I often see sin and getting stuck in bad behavior as a sea, loaded with fish hooks. So numerous are the hooks, line and bait that you can barely see the water your swimming through because the hooks that seek to grab you are so thick with every type of bait, its impossible to swim through them all without at least one catching you from time to time. The bait is always the same. Sex, lust, greed, envy, drugs, money, vanity and so on. They appeal to us at times when we feel we are unloved, unforgivable, and sometimes when our resistance is completely down. Its when we haven’t seen “Holiness” in our hearts yet, that they are completely invisible and we don’t even realize we have become human pin cushions, loaded with them, that they pose the greatest threat.

We always hear about the Apostles tossing out their nets and catching fish. We never hear about them using a fishing pole with bait. With the exception of Matthew 17:27 – I can only ponder this having to do with the supremacy of our Lord and how He owns each and every one of us, therefore is in no need for bait to catch us on a single hook. Rather he brings us all to the surface together, some He sees in need of doctoring and removing all the hooks, applying medicine to our wounds and then sometimes tossing us back into the water through His mercy, to heal and grow larger in the faith. He is always there for us. When we do grow in the faith we then see the hooks that made us sick in the first place, and avoid them as best we can. He gave us the sacrament of Reconciliation, to make it through the sea, doing His will, bringing forth more life, to give the glory to Him and not continuing to be hooked on the things that made us sick, in which we die and sink to the depths where we are forgotten. A dead fish goes with the flow. A live fish swims against the current, to promote life in Christ.

My hope is that I am not a dead fish, but seriously wounded and I may be used to catch a much larger fish for my Lord Jesus Christ. I trust in His mercy and forgiveness.