Tuesday, August 27, 2013

A Gentle Hand


A man went out fishing as he had done almost every weekend. As he made his way across the lake, he realized he had not secured his fishing rods. Before he could stop; they flew out the boat  and begin sinking to the bottom of the lake, except one.  He shook his head and kept going to his honey hole.
On his first cast the line gets stuck on a old stump. He pulls and pulls and tugs snapping the rod in two. Out of anger and disappointment;  he throws the broken rod across the water.

After kicking and screaming a few chosen words; he finally sits down to catch his breath. Staring at the bank, now calm and  resigned; he is mesmerize by the beauty  of his surrounding, something he had never noticed. He looks up like if looking for answers, but he has no questions or does not know what or how to ask, ask who?
 He did not catch any fish that day or even completed a cast. But something was different, something had changed; he realized something was missing. A void was now felt in his heart.
He headed home in wonder and for days he felt this void kept on.  Week after week and as time went by; he never felt complete.
Now an old man, he sits alone at a nursing home. He is telling stories of the one that got away, the one on the wall. A vague memory of that day he had looked up in wonder,  flashes for a moment, a tear rolls down his eye; he looks away to hide it, but is to late. A gentle hand is felt on his shoulder but no one is there. Some how he knows he is not alone, the void is gone, peace is now felt and an  unusual  joy fills his heart as the room gets  dark and the noise dies down.
He opens his eyes, he feels no more pain, the void in his heart is gone, replaced by an indescribable feeling of joy. He feels at home or what home used to feel like at one time.
Every thing is different but the one thing on his mind still remains, that one day on the lake. But now  is as if,  all the things he did not asked were answered and he finally understood. "I AM HOME" he says, " I am home.

The moral of the story.
We tend to  live our lives almost always looking for perfection. A perfect day fishing, a great job with great friends, a comfortable retirement plan. We plan for every thing from meals to where our kids will go to collage. But we never plan for the inevitable, the cause and effect of  life. We spend so much time doing things that we miss what has been done. We live in a world no larger then what we know,  instead of searching for the unknown, the new, the challenge, the things that have been in front of our eyes but we don't see it. The signs and clues that surround our lives, but we filter them because they don't fit in our "Plan".
We go through life with out a pause, with out a moment of motionless admiration of the MOMENT.  This moment, the effect of the cause, the reason you go fishing, not the fish we catch.  Is about that moment when every thing is still, motionless and you fill complete, fulfill, satisfied, void of emptiness, the satisfaction of belonging. The knowledge that you are not alone, and you finally realized you never were. But we go all those years missing out on all the greatness, all the beauty, all the majesty, all the love, all the peace and confidence, that you matter, that you belong, that you have purpose, that your life was planed,  not a mistake, not a moment of error, but a moment of Devine intervention. The one and only True God chose you, created you, molded you, and has made you imperfect in every way but has invited you to be complete, to thrive for perfection, to seek His Grace and Loving Forgiveness so that our lives bring Glory to his name, out of the darkness into the light. A light that will shine on a hill once darken by shame, doubt and anger, among other things that kept  you from the Joy of His salvation.
I say pause for a moment and listen, look around, embrace, take in what is being give, live no more in darkness, but in the ever shining bright light of Mercy and Grace. May the void in your heart be filled with never endings Love and may you experience completeness evermore.

At the end of the day we are the decisions we make.


As the deer  pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. (Psalms 42:1 NKJV)