Gone Fishing

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I spend a lot of time in the car down here in this over-populated SoCal area. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It can be rather peaceful with the windows rolled up and everyone blocked out for some quiet time. However, I'm learning that although I'd prefer to have quiet time in a more beautiful setting than my car and as much as I enjoy my quiet time, it is possible for so much quiet time to be a poor use of time for my emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. It's easy to analyze too much, to add up all the little things and make them a bigger deal, or even wish things were different, to be jealous or calculate defeat. It doesn't always contribute to my positivity, sitting in the car for so many hours a day deep in my own thoughts. But I'm also learning that there are some Christian songs that really speak to me and get me excited and hopeful, I play them on repeat in the car and I sing along and dance along. I get excited with this new song by Lauren Daigle. I am there right now, especially when I'm sitting in the car, and her words are my prayers in song: "I am guilty, ashamed of what I've done, what I've become. These hands are dirty, I cannot lift them up to the Holy One. You plead my cause, You right my wrongs, You break my chain, You overcome, You gave your life to give me mine, You say that I am free. How can it be?" Her passion I can feel in her voice. It's beautiful and touches me every time.

Yesterday I was listening to the local Christian station and sometimes that is good for me, too. I heard a metaphor that I really liked about being a disciple, a fisher of men. The man on the station talked about how we are called to fish for men, really just to catch them, to hook them on Jesus' love (period). We don't have to do anything else. We don't have to organize them, clean them, or decide what to do with them next, because Jesus takes care of the rest. So what are we doing then? I sit in church services sometimes and talk with other believers and feel like we're making it too complicated. All we need to do is go catch some fish. 

Yes, I'm a sinner, I'm human, but He'll keep cleaning me and all the fish I can catch, too. I guess it's time to try my hand at some fishing again. Luckily, this type of fishing doesn't require bait, because, yuck, I hate hooking worms more than anything. But Jesus is the best bait for this kind of fishing, and I can do that, actually I really want to do that.  

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