There was a brisk chill in the air. I paddled my kayak to the corner of the lake and anchored. The water like a plane of glass stretched out in front of me. 8 AM and I was ready to start at lease 4 hours of fishing in the fall in Oklahoma. They don’t call it Pretty Water Lake for nothing. That is when my eyes first took hold of the colors. They glittered and almost twinkled in the morning sunlight. Yellow, orange, pink, and green. So many of the colors of the rainbow. The sign from God the Father personally delivered to Noah. A promise in visible form.
It was a beautiful sight. Original Powerbait with glitter, garlic scent, (the glue that holds all Italian food together) extra scent. I find it perfect that the bait used for catching rainbow trout is a rainbow of colors itself. Wait, what? Not what you were expecting? Probably not, but true none the less.
Nothing else will do, it has to be garlic.
I settled in for a slow wait. After all, patience is key in fishing. I scooped out the Powerbait and rolled it into a firm ball. I pressed it up through my hook and cast the line about 20 yards out. I set the rod in the holder and reached for my spinning rod to set it up in case the Powerbait was a flop. Before I could even pick the other rod up…. Bump bump bump. With that the line took off away from the kayak and I knew I had to be quick. I grabbed the rod and lifted. Setting the hook on trout is a delicate affair. Within 30 seconds I had landed the first trout of the day. I rebaited the hook and cast back out. This time I held onto the rod, the spinner would have to wait.
Sure enough, not 2 minutes passed and I was hooked up again. This one was bigger and I knew we were rolling. The next cast came up with a smaller one and I released it. The limit here is 3 on the day, so I was hoping for a bigger fish on the last one. I rebaited and cast a bit further out. I waited, and there he was. The first rainbow that ever truly jerked my rod. I tightened my grip and let him run for a good 10 yards and lifted.
The fight was on! I was only using 4 pound test line for stealth’s sake and this guy was pushing the limits of my gear. He was a runner. Left, right, away, and bad towards the boat he went. I had to work this one, keep the line tight so he can’t slip off. I couldn’t horse power him into the boat though, rainbow trout have delicate mouths, and I didn’t want to risk loss and injury to the fish. After a good fight he flashed at the surface. Like a multicolored lightening strike the sun bounced off this beautiful fish for just a second before he dove back down into the dark water to make one last run. Once he was in the boat I had my limit. I paddled back to the ramp and loaded up to go home with dinner for the night ahead.
Literally 10 minutes on the water and I had the most productive day I could have. I can’t tell you how many fish I caught from that one bottle of bait. But like all things it came to an end when it was empty. I went to get more, but couldn’t find it with glitter and couldn’t find it with extra scent. And guess what, the new bottle is almost empty and I have caught zero fish on it.
You can’t substitute the real thing.
The new bait looks like the old one, its just missing the glitter and extra scent. If its me, I see the same thing. But I am not a trout. It simply isn’t the same no matter what it looks like to me.
Jesus said in John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
There are so many religions and spiritual paths and self help ideas and books that claim to fix what is wrong with the world. Many of these sound great. They teach inclusion and tolerance and what they understand to be love. “Why can’t we all just get along?” said a criminal who after that statement was made he returned to a life of violence and crime being arrested 12 more times before his death. But not before the world exploded around him.
The Bible tells us that there is a way that seems right to a man, but it only brings him death. All the ways that we try to devise to cure what ails us fall short. Why? It is because we are missing the key ingredient. There is no glitter, no extra scent. There is no holiness in the bottle of man.
Banging the erasers
As a kid in school we all wanted to job of cleaning the chalkboard. There was something so satisfying about it. And the erasers, oh yeah. We couldn’t wait to go outside and bang them together to get the excess chalk off of them. We’d pound them against the wall and drive out the old chalk. But every once in a while a small piece of chalk would get stuck in the folds of the eraser. Buried in there you didn’t always see it. Then the teacher would go to use the eraser on the board and that chalk would leave a streak across the clean board. You can’t clean a chalkboard with a dirty eraser. You can’t catch trout with bad bait. You can’t clean sin from a heart with a sinful heart.
Only Jesus can do that. The rainbow is a promise to never flood the whole world again. The empty grave is a promise to never leave a sin sick soul in someone who cries out for healing. The only way for holiness to take effect in our lives is for the holy one to do the work. Man can try but they fall short. Religion may change behaviors but it has never changed our nature. Only the power of Jesus can do that.
So stop wasting your time using a bait that won’t catch a fish. Stop trying to fix your life when your nature is the thing that broke it to begin with. You have to have the real thing to get whole. Jesus is there to free you from the burden of trying to be holy. Instead of trying, trust. Trust that He wants to heal you from the inside out. Trust that following the path He lays out in the Word will lead you to grow closer in His holiness. After all, our righteousness is like filthy rags. Let Him change your nature. (Romans 3:10) (Isaiah 64:6)
Holiness isn’t a destination, it’s state of being.
Its the state of living connected to the only Holy One. Following His leadings and living a life as He directs. Its a life lived in love not law, self denial not self abuse, failure and refocus not failing and hiding the guilt, freedom to not try to be holy, but rather to be filled with the one who is. Do you want to begin the healing from a sin sick heart? Trust Jesus, you can’t substitute the real thing.