Hebrews 6:1
1 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God,
At sea I had lots of alone time. I also had lots of opportunities to cry out for something like staying alive or catching fish. One time comes to mind.
To say that Palmyra Atoll is in the middle of nowhere is an understatement. 900 miles south of Honolulu it is very close to the equator. 330 miles north. Here are the particulars of the atoll.
5.8885° N, 162.0787° W Latitude and longitude.
Not much there but Kingman Reef, (just north of the atoll) and the atoll attract the annual pelagic fish migration in the winter, not much winter there but the North Pacific is not a place to be for man or fish in the winter. I was a crew man on the Ipokai with my father. As stated, a couple writings ago, (development) the Ipokai was a multi fishery vessel. The weather is usually very calm around Palmyra in winter so, longlining in the winter was a profitable and comfortable enterprise.
The Allison Tuna were everywhere, giant ones and we set our longline, 48 miles long with 2500 hooks and were excited thinking we were going to load the boat in a couple of sets. Here is a picture of an Allison Tuna, they are both beautiful and delicious.
You set the line in the morning and pull it in the evening, the middle is called, “soak time.” You catch most fish as the line sinks or is pulled up because, the bait it fluttering as the line moves. This is how it looks.
Some of the buoys have transponders on them so you can gauge the currents and wind as the line drifts. With all that out of the way here is my story.
We had set our line and took a sleep during the day; we woke up and got ready for the night. With the line being 48 miles long it would take 8-10 hours to pull up. The longer the better since it meant you caught something.
We start pulling up the line and we are catching a ton of nothing. Hook after hook nothing, you can see the fish chasing bait all around us. 200–300-pound tuna, hundreds of them and we are catching nothing. Our frustration is growing as we realize our buoy lines are too long and our bait is under the fish. We are shortening them for our next set, but I don’t mind saying I was really p!$$ed off that we were pulling up a great big ole goose egg. The prospect of spending 8 hours watching fish all around us as we pull up nothing was daunting to say the least. That’s when something happened inside me.
This is another experience with God before I knew Jesus. I look up and in what I can only describe as a state of righteous indignation, and I start to shout. “God this is unacceptable. I didn’t do all this work for nothing! Do you hear me? This is unacceptable! Look the fish are everywhere! At the top of my lungs, I am yelling. This is unacceptable! The line is being pulled into the boat and I can see the next clip for a hook coming up, the hook trails the clip by about 15 feet. I shout to the sky as I am pointing at the clip, I want to catch a fish RIGHT NOW!!!!! Wham the line gets pulled down by a massive tuna.
My adrenaline is pumping full blast, and you have about 15 seconds until the next hook. I grab the hook and pass it to the crew man next to me as the line continues to come up. I shout again, I want a good night not one fish! The next hook is coming up and Wham!! We got another one. I pull that one up as the crewman takes my place at the puller. Wham another one, then another and another. In the space of 10 minutes or so we catch 10. 5 is a decent night at that size, 175-300 pounds, we averaged around 250 pounds. 2500 pounds of sushi grade tuna is a good night. As we put pull in the last fish I hear God in my head, “you ok now?” I look up and shout to the sky, “Yes, thank you.” Everyone is looking at me in disbelief and I just look at them and say, “God told me to tell you, you’re welcome.”
Hebrews 6:1 tells us to move past the basics into relationship. Demanding action from God is a not unacceptable. So many people are so passive and wonder why nothing happens. Knowing the words is not the same as knowing the meaning of them.
John 14:12-14 NKJV
The Answered Prayer
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you [c]ask anything in My name, I will do it.“
I would like to encourage you to be sorry you tried and not sorry you didn’t. Sometimes the answer is yes. I wasn’t a believer in Jesus yet, but I knew the Father. He knew I would believe, and He chose to help because I wasn’t afraid to not only ask but demand action. Try it, all you have to lose is a chance to lose your unbelief.
He is called the Father because He loves you, you matter to Him and are precious in His sight. Ask. When people ask now if I am closer to Him, I can tell them the truth. I’m working on it.
Behold I Saw 