Thursday Brew with Gwen: Fishing with Dad

Fishing with Dad 

A family of four, Dad, son, Mum and daughter, strode along the jetty into the setting sun. There was a purpose in their stride and the set of their shoulders. Father and son marched ahead, while mother and daughter brought up the rear. All were laden with crab-nets, fishing rods, buckets of food, bait and bags.

‘You look like you’re set for the night,’ a passer-by commented to the family.

‘I am,’ Junior admitted proudly unzipping his parka to show layers of warm clothes. Blazoned in large letters and bold colours on the boy’s T-shirt were the words, ‘My Dad’s the Greatest.’

‘We’re going to stay out all night fishing with Dad,’ he said, his eyes glowed with excitement. Out all night with Dad? That’s enough to put a sparkle in any boy’s eye. It is good for fathers to go fishing

with their sons when young to avoid hunting for them when they are teenagers. Spend time, not money on your children is advice not to be ignored. Memories of adventures with Dad are important and last a lifetime

Jesus Christ was a son who wanted to tell the world about the Greatest Dad in the universe. It all began one night when a group of discontented fishermen sat around a campfire with nothing to do.

‘I’m going fishing,’ said Peter, never able to sit still for very long, ‘anyone want to come?’

‘Good idea,’ the others grunted in chorus.

They spent the whole night fishing out on the lake in a boat. Dropping down nets, hauling them up Aching backs, cold and hungry. At dawn they came into shore, exhausted and disgruntled. Jesus met them on the beach, asking

‘Did you catch anything?’

‘No!’ they replied, surlily, ‘not a thing.’

‘ Try again,’ Jesus urged them. ‘This time drop your nets on the right side of the boats.’

‘We’ve tried everything,’ Peter argued, ‘the fish are not there.’

However, the men put the boats out again, dropping the nets as Jesus had suggested.

The fish seemed, of their own free will to jump into the nets. In minutes the nets were full to breaking point, the boat in danger of sinking. The men brought the boat to shore, awestruck by their experience.

Jesus had demonstrated to these men the power of his Father. These men were impressed but Jesus was not satisfied. He wanted his Father to be the Greatest Dad in the universe to these men. Jesus mission on earth was to bring men and women back to the Father as sons and daughters; to heal the family rift Adam and Eve had created by not listening to what God told them.

These stories show two sons who believed that their fathers were the greatest. They wanted the world to know that they adored their fathers. Jesus went one step further, though. He not only wanted the world to be born into his Father’s family, to be the children of his Father, and his siblings, he wanted the whole world to worship and adore his Father as the greatest in the universe. To do this, Jesus was prepared to go to any lengths, even to die, to unite the Father with His people, meaning you and I.