Recently, my sons and I went fishing at the river where I had often fished as a boy. We fished for about an hour, but had only one nibble. The fish did not seem to be biting. Boredom soon set in. As it drew near time to leave, I suggested that we all pray and ask the Lord that we might catch at least one fish before we went home. After we had all prayed together, I discussed with my sons what it meant to believe and to expect the Lord to answer our prayers; that without faith it is impossible to please the Lord. And the difference between presumption (which is taking the Lord for granted) and true, sincere, child-like faith in His promises to bless us. I encouraged everyone to watch their fishing lines closely, to have faith, and to expect the Lord to answer.

About 15 minutes went by, and nothing happened. Just as I was thinking that we should get going, I spotted a fin sticking out of the water several feet off shore, and heading toward where we were on the river bank. A Small Mouth Bass swam in to us, rolled over on its side, and died. All my oldest son had to do was simply step down, reach in, and pick it up. There did not appear to be anything wrong with the Bass nor any reasonable explanation for this strange occurrence. Normally, a fish close to shore, sensing people on shore, will hurriedly zip away and swim back into deeper water. But this fish just swam right to us - and all we had to do was pick it up! As it began to dawn on me that what had occurred was so obviously against nature, and after briefly calculating the astronomical odds of such a thing happening by accident, - I realized that this was The Lord answering our prayer - but NOT the WAY that we had EXPECTED Him to answer!

WE were all watching THE FISHING LINES. But the Lord was NOT confined to our fishing lines as His only means of providing an answer to our prayer! He did not need our fishing lines. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His thoughts and ways higher than ours! The Lord is ABLE. We went away rejoicing, and humbled, that the Lord should so graciously answer our prayer, while teaching us a valuable spiritual lesson in doing so. It was, indeed, a MIRACLE! Jesus is still performing MIRACLES every day! BELIEVE and EXPECT! Hallelujah!