The Angler's Prayer

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There's a bit of verse that you often find on trinkets (mugs, china plates, wall hangings etc) that goes:

I pray that I may live to fish

Until my dying day,

And when it comes to that last cast

I then most humbly pray:

When in the Lord's great landing net

And peacefully asleep,

That in His mercy I be judged

Good enough to keep.

To be fair, it's not the best bit of poetry ever, but I can't help noticing that it also pretty much totally misses the point of the Christian gospel, too. Now, don't get me wrong, we will all at the end of our lives be judged ("it is appointed for man to die, and then the judgement" - Hebrews 9:27) but the poem seems to totally overlook the central Christian idea of grace. That we're not saved by what we do, but by what Jesus has done. 

My transference from God's landing net to his eternal keepnet will not be on the basis of the good things I've done, or on whether the good outweighs the bad, but will solely be on the basis of the merits of Jesus and His death in my place. As an old hymn writer once put it

 "Not the labours of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law's demands,

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone,

Thou must save and Thou alone."

And here's why that's such great news: if my passport to eternal life depended on whether I'd been "good enough" I'd always be worried; always be wondering if I'd "done enough"; I'd never be quite sure or have full assurance. But knowing that it depends on Jesus and His perfect sacrifice changes all of that. I can have 100% assurance. All of which is why grace is rightly called "amazing."



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