PODCAST
Patience For the Catch
August 29th, 2013
Matthew 4:12-25
Growing up along the banks of the Mississippi my early memories include cane poles, bobbers, and bait buckets. We would fish in pools below wing dams where the water was often deep and the current not quite as strong. “When you get a nibble, don’t jerk on the line. Let him take it. When he takes it full under and starts to pull on the line that’s the time to set the hook and pull him in,” was the conventional advice.
When you are seven or eight years old it is hard to be patient about anything. My bobber would wiggle and I would give the pole a mighty tug. Up would fly an empty hook, fish and bait were both gone. There on the mud banks, swatting mosquitoes, I learned to wait until the time was right.
Too many “fishers of people” jerk their line too soon. It takes wisdom, patience, and skill to be effective at fishing; fishing for people, even more so. Fortunately we have a skilled partner in the Holy Spirit, and the bait “the good news of the kingdom” is still the best!
Author: Duane C. Brush
