“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.” So begins Norman Mclean’s novella “A River Runs Through It.”  It’s a moving and tragic, semi-autobiographical story of two brothers in the 1920s and 30s.

I know pastors who are almost religious in their devotion to fishing, but I’m intrigued about Mclean’s statement that there was no clear line in his family between religion and fly fishing. Shouldn’t there be a clear separation between religion and other things in life? Some people think so. I’ve dealt with disgruntled folks who felt a quote from Charlie Brown in a sermon was inappropriate or who thought I was “preaching politics” when I mentioned a current event.

For me there isn’t a sharp distinction between religion and everything else. All things, all times, and all situations come under the rule of God. Our whole belong to Christ. He commands us to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. Nothing is excluded. We have to think about  being followers of Christ in every life situation–work, recreation, encounters with family and strangers, and so forth. Everything is for Christ.

Read Colossians 3:17 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne