We Fish By faith

It all boils down to this. You fish on faith and nothing else. You can have the right gear, fresh bait, ideal weather conditions, a great boat and electronics and decades of experience, but none of these things will guarantee you fish in the box. But you still go out and fish anyway because you fish on faith.

The evangelist said, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

Your faith is the ground floor in which you stand and build towards your intended goal. What you have faith in and the degree of that faith will determine how you think and act.  And here is the catch (pardon the pun). How you act will actually guide you in the direction of what you have faith for.

You head out in the morning, many of you while it is still dark. You push off, power up and look over the bow. Some may see a flash of green and a flash of red from the channel markers as you head towards the ICW. Others have nothing more than twinkling stars and a faint difference in the shades of black that separate the sky from water in the still dark morning.

It is dark, very dark. But you head out in faith with the promise of a catch.

It is easy to see why so many fishermen believe in God for they understand through experience what faith is. They know the spiritual significance of, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18) and believe and have faith in God and the day!

We hope for what will be as if it already is. That is faith and true conviction.

“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24-25).

A fisherman’s life is built on the substance of faith, the foundation of what currently is not. It is hope in the day and faith in the good Lord to provide. Fishermen are just like Abraham, “Who against hope believed in hope” of the promise to come. Against all odds and often common sense, we hope in the day.

Your catch is the promise to come that you have faith and hope in. It is the motivation within you that gets you up and out the door each morning. A warm bed can’t hold you and bad weather can’t stop you for your faith in the day won’t allow you to do anything but to work towards the promise to come. And although you will face many a trial and tribulation and stare defeat in the face, you will come home with a catch. Why? Because your faith and hope will not deny you.

Jesus Christ is the promise to come. It is He in who we have an unshakable faith in. It is the Holy Spirit within us that has quickened our spirit and motivated us to continue on in this life. And we have hope and faith in the His promise, “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

This promise of life comes loaded with its share of trials and tribulations too! But Jesus told us it would. He said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation”. But we have peace because although we will face problems we will not be defeated!

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We head out each day in hope and faith of the promise of a catch. We live our life in the hope and faith of the promise of Jesus Christ to come. We are fisherman. We fish by faith and we walk through life by faith and not by sight.