Christ, the Great Marlin

FREE PREVIEW (A preview of your book is placed on our website to give customers a sample of your work. Maximum 1,000 words. Please provide the EXACT passage that you prefer.) dedication Desire I want to be my sons’ hero, My wife’s rescuer, A writer of poems carefully stored In kind hearts. I want to be a catcher of great fish, A close friend to a few men, And most of all, A man conquered by the Love of Jesus, The only scarred one in heaven. I want always to have a heart that craves For things bigger than my hands can hold. I want to be strong and content in aging Like the sea growing dark over deep waters. I want to be a good son to the Father. I want to love living so much That going to bed is always hard. I want to hand the city of Medellín To Jesus as a gift And then be happy alone With a cup of coffee Writing a few lines To bring to you His beauty & kindness The way a thin line pulls A great marlin from the deep. My professor at Yale, Henri Nouwen, said he pushed himself to write every day. He would start writing anything and usually without feeling. He would push the pen over the paper, and suddenly, the lines would become alive. So, today I am writing these last lines hoping they will be like dazed fish that when released in the water, that awake, shake and dart into the deep. Writing should be something alive in me darting into you. FORWARD The Beautiful Strength of the Great Marlin When I hooked up with Christ, I had no idea how strong He was. I thought I had Christ, but he had me. Jesus is bigger than I thought. I have loved the thrill of hooking big fish; marlin, shark, sailfish, tarpon. Once a huge tarpon pulled our small boat 5 miles out to sea. When I finally reeled it in, it was too dark to take a picture, but the captain estimated it to be over 150 pounds. Another time from the beach, I caught an 8-pound jack and put it on a big hook alive for bait. Within minutes, I felt the pull of something powerful, probably a tiger shark. Or maybe a Ford pickup truck. I never saw it, but It ripped off all my line. When I feel the power of these unseen fish, their desire for life runs up my arms and into my heart. The invisible life in the sea quickens the invisible life in me. “I praise what is truly alive.” * But Christ makes the heart race faster. When I surrendered to Christ, His furious love pulled me out into the deep. This love carried me to places I didn’t want to go, to love people I did not even want to meet and live forty years far from the sea. But once there, in Medellín, Colombia, I discovered a family, a treasure, a city of beloved people. I once took my friend, Pastor Joaquin, fishing for sharks off the beach of Florida. He was bored because he did not think anything would bite. Suddenly, a shark tightened his line and pulled hard for a minute before breaking the line. His eyes lit up. He was hooked. At that moment, Joaquin became a fisherman who wanted to fish day and night. Now he pastors in Spain, pulled by the Great Marlin out to sea. I thought I could reel Christ in, but He pulled me out to sea. When I was conquered by his love at 23, I never imagined I would see thousands of Colombians swept upward to a higher love, insane for the light.* My hope as you read this book, you will feel the invisible line pulling you into the unexplored. It is the Great Marlin, our lover from the sea and stars. * Words adapted from the poem, The Holy Longing, by Johann Wolfgang von Goeth