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Jul 16, 2022 08:00am

When the Fish Stops Flopping

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I recently had a conversation with an older man talking about memories of taking his daughter fishing as a little girl. Most of the memorable moments he shared were tender and brought a tear to his eyes. But when he brought the discussion to current day, he talked about wishing she had taken one of his teachable moments and applied it to her adult life.

He recalled that as a little girl when they caught a fish and she brought it into the boat, she became hysterical as it flopped around in the bottom. She frantically chased it around the boat trying to catch it with her hands. His words of wisdom to her were, “If you’ll wait ‘til the fish stops flopping, you can lip it.”

He shared how even then she didn’t listen to this advice but let emotions drive her and he was always worried about her getting hurt. As she entered adulthood, of course, the pain brought on by not waiting for things to calm down while trusting God to guide her were much more severe.

Honestly, this is pretty common behavior for most humans. When things are not going as we planned or the things happening around us are beyond our control, we sometimes panic. That panic can be like a motor driving us and we act impulsively and unwisely, which typically only makes the situation worse.

Throughout Scripture we are encouraged as followers of Christ to trust God and His sovereignty over all of creation. Part of trusting Him often involves waiting with calm assurance that does not act as a driving force but allows us to be still and find rest.

In Ruth 3:18, Ruth’s mother-in-law encourages her to “Be still and wait” until the Lord showed her what her future would hold.

In Psalm 4:3-4, we are told that we can rest and find calmness in our hearts because we know that the Lord will hear us when we call.

Psalm 123:2 conveys that our dependence on God is comparable to the way a servant depends on his master.

Because God’s character is one of mercy, we can trust His words when He says in Isaiah 40:31, “they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Our heavenly Father is encouraging us to trust Him with our future and depend on His faithfulness and mercy.

But sometimes we are like the man’s daughter in the previous story. We see in the world around us what feels like chaotic and uncontrolled circumstances.

We see the evils of men growing worse and sometimes those who seem innocent end up paying the price. In Jeremiah 6:16, “This is what the Lord says: Stand by the roadways and look. Ask about the ancient paths, ‘Which is the way to what is good?’ Then take it and find rest for yourselves. But they protested and said, “We will not take it!” Because of the sin and rebellion of mankind, we are experiencing the “wounded fish flopping” but there is coming a day when “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord. When that happens, He will have the ultimate victory over sin and its consequences, putting an end to all the “flopping around”.

But when we ponder victory, we must also consider that for every victor there are those who are defeated. Revelation 19:11 says that those who conquered Satan, conquered him through the “blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.” This means that we as His followers are guaranteed victory over sin and its consequences as well, and at that time we will also escape sin’s presence once and for all.

In the meantime, we must be still and “wait for the fish to stop flopping” so that in the end, “we can lip it”.