Good morning,
I pray the day is finding you well.
I caught a fish Saturday, a trout my favorite fish to catch. I am sure that a steelhead will become my favorite fish to catch, if I ever catch one!
Laurie, Abe (my dog) and I made an afternoon of it.
We found a nice spot where I could fish, Laurie could sit and read, and Abe could snoofer around doing dog stuff; snoofering around is what Abe loves to do, he is half Bassett hound and half Golden retriever. Snoofering is where Abe puts his nose to the ground and follows a scent.
Abe loves snoofering.
Laurie brought all sorts of picnic supplies; sandwich fixens, cheese and crackers…the normal picnic stuff.
One of the tricks of the trade when fly fishing is to put a small amount of powerbait on the hook. There are many different thoughts behind doing this; one thought is that it hides the hook, another thought is that it smells good to the fish. I am of the second thought. Powerbait smells terrible to me, so it must smell good to fish.
Powerbait comes in a jar and is gooey, smelly and sticky. You dip your finger into the jar, take a small amount out and wipe it on the hook, making a small ball.
Then go fishing.
It seems to work, so I use it.
After some time, and one trout later (I let the trout go), I settled in for the picnic.
I was eating cheese and crackers when I noticed that my fingers were red. The same red that the powerbait is colored. I had also noticed that while dipping my finger into the powerbait jar, there was a warning label, it read, “Not For Human Consumption!”
I was wondering if I would get sick eating cheese and crackers and powerbait? I thought about washing my hands, but that would not be a manly fisherman now would it.
I decided that I would just continue to eat my cheese and crackers and powerbait.
As the afternoon wore on Laurie and I and Abe were having a great time. Laurie and I were talking about going to church on Sunday and what the rest of the day would bring.
I did not make it to church on Sunday.
By the time I went to bed, my stomach wasn’t feeling so hot. By 1am I was not feeling well at all. Needless to say my body was trying to get rid of something by any means necessary.
I was sick.
Another way of saying, “I was sick.” Is to say I was unhealthy.
As I lay there, not feeling well. A still small voice said, “This is what unhealthy spirituality is.”
I said, “What?”
The voice continued, “This is the same as people when they think they don’t have to cut something out of their life. They come to me, and I say, ‘don’t do that anymore, or don’t think that way anymore.’ And people say to themselves, ‘This won’t hurt me. Even though Christ is telling me to cut this or that out of my life, this isn’t so bad. It is the same way that you left the powerbait on your fingers when you ate the cheese and crackers. The cheese and crackers were good, the powerbait was bad. It only took a little powerbait to turn the whole thing bad, and now you are too sick to go to church. I told a story a long time ago to another group of people about this very thing. This is what I said when I was asked what else is the Kingdom of God like? 21 “It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.'The same thing happens with sin, it only takes a little to ruin the whole batch."
When you find something that takes your focus off Christ, wash your hands of it.
Unhealthy spirituality is not good.
Don’t become a victim of a powerbait episode.
Blessings,
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