A FISH TALE

I got the inspiration for this month’s article from my daughter’s fish. Yes, you heard me right. That just goes to show you God can use anything to get His message across. He is so awesome.

My daughter Blair got her sister Leigha a betta fish last year for her birthday. It’s her favorite color - red - and Leigha named it Flippy for some unknown reason. Blair figured it would teach Leigha responsibility, as she would be in charge of feeding it and cleaning its bowl once a week.

As I was changing the fish’s bowl this week, (and I will give all the parents out there a moment to smile and nod) God used the visual to speak to me (and therefore to you) about the theme abundance.

Isaiah 42:16 “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make rough places smooth.”

Every week Flippy’s bowl gets so cloudy that I can barely see Flippy in all of that murk. Flippy swims around in it, not being able to see outside of his bowl, just as I can barely see inside of it.

When his surroundings get this murky he swims differently. He swims around, and his fins are decidedly hanging by his side, limp from the weight of all of the muck.

Yet Flippy continues swimming around -- because that’s what fish do.

It’s instinctive.

 No matter how murky the water is, he just accepts it and swims the best he can despite the weight on his fins or the fact that he is swimming almost blind due to the cloudiness of the water surrounding him. Physically he is drooping, and his sight is all but blocked.

When I see him like that, it breaks my heart.

“Flippy, look around you!! It’s all cloudy and dark! You’re slumped over like you have the weight of the world (or too many betta flakes) on your back. You can barely see and I can barely find you in there.” He just looks at me with a blank stare.

“Flippy---it doesn’t have to be that way. Let me help you!!!”

1 Peter 5: 6-7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”

I set about helping him. I fill up a new bowl with fresh, clean water. Drop in the “Betta-gunk-off” liquid to help things roll off Flippy’s back instead of him carrying them and getting weighted down. It helps him swim freely again.

I wash off new marbles, buff up hand-picked seashells and line them on the bottom of his new bowl. I then set the new environment for Flippy next to the bowl he is sadly still in, his dejected little eyes watching my every move.

With the bowls side by side, it is clear to see how divine the bowl with the fresh water is compared to the murky dark bowl that Flippy has come to know as home.

I get my little fish net and go to lift Flippy out of the darkness and into the light--- and what does Flippy do??? He fights me. He freaks out. He does everything he can think to do to not get into that net.

He knows that he can barely swim in the surroundings that he is currently in. He knows that he can barely see. He feels the weight on his back of the murk all around him. It’s total bleakness, yet he is afraid of the change.

Afraid of leaving the murk that he is now accustomed to ---afraid to be lifted into clarity-- into light.

The outcome is so clear, especially seeing the bowls side by side. Yet Flippy can’t see that the new bowl is clear, because of the murk in the bowl he is in now. Looking through the murk, he only sees murk.

He can’t see that the new bowl is nothing like the one he is in now -- it’s clear -- and fresh--- and he will be able to swim freely, without the weight. He will be able to see clearly, without the murk.

It’s so obvious that where he is going is so much clearer, so much better, so much lighter, so much healthier than where he’s been. So why does he fight being lifted out of there?

I don’t know------- why do you???????

I told you God was awesome. What an amazing fish tale. 

"........... and you, light up my life..................................."

Copyright 2006 Linda Woodward