I stumbled over a friend at a local trout fishing hole the other day. We share shopping privileges at a local Cariboo-Chilcotin cow town and normally only get to visit at funerals and on town day. It was a treat to chat without the usual pressures. Noticing my relaxed demeanor, Randy immediately tried to steal one of my fishing secrets. Because of it, he almost came to a delightful end.
After skulking away from our seeming innocent chat with my secret hooked firmly in his ball cap, Randy dogtrotted for his fishing boat. He fished nonstop for the next two days with my secret fly and only caught a couple of suckers. Since the lake was teeming with lively and large rainbow trout, this would have been a delightful ending in itself, until God, who I am convinced is not only sovereign but also a fly-fisher, decided to make things more interesting and delightful.
Randy was beached at his campsite resting up from a hard day of sucker fishing, when a mutual friend trolled by and reported a trout feeding frenzy just to the north. Randy threw himself and three fishing rods of varying denominations into his 12-foot boat and made like the ringtails for the reported feeding frenzy. After a couple of hours of serious fishing without even a sucker to show for it, Randy proceeded back to the campsite with my secret fly innocently trailing behind him. At the time when his boat was perfectly in view of all the other campers, suddenly the line screamed off of Randy's reel and his fly rod bent in half. At the other end of the line a marvelous thee-pound rainbow trout leapt five feet out of the water.
Randy was in the midst of a fishing-induced coma and suddenly regained consciousness. He gasped for breath and grabbed for fishing rods. Not sure which rod he should deal with first, it took him a few moments to go through the process of untangling the other two in the bottom of the boat in order to figure it out. When he finally settled on the fly-rod with the rampaging rainbow attached, there was a real mess happening in the bottom of the boat, to which Randy decided to add by hand stripping his fly-line into the bottom of the boat instead of reeling decently and in good order (Randy is not a Presbyterian). Some how he got the large trout up to the boat, saw the size of the thing and almost choked. At precisely the same moment the trout saw Randy, saw the size of the thing, gasped and headed for the bottom of the lake. Randy became as busy as a one armed paperhanger trying to facilitate the trout's run for the bottom of the lake from the tangled line of three fishing rods in the bottom of the boat.
That's when a spectator, a rather huge loon, decided it would be fun to get involved in the game. He started to chase the fish, diving and looncussing for all he was worth. Now the fish really got excited. So did Randy. He was now combating fish and fowl, hollering and waving his hat at the loon at the same time as he was desperately tangling and untangling his fishing line in the bottom of the boat to facilitate the trout's run. Things were getting loud, frantic and real interesting when Randy remembered a cardinal rule of fly-fishing; one should always get one's landing net ready long before one's fish arrives at the boat. With what must have been a fourth arm, Randy grabbed behind him for the landing net and gave it a tug. It wouldn't come off the bottom of the boat. It was tangled in some darned thing, so Randy gave it a tremendous yank. It came loose and Randy gasped as he saw the plug from the bottom of the boat dangling from the net and felt the icy water streaming in around his feet. And then the plug dropped off of the net into the lake and sank.
I have no idea exactly how this story ends. Randy refused to give further details, except to say that he eventually landed the fish, which weighed three-and-a-half pounds and the next day he was going fishing again to catch its bigger cousin. He said there must be a faith lesson in the story somewhere.
As I said, I have no idea exactly how the story ends. And I think that's the faith lesson in it. Fly-fishing doesn't end. With regards to endings, the Christian life imitates fly-fishing. They are both great big stories that don't end, and thereby hangs the blessing.
In the Bible, the life of Abraham is a case in point. As the story begins Abraham and Sarah are called by God and given a divine promise, which included receiving a great land and having many kids. And so Abraham and Sarah, who are old and childless, set off to find land in Canaan. They arrive in the midst of a famine and have to escape to Egypt. The story should have ended sadly at this point. There is no land, or offspring. Except, God is not finished yet.
And so the story continues. After a run in with Pharaoh in Egypt, Abraham and Sarah return to the promised land of Canaan. Abraham begins squatting and farming. God promises again, much land and many kids. It is the “happily ever after” ending that Abraham dreams about.
The story continues and at one point Abraham says to God: “Uh… I have not seen any land or kids yet.” Even after God makes two formal covenant promises the story still looks like it is ending badly. Except, God is not finished yet.
Abraham gets impatient. He fathers a son by Sarah's Egyptian maid, Hagar. Ishmael is born, Abraham's idea of the ending of the story. Abraham says to God: “Here … take him … let's end this thing.” Perhaps the story should have ended there. Except, God is not finished yet.
And so it goes, chapter after chapter of divine promise and God not being finished yet. But as the story goes, it begins to become clear that Abraham is learning to live differently. Instead of living his life in search of an ending, preferably a happily-ever-after ending, Abraham is living his life enjoying the fact that God is not finished yet; wondering how God is going to work in his life in the next page of the story. And this is what the Bible, especially the book of Hebrews, calls a life of faith (see Hebrews 11).
Your life, my life, the life of faith, is a never-ending story. Humanly, we think in finite terms, in terms of endings. This is especially so when life is hard or when life is difficult. But God is infinite and God does not deal in the finite or in endings. “God is not finished yet” is the basis of our lives of faith. Whatever you or I are going through just now, it is just one more step in the never-ending story. God is not finished yet. What is God going to do in the next step of the journey — the next page of the story? The life of faith is one of hope that is grounded in the certainty that God is not finished working in your life… working with your personhood, working with your health, working with your relationships, working with your work, working with your family. like Abraham and Sarah, we live lives full of promise, promise steeped in God's love and God's commitment. Each day we rise to the next part of the story of God and His love working in every aspect of the next page of our lives. And filled with hope we launch our boat.
