Tag Archives: fish

A Mullet State Of Mind

26 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by in Animals, Christianity, Devotional, Life, People, Raising The Mug

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mulletsIf you search hair styles from the late 80″s / early 90’s, you’re bound to run across this one – the “mullet.” Why the haircut was given the name “mullet” is a mystery. A mullet is a fish. If you’ve ever been to the beach, you probably swam with some since they’re common in warm coastal waters worldwide.

A lot of celebrities wore mullets back in the day: Jean Claude Van Damme, George Clooney, Jerry Seinfeld, Patrick Swayze, Billy Ray Cyrus, Chuck Norris to name a few.  Look at Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, both giants in the Christian music industry. They both had mullets too!

M W Smith Steven Curtis Chapman

There was an interesting phrase that expressed the philosophy behind the “mullet” haircut – business in the front, party in the back. It’s a perfect example of a split personality. You see, all people tend to have dual personalities: capable of being very good and capable of being very bad.

Though everyone battles their own personal sin each day, for a Christian, there should be a clear delineation between the inward battle and the outward activity. There are some who think it perfectly okay to party hardy on Friday and Saturday night, as long as they get cleaned up on Sunday morning. Scripture gives a stern warning about that way of living:

2 Corinthians 6:14 –  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

1 Peter 4:1-4 –  For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.

Romans 12:2 –  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind……..

Romans 13:12-14 – So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

Matthew 7:21 –  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

True followers of Christ cannot live a dual lifestyle: hell raiser one day – saint the next. What would you call that? Hypocritical? That’s sort of a mullet state of mind – business in the front, party in the back. It’s the very thing that Jesus blasted the Pharisees for doing. If the Holy Spirit is indeed living within, it should convict us to change.

Understandably, change does not come easy, so there is hope for every struggling soul. Even Paul wrote that he fought the inward battle to do the right thing:

Romans 7 – For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. …..24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

A new day is upon us. A new chance to move in the right direction.  Here’s to slamming the door for good on a mullet state of mind. Mugs raised high!

All verse quotes courtesy of biblegateway.com

The Jawless Fish

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Animals, Christianity, Devotional, Life, People, Raising The Mug

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Mullet

a mullet fish – photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Years ago I wrote a song/poem about creation specifically as a rebuttal to the evolutionary theory that all life started from the mud in the form of a jawless fish. My wife came across it as she was cleaning the house yesterday; thought you might enjoy it!

At school the other day they taught us man evolved from fish.
I scratched my head and wondered, “What genius thought of this?”
They said this lucky mud just started stirring round one day.
And pretty soon these critters sort of formed themselves from clay.

The critters joined together and made a little squish.
And what evolved was finally what they called a jawless fish.
Now I’m not one to question, so I figured it was true.
Besides, they wouldn’t teach no lies to little kids at school!

So I listened as they taught us how old “Jawless” learned to crawl
And turned his little fish fins into tiny feet and claws.
He then commenced to change himself with lots of other twists.
He became amphibians and reptiles that would hiss.

Jawless, he was fearless, he had so much to achieve.
Forget about the halibut, he wanted lungs to breathe!
Soon he grew tired of wearing scales and fins and such.
He decided it would be more fun to add some warmth to touch.

So he grew himself some fur and turned his claws to paws and feet,
And walked across the landscape in search of food to eat.
Before too long he stretched his back and forced himself to stand
And transformed his appendages to legs and arms and hands

The more I heard, the more I thought this really couldn’t be!
This thinking we was fish might make a monkey out of me!
If this were true, why not say we came from bugs instead?
And we could all pretend we had antennae on our heads!

If man evolved from fish, then he’s got to be a mullet.
Thinking like a fish up in the head is sure to dull it!
To me it’s only logical when I say what I believe
That God created man when he made Adam and made Eve.

And so it’s my conclusion if the truth were really told,
That “Jawless” is nothing more than a lie from long ago.
The God who made the earth did not leave it all to chance
And hope that somehow randomly that we would learn to dance.

Hope you have a wonderful day, mugs up!!

Marketing Smelly Fish

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Christianity, Life, Raising The Mug

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Smelly20fish

photo courtesy of mediabistro.com

I can think of few things that smell worse than dead fish; rotten eggs may be a close second. I’ve been close enough to both to know that I don’t want to spend any serious length of time in their company. One thing is for certain, you can’t disguise the smell of dead fish and the only friends they have are other dead fish.

Jonah 1:17; 2:1,10; 3:1-3

1- 17 Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2 – 1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.

10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

3 – 1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Most people are familiar with the story of Jonah. He was commanded by God to preach to the city of Nineveh; instead he boarded a ship sailing in the opposite direction. A great storm threatened to destroy the boat so the sailors threw Jonah overboard, knowing that he was the cause of the storm. God provided a fish to swallow Jonah where he stayed for three days and prayed. God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up on the shores of Nineveh and commanded Jonah once again to preach. This time he obeyed and the people of Nineveh believed the message and repented.

Cetorhinus_maximus_by_greg_skomal

a basking shark – second largest living fish – photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Among the many stunning points of this story is the fact that Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days. It is an astounding idea from the standpoint of survival; but it is equally astounding considering the olfactory nerves. Do you know what kinds of nasty things fish swallow?

This appeared in The Times in 1865 and described a fish as being 7 feet long, six feet in circumference and having a head weighing no less than 80 pounds, the best bit being the stomach contents which were reported to contain:

…two broken bottles, a quart pot, a preserved milk tin, seven medium sized crabs, a piece of earthenware triangular in shape and 3 inches in length encrusted with oyster shells, a sheep’s head, some mutton and beef bones, and some loose oyster shells. The spine of a skate was embedded in the grouper’s liver.

Taken from The Fishing Museum Online

Can you imagine how the inside of that fish must have smelled? I doubt the fish’s belly occupied by Jonah smelled any better.

So to understand the situation, Jonah was surrounded by disgusting, smelly fish entrails for three days. Upon being expelled, covered in fish vomit, he was supposed to convince a pagan society that they were all about to be toast if they didn’t repent and profess faith in his God, a foreign god to them, all the while permeating a fine bouquet of “entrailles de poisson” (French for fish guts)

I would be convinced ………… wouldn’t you?

No really, can you imagine how bad he smelled? Would you even be able to approach a person that smelled that awful much less listen to anything they said?

Yet his message was not only heard, it was believed ……..

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NIV)

14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? 

The gospel has a foul repulsive smell, like dead fish, when it is presented to the world in general because until someone “hears” by the power of the Holy Spirit, it makes no sense. But ……..

That God can take the same stinky, awful, putrid aroma of words that come from common Christians’ mouths and somehow miraculously turn them into a pleasing perfume that brings about the salvation of those who are perishing ………. that …….  is simply …….. amazing …….

Today I raise the mug and pray, God give life-saving aroma to our words and use us to turn the hearts of the lost back to you.

All verse quotes courtesy of biblegateway.com

Fish Tank Interrogation

04 Saturday Oct 2014

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tropical-fish-digital-art-wallpaper
Courtesy of Funchap.com

I’ve never been interrogated by the CIA, FBI, GBI, of the KGB. But I did get interrogated by a campus policeman once ………

Jane’s father was a professor at Georgia Southern College back in the 70’s. In his office he had an aquarium. One Christmas, he left town for a few days and asked Jane if she would check on the fish. So we went over one afternoon to take care of them.

The whole campus was completely deserted because of the holidays. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have done it, but since no one was there, I parked in a “No Parking” zone……… oh how naïve of me. We went in, fed the fish, and we left. When we returned to the car there was a parking ticket on the windshield…….. really? I was aggravated. I shoved the ticket in my pocket, we got in the car and drove off.

bb5869b1c88401cd1655db092fe99de3

Courtesy of wallpaperup.com

Almost immediately a campus policeman pulled up behind us. I thought, “What?! What have I done now?” He turned on his lights and siren so I pulled over. When he came to the drivers’ side window, he asked me to get out of the car. “Hmm, that’s unusual,” I thought, “They don’t normally ask you to do that.” “Would you mind opening your trunk sir,” he asked. I did and it was empty. Then the interrogation began, “Do you mind explaining to me what you were doing back at that building?” ……………………

“Well, sir, you see, we were uhhh… I mean I know it’s a little weird and all, but uhhhh………we were ……… eh hem………..feeding fish.” He peered over the top of his police issued sunglasses. “Fish…. Uh huh. Thought I’d heard ’em all….”

In Acts chapter 4, Peter and the apostles were interrogated by the High Priest because they were teaching that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

Acts 4:5-7 – NIV

The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them:  “By what power or what name did you do this?”

2-pictures-of-tropical-fish-wallanu-all-wallpaper-hd-picture-animals-picture-tropical-fish-hd-wallpaper

Courtesy of freewallpaper.com

The apostles were compelled by God’s Spirit to tell the world what they had witnessed. The priests questioned their authority to teach because they recognized Peter and John as mere fishermen.

Sometimes we want to interrogate God. We question him about why he would allow certain things to happen. It’s not a sin to question God; the Psalms are full of questions. Psalm 10:1 for example “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”

I think we have every right to question God when tragedy and destruction enter our lives. The sin of the Pharisees was not in their questioning the apostles. Their sin was not liking the response. We, too, must be careful how we respond to God when we don’t like his answers to our questions.

Meanwhile, back to my story….As it so happened, there had been a rash of break-ins on the campus that fall. Lot’s of thievery and other nonsense. That’s why the policeman questioned us so thoroughly. And…………. I still had to pay the parking fine…..or was it a No Parking fine? Do I still have the right to question this?

The mug is raised today to those who question God. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given! Matthew 7:7
all verse quotes courtesy of biblegateway.com