For several years in a row Marilee and I had the opportunity to visit Mexico for a few days’ vacation.
On one such occasion, we invited a family from our church to join us—a husband, wife, and three children who had freely given vast amounts of volunteer time in the music department. Our destination was Toledo, a little fishing village on the beautiful Sea of Cortez (or Gulf of California). I spent most of my time golfing, snorkeling, diving off the rocks, and visiting the little artisan shops in the village.
A couple of days before the end of our stay, however, my wife stunned me by putting me on the spot in front of our guests.
“Paul,” she said, “why don’t you take Hannah fishing tomorrow?”
I mumbled something like, “yes, sure, let’s do it” in reply, and tried to keep my face pleasant and neutral. But inside, I was steaming. She had asked me right in front of Hannah, a high school girl, giving me no other option but saying yes. In my view, that broke all the rules. She should have asked me in private first, to which I would have immediately replied, “Not a chance!”
First of all, I had no interest in the activity. My previous involvement with fishing could be summed up with the phrase, “For some reason they’re not biting today.” In my experience, they never did bite. And it wasn’t worth all the trouble to keep proving the same fact.
In answer to my bitter complaints, however, Marilee simply replied, “This will be a lifelong memory for Hannah—spending the day fishing with her pastor.” What could I say to that? It was a not-so-subtle reminder that this Mexico vacation with our friends had never been “all about me.” So even though there were a thousand things I would rather have done with that day, I committed myself to a daylong fishing trip the next morning…that launched at 4:00 a.m.!
I wasn’t in the best of moods the next morning when I met Hannah at the docks in the dusky half-light. Miguel, our guide, was there with his 20-foot boat. Since he didn’t speak a word of English, we communicated with smiles, nods, and sign language. Out on the water, he stopped the boat and indicated that Hannah and I were to use the small rods and reels.
Tossing out my line with an awkward cast, I was surprised and thrilled to discover I had actually caught a fish. It was about eight inches long—a mackerel, Hannah told me. In the next 15 to 20 minutes, we caught all kinds of mackerel, and sometimes two or three at a time on our lures’ multiple hooks.
It was exhilarating! Maybe, I admitted to myself, I would have to adjust my attitude toward fishing. I’d caught more fish in that one place than I had previously caught in my whole life. A little later, when Miguel started up the boat, I was surprised. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going fishing!” Hannah responded.
“I thought we were fishing.”
Hannah couldn’t contain her laughter. “Oh no, Pastor! We’re just catching bait!”
To cover my embarrassment, I turned to watch the bow of the boat as we jetted along at top speed into the Sea of Cortez. When we stopped, Miguel cut the motor so quickly that I marveled. Could he really know the exact spot where the fish resided in that vast expanse of water?
When he indicated that we should pick up the rods, I again exposed my inexperience by grabbing the little bait-catchers. This time Miguel laughed, shaking his head and pointing at the big rods and reels. Using our mackerel for bait, we got our lines in the water and I settled in for what I imagined would be a long wait.
But it wasn’t.
Almost immediately I felt a massive yank on my line. Beginning to reel it in, I found myself with a major battle on my hands. This was no mackerel. In fact, it was a dorado (also known as mahi-mahi)—six feet long and fighting me every inch of the way. Hannah caught the next one, laughing for joy, reeling for all she was worth.
After about two hours we had landed 31 of those beautiful fish, and I knew that I had enough fish stories to last me the rest of my life and into eternity.
On the way back to Toledo, happy and contented as I was, a couple of uncomfortable thoughts began to edge into my awareness.
First (and very reluctantly), I really had to admit how narrow I had become. Limiting myself to the leisure interests I had enjoyed for many years—basketball, football, baseball, and golf—I had stubbornly excluded other activities that were every bit as fulfilling, even though completely beyond my experience.
And then an even more uncomfortable thought slipped in. Had this same mindset impacted other areas of my life—perhaps even my ministry and walk with Christ? Had I settled for minimalism or mediocrity? Had I contented myself with the modest success I’d been enjoying for a number of years? Had I settled for catching eight-inch mackerel when those stunning, massive dorados prowled the deeper waters? Had I slipped into a safe, all-too-comfortable pattern of life, refusing to try new endeavors, methods, or approaches because I had “never done it that way before” or “didn’t want to bother”?
At that very time I was overseeing a number of pastors in our denomination who were seemingly just going through the motions of ministry. Council members in various churches were reporting that their pastors’ hearts “just weren’t in it anymore.” As one council member said, “Some pastors are standing on the promises, but our pastor is sitting on the premises.”
And maybe that’s what I’d been doing, too. Resting on my laurels. Avoiding risks or new ventures because I didn’t want to fail or look foolish.
At the time, I didn’t have a label for that attitude. But I do now. It’s the complacency of success. When things aren’t broken, there isn’t much motivation to fix them. But what our eyes might not detect is a thin coating of rust that begins to collect on our words, on our plans, and on our endeavors.
What’s worse, we might begin walking by doors that the Lord Himself has opened, telling ourselves that what we’re occupied with now is “good enough.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.”
As our boat knifed its way across brilliant blue waters of the Sea of Cortez, shimmering in the late afternoon light, I took another look at 31 massive fish and the happy, contented look on my young friend Hannah’s face.
Marilee had been right, of course. Hannah had made a lifelong memory, and so had I.
It was high time to make more of them.