12/02/2025
Are we approaching our faith through study and hard work to further perfect ourselves each day? Every evening during our prayers do we kneel before God and tell Him of our intellectual progress? If this is so, and it is our primary motivation, He will speak words similar to these back to us; “Yes, but when I walked in the garden this evening where were you?” or “As I have loved you, do you love me?” God wants our journey towards spiritual perfection to be a manifestation of our relationship with Him, and our liturgical and theological perfection in the classroom to be secondary to His ultimate goal which is loving us and seeing that we love Him too.
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
Philippians 3:12 ESV
I have taught my children many things about life and what it means to be good, and a person of faith, but my greatest joy is when they walk with me in it, not in the lessons. Don’t get me wrong; the instruction time I spend with them is precious, but the goal is not for me to be their teacher, but to enjoy their company as we walk through life together. Pastor Oswald Chambers describes this in a wonderful way:
“Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life.” - Oswald Chambers
As my children were growing up I would occasionally take them fishing. I would teach them to tie a hook on their line, how to bait it, how to cast their line out, how to fight a fish to shore, and if large enough, how to place it on a stringer, but I didn’t do these things because I thought they would become professional fishermen. I did it because it allowed me to reveal snippets of myself to them in the process. The most enjoyable part of the experience for me was when we sat together on the bank and waited patiently for the bobber to go down. This was a time of conversation and relationship... this was my time with them, just as much, if not more, than their time with me. Fishing trips were never really about catching the fish, after all it would have been cheaper to have bought them, no, it was more about the time we spent together and our relationship.
An interesting result of these trips was that all my children developed a love for fishing. They liked the challenge of it, and the time in nature, but most of all they loved it because they thought I loved it. We do this with God too... but sometimes while spending time with Him in the classroom of life and faith, we confuse our learning of the mechanics with His true purpose, which is for us to lovingly be with Him in relationship.
My children have grown up to adulthood now, and yet occasionally one of my sons will show me a picture of a nice fish he has caught. Although I admire the fish, what gives me the greatest enjoyment in that moment is in remembering a little boy’s excitement in reeling in a tiny bass, and the sparkle in his eye as he hugged me when we put it back in the water. You see, it was never about the fish we caught... that was just the tool that opened up the tackle box of our relationship.
God teaches us about commandments, obedience, prayer, faith, and all the nuances of His Word, but He doesn’t do that simply to make us perfect, no, He does it so that we can walk with Him more completely in relationship. This is His fishing trip and it gives us something to share together. It isn’t now, nor was it ever, all about perfection... that was just a manifestation of our relationship; it was the loving child wanting to be like his Father and his Father loving and being pleased with His child.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8 ESV
“and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.””
Matthew 3:17 ESV
Some of us remember these experiences as fishing trips, but they could easily be sewing classes, working on cars, sporting events, playing musical instruments, or cooking together; whatever we use as our fishing rod, tool, or mixing bowl, don’t get so wrapped up in the lessons that you forget the real reason you are there in the first place... to form a relationship. If we don’t learn another thing, let that be the lesson we learn from God. Let that be the lesson our Heavenly Father teaches us as we sit with Him on the riverbanks of our lives, or at the feet of Jesus as we eat fishes and loaves on a hillside.
“I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God” - Oswald Chambers
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the lessons you teach me each day through your Holy Word, but most of all I thank you for the relationship this fosters between us. I thank you for the perseverance you have taught me through hardship, but what I value most is feeling your arm around me as I struggle to succeed. I thank you for the love that you ask me to show my neighbor, but in the end I value your Words “this is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.” Because these Words tell me that in loving others I am pleasing and loving you. Teach me Father, not to be a fisherman, but to be a fisher of men, so that I can walk with you in this endeavor and find snippets of you all along the way. Let our relationship blossom as you pull lesson after lesson from your tackle box. Never let me confuse the fish we catch on these holy fishing trips with the love they are intended to elicit. And at the end of the day when we walk together, let me be thrilled and surprised by each tiny fish of perfection that you have taught me to reel in and gently release back into your living waters. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who shows me more of yourself with each step we take together, and with every cast of our net or line.
“Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.
Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.”
John 21:5-7, 12 ESV
Rich Forbes