Fish Part Part II: The Jesus Fish

Since I love more than one kind of fish I thought I should write more than one "Fish Part" post. I almost said fish fart post. That would be completely different. Maybe another day.

Less smelly than the fish that swim is the fish symbol that represents Jesus, or Christianity, or maybe both. The Greek letters that stand for "Jesus Christ God's Son, Savior" written as an acronym or anacronym or whatever it is that means the first letter of each word makes another word, means "Fish" in Greek. Some people call it a Jesus-fish. I think it looks like IXOTE, or maybe IXOYE but I think it's probably ok to call it an Ixote-fish (heh heh). English must be a more efficient language because we can spell it using only 4 letters, whereas the Greeks take 5. They need to upgrade. But also it has a double meaning, since Jesus called His followers to be "fishers of men". He must have known we'd be using that symbol some day.

I can think of several ways to interpret the symbolism there. One would be that since in the bible, water is often a symbol of God's judgement, Jesus would be the Fisherman who pulls us from the Lake of Judgement that we were born into, and spend our whole lives in, and even are condemned to spend eternity in if not saved from it. Hey I just thought of something- in the book of Revelation, the Dragon (Satan) is cast into the "lake of fire". That fits nicely into this interpretation. This might be a good place to stop for a second because I want to explain something.

An awful lot of people (probably most) think that God sends people to hell as a punishment for something they did, like "You're gonna burn in Hell for that you loser!" Or maybe less drastic, "He's probably in Hell right now because he committed suicide, and therefore didn't have a chance to ask for forgiveness of that sin". Or probably one of the most commonly cited, "Adolf Hitler is burning for what he did". There's something in me that hopes Hitler really is burning for what he did. To the earthly man, it would seem like God's perfect justice would mean someone as vile as Adolf would not escape hell. Having said that, we are all born into a death sentence because since Adam and Eve fell and welcomed The Curse into what had been the family of God, God's perfect justice (and it truly is perfect, as we'll see someday) has declared all of us guilty. So we should burn with Hitler. But it's not something we did that keeps us on the fast track to eternal punishment, it's something we don't do. Jesus said so in (hang on a minute, I'll look it up so you don't have to...)

John 3:

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

Notice that God's mission was never to "send people to hell" because of something they did, but to save people who are already on their way there! (verses 17 and 18). Too many people forget that God is good. He's trying to deliver us from the penalty we were born under. That's what's up with the whole "Born Again" thing. A new life. It's the Devil who's the deceiver.

Wow. That was more of a detour than I had planned on. So back to the fish symbolism. Picture Jesus sitting on the shores of the Lake of Fire, casting grace and forgiveness out into the waters of judgement (I know, it should be the "fires of judgement" since it's the Lake of Fire but it's hard to picture fish swimming in that). So He's a fisher of men, and He's hoping we'll take the bait because He knows what'll happen if we don't. The real Lake of Fire, where the Devil, the Beast and the false prophet finish off forever. (Revelation chapter 19 and 20) Far from punishing people for stealing, Jesus is trying to save them from the punishment they're doomed to. That's grace. But His love doesn't just cancel out His perfect justice. That's what dying on the cross was all about. That satisfied the death sentence, so freedom is available for all (even Adolf, if he would have accepted it! That's amazing grace!) And hey- I just thought of something else: Remember the story of Jesus walking on the water and calling Peter to come to Him across the water? Usually I'm not a big fan of symbols, I prefer the reality. But if water symbolizes judgement, now picture Jesus walking on the water and calling us to do the same! To rise above the judgement, and come up to the next level. And to join Him on the shore. He wants us to become fishers of men, too. Are you up for it?

The Fish Part

This is my (..1...2...3..) third post in a blog called "GTO, Fish, and whatever" and I noticed that so far I've been stressing the "whatever" part. I should've started with something cool about my 1966 GTO, then something about Fish, and then whatever but I'm not that organized. Anyhow-

This is not a picture of anything I saw, it was sent to me by my brother Ken, who got it from Joe at work. If you click on it, it's easier to see the big fish chomping on the little one. I think it's Joe's fish(es?) but I haven't been able to get the details because Ken's on vacation in Glacier National Park right now with his family. I'm dying to find out whether Joe got the bigger northern into the boat, and how big it really was. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that he was NOT able to release the smaller northern! The closest I ever came to this kind of action is one year when I was ice fishing on Medicine Lake and I was looking for panfish in the morning. I caught a dinky little sunny on what I think was probably 4# or maybe 6# test, I don't remember for sure. But I do remember that he was suddenly putting up a much better fight. When I got him up to the surface, I was able to see the northern that had latched onto him on the way up. It was only about 2 pounds though. It was fun because I wasn't expecting that kind of fight from a sunfish. But yes, I did get them both through the ice. That northern just would not let go.

It's been about a year since I've even been fishing now (I should be ashamed!) I used to almost live on the lakes around here when I was out of work. The last 10 years I've gotten busy: You know, work. It just doesn't leave a guy enough time to fish. Unless you don't like to sleep. Saturday has turned into a battle between sleeping in and waking up early enough to get the fish. Sleep has been winning way too often. I absolutely LOVE the thrill when you see the flag on your tipup standing tall. I think it's even more of a rush than summer fishing, because when a fish hits your lure in the summertime you get a pretty good idea right away as to how big it is. But when you're lookin' at that flag it could be anything from a false alarm (sucker minnow too big or too active or, hopefully, too scared of the big fish that is lurking in the area) to a state record. Depending on the lake, it could even be a muskie! We used to catch muskies through the ice on Bush Lake years ago shortly after the DNR had stocked it. They were all over, though small. As they grew, I suppose some were eaten and the rest spread out and claimed their territory. Now they're real hard to find. I understand muskies to not be real social fish, hanging around with all their muskie buddies.

The Pike in the photo at the top of my home page, or maybe in my profile, I lose track. Geeezz, I MUST be getting old and senile! Anyway, that was a nice fish I caught on a "Green Meanie" which is not its real name, that's just what me and Ken call a certain green spinnerbait, on Lake Minnetonka when I used to fish with Sam (the "custodial engineer" at my old church). That one went about 10 pounds, but he fought like he was 15.

I'm going to have to make a point of getting out on the water more often. Even when the fish are hard to find, what I used to call boredom has been somehow transformed into serenity, which I really dig. I appreciate it more the busier I get. So......... I guess I should be appreciating it more and more since I've gotten too busy to fish, but it's been a year. I got issues.

As The World Churns

I'm starting to feel like an old guy these days. I used to think that people who longed for "the old days" were out of touch and needed to get with it. Maybe I am now one of those out-of-touch-and-needing-to-get-with-it geezers. I mean I am 44.

Maybe it's just that when I was a kid I was too busy having fun to be concerned with where the rest of world is going. After all I did grow up during the Vietnam war pretty much oblivious to it. Before that there was Korea and the World Wars and The Depression and Prohibition (good? bad? anyway...) slavery and all the rest. I'm not sure that there ever has been a really wonderful time, at least since the Garden of Eden. There's always been terrible problems around, but I think that in order to live your life you learn to kind of be concerned about these problems, but keep them mostly on the back burner. Otherwise they tend to consume you. But from time to time I get a little time and that is when these rhymes of mine begin to shine! (Sorry... I won't do that again) But sometimes when I get a little less busy, I start to think about these things. Today it's not slavery (which was bad) or The Depression (which was also bad) or The Holocaust (very bad), but we got our stuff.

Abortion. It sounds like death. I have a hard time imagining that people could ever argue for it. They have to know in their hearts that they're killing babies who would otherwise grow up to become someone's best friend or girlfriend or husband or grandparent. But by calling the baby fetal tissue, they can smooth over the fact that they're killing someone- usually in the name of convenience. Makes me wonder what's ahead for the next generation if we have people who think killing is convenient.

Gay rights. Straight off (pun intended) I think I'd have to agree with God on this one. The "A" word is often decried by those who promote the "gay agenda" as a low blow, like did I forget that it's politically incorrect to say that homosexuality is an abomination. It's not a dirty word. It's a descriptive word. It means disgusting or repulsive. I would be sad, but not mad, if that 1 % of the population who is gay would choose to love someone of the same sex and leave it at that. It's their choice. But to try to force a society who recognizes marriage (with or without a ceremony) as between a man and a woman, to not only accept but applaud their decision is wrong. It used to be (yeah, back in the old days) that homosexual acts were illegal. Now, they tell us we're becoming "enlightened". Pedophilia and bestiality are still illegal. Would we be "enlightened" if we legalized them? What about the rights of these people? It's probably not far away, with the ACLU and political correctness police on the case. That makes me mad. Makes me scared for our kids's kids. What's the world coming to anyway?

Speaking of marriage, what are we thinking talking to the gay community about the "Defense of Marriage" act? Man, they got us straights pinned to the wall on this one. If you're going to talk about defending marriage, you need to show that marriage really is something worth defending! Gays aren't the worst enemy of marriage, husbands and wives are. The ones who think that because every little thing isn't going my way,"I'm outa here!" You pussies. Whether you're a Christian or not, you can learn from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians when he says, "Submit yourselves to one another". Is it really that hard? Well, sometimes yes. But think about the arguments you have most. Why did you put the toilet paper on the roll backwards? I'm outa here! Why can't you straighten the towel after you dry your hands? I'm outa here! I want the furnace set at 70, not 68 so I want a divorce! Really. Suck it up and learn to submit once in a while. Your marriage will be happier which means you will be too. And commit. Then you'll get through the tough parts too, if you can talk it through without a divorce hanging over your head the whole time. Commit to your marriage and realize that when you (men AND women) submit to your spouse, your marriage gets stronger which means you, as a couple are a stronger team to face the stuggles facing you both. You can work together against those things instead of adding your spouse to your list of enemies. Where is this world going. Maybe if we can get our heads (and hearts, and souls) straight there's still hope. Pray for that. I want my grandkids to live in a better world than this.

GTO, Fish, and Whatever

Greetings!
Usually when I Google something I wind up reading about other things that I had no intention of reading. You know, the way things catch your eye and you want to read it quick before you go to bed? Then about 15 sites and five hours later you end up going to bed knowing a lot about things you didn't even mean to know. I'm probably better at Trivial Pursuit now than I ever was.

Also, I wrote a little bit on my website , and added my e-mail address in case anyone wanted to comment. But that was a little clumsy. I think it would be awesome to hear what you have to say about GTO's, Fish, or God but I'm open to just about anything. Hopefully this site will keep me up late many times in the coming days. So if you have something interesting to say, go ahead and say it. I'm not sure where this will go, but it should be fun to find out.
-derifter