Doesn’t it seem to you that we are hearing less of those alien abduction stories these days? I enjoy science fiction, especially Orson Scott Card, The X-Files, and Star Trek in all its various forms, but the fact that these kidnapping tales no longer seem to be en vogue, goes a long way to proving that they are more fiction than science. I always wondered about those alien abductors anyway. They seem to practice some sort of “catch and release” program. Is it because they are concerned with the ecology of Homo sapiens on the planet Terra, or are they just having trouble finding a specimen worth keeping? Maybe we no longer hear these stories because they have just given up on us.
What about you? What about me? Would we be a good catch for some E.T.’s fishing expedition? What sort of bait would it take? Seems to me that the cheaper and more primitive the bait, the dumber the fish. This space traveler would want a fish so smart he would really have to work at it to catch him, wouldn’t he? He would want a healthy specimen with no diseases or rare abnormalities. Maybe that’s why they stay away from me.
We could go all sorts of directions with this analogy. For example, what sort of bait does it take for Satan to snare you—a cheap, obviously rubber worm, or an expensive, artfully made lure for a really smart fish?
But there is another application I find a lot scarier and more motivating. Does God have a “catch and release” program? I think so, though not like that of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Size doesn’t matter to God, nor does health, wealth, status, or any other physical or economic characteristic. But if we start flip-flopping in God’s hands, desperately trying to get back into the waters of sin, he will let us go. Yes, we have the promise, no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand, John 10:29, but that does not preclude God opening his hand so we can walk right out of it if we so choose. Too many scriptures talk about falling away for me to think I have no choice in the matter.
So my prayer every day is that God will be patient with me as a child who sometimes rebels against his parents’ rules simply because he does not have the experience and wisdom to see the big picture; that he will chasten my flip-flopping until I finally submit to Him who knows what is best; and that He will never throw me back. Even Jesus used as an analogy for conversion “fishing for men.” I don’t want to be “the one that got away.”
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world passes away and the lusts thereof, but he who does the will of God abides forever, 1 John 2:15-17.
Dene Ward
What about you? What about me? Would we be a good catch for some E.T.’s fishing expedition? What sort of bait would it take? Seems to me that the cheaper and more primitive the bait, the dumber the fish. This space traveler would want a fish so smart he would really have to work at it to catch him, wouldn’t he? He would want a healthy specimen with no diseases or rare abnormalities. Maybe that’s why they stay away from me.
We could go all sorts of directions with this analogy. For example, what sort of bait does it take for Satan to snare you—a cheap, obviously rubber worm, or an expensive, artfully made lure for a really smart fish?
But there is another application I find a lot scarier and more motivating. Does God have a “catch and release” program? I think so, though not like that of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Size doesn’t matter to God, nor does health, wealth, status, or any other physical or economic characteristic. But if we start flip-flopping in God’s hands, desperately trying to get back into the waters of sin, he will let us go. Yes, we have the promise, no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand, John 10:29, but that does not preclude God opening his hand so we can walk right out of it if we so choose. Too many scriptures talk about falling away for me to think I have no choice in the matter.
So my prayer every day is that God will be patient with me as a child who sometimes rebels against his parents’ rules simply because he does not have the experience and wisdom to see the big picture; that he will chasten my flip-flopping until I finally submit to Him who knows what is best; and that He will never throw me back. Even Jesus used as an analogy for conversion “fishing for men.” I don’t want to be “the one that got away.”
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father but of the world. And the world passes away and the lusts thereof, but he who does the will of God abides forever, 1 John 2:15-17.
Dene Ward
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