Fish Tank Doctrine

I'm taking a break from the Names of Jesus to tell you a cool story. Last night, my family and I went to this awesome restaurant at the beach called "Salt Life." It's a fish-themed restaurant and it's veryyyy cool. They had this neat fish tank right in the middle of the restaurant. Well, they had a lion fish in there. My family has a bad history with lion fish. We've had 3, I think. The first one choked on a live shrimp. The second one commit suicide (it jumped out of the tank...we noticed it had disappeared and my dad gave me a dollar for finding it). The third one died in our brutal red algaecide. After that, we gave up the fish tank.

Today, I'm going to talk about the second fish. When we noticed the lion fish in the tank at Salt Life, we reminisced about our one silly fish that killed itself. My dad said, "Why would he look around the tank and say, "I need something more than all of this?" And a lot of the time, that's how we are. I know it's true for me, at least. God puts us in this fishtank of His will. It's huge, bigger than we can see beyond. But we slowly drift around the tank wondering what to do, instead of looking at all of the coral and castles and wonderful plants and even other fish! We have no idea that all of that stuff is ours. God gave it to us. So why don't we use it? Well...one day, this little fishy (*points to self*) sees the carpeted ground of sin. It looks so much better than all the clean water around me. I'm not thinking about how I'll be suffocating myself if I go away from what God wants. All I know is that THERE'S CARPET. It looks thick and fluffy. So, I debate this feat, wondering how to get there. It doesn't take long, and I pitch myself over the edge of the tank. I'm flying through the air for a moment, falling towards the carpet. Falling is fun. I'm not thinking about what will happen upon impact, just that what I'm doing right now is fun. After a few seconds, I realize that I did not hit the thick, "wonderful" carpet. I realize that I have hit a shelf BEHIND the fish tank. So, now what? I can't breathe. I'm not where I thought I would be. I look up and see the fish tank and all the other fish swimming happily around and now I'm jealous. Why were they so happy when I was so UNhappy?

(This is the part of the story where it's important to remember that my analogies aren't perfect.) If the owner of the fishtank had noticed that I was missing, He would've come and gotten me as soon as I asked. Well, we didn't notice that this fish was gone for a few days, and by then, it was dead. D-E-A-D. And guess who had to clean it up? (*points to self*) That wasn't fun. This would be where Jesus comes, breathes life into us and tells us He forgives us. He puts us back in the tank and shows us all that we have. He expects us never to leave again, but unfortunately, we get into the mindset that there is something better than God's love. That there can be anything that we need that God doesn't supply us with. That mindset is wrong, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Reverend Eppling said that what you're saying when you sin is that you don't trust that God will provide you with something better than what your sinful nature desires. The way to combat temptation is by memorizing Scripture. I admit that I haven't been the best at that for a while. But lately, I've been trying to memorize more verses. I'm up to three, and it's amazing how well Scripture works to combat temptation. After all, Jesus beat Satan with Scripture in the wilderness. I encourage you to memorize Bible verses that relate to what specifically tempts you. And then when you're tempted APPLY them. It's not easy. But it works. And trust me, you'll become closer to Christ for it.