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WednesdayPrayer Group - 7:30 p.m. (Church) Prayer Group - 7:30 p.m. (Perkasie - location varies)
644 Allentown Rd. | Franconia, PA 18969 (215) 723-5979
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by Pastor Fred G. Zaspel
“Simple Simon went a fishing
For to catch a whale.
But all the water that he had,
Was in his mother’s pail.”
Many and varied have been the characters who have appeared on the pages of the nursery books and lived in the imaginations of children. We all remember well dear Old Mother Hubbard, Little Miss Muffet, Old King Cole, Tom the Piper’s Son, Humpty Dumpty, and many others. But few are more pitied than Simple Simon, the good natured, harmless, simple boy who went fishing for a whale in his mother’s pail.
No one would accuse Simon of being a simpleton just because he went fishing. Great men of all kinds have been avid fishermen. Nor would we say that Simon was silly for going after a whale — whaling is big business. Both fishing and fishing for whales are perfectly legitimate ambitions.
If Simon had caught a whale in his mother’s pail, it would have been big news everywhere! But poor Simon — he has been laughed at by generations because he went fishing for a whale in a place where no whale could ever possibly be.
It occurs to me that the world is filled with Simple Simons. Countless people really believe that ultimate satisfaction can be found in this sin-sick fallen world. Like Simple Simon they go fishing in the shallow pails of business, entertainment, education, pleasure, booze, sex, sports — thinking all along that souls created in God’s image could find fulfillment in something less than God Himself. And they never seem to realize that their pail is just too shallow to hold the whale for which they are fishing.
The prophet Jeremiah saw the same senselessness on the part of the Israelites of his day. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13). Silly as it is, we go on doing it — looking for ultimate joy in places where it cannot possibly be found. We turn from the only real source of true contentment, seek to find that contentment in other places, and then wonder why we still do not have it. Augustine said it right — “Thou hast created us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until we rest in thee.”
But it is just this rest, this blessedness of knowing God, that the Lord Jesus Christ freely gives (Matt. 11:27-30). This is the value of Jesus Christ — in Him we come to know God! When we go to Christ acknowledging our helplessness and the hopelessness of all other pursuits, our thirst for ultimate fulfillment is quenched. He is the fountain of living water in which eternal life is found, and having drunk from this well, we are no longer thirsty. We know God, and knowing Him we are very content.
When you sense that your friends are frustrated, searching for but unable to find deep, lasting joy, be sure to tell them where they can find it. Tell them that you experience this joy yourself every day. Tell them that in Christ we find “rest.”
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