Occasionally, I am asked why I am such a fanatic about fishing. The short answer is that my Dad was a fanatic about fishing. I can remember fishing with my Dad first on Midway Island. My Dad, who was in the Navy for the first twelve years of my life, was stationed at Midway from 1957 to 1959, when I was 10 to 12. Most people know Midway Island because of the Battle of Midway during World War II, June 4th, 1942. It is said that this battle was the turning point in the war. Midway comprises two Islands: Sand Island, about a thousand acres, where we lived, and Easter Island, about 500 acres. Easter Island had no facilities or people on it when we were there.

Both Islands were surrounded by a reef about 50 feet across and several feet above the water. At some point in its history, an opening was made in the reef for ships to come in and out to the shipping center on the Eastern side of the Island. Those docks and the concrete sea wall were where Dad and I would walk to go fishing. There were many kinds of tropical fish, and I caught many of them. Several species were big, and attempting to bring them in gave me an incredible thrill. The reef created a wave barrier for the island, so the water at the beach was very flat and calm. It was also warm and blue. We swam a lot, and Midway is where I learned to swim well and love the ocean. We would often swim out to the reef and snorkel and spear Parrot fish with hand-made and hand-thrown spears made out of 3/8 inch bronze rods that Dad would bring home from the Base. We would file a barbed point on one end of the four-foot rod and slay us some fish. We had to be careful that we didn’t spear too big a fish, or they would swim off with our spear. We would swim out to the reef, pulling an inner tube behind us with a dishpan tied in the center, where we put our fish until we towed them back home. The parrot fish had a four-part beak for a mouth and ate coral. They would have their head in the reef, nipping away at coral, and wouldn’t see us as we swam up close and speared them.

As I think about my life’s history, it reminds me of building a house. There is the foundation, the framing, the siding, the sheetrock, and many more parts to the completed building. God created the world and everything in it in stages or days, and He has built me and who I am in the same way.

Psalms 139:13-16 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will thank You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

God created my physical body, but the critical creation has been my character, who I am, the part of me that lives forever. We all have unique histories and important stories of how God has molded and shaped us into His image. One of the Bible’s clear messages is that we must cooperate with God as He does His work in us. That cooperation is called trusting, obeying, and seeking.