The Fisherman

I was confessing to God in prayer that I didn’t want to rely on him for my food and clothing as the scriptures tell us to.  I said to him, “I don’t want to rely on you for my food and for my needs!  I don’t want to be in need, I don’t want to feel like I’m dependent.  I want to be able to provide for myself.  I want to feel certain that I will have what I need, and being dependent means being uncertain and needy.”

I could hear the voice of the Lord in my spirit speak to me.  He asked me a simple question.  “Why would you rather rely on the thing created rather than the one who created it?  Why are you more comfortable possessing a cow than possessing the one who created and owns all the cows?”

He said to me:  “You feel this way because you do not understand the degree that you are depending on me at all times.  You are always dependent on me.  ‘What do you have that you did not receive?  Why then do you boast as if you did not receive.’  ‘Unless Jehovah Himself builds the house, it is in vain that the workers have worked all day.’  Without my aid, you would have nothing.”

I felt that I understood what God was saying; a spirit of joy and gratefulness filled me.  I said, “Father, I understand what you are telling me.  Can you give me an illustration or a story to tell what I have just learned.

He said:  “It is like a family who is taken care of by a wise fisherman.  Every year the fisherman would visit the family and bring a year’s worth of fish in a very sophisticated ice box.  Each day the box would thaw a day’s worth of fish for the family.   Well, before the year was over the fisherman would come and bring the family another year’s supply of fish so that the family was always well taken care of.

At the end of one year the fisherman told the family, “From this point forward I will bring you fish every six months.”  This made the family a bit more uncomfortable, because they were more dependent upon the fisherman.  However, just as the fisherman was faithful to come every year, he came every six months faithfully.  However, after some time the fisherman said to the family, “I will now come once a month.”

This made the family very worried.  After all they had nothing worthwhile to give to the fisherman.  Perhaps it would be too much of a hassle for him to come monthly.  Perhaps he would forget about them.

After a few years of coming once a month the fisherman informed them he would only come once a week.  The family became very nervous.  They begin to wonder if it would be better for them to have backup plan just in case the fisherman didn’t come.  However before they could put any plans into action the fisherman told them he would now bring them food only once a day.

Finally this was too much for the family, and they told the fisherman about their worries.  They told him they appreciated all he had done for them for so many years, but they were afraid to rely on him for food.  What if he forgot about them, or became angry with them, or if he ran out of fish at some point.  They were afraid to rely on him on a day to day basis.

At this point in the story God spoke to me saying, “The concerns of the family may seem to make sense until they learned the truth about the fisherman.  First they needed to know that the fisherman bringing them food is immortal, he will never die.  He was the one who seeded those waters with fish before the family was ever there.  He put the fish there for the purpose of feeding the family.  He had many lifetimes of fish stored up for the family and on any day that he went fishing he could catch more fish than they could eat in a month.  Most importantly they should understand that the first box that contained a year’s supply of fish required him to check it remotely every hour in order to work properly.  They should know that all the years they felt comfortable relying on the box of fish, they were really relying on the fisherman.  They were always dependent on him, only now they were more aware of the truth.”

After receiving the illustration I marveled.  God finished with this:

I love my children more than anything! I showed this with the ransom of my Son.  The ransom proves my love for you.  When you put faith in my love for you, you will not be afraid to rely on my love for you.  Put absolute faith in my ransom, thus put absolute faith in my love for you, then you will have faith to rely on me for everything you need.