COMPLAIN or FISH?
A game warden noticed how a particular fellow named Sam consistently caught more fish than anyone else, whereas the other guys would only catch three or four a day. Sam would come in off the lake with a boat full.
Stringer after stringer was always packed with freshly caught trout. The warden, curious, asked Sam his secret. The successful fisherman invited the game warden to accompany him and observe. So the next morning the two met at the dock and took off in Sam's boat. When they got to the middle of the lake, Sam stopped the boat, and the warden sat back to see how it was done.
Sam's approach was simple. He took out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and threw it in the air. The explosion rocked the lake with such a force that dead fish immediately began to surface. Sam took out a net and started scooping them up.
Well, you can imagine the reaction of the game warden. When he recovered from the shock of it all, he began yelling at Sam. "You can't do this! I'll put you in jail, buddy! You will be paying every fine there is in the book!"
Sam, meanwhile, set his net down and took out another stick of dynamite. He lit it and tossed it in the lap of the game warden with these words, "Are you going to sit there all day complaining, or are you going to fish?"
Seems to me we have two similar options as Christians -- we can spend our time complaining or we can "fish". Jesus, of course, used the concept of fishing to describe the work of evangelism ("Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." -- Matthew 4:19). The method we use does not involve dynamite, but it does involve the word from which dynamite comes to us -- "dunamis," the Greek word for "power."
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." (Romans 1:16)
I've known some folks in the church who use the "dunamis" of the gospel to fish for souls, and I've known other folks content to do nothing but sit back and complain about what everybody else is or isn't doing. It's your choice -- Are you going to complain or are you going to fish?
Alan Smith
A game warden noticed how a particular fellow named Sam consistently caught more fish than anyone else, whereas the other guys would only catch three or four a day. Sam would come in off the lake with a boat full.
Stringer after stringer was always packed with freshly caught trout. The warden, curious, asked Sam his secret. The successful fisherman invited the game warden to accompany him and observe. So the next morning the two met at the dock and took off in Sam's boat. When they got to the middle of the lake, Sam stopped the boat, and the warden sat back to see how it was done.
Sam's approach was simple. He took out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and threw it in the air. The explosion rocked the lake with such a force that dead fish immediately began to surface. Sam took out a net and started scooping them up.
Well, you can imagine the reaction of the game warden. When he recovered from the shock of it all, he began yelling at Sam. "You can't do this! I'll put you in jail, buddy! You will be paying every fine there is in the book!"
Sam, meanwhile, set his net down and took out another stick of dynamite. He lit it and tossed it in the lap of the game warden with these words, "Are you going to sit there all day complaining, or are you going to fish?"
Seems to me we have two similar options as Christians -- we can spend our time complaining or we can "fish". Jesus, of course, used the concept of fishing to describe the work of evangelism ("Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." -- Matthew 4:19). The method we use does not involve dynamite, but it does involve the word from which dynamite comes to us -- "dunamis," the Greek word for "power."
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." (Romans 1:16)
I've known some folks in the church who use the "dunamis" of the gospel to fish for souls, and I've known other folks content to do nothing but sit back and complain about what everybody else is or isn't doing. It's your choice -- Are you going to complain or are you going to fish?
Alan Smith
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