Gone Fishin'

I love to fish. Fishing for me is relaxing, peaceful. From boat or shore I throw out a line and enjoy the view. I listen to birds, water, wind, God. Watch fish jump, birds dive, trees sway and creation dance. Feel warmth of sun and cool of breeze. Nice. So far so good.

Then, invariably my wife catches a fish. I grab net. She reels I coach, which is unnecessary, she knows what to do. With fish in boat I congratulate outside, inside I think, “Great and it was going so well, until now.” As I remove the hook it occurs to me I like to fish, just fish.

Catching? Now that is an entirely different story. Catching is work. My wife likes to catch. She will patiently fish with the same lure for hours. I change lures about every five minutes or so. I use snap swivels for ease of changing and lures that won’t catch weeds, won’t catch the bottom and may not even catch fish but they’re comfortable. My dad, he likes to catch too. Dad will do what it takes to catch. He’ll tie on lures if need be to keep the snap swivel from scaring fish. That’s plumb too much work if you ask me.

Then, to top it off, if you catch ‘em, you gotta clean ‘em. Yep, I like to fish. Just fish.
It occurs to me while cleaning these stinkin’ things, my kind of fishing is like Christendom in many ways.

I sit in beautiful church watch beautiful people sway to beautiful music. And listen to beautiful words flow from beautiful pulpit. I wonder. “Where’s the fish?” I talk to other Christians, shake hands and say, “Praise the Lord, all is well.”

I’m enjoying the ride but I’m not catching any fish, it’s too much work.

Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” If I’m not really trying to catch fish am I really fishing?

Lord help me. I’m willing to work and ready to do what it takes to catch. You helped Peter and the boys launch out into the deep for a catch, help me.
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LIFE and death

While I watch this sun rise someone is watching it set. Life and death, pros and cons, half full-half empty, on one hand it’s black and white and on the other is the dichotomy of life.

Life's oxymoron is a bald man named Harry.

We struggle and scratch to climb out of the trailer park. We get our dream house and work our lives away to keep it. Then, we retire sell the dream house we were too busy to enjoy, buy a camper and move back into a trailer park.

Some are celebrating a birth, others grieving a death. Someone is getting married and another is getting divorced. One is learning to ride while another is hanging up their spurs.

I wonder why we call it life. We’re dying from the moment we take our first breath. We're surrounded by death every day, watch the news if you don’t believe. And we call this life?

On the other hand, our last breath on earth is our first breath in eternity and we call it death. Why do we do that? (I would like to use the word heaven in place of eternity, but that isn’t the case with everyone so I can’t use that word – sorry, wish I could)

The Truth is our outward bodies are perishing daily. But inwardly we are becoming more alive. We are moving toward the birth canal of eternal life.

We’re here to pack and prepare. The packing isn’t stuff either. It’s seeds, Eternal seeds. We can choose to pack corrupt seeds that will burn, wither and die. Things we think make us happy, temporary things, selfish indulgences. Or we can choose to prepare our hearts and pack good seeds, which according to Jesus is The Word of God.

You may say. “Now there you go again Doug getting all religious. You always have to bring up Jesus. I like your writing but you go overboard on the Jesus stuff. If you’d just lay off on that you’d get further with your writing, you’d get more readers.” Well, the way I see it, it’s not about more readers but more seeders. (folks packing good seeds)

You see, I crashed and burned on a bridge too short and weak. But, I found another bridge built from an old rugged cross that will take me safely Home. So for those headed to Death Bridge, I want to plant good seeds encouraging a hard right turn on The Road Called Life.

The preparing is in the choosing.

What we call life is really just preparation day, packing day. A breath, a vapor and we’re gone. We have just enough time to choose what to pack and which road to take.

We complicate things. God doesn’t.

It’s multiple choice with only two choices. “This day I set before you life and death (And since I love you so much, here’s a hint,) choose Life… I AM the way the TRUTH and the LIFE.” ~ Jesus.

The question is where you choose to spend life.
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Riding Satan

It was small. Steel posts sunk in concrete with cable running through, a dangerous place to hold a rodeo. But for a cowboy, the word danger doesn’t exist. You see it, spit a stream of Skoal flavored tobacco in it's face and go on about your business. My business was to ride.

Eight seconds. That’s all I needed. Pray the horse doesn’t get near that death trap of a fence and hang on for eight seconds. Simple.

I should have noticed the fire in his eye when I looked at my draw. He was coal black; ears laid back in disdain, blood red eyes, his name, Satan, his number, six. That made three. It should have been a clue. Riding number six inside six foot tall six inch diameter fence posts. Jaws of death, steel teeth, Satan’s play ground. 666. It was probably in my mind, but when you’re out of your mind, it doesn’t matter. I just spit in his direction and walked to my riggin’.

Rosined and ready. Leather fist curled around left handed riggin’, fingers locked under palm. Head nod was all it took to unleash Satan’s fury.

Satan exploded, I on his back. Straight out then hard right toward teeth of sixes. Oh no, stay away from that death trap of a fence, I forgot to pray. Actually, I had forgotten to pray for a long, long time. It had been years. I was running. Running with Satan, literally and spiritually, my life was out of control.

I took my eyes off Satan’s head and looked at the fence while trying to correct from the hard right. At that instant, hard left, I lost my balance but not my grip.

Satan transformed from bucking machine to race horse, blazing down the arena deathly close to the rail. Everything slowed down. In slow motion I watched as I floated horizontal off the right side of Satan. The steel teeth flashed by inches from my head. Satan’s red eyes laughed at me. His nostrils flared a noxious heat. His hooves beat a death mantra near my dangling right leg.

Strange things went through my mind, my hat hasn’t fallen off, that’s cool, and that new rosin is great my hand is stuck solid. STUCK SOLID, not good, I won’t have a head to put a hat if …Oh God, help me.



Inches from being decapitated, seconds from slamming into end of arena, and life.

I see him.

All white, between us and the end. Whip in left hand sword in right. Sword held straight out pointing to his right, our left. With a snort and falter Satan turned left, away from steel teeth, my hand unlocked and I found myself rolling in dirt.


With dirt in teeth I was thankful to still have teeth, a head to have teeth in.

My life was like that ride, running with Satan out of control destined to wreck.


I rolled in the dirt for some time after that. But eventually I realized He was there for me. God saved me. I picked myself up dusted myself off and started riding a white horse called Salvation.

It's been a long time since that ride, and that white horse has never tried to buck me off. Oh, I've wandered away now and then but since I've let Jesus take the reins He has never left me, He's always been there, waiting.

You know what? He’s there for you too. No matter where you’re at, what kind of ride you’re on, He is standing between you and the end, pointing to the right. You may feel stuck. He knows how to set you free.

I know He hears when you cry…Oh God, help me.

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