I got invited “Deep Sea Fishing” and … well my mind conjured up something like this picture. I called to memory the beautifully plasticized Marlin that hung in my hometown grocery store. I could picture Daryl behind the meat counter reenacting “The Battle.” Some poor customer who had come in for fresh ground beef was getting old fish. Then I began imagining myself, center deck, lashed to the chair, the rod connecting me to some finned beast, twisted into a quivering horseshoe of tension. That dastardly denizen of the deep would not prevail … you need not have experience and skill to be a great fisherman!
Reality was somewhat different. I did catch a fish … the only fish. The Sierra must have been on the hook a while before the captain alerted us to pull in the line. He or she (it’s terribly hard to tell) did not put up much of a fight. Other than those ten second of excitement, reality was five hours of chasing gulls through choppy waters. The company was good, the day was beautiful, I loved being on the water … it just wasn’t what I’d expected. Expectations can be hard to manage.
I find among my fellow humans a general expectation, even a sense of entitlement, to receive great good. When the cosmos doesn’t deliver, we all feel horribly put upon. The Bible tells us a starkly different story. No person should expect good. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wages of that sin is eternal spiritual death. (Romans 3:23 & 6:23)
“the wages of sin is death” concludes with the Good News, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
