Two Views Of Fishing
Submitted by Frank Williams
June 9, 2025
Ps 27:10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.
Sunday is Father’s Day. It always is a special occasion for me in that God has given four children that call me “Dad.”
I was primarily raised without a father. My father, who was a drunkard, left us when I was yet a baby. I was a young teenager when I first met him, and he was still a drunkard. It was just a few years later that we got word that he had died in the back room of a country store where they were letting him sleep it off. He was in his early 40’s .
I did not know this man to be anything but a drunkard. I had no feelings for him. And I did not realize the lack of emotional foundation and effect of not having him in my life had on me, until I became a Christian. I remember the joy that came to me when I found Psalm 27:10 in the Bible.
For fathers, even small investments in a child’s life can have good and lasting influences. Sometimes there are effects of our influence that we may never know.
Here’s a true story about two views of fishing.
Brook Adams kept a diary from his boyhood. (a common thing in that day) One special day when he was eight years old, he wrote in his diary, "Went fishing with my father; the most glorious day of my life."
Throughout the next 40 years of his life he never forgot that day he went fishing with his father. He made repeated references to it in his diary, commenting on the influence of that day on his life.
Brook's father was an important man; he was Charles Francis Adams, the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain under the Lincoln administration—Son of President John Quincy Adams; grandson of John Adams. Interestingly, he too made a note in his diary about the fishing trip.
He wrote simply, "Went fishing with my son; a day wasted."
Here’s another true story. Someone has written, "Last night my little boy confessed to me some childish wrong; and kneeling at my knee, he prayed with tears, 'O Lord, make me a man like Daddy - wise and strong. I know you can.' Then while he slept, I knelt beside his bed, confessed my sins and prayed with low-bowed head, 'O God, make me a child like my child here; pure, guileless, trusting thee with faith sincere.'"
What kind of a father are you?
Consider – It is character, not circumstances, that makes a man.
