Several years ago a buddy came to visit me when I was living in the Florida Keys. Of course He wanted to go fishing and we were all set to go on Saturday, but the wind was howling and it was far too rough to go.
My buddy loves the Lord as do I and another friend who wanted to go fishing with us. Understandably we were very reluctant to plan a trip on Sunday and miss church; however my friend’s visit would be short and the weatherman was predicting great weather for Sunday. We ended up talking ourselves into going and we flippantly said that we would conduct church services on the boat.
The next morning the skies were not clear as predicted, and in fact, it was raining and lightning was popping everywhere. But the front was moving through quite rapidly and the forecast was for the rain to end, the seas to calm, and the wind to die down.
We put on our rain suits, loaded up the boat, and as soon as it cleared a little, gritted our teeth and headed south for the eighty mile trip across the Gulf Stream.
Big mistake!
The weatherman missed it again, and the winds did not calm at all that day. Crossing the Gulf Stream was wet, uncomfortable, and slow. It can be quite treacherous when the wind is out of the Northeast and that was exactly the direction from which it was coming.
Aside from having to navigate through dangerously high pounding waves, we had to endure stinging saltwater to our faces from the crossing breeze and rain. I’ve never understood how it happens, but in spite of having on rain suits we became soaked literally from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet (UNDERNEATH our rain suits). It was miserable and I had foul tasting saltwater in my mouth and I was spitting it out every minute or so as water streamed down my face burning my eyes as it went.
We of course had faith in the weatherman that the winds would clock around and come from the south to calm the seas and figured that sooner, rather than later, it would let up and at least we would have a nice ride home.
Wrong!
Although the sky cleared off some, the wind and resulting wave height intensified as the day wore on. The place we were fishing in the Bahamas is normally a fisherman’s dream come true. Large Wahoo, Yellowfin and Black Tuna and the occasional Marlin bite is simply outstanding at that time of the year.
Just one week earlier we had one of our best days ever at the exact same location. On this Sunday trip we did not get a single bite, much less even catch a fish; we experienced one of the worst tangled up messes that I have ever had to untangle with every line that was being used to troll being wrapped around the other; my depth finder stopped working as soon as we got there; and if all that was not bad enough I started receiving a water pressure error on one of my engines.
I sadly shook my head and told the others at least fifteen times that THIS is why I do not skip church and go fishing on Sunday. It is as though the Lord was saying, “Take this, and take that, and this and that” – as He poured on the punishment! He literally “rained” down His wrath upon us.
Finally after several hours of trolling through pounding and punishing waves without so much as even getting the first strike, or even hooking up a nuisance barracuda, I told the others that we should head back and maybe look for Dolphin, (Mahi Mahi), on the way home because this was hopeless.
The ride back was long, uncomfortable, and even more miserable than the ride over. To add to our pain we did not see a single bird, (which indicates fish are present), and we did not find the first piece of debris, (the second best way to find fish as they congregate under anything that floats in the ocean). How can you ride fifty or sixty miles without seeing the first sign of a fish? It was miserable.
As we rode hour after hour we began to discuss among ourselves how utterly stupid it was to go fishing on Sunday instead of going to church. One of the guys said it was as though the Lord was giving us a good spanking for being bad. We all agreed that it just was not right to skip church and go fishing and we vowed not to ever do it again. I whispered a prayer asking forgiveness for being such a hardhead.
No sooner had those words of repentance gone out of our mouths than we saw a large Frigate bird swooping down on the water indicating a fish was near the surface feeding. We sprang into action. I turned the boat towards the bird and gave the wheel to one of the others.
I grabbed a spinning rod and ran up to the front and cast a Ballyhoo baitfish under the bird and after working it a couple of times I felt the fish hit it. I flipped open the bail and let him take out some line and then flipped it back and set the hook.
Little did I know that I had hooked into a monster bull dolphin which put on an aerial show of jumping before screaming out line towards the ocean floor. I fought the fish for forty minutes before subduing it. I steered it alongside the boat and after initially flailing away at it and missing it a time or two with the gaff, my amateur buddy finally got a gaff into it and managed to hoist it up and swing it aboard.
I knew it was a real trophy as soon as I saw it make its first jump, but I tell you when I saw it laying on the deck it looked enormous. It was enormous! It weighed in at 60.9 pounds and to this day remains as my personal best dolphin by nearly ten lbs.
We all gave each other high fives and immediately remarked to each other that as soon as we repented and told God we were sorry for our dumb mistake and promised not to do it anymore, we scored the biggest dolphin that would be caught in those waters that year.
Wow! God is good. We discussed how others would chalk it up to coincidence or whatever, but we “knew that we knew” that the Lord had directly responded to our act of repentance and forgave us.
If that was not enough, the next day as I prepared to catch my flight at 3:30 a.m., I quickly flipped opened my Bible and the first verse I read was Isaiah 56:1 – Keep justice and do righteousness, For My salvation is about to come, And My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it; Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.
Have a great weekend and go to Honey Lake Church, (or somewhere), this Sunday. It is the right thing to do and God wants you there. It is one of the “Big Ten” commandments and though it may not be important to a secular world, rest assured that it is important to our Creator . . . Selah!
Exodus 20:8
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work”. . .
August 15, 2014 – Click here to listen