An Amusing Lesson about Being Specific
Last Sunday I met a couple from Pennsylvania, John and Kristi, who had come to town on vacation. A quadriplegic friend of mine asked me to drive her to church so they could pray for her. It wasn’t long ago that Kristi herself was in a wheelchair, unable to walk. She believes God healed her. She’s now able to walk and function as normal.
We spent a total of 10 hours at the church. John mentioned that he was going to rent a pontoon boat and spend the next day on Shasta Lake. He invited me to come along.
A day on Shasta Lake will raise the mood of even the grumpiest sourpuss. We launched the boat at 8:30am. John wanted to head directly to the nearest resort to purchase a fishing license. The lady who’d rented the boat to him included two decent poles and a tackle box filled with enough lures to keep a person busy for weeks.
After a quick stop at Bridge Bay Resort we headed out for the fertile fishing grounds I assured John he would easily find on the world’s greatest lake. He jokingly said a prayer to God to help him catch fish, a prayer God would soon answer.
I told John my favorite way of fishing was to let the line out, get it down 20-40 feet, and troll along slowly. This way the boat did the fishing and I was free to relax and drink a good beer or two or six. John thought the idea sounded great, minus the beer. His drink of preference was Dr. Pepper.
Not long after saying the prayer, John reeled in his line to discover he’d caught this beauty (click to see it). That turned out to be the only catch he made all day.
Later in the afternoon, after sleeping in until 1pm, Belinda called to tell me she’d accept my invitation to spend some time on the boat with us as long as we promised not to preach at her too much. We picked her up at Bridge Bay. She ended up with the biggest catch of the day: a 20-foot pontoon boat!
John’s lesson of the day was to learn to be more specific when praying for fish.
