I am fish-sitting for one of the children’s Sunday School classes again. The last time I did this we had one casualty. There’s only five goldfish, but it reminds me of the days when I had three aquariums of various sizes. My prize fish was a Tiger Oscar, with orange and black stripes. I also had a Plecostomas, which was like a little spotted shark with a suction cup to eat all the garbage in the aquarium. It resided in the back of the aquarium during the day, but if you quickly turned on the lights at night you could see it sucking on the glass. The Oscar slept at night so I guess you might say they had different social schedules. I don’t think they liked each other much, probably because the Oscar would have made a meal of the plecostomas if he could have, but he couldn’t quite swallow him. There were also some spotted catfish in the aquarium. Oscar actually tried to eat one of them once and instead received a bad case of indigestion as it was caught in his throat. He almost choked as apparently none of the other fish knew the heimlich manuever. Fortunately, I found him in time and he recovered. Unfortunately, the catfish didn’t recover.
I guess you could say I know about fish, fish tanks, fish filters, fish food, and fish stuff. There’s a lot to fish that your average person doesn’t realize or even care about that much. Initially my knowledge didn’t go beyond the basics. Like, if a fish is swimming upside down it is probably dead. Or, dead fish look bigger in the aquarium than than the do just before you flush them down the toilet. I also discovered fish will eat and eat and eat until they explode which is why you only feed them a little at a time. I think I had also read that fish must rest half an hour after they eat or they’ll get cramps and drown, but that story now sounds a little fishy to me.
One of my aquariums had a clear plastic partition down the middle. I think that one or two of the fish that died might have run into the wall, knocked themselves out, and drowned, but I am not sure.
Anyway, now I know about wet/ dry filters, algea eaters, brackish water, etc. I always wanted a bigger tank and even now I miss my aquariums. I think I developed a fish fetish. Fish have a way of doing that to people. You might start with five goldfish in a glass jar, but then you add this and that and before you know it you have a tank the size of the Great Barrier Reef and Sentosa’s Underwater Aquarium is calling to see if you can keep a dolphin for the weekend.
“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs- He wants to please his commanding officer.” (II Timothy 2:3-4)
Sometimes my fish died because the water in the tank didn’t have enough of something or too much of something else. The tank was unbalanced. When life has a bitter taste, when our tomorrows appear cloudy and murky, when all our fish are floating belly up, it’s time to test our waters and see what is out of balance.
Paul’s words to Timothy is the tank tester we need. It’s a fairly simple test, merely a small question. Are you caught up in the things of the world or are you seeking to please Christ? What is the center of your life?
Sometimes get caught up in the things of the world as we try to keep a daytime calendar that requires 25 hour days. We then wonder why we are so tired or never have time to do anything. We spend so much time and energy working to get the things our society values that in the end we don’t have time to enjoy them or the things in life that are so much more important – fellowship with God, family, and friends. Sometimes we may feel like we have charged into an invisible wall, have been knocked out by frustrations and tragedies, and are drowning in despair. Sometimes we may have spiritual indigestion because we have eaten too much of the things of the world or we are choking from trying to eat the wrong things.
Why not look over your activities this week as and ask yourself the questions, “How can I please Christ in the things I do? Is my life out of balance? What things do I need to add to my schedule or remove from it to get my life into balance?”
MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.