Life Fishing

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 Life Fishing

        

When fishing in the sea of life,

Will you catch peace, or maybe strife?

It could depend upon your bait,

Will you cast out love, or offer hate?

          

Though strife besets us, one and all,

Our words, cast out, we can’t re-call,

And they will lure to them a catch,

As like to like will mostly match.

       

A word of hate or ‘just’ discord,

Is like a dirty, rusty sword;

It makes a nasty jagged cut,

That cannot easily be shut.

            

While words of love, they soothe and heal,

And others’ faults seek to conceal;

But the Word of God, is best by far,

For it can heal a jagged scar.

    

It pours on pain; like soft, sweet balm,

When it corrects, it does not harm.

If we would hide it in our heart,

We’d place the ‘horse’ before the ‘cart’!

 

For when we go to fish for men;

We’ll need His Word to bring them in;

His Word within, His love poured out,

That’s what God’s fishing is about.

        

A Word of peace, a touch of love,

A little taste of God above;

It is that taste that draws them near,

And shows a different, Godly fear.

 

Not fear to batter, bow and break,

But reverent awe, for Jesu’s sake;

It was, and is, an awesome act;

He took our sins, upon His back!

        

As if our sins were not enough,

He also took what makes it tough

For us to think we can survive;

¢ Till born in Him, we are alive.

  

For He took sickness, death and pain,

And waits for us to really claim,

All of the joy He offers here,

Freedom from torment, doubt or fear.

  

He cleans our heart, our mouth, our mind,

Gives us His love to keep us kind.

He left His Spirit to us touch,

And placed His Word within our reach.

  

He bids us learn and taste His care,

So it with others we might share;

And as we share His love abroad,

We find it has its own reward.

 

For as His love becomes our bait,

Replaces sharpness, even hate;

We find a peace comes to our life,

We draw in peace, in place of strife.

         

And when our hearts, with peace we fill,

To others it will over spill;

This peace of God will tempt them in,

His love has overcome their sin.

  

‘Twas Him who bade us fish for men,

"Cast out your nets, again, again."

He sees the harvest still afloat,

And bids us draw it to His boat.

   

It’s up to us to pull them in,

Then He can wash away their sin

And ours, for we must judge them not,

For many faults we still have got.

     

To God no sin is big or small,

It’s sort of like, ‘one size fits all’,

All sin would make Him turn away,

Had Jesus chosen not to pay

  

The price it took to set us free,

For ‘them’, for ‘us’, for ‘you’, for ‘me’.

So let us not choose ‘who’ to catch,

But simply for His leading watch.

        

He’ll show us where to cast our net,

To get the biggest catches yet,

He is the bait that we must use,

If hurting souls we would not lose.

  

And as we reach for other ‘fish’,

We’ll find we have the things we wish,

Our hearts desires He’ll gladly give,

And teach us how, in Him, to live.

© 2/8/2003