I'm not an avid fisherman; as a matter of fact, I'm not sure if I've ever caught a bass. Oh but I've heard fish stories, and even been a part of a few of those stories. My favorites are those that the mammoth of a 6 inch fish stretched to a foot long by the end of the day. By next week, somehow, the fish is 1 yard long, and pulled the boat all around the lake before we got it reeled in.
It's funny how we stretch our own accomplishments. We build them up far beyond what they ever were. We have a way of making the insignificant extremely important. Let's compare our works (fish) to the works of God.
The Bible says (Isaiah 64:6) that our works (righteous deeds) are as filthy rags. Now I've seen some filthy rags in my short 26 years on earth, and that is our best deeds. Our best work is as disgusting, muddy, greasy, dusty, musty rags. That is leaving out of the picture our "not so great" deeds. Our best is (to steal a South African term) rubbish, and really unusable.
There is no stretching our filthy rags out so far to make them appear as useful, but when we allow God to be God, his works are useful, uplifting, and full of mercy and grace.
I've only heard of one fish story where the fish was so big that it caught the man, and that is the story of Jonah. While our fish (works) seem good, they are minimal compared to the grace that God sent in the form of a fish that caught Jonah.
Why is this fish a sign of God's grace? In Jonah's reality, the fish of grace saved his life. He would've drowned in the storm in the sea. Grace swallowed him, and grace spit him out in the will of God on the shores of where he should've been. One might say grace saved him and grace led him home!
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