Alive

Fishing rough in the Smokies last week. 42 degree water and limited hatches. Things are looking up here though a few warm rains and bright sun, we should be in business soon.
I have come to the realization that I have a great and Blessed life. The Almighty has provided for me the best of what this world has to offer. A beautiful wife and 3 great kids, friends like Christ had (they are fisherman of the finest sort and men that are committed to my family as I am to theirs) fine fly rods and good dogs. I watch a young man about my age speak recently and he is dying of cancer, he said something very profound. All gifts are from God and they are all good including his cancer. The cancer had made him better, a better husband, dad, worker and boss. As I saw it a few years ago when I laid dying of an unknown infection or years ago when I suffered from encopresis for nearly two decades, those things were not a gift but a burden. I can now see that they were gifts, gifts of tools to better me and my life. What I wondered about as I listened to this man was things will change and they are gifts not burdens. As I spoke with a friend last evening we commented on how good life is but it will changes our friends will have to move away, will get a chronic or depilating disease or possible die. The conclusion we can to “Is that we are “ALIVE”” and we must live as though we are.
If we are “Alive” why do we watch the news? Why do we care about the troubles in the government or the latest scandal out of Hollywood? I want to care about, if they are catching fish one #14 gnats or #10 woolly buggers. I want to care about what is fresh from the garden and when can I sit on the porch and hold my wife’s hand. I want to care if my kids are doing the “right” thing and their walk with God is where it should be. If we are “Alive” alive in Christ why then do we live in fear and frustration? Why do we fear the government, policies, taxes and the war that rages around us? In the movie “Life is Beautiful” the Dad protected his son from the world at war, do we do that? Do we allow God to protect us from the world warring against us? No we go to the fence and watch the war raging and sometimes we venture in to get a taste of battle. Why not taste Freedom, God the Almighty has given us freedom from the world. I want to run free in the freedom that God has given us. To do that I must lay down my pride, you know the type, the type that says I can handle this or I have made myself successful. I lay my fear and my pride at the feet of the King and go and run FREE. Free from the hassles of life. To be free doesn’t mean things won’t change and that things won’t be rough, what it does mean is that God sits on the throne and that we are not the dog in the fight but the dog on the porch in the shade.