Fishing With Mike 

If you could have your dream relationship, what would your dream boyfriend or girlfriend be like? Loving, Kind, Respectful, Good looking…What would they not be? Demanding, Vindictive, A person that holds a grudge, Mean… I have heard people describe God with the attributes that we would not want in our boyfriend or girlfriend. Then they say, “I’m an atheist because I would never worship a god like that! How can a person worship a god who is all-powerful yet allows kids to starve to death and does nothing to stop it?”

Well if I believed God was like that, I would be an atheist too! Then why do bad things happen to innocent and good people and why does God allow bad people to prosper? In short, love cannot exist in the presence of coercion, and God loves us so much, he gives us the freedom of choice. And He, God, desires, desperately wants the relationship that He had with us back in the Garden of Eden. How does this look in our daily lives?

I was just a couple of years older than most of you. I had just finished my second year of college and was working as a Dental Assistant. Christine, an assistant who worked for the doctor across the hall, had been telling me that I should call up her boyfriend Mike because he liked fishing as much as I did. I called him and set up a time to go fishing later that week.

The day was perfect. Sunny, a gentle breeze, and the Silver Salmon were coming in, and fall was in the air. I picked up a couple of burgers on my way to pick up Mike, and we headed to the Lakelse River. We just pulled out onto the road from Mike's place, and he said, “God, it’s a beautiful day!” I was a little taken aback because, from listening to Christine, I didn’t think Mike swore or took God’s name in vain. Then Mike said, “Thanks for this food too!” And he opened up his supper. I was so glad I hadn’t said anything! That was the first of many fishing trips with Mike.

One thing that I found out about Mike was that he took God everywhere with him. He even had a fishing edition of the Bible that he brought fishing with him. He kept it in one of his pockets and it had dried fish eggs on it and other smudges. I remember one afternoon Mike asked why we pray to Mother Mary. I told him I didn’t know why, but it must be in the Bible somewhere so we looked all afternoon, but never found out why. Another thing I found out was that Mike had never caught a King Salmon.

So I decided that we would find Mike a King next year. That next summer found us heading up to the Nass River to our favorite King spot. We canoed up the slough and set up on the beaver hut on the side of the slough. Although the day was beautiful and the fish were rolling, we hadn’t had a bite all afternoon. It was time to go and I had already packed up.

Mike said he was getting a bite, and I looked over, and the tip of his rod was just tapping like a small trout was nibbling at the eggs he was fishing with. He reefed back on his rod, and nothing. He reeled in, then put on a new gob of eggs and cast out to the same spot. I said Mike, what are you doing? “Shh” was all that came out of Mike's mouth, and then his rod started tapping again. This time, though, when he reefed back, his rod doubled over, and the line just sizzled off the reel. He had hooked into a big one. He would reel it up, then it would take another run, and he would reel it back again. As it began to tire, I realized we had made a poor choice of a place to land a large fish by fishing from the beaver house. Logs and branches stuck out everywhere for the fish to wind up on and then break off. We decided the best thing to do would be to get in the canoe, so that’s what we did. A few minutes later we had a new dilemma. How do you get 50 or 60 pounds of thrashing fish into the canoe without swimming yourself? We managed, and the Salmon came over the side, and Mike fell on it in the bottom of the canoe and said, “Thank you, Jesus!” Mike took Jesus with him in everything he did.

John Mark Comer in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry put it this way. “The end is life to the full with Jesus. The end is to spend every waking moment in the conscious enjoyment of Jesus’ company, to spend our entire lives with the most loving, joyful, peaceful person ever to live.”

This was Mike. You can wait for your dream relationship with your dream boyfriend or girlfriend, but I would encourage you to be like Mike, live life to the fullest with Jesus now, and get to know Him, and He will increase the richness of your relationships.

By Monte Burtch

Events
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Alaska Conference Constituency

Details for the 19th quadrennial session for the Alaska Conference:
Location: Palmer Adventist Church, 2238 S. Inner Springer Loop, Palmer, Alaska
Date: September 22, 2024
Time: Registration 7:45 am \ Session begins at 9:00 am
Attendees: Open to all constituents
Delegates: Don't hesitate to contact Ashwin Somasundram regarding accommodations and transportation.

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