fishing lesson

Just to share something to you today, 12/04/08

We bought a kilo of fresh bangus fish [our national fish] yesterday. It was caught directly from the nearby pond. We thought with my wife to take our baby the next time, which is today, thought it would be fun to take my whole family and enjoy the day.

Funny because yesterday as the guy helped caught a kilo for us it was just about 30 minutes, but today it took us, me and my wife trying to throw our fishing hook, didn't caught anything for an hour! I thought this is ridiculous, not only that we didn't caught even one but also we didn't saw some fish splashing in the waters even we throw a lot of food fish in the air. My wife just gave a laugh and said, "Well, we can do this for fun while we're here." We transferred to three different cottages. Waited for another 20 minutes, saw some fish splashing, yet still didn't caught one.

The experience felt bad for me because I want to see my 3 year old daughter that her mom and Dad caught some fish for her. How wonderful it feels to see your child enjoying watching it. Especially, yesterday she knows that we're going to get some fish and she can't wait to see them.

"This would be an opportunity to hear from God about the situation," I thought while trying our best to caught at least one to start the excitement. I have been telling those friends I have to practice listening from God in situations that prompt us to. So, "Hmnnn...Lord, is there something you want to tell me about this?" I asked.

Here are some thoughts that came to mind:

Consumer Christianity

Since fishing symbolizes 'reaching out' to others as 'fishers of men' I do thought about it but in a different way. Many times putting some bait to the hook seems meaningless. "They just consumed my food! This is useless!" I said. "They have been eating my food for their benefit yet I could not have even one of them." Lots of Christianity that is happening in our church meetings today are just like that - consumer Christianity. People went to church, have an attitude of 'Bless me and my family,' looking for things or person to pleased or be pleased by the pastor's sermon, eats them, feel the juicy taste out of the word, goes home -can't remember what they're hearing, never acted as responsible Christians and goes back in again next Sunday. This attitude is a part of being irresponsible for your [Christian] life. You want others to feed you 'week-after-week,' yet you do not know how to feed yourself from 'day-to-day.' No wonder, they jumped from one church to another if they don't like the menu, like a restaurant - as long as they pay after eating [tithe] it won't matter to the manager. The underlying principle is, they can just transfer to any church they want without changing their lives. The N.T. believers knows nothing about this practices, even Jesus warned such person to be treated as a 'heathen and a tax collector' after undergo a process.

I know a friend who's living Acts 2:42-47 and 1 Cor. 12 Together-life, no clergy, no programs, no calendar attendance since 1985 yet very successful in reaching out people of up to 150 nations. Wanna hear their life-story through books, articles, videos and even listening to an MP3 audio just go to www.housechurch.com.

This man's 'household of faith' was defined by Dr. David Lim [while reading one of their books] as, "Five steps ahead of 'house chruch as we view it.' What I mean for 'as we view it' is having endless meetings in houses without having 'hundreds of fathers, mothers, and brothers and sisters,' in ONE house of God. What happen is that we're having 'many Christian neighbors' instead of one family in Christ. In other words, we are still 'emerging' into something [I wish it's not a 'children's shelter']. To point something in my first observation [Consumer Christianity] is this: They have a scriptural way of 'dis-fellowshiping' a brother or a sister if unable to 'live accordingly together with the brethren' that is I believe, someone wanting to live his life in isolation with the brethren, away from 'one-anothering' to the point that all he does is consume the richness of Christ and the hospitality of the brethren for his own benefit. The heart of serving 'among the brethren' was not present in the first place. Of course, "the really fun part of discussing disFellowship is that we are 'forced' to spend most of our time talking about FELLOWSHIP. The Dance.:)" [A Revolution without Dancing is a Revoltuion not Worth Having, p.4].

I do have some couple of brothers, who are friends yet all I can do for them is be with them. I cannot work something nor build something with them. We talked and have some serious discussions about being a family together, not isolate himself - deceiving himself by transfering from different church to another, submitting to no one, yet when he needs something he would call me up. For a time, will be glad to help but until unchecked attitude will be sorted out he will remain a 'prodigal son' hopping from church to church looking for food.

What to do: Our life was never meant to isolate ourselves from the brethren. It was meant for 'one-anothering,' 'life-together,' doing things together, learning and encouraging one another. Serving, helping, like individual members of ONE family. I like wha this friend says, "you don't sponsor a family, you help a family!"


After an hour throwing our fishing hook in the water, at last we caught, one, two, three small fish. We decided to get back to the first cottage where we positioned first and we caught bigger fishes. After getting some few big ones we decided with my wife to throw two the small fishes back to the water. They're still breathing but dying. Thinking they will live, we finally dump them off. We have more fun getting the big ones, and while enjoying the two fish that we throw in to the water caught our attention, "How pity you are fish," my 3-year old daughter speaks in cebuano language. The two fish didn't survive, they finally died and just floating. I decided to put them back in my bucket and just take them home. It would be cheating to leave them in the water dead after we caught them. I signalled the two girls whom we temporarily adopted to stop fishing because our budget is good only for a kilo, whcih is about $3. We take them to the caretaker, have it scaled and we paid more than our money. I tell the guy to get the last fish that we caught and throw them into the water while still alive so that we can only pay based on how much money we've got. It could have been fun to stay longer and get some because almost every 2-3 minutes either my fishing hooks or my wife's can caught one, and they're a bit bigger too. We went home and cook them for dinner, not yet, just here in the computer typing this to share you, and sooner we will have our dinner.

Anyway, what a wonderful day today.

I've attached pictures for you to see.

Molong