4:19, Jesus said to His apostles, many of whom were fisherman - “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This resonated in their hearts and minds and was completely understood, but I catch myself wondering from time to time, if I fully get it. I say this because too many times in my walk I have found myself fishing for trophies and not fishing for men.
So what do I mean by this? Well my wife shared this interesting insight into my life recently and I feel it needs to be shared here. See, when I first came to the Lord I had a wonderful mentor that God placed over me. I was astounded by His gifting and wanted so much to be just like him. If I compared him to a fisherman, he would be the guy driving his boat down the river while fish would just jump into the boat. It was amazing to watch in even more so to be a part of. I never realized until recently, that I was idolizing him. I had been taken God out of main picture and my mentor had been put in place. This of course was reflected when I met people and shared the gospel. I was so worried about getting them up to speed after their acceptance, with read this, do that, memorize this, that I forgot the most important part of our Christian faith…..to just love them.
To dive a little deeper and explain further I would like to share an excerpt from a book I am currently reading called, “The Hole in our gospel” by Richard Sterns, Pres of World Vision U.S.. In this book, Richard tries to explain how we are to reflect that love to others by comparing it growing crops:
“Think about all the things that must happen before there can be a good harvest of crops. First, someone has to go and prepare the land. This is backbreaking work that involves felling trees, pulling massive stumps out of the ground, extracting rocks and boulders from the field, and moving them aside. But there’s no harvest yet. Next the soil has to be broken up. The earth needs to be plowed, fertilizer churned in the with the soil, and orderly rows tilled to prepare for seed. Then the seeds must be carefully planted and covered. But still no harvest. Perhaps a fence needs to be built to protect the plants from animals that might devour them. And always, the seedlings must be carefully watered, nurtured, and fed over the long growing season…..”
In the end there is a great harvest. I know, I know, your scratching your head now wondering what all this has to do with fishing. Well I believe fishing, like farming, is to be a long and drawn out process as well.
Additionally, I believe today we fail in two big ways when it comes to “fishing for men.” We either try to go for the trophy fish (guilty as charged), or we are not getting any bites so we just stop fishing (been there, done that). I believe to be successful God calls us to deep sea fish. Deep sea fishing takes time, patience, and a lot of hard work to finally get that fish in the boat. Sometimes the line breaks and the fish gets away, but it doesn’t mean that someone else won’t catch him down the road. The point is that no matter the pain and heart-ache you continue to tug on that line…releasing tension at times so the line won’t break, and if you’re not getting any bites, don’t stop fishing because we all have dry spells.
Prayer this week:
“God teach me to be a great fisher of men. In the process, help me not to lose sight of what is most important…the relationship. Give me patience, perseverance, and determination to see the process through even if the hook comes up empty. Finally, keep me from idols… especially those that are subtle, and focus my heart on glorifying you and your kingdom always. Forever and ever, AMEN.”
Anyway, that was a long one today to make up for last week. In addition, I will also be out on mission this week, so you will probably see another lapse in Morning Fruit until next week. Hope God is encouraging each of you through this, keep your heads up, and pray hard.
Mitch
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