Instead of trying to impress God with how amazing your works are. How about you just do your best to tell God you love Him today? The Skit Guys provide a modern parable about our family and then relate it to our relationship with God.
Since I missed posting yesterday, I thought this might be a great combination of a springboard for your spiritual life and your family life.
Enjoy.
When I was in elementary school, I read a story in one of my classes that has stuck with me ever since. I wish I could find the story again to give the actual author the proper credit. Instead, I’ll just have to recreate my own version of the story. I included it in my book Built by the Lord: Studies on the Family a couple of years ago in the chapter entitled “Enjoy the Journey.” I think the message is profound. I’ll present it here with out any comment from me.
A Magic Fish
A recently married young farmer, taking a well-earned day of rest, was out fishing. He had caught about all he wanted, but cast his line out just one last time. He felt the tug and brought in his biggest catch of the day. As he was about to toss the fish into his bucket (you’ll never believe this), it began to speak.
“Please, don’t throw me in that pile of fish. I am actually a fairy princess trapped in the body of this fish by an evil sorceress. If you let me live and cast me back into the water, I can give you a wonderful gift. Life can be miserable sometimes, but I can grant you the gift to skip those miserable parts. All you will have to do is wish yourself into the future and immediately you will be taken to a future point of life.”
The farmer thought this was amazing. He decided to chance it and tossed the fish back in the water. When the fish resurfaced, she said, “I have given you a tremendous gift. Use it wisely and remember you can only move forward; you can never move back into the past. Your body will age, but your mind will only grow the amount of time you actually experience.”
Then she sank beneath the surface and was gone. Two days later, the farmer began plowing his fields. He was hot and miserable and he decided to see if the gift really worked. He wished he could skip to the end of the day, going straight to dinner with his wife. No sooner had he made the wish than he was sitting in his house at the dinner table. It was as if his body had kept on doing the work and living his life but his mind and soul had just skipped the day.
After a few more days of work, he decided he had had enough of this and wished he could skip to the end of the harvest. Immediately he found himself at the end of the harvest, ready to sell his crops at the market. “This is not so bad,” he thought. “I wonder why that fish said I had to be so careful.”
A couple of years went by and his wife became pregnant. He was so excited. He couldn’t wait for another seven months to go by to see his first child. He wished to skip ahead to the day after the birth. The next instant he heard a baby crying in the other room and his wife asking for help.
After a couple of sleepless nights, he wished he could skip ahead to when the child was sleeping all night and potty trained. After having a few more kids, the man just could not believe how stressful it was to raise children. He finally decided just to skip the whole thing. He wished himself to a time when all the children were out of the house.
Though his mind was only a few years older than when he first received the gift, his body had aged quite a bit. He was tired, his body ached most of the time and he just didn’t want to work anymore. He wished to skip ahead to when he was old enough to let his kids take care of him.
Suddenly, there he was with his wife and his grown children. He began to listen to their conversation. They were laughing and sometimes crying. The kids were discussing their childhood memories. The farmer’s wife was chiming in. However, whenever they turned to the farmer, he only smiled. He couldn’t say anything because he did not remember any of it. He had wished it all away. His body was old and could hardly enjoy his present life, but he could not even take joy in happy memories. He had none.
He left the house and walked purposefully to the lake where he had caught the magic fish, crying all the way. Was the fish still alive? Perhaps someone else had caught the fish and not been so generous? It had been many years, how long could a fish, even a magic one, actually live? Even if it was alive, could he find it? If he could find it, would it do anything? After all, it had warned him.
He walked to the bank and waded in a few feet and began to cry out as loud as he could, “Magic fish! It’s me the farmer who set you free so many years ago. I have been very foolish and made a terrible mistake. Please, come help me!” He repeated his plea several times, but nothing happened. Finally, he just plopped down in the water, his face in his hands, sobbing. He had missed his life and there was nothing to be done about it.
A moment later the water broke and the fish appeared.
“Hello, farmer,” the fish said. “I have already given you one great gift, why should I grant you another?”
“O fairy princess, you warned me not to use your gift unwisely. But I have. I have been foolish beyond belief. My mind is young, but my body is old. I have no fond memories of my life because I wished them all away. Please, take me back to the day I caught you and let me live my life.”
“But I told you, you can only go forward, you can never go back. Sending you back to the day you caught me will end the gift I gave you. You will have to endure every trial, every tribulation, every misery and never be able to miss any of it.”
“I don’t care. I want to live my life. I want to enjoy every minute of every day. I want to see how my wife and I grow closer together. I want to see my children learn to walk and run and live. I want to experience every accomplishment. The tough times will be worth it if only to experience the joy of the good times. I have made it to the end of my life and I have accomplished so much, but I cannot enjoy any of it because I skipped it all.”
The fish disappeared beneath the surface of the water and the man cried out, “No, come back.” He sat their consumed in his grief and bowed his head into his hands once again. But then something odd happened. Suddenly, he was no longer sitting in the water. He was dry and sitting in his old boat. His skin was no longer wrinkled and his body no longer ached. He looked up and the fish resurfaced and said, “This was really my gift to you. The ability to skip the miseries of life is really no gift at all. The ability to enjoy the journey is the greatest I can give you. You have set me free, I thank you.” The fish disappeared.
The man eagerly paddled his boat to shore. Tied it to a tree and ran to his house. There he found his young wife. He rushed to her, picked her up and kissed her. She never learned what happened to her husband. But she did learn she had married a man who was able to live with the bad days because he knew how to enjoy the journey.
Some friends were over last night and we watched Dan in Real Life for what must have been the 10th time for Marita and me. I just love that movie.
Granted, I have to say I don’t buy the Hollywood message that we really can know true love in just three days. I think Dan was right the first time when he said that was infatuation and not real love. On the other hand, real love can grow out of that infatuation if they work hard for the years to come.
However, what I really wanted to highlight in today’s Springboard for Your Family is how easy it is to give good advice and not really pay attention to it yourself.
Steve Carell plays Dan Burns, a widowed parenting advice columnist with three daughters. While at a yearly extended family weekend, he meets a woman at a bookstore and feels an immediate connection. When he gets back to the family house, he discovers this woman is actually his brother’s girlfriend. Then the fun really begins.
It’s a romantic comedy of errors as Dan tries to shut off his feelings for Marie and in the process breaks nearly every bit of advice he would offer parents with his own girls. I see me in Dan. Don’t get me wrong, I never wanted to date my brothers’ girlfriend (especially since my brothers are more than a decade younger than I am). But I do, sadly, often break the very advice I would offer others about how to relate to my wife and children.
Hey, this is about progress not perfection. But, at the same time, before we spend all our time telling everyone else how they should parent, taking their inventory about their relationships, we need to take our own inventory. In fact, before we tell our spouse how to live and behave to fix our marriage, we should look at how we are behaving. Before we tell our kids or parents how to behave, we should look at how we are behaving.
In the end, Dan finally gets the girl, makes amends with his daughters and gets the girl. His brother finds someone else and all is well for Dan in Real Life. Granted, real life doesn’t always work out so handsomely. But it will always come out better if we look at how we are behaving first.
Just for fun, here’s the trailer:
I’m happy to offer you this guest article by Frederic Gray, leader of the Fathers of Faith, Daughters of Excellence Retreat.
Have you ever had an event take place in your life and you knew you would never be the same? You knew because of some statement you heard, book you read or occurrence that took place you would never be the same. It has to me…several times. But I don’t think any of those moments have had quite the same impact on me as the one I will share with you now.
One day, my tenth grade health teacher, Mr. MacFarland, a former Mr. Minnesota, had us answer a series of questions on a sheet of paper. We did this exercise as individuals, quietly, but then we had to answer the questions out loud in front of the whole class. We went down each row in numerical order. When it came time for the question, “I am good at ________,” the girl whose turn it was said, “I am a good listener.”
Mr. MacFarland stopped the class. He said, “Everyone listen to what she said. If you are a good listener, you will never run out of friends.”
WHAT??? Could he be right???
You see, up until that time in my life, I was often very lonely, and had trouble making friends. I was socially awkward more often than not, and I desperately craved the friends everyone else seemed to have.
I HAD to test his theory. So I called a girl that I used to live next door to. After we got beyond, “So why did you call?” and, “Oh, I just called to say hi,” I had nothing to say. So I said the only thing I could think of. “So, um…are there any guys you like?” Boy, did I hit the magic button! She talked, and talked, and talked, and talked…you get the idea.
Two hours later, with me having said a handful of “huhs” and “wows,” she said, “This was fun. Call me tomorrow.”
From that moment on, my life has never been the same. My life changed instantly! From that day, my friends have continued to multiply exponentially. Girls instantly took an interest in me. Adults thought I was respectful. And children loved me. And all of this happened because I listened.
You can imagine my surprise when, after I became a Christian at age 21, I discovered that God actually commands people to be slow to speak and quick to listen. (James 1:19)
So what is the point of all of this?
Well, based on my personal observations and feedback from others, it seems to me the family is a place listening is often neglected. In the family, people often forsake proactive listening and focus on themselves.
Listening is powerful, almost magical. Listening proactively, especially within a family context where we have so many needs, can sooth someone’s anxiety, communicate love, serve as emotional affection, and serves as a calming salve for arguments (Proverbs 15:1).
In addition, when you begin to understand someone through proactive listening, it is much easier to give them the benefit of the doubt. Aren’t we a lot more forgiving when we understand where someone is coming from? Let’s take a look at each of our family members, and let’s be slow to speak, and quick to listen. Let’s change our families for the better by making our home a haven of understanding, rather than a web of mangled assumptions.
–Frederic Gray
Check out the book today!
From Chapter 4, “Keeping the Family Together”
Family life in 21st century America is not easy. Though, I imagine our New Testament counterparts would scoff at such a statement.
When we want to take a hot bath, we walk 10 feet into our bathroom and turn a couple of knobs. We do not have to take 15 trips to the river with two buckets and then light a fire to heat the water. If we want to cook a meal, we walk into the kitchen, put some food in a pan, turn some knobs on the oven and wait. Or, we pull something out of a freezer, shove it into a microwave, punch a few buttons and have a meal in five minutes. Or better yet, we hop in our air conditioned cars and drive ten minutes to a place where somebody else does the cooking for us. Few of us have to plow a field, plant and cultivate seed. Few of us have to raise cattle or hunt wild game. We do not have to chop down wood daily with which to cook our food. I we want to wear clothe, we drive to the store (again in our air conditioned cars) and buy some. We do not have to make thread, weave material and sew our own clothes. Then when those clothes are dirty, we sort them into piles of matching colors and dump them in machines that wash and cry them for us. We do not have to carry them down to the river, beat them on a rock, try to scrape the dirt and muck out of them and then hang them out to dry.
Let’s face it. Our lives really are easy. What took our New Testament brethren hours to do takes us minutes, if we have to do it at all. This actually means we have more leisure time available than anyone in history. Don’t close the book. I know what you are thinking. “Where does this nut get off saying I have all kinds of leisure time?” I am saying that because you and I do not have to spend most of every day just providing the bare necessities of life. We actually have enough time to work overtime and get paid time and a half. We actually enough time to put our kids in little league, football, soccer, scouts and other activities. Our new Testament brethren did not have enough time for all the things that make our lives hectic because they spent their time surviving.
All this leisure time, however, has given us our own set of hardships. Few of us struggle for the necessities of life. However, because we have so much leisure time and so many opportunities to pursue pastimes, many of us struggle regarding the necessities of maintaining proper family relationships and togetherness.
Consider the following family.
Mom and Dad want to provide the best in housing, clothing and education for little Billy and susie. Therefore they both work in the corporate world. They get up early to drop Billy and Susie at school. Billy and Susie are three years apart, so Dad carries Billy to middle school on his way to work and secretly thinks, “I sure am glad I am saving up enough money to buy Billy a car in a few years. When he turns sixteen he can take himself and Susie to school and i will have little more time to myself.” Mom drops Susie off at elementary school.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Billy has practice for the school play right after school. Then he has either little league or soccer after that. Mom or Dad rushes to pick up Susie from school, then goes to get Billy to take him from play practice to sports practice, then runs through the drive through to get something for the kids to eat. They let Susie eat in the car on the way to her Monday piano lessons and drop her off in time to pick Billy up from sports practice. he eats while they drive back to get Suzy. They hurry home to make the kids do their homework before shuffling them off to bed. Wednesday are tough because they have to fit all this in before Bible class.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Billy has baseball games or soccer matches, while Susie has softball practice. All of Susie’s softball games and tournaments are on the weekends. When the softball season is over, Susie’s Saturdays are filled with tennis lessons and competitions. On thursday, they also try to fit in scouts for both of the kids. Fortunately, the parents in each troop take turns picking up several of the kids from school and taking them to their various den and troop meetings.
Mom and Dad want to be active in Billy and Susie’s schooling. They work with both PTAs (elementary and middle school). They try to make it to all the parent-teacher conferences. Billy is in the band and Susie is in the choir and they attend all of their concerts and competitions.
On top of all this, Mom and Dad have lives of their own. They have to fit work into all this. Every once in a while they have to go on business trips. Further, they try to find time to pursue their personal hobbies. That is tough because of all the time they spend helping Billy and Susie with school projects.
Mom and Dad are Christians the hope Billy and Susie will be someday too. It is very important to them to make it to all the worship services and Bible classes. They do make it to most of them. However, to be honest, it does rumple their feathers a little when the preacher comments on how few people are getting their lessons completed. “Doesn’t he realize what an amazing eat it is for us to be here?” they wonder. They get to the building and shuffle the kids off to their classes and then go to theirs. They come into the worship assembly. The new preacher is big into getting all the kids to sit together, so the kids sit down on the front few rows away from their parents. The one making announcements talks about the training class for the boys taking place every Sunday afternoon, the Sunday night devotional for middle school and high school, the Bible drill for the elementary kids and the various special things members have set up for the various age groups.
When the family does get a few minutes to be together on a Friday or Saturday evening, they are so exhausted they decide to simply pop in a video or go to the movies. They sit next to each other but are mentally miles apart as they gaze upon the silver screen.
In the extremely few moments of solitude and meditation, Mom and Dad wonder how they can fit anything else into their schedule and are about ready to murder the author of a book who claims they have more leisure time than anyone in history.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Is it any wonder even Christian families are falling apart? With these kinds of schedules, when were these families ever sticking together? Add into this equation that time at home is often spent just as separate as time at school, work and church. The family are all within the same dwelling, but each member is doing his or her own thing. Each child has their own room, equipped with television, telephone or computer (with internet access). They can spend all evening in the same house with two to four other people and never actually se each other.
This is the great American struggle–keeping the family together.
Check back in next Tuesday’s Springboard for Your Family Life to learn how to combat this great American struggle and have meaningful family time together.
