New Life in my Motor

Well I got the motor working, looks like I will be fishing soon.  I don’t even know what to say, other then I feel stupid.  Ok so here’s what the problem was……not the controls, ignition, solenoid and battery.  I overlooked a small fuse, yes a small fuse that had blown.  The cause of my stress for a week has been a small AGA 20 fuse, a 3 dollar part!

I had checked it the first time I gave the motor a once over.  It looked good in poor lighting.  After basically thinking I was never going to figure out the problem I went back to the motor and looked it over again.  I don’t know why I looked at the fuse again but I did.  After holding it to the light and thinking that might be blown I ran to the auto store got the 3 dollar part and hit the ignition….the motor came to life.

I had been text messaging Josh back and forth all day because I honestly thought I would not be fishing this summer from my boat meaning no tourneys.  I was upset I mean really upset.  Josh asked me what I thought God was teaching me (Which I blogged about here) and I what I would look back in three months and see.  My response was I didn’t get to fish all summer.  Man that was stupid of me to say.

After cranking the motor a good 10 times I stopped bowed my head and thanked God.  Yup I stopped and prayed.  The victory was as much Gods as it was my own.  No Gods hands did not do the work, but he did keep me from taking a hammer to the motor and beating it until it never worked again. Before I was a Christian I would have been so mad that it was not working I would have destroyed a good motor because I was angry.

I have blogged about anger before and how since becoming a Christian I have worked to get rid of the anger in my life.  This ordeal with the motor has truly tested it.  I have been a pain to live with just ask my wife.  But with God’s help I have not lost my temper like I use to.

Is funny to me that a small fuse could be the cause of all my problems.  As I put the fuse into the motor and turned the key I thought about James 3:1-12:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.  We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

  When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal.  Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.  Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

  All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind,  but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.  Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?  My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

Just like the verse says our tongues are such a small part of our bodies but they can cause big problems.  That fuse was so small and caused an entire motor to not run.  Now my motor and the way we talk to people are not related but the motor sure made me stop and think about James 3.

The funny thing is that my motor caused me to stumble, I was rude to people because of my motor.  I texted stuff to Josh that was kind of dumb because I was upset about the motor.  I let an outside source upset me and I let it cause me to be a jerk.  Don’t let outside sources cause you anger and to stumble like my motor did me.  Instead look for the positives in the situation you our going thru. 

I sure hope in 3 months I can look back at this and think man God sure helped me grow!  

Losing It

I was reading an article on Bassmaster.com about how Mike Iaconelli (IKE) has admitted he has an anger problem (read article here) and is seeking help with it from a sports psychologist.  It made me stop and think.  Last Saturday I was fishing the Fishing for Charities event on Smith Mountain Lake when I defiantly had an Ike moment.

I can say it was not my best moment…could almost be my worst moment.  The fishing was tuff, I mean really tuff.  My wife fished with me as it was a team tournament and by 11:30 we had no fish in the boat.  I was beginning to feel the pressure of the day.  We pulled into a small cove and after a half hour my wife landed are first and only bass of the day.  It began to renew the pain I was dealing with not having a bass.

But after another two hours and a bunch of miss haps like birds nest in two rods so bad I could not pick them out and seeing a bunch of bass that had no intrest in biting anything I was throwing I lost it.  I attempted to make a cast with a spinning reel and got another mess of line.  That’s when it happened.  I snapped, and snapped a rod over my knee (yup you read it right a rod over my knee).  Then a bunch of words fell from my mouth that I can’t repeat and the broken rod took a swim in the lake.

Not my finest moment, looking back I feel like a tool.  I was fishing near a dock and there was a little old lady working on her flowers 400 yards up near her house.  I wish I could take that moment back, I feel so bad about it.  I didn’t show that women I was a Christian.  She saw me for 20 minutes at most and I’m sure she thought stupid punk kid.

I surly lived up to what Proverbs 14:17 says: “A quick-tempered person does foolish things,
and the one who devises evil schemes is hated.”

I have worked hard not to be quick tempered because before becoming a Christian I was very quick tempered and I knew that it was something I needed to work on.  However here I was in a boat cussing at myself breaking a rod and tossing it in the lake (I did fish it out before I left…I didn’t want to liter). 

I know what I did was wrong and trust me I asked God for forgiveness, and if I could have figured out how to contact the little old lady and tell her I was sorry I would have done that too.  I hope you think about me and my stupid mistake the next time the temptation is there to fly off the handle and follow my lead instead be the bigger person I couldn’t be that day.