July 19, 2021 – Click here to listen
Yesterday I took three friends and a tourist I barely know fishing. I had just met the tourist while standing in my front yard in my neighborhood where he is renting a house for a week or so. He was going to buy some ice and asking directions to the closest vendor, and I told him to save his money and time and just bag some up out of my ice machine.
While getting the ice he saw the fishing tackle in my garage and expressed how much he liked to fish, so I invited him along to fish with me and my fishing buddies. It was to be the last fishing trip for me prior to my departure for our three month trip to Georgia, Oregon, California, Alaska, North Carolina and back home.
We left my dock just as the sun made its appearance and we saw a gorgeous rainbow as we headed out into the deep blue ocean. It must have been an omen about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as we enjoyed a really good day of fishing and caught a box full of fish.
This man had his son, daughters, their boyfriends, and wife down for a short vacation. That seemed like a lot of mouths to feed so we ended up giving him all the fish we caught aside from a couple of fillets one of my fishing buddies pulled aside for dinner. We even cleaned them for him, and he left with a BIG bag of filleted fish.
I didn’t think much about it, and it was just another good day of fishing and getting out on the water to me. But when we hit the dock, the tourist excitedly called his family and crew and told them to come look at the day’s catch and to bring the camera.
I was talking to his wife, and she told me that this fishing trip was the highlight of his vacation. To my buddies and me it was just another day of fishing, but to him he was so excited he couldn’t sleep the night before.
He was a rank amateur at fishing but was able to catch and land several nice fish with a little coaching from my buddies and me. It seems that when I initially took him under my wing, all my buddies responded the same way. They would hook up fish and then let him reel them in, patiently showing him how to do things like bait his hook and cast to Mahi swimming around the boat. And assist with his landing fish.
It was rewarding to see my friends respond the way they did. Kindness can be contagious, and all my salty friends caught it.
Sometimes it is the small things we do in life for others that make the biggest difference in our own lives (as well as those whom we offer kindness). Show a little kindness to someone today and know the joy of giving without any expectation or desire of getting anything back. If your friends are along, I feel sure they will hop on the wagon with you.
If you are like me, what you will begin to understand is how God wants this world to operate and the blessings we receive because of it.
I doubt I’ll ever see this dude again, and I feel sure I’ll forget all about this fishing trip, but I bet he will fondly remember it for a long time. Remember no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted and a good deed is never lost. It certainly wasn’t lost on my friends and I know that it gratified them as much as me to see that dude grinning like a little kid on Christmas morning.
Galatians 6:10
“So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone . . .”