Wanna go Fishing?

There is this perfect little fishing stream no more than 90 minutes from my home.  It is beautiful.  The fall colors right now are exploding in the yellow aspens and golden oaks.  The cool autumn breeze brushes the trees and they seem to be clapping their hands as you hike through the groves of them to this splendid little fishing hole.  The creek just glistens as the late afternoon sunlight reflects off the surface of the water.  The sound of the brook flowing over the rocks smoothed by centuries of flow is so relaxing and pleasant to hear.  I am giddy to the point where it is hard to tie the hook on my line. The word that comes to my mind is radiant. Seriously, I want to put down this keyboard and drive there right now!  The creek draws me to it with its magnetic beauty.  And to think this secret little spot is not six hours drive away in the Sierras and then another ten miles by hike. No this place is accessible right here in the local mountains just steps from the road.  

The stream is only a little wider than my running, jumping stride.  I have just failed in attempts to leap over it giving my feet a bath in its clear water.  In its deepest parts I bet there are very few pools over two feet in depth.  

But I would like to take you to the best place to catch fish.
  Oh, the fish!  They are these pan-sized Oncorhynchus mykiss. Yes they are aptly named.  I have kissed many a one out of sheer delight.  You know these specimens by the name of rainbow trout.  I think they are majestic fish.  Rainbow describes them well.  When God made them He used his impressionistic imagination to the hilt.  Monet at his best amongst the lilies does not even come close to the artistry of The Word.  God spilled the paint down their side.  Army green on top with black speckles, silver on the bottom with an accent of cornflower blue. And then God got out his broad water color brush and gave a swath right down the middle in is this resplendent splash of magenta.  The whole creature just sparkles with the personality of its creator. Last year I took Sam there for the first time and he just caught and released one fish right after the other. 

So where is this fishing hole in the stream?  Well it is actually a place where two forks of the Santa Ana River flow together.  I think that is one of the best places to catch them.  Perhaps the nutrients from each branch of the creek provide a richness causing the fish to congregate.  Or maybe these are just places of greater depth.  Or it could be the eddies produced by the confluence and unity of the waters that brings the fish. Nevertheless this spot where the two streams become one is a good place to angle.  

The beauty of this place of color and fresh smell of pine and peaceful sounds and potential flavor draws me, and I try to draw the fish to my line.  

And I know that deep in your heart you want to go fishing, you were designed to fish, to be a fisher of men.

And it is the Greatest Fisher of Men that teaches us how to draw people to His beauty given to us and lived through us.

It is so hard for me to describe this beauty. But God wants to give us His beauty, a beauty far more wonderful than this mountain brook, and with that beauty to draw people to Himself.  I recently found a word in the Bible that seems to catch so much of it in a single term.  As so often is the case with Hebrew words they have deep multi-splendored meaning that adds richness to them.  I found this word in Psalm 34:5.  Here is the phrase that captured my affections and attention: 

“They looked to Him and were radiant.”

Wow! Those words just melted my heart yesterday, and I wept.  That word, radiant! That is my deepest longing, to be like Him.  It is my constant prayer for you that you would shine with His radiance.  Oh how I want my children to beam with His likeness.  And this happens when we focus our gaze, our attention, our affections on Him and His character, His splendor.  The secret of becoming like Him is focusing on Him.  And when we become like Him in His radiance, we draw others to Him.  

Actually I think looking to Him is half of the way we become radiant. When it says, “looked to Him” or focused on Him it does not mean an unending Bible study.  Of course the Bible is important and necessary!  Study the Bible, cherish it. But cherish the Author much more. It also does not mean having a more precise theology, although that is useful too, especially the part about God being gracious and compassionate and slow to anger and full of lovingkindness, yea that theology.  But I think what it means to look to Him is to sit like a lover intently gazing with longing eyes at our betrothed.  It means having an interactive friendship with the Creator.  Leslie Weatherhead called it the Transforming Friendship.  When we adore Him, we become like Him.  He is our treasure, our precious.  We think about Jesus as a young woman thinks about her fiancée.  One translation of this word radiant is “to sparkle”.  Just think of a six-year-old girl playing dress up as a princess.  What does she want? She wants to sparkle.  That’s it.  When we fill our minds with Jesus we soon begin to sparkle like the first star in the moonless mountain sky.  Then after a while more and more stars appear.  We become a Milky Way of radiance in the darkness around us.  

Oh church!  Look to Jesus!  Get your mind off of earthly things!  They only spoil!  Why do we worry about window dressing and false eyelashes when we could be radiant with God’s beauty, His actual shared character!  That is what the famished world needs to see.  They need to see the beautiful, imaginative character of the Creator lived in us.

My dear friends, radiant ones, whom I treasure, but not as much as I treasure Jesus, look to Him.  Make it your aim to think about Him in the middle of a meeting instead of automatically checking your iPhone for texts.  Make it your chief desire to habitually talk to Him when you are on the freeway, even when, no especially when, you are late or have just been cut off.  Consider Jesus, your best friend.  Learn to hear when He speaks into your thoughts. He will make you beam, He will make you glad, and He will make you shine brightly.  Make it your aim tomorrow to think about Him all day.  Don’t worry, He won’t distract you from your work, He will fulfill all of your work.  Think about His goodness, meditate on it.  When you are with a client or student pray to Jesus for them in their presence. Ask Him to help you love them. Memorize Psalms like 34.  If you have a bad memory all the better!  You will have to think about it that much more!  Fill your mind with the love of Jesus.  And soon His character will be yours.  He shares Himself!  Others will soon recognize you as someone “who has been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13).  I am strongly asking you to do this. The Bible uses the word command and that is a very loving word.  

It takes much time and effort, yes.  Don’t meditate alone.  Do it with Him.  Think of Him sitting right next to you.  After all, “the Kingdom of God is near you!” Say at least 5 times today out loud, “I love you Jesus!”  Just try that, I dare you!  It will change you.  Hey, what is that new sparkle I see on you?

This Hebrew word I am telling you about from Psalm 34:5, nahar, has another meaning, which upon first glance seems unrelated to radiance.  Nahar is also used in Jeremiah 31, a wonderful chapter.  In verse 12 this word has a very interesting meaning, see if you can find it in this phrase:  “Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD…”

Many times this word we saw as radiance is also translated “flow together”.  In some cases it speaks of the confluence of rivers.  In other cases it is the coming together of people as one.  Yet in other cases it speaks of being enlightened, radiant, beaming, to burn brightly.  It seems like a people that look to God and His goodness will automatically be drawn into one great stream. I wonder if, just maybe, we as a people are most radiant, most sparkling, most beaming when we are one.  And I wonder if that is the key to drawing people to us like starving trout after salmon eggs in the deep eddies.  Look to Jesus and His prayer for you in John 17:

“[I ask] that they may all be one just as you, Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them…”

Our oneness is our Glory, our radiance!  Our oneness is how we draw the world to Jesus.  When we are one, we are most like the Trinity. We don’t need a fancy church building, exciting music of any kind, we don’t need a big budget, dynamic speaker, or attractive youth programs.  We need to be one.  That is it.  Why are we WASTING OUR TIME dwelling on these other things that divide us!  But hey! Are you letting it divide?  Are you letting the problems of the church distract you? Are you letting the things of the world distract you? Look to Jesus.  All of the problems of the world and church, give them to Jesus. They really are His problems to solve, set them aside, and pay attention to Him. This is the other half of the way we become radiant like Jesus: surrender. Focus and surrender! That is a command, a very loving word indeed!

Just as I am drawn to that little fishing hole at the confluence of two little creeks in the crispness of an autumn afternoon the world is drawn to the radiance of God’s glory shining in us when we are unified.  And believe me, the fish will bite!

Look to Jesus my friends!  Look to Him and be radiant.  Think about Him as often as you can today and a little more tomorrow.  If you fail, as I often do, ask Him to help you remember Him. Talk to Him as you walk from your car to the office. Talk to Him about everything that matters to you.  Talk to Him as you prepare supper.  Listen to Him. Think about Him as you watch CNN; pray for those folks that are suffering in that other country, pray lovingly for the folks that are in that other political party.  Ask Him how to minister to your lonely neighbor.  Pray through the list of your office mates or students.  Ask your kids, “Has Jesus spoken to you lately?”  It will put the expectation in their mind if nothing else.  I want you to expect Jesus.  And, and, reach out and love that person in the next pew with whom you have a theological disagreement.  Love the guy who is changing things that you so dearly love just the way they are.  Do you see the absurdity in that sentence, loving things over a person?  

Friends, radiance is available to us now!  Yes it is.  It is accessible to us here, not way down the road, but where we are. Consider Jesus.  He will write His law on your heart.  He will make you beam.  He will make you joyful.  He will make you a very good fisher of men.  Look to Jesus and be radiant and soon others will also be captured by Him for the first time and begin to sparkle in the darkness of the moonless mountain sky.