ARE YOU LISTENING

Listening to what people are saying is a very beneficial skill that comes easy to some, but usually not so easy for adolescents.

Dad was always good about taking my brothers and I fishing when we were younger. It was an affordable way to keep the four of us entertained, and most times we brought home a bunch of fish, which was also an affordable way to fill our seemingly bottomless pits for stomachs.

The situation of icing and gear looked something like this - Dad and my uncle built an ice fishing house big enough for about 2 adults and 4-5 kids (it was pretty sweet for the early 1980’s.) When the ice was at least 12 inches thick we’d haul the fish house onto an area lake, drill holes down through the ice that lined up with holes in the bottom of the fish house, put the house over those holes, turn on the propane heater, and start fishing. Each of us had a little fishing pole. We’d put a worm on the hook and lower the line down the hole. It was then just a matter of waiting for the bobber to go down, setting the hook, and pulling up a fish.

On one occasion, my dad drilled a hole about 30 yards away from the fishing house. He set up a “tip up,” which is a device that when a large enough fish takes the bait, it releases (tips up) a flag into the air letting you know a fish is there. In hopes of luring in a big fish, Dad loaded the hook of the tip up with a large sucker minnow.

After an hour of fishing the sun was starting to set, and we had already caught several fish by this time.  Suddenly, Dad yelled, “TIP UP!” He hurdled over two kids and much of the equipment that was between him and the door like a finely trained olympic athlete. Busting out the door of the fish house, he ran to the tip up and started pulling up line. The rest of us watched through the window and door in awe. After what seemed like an eternity, Dad starting yelling something at us while waving his arm. Without listening, we ran out to him to see what all the commotion was about. As we got close to him, he turned toward us and yelled, “I said, GET THE GAFF!” (A gaff is a stick with a large hook on the end of it. Ours was an old broom handle with a large hook duct taped to the end.) One of us finally came to our senses, ran back to the fish house, retrieved the gaff and gave it to Dad. He extended his entire arm and the gaff down the hole into the water, and in a quick jerk, he hoisted the biggest Northern Pike I’d ever seen, up through the hole and onto the ice. It was awesome!

James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.