Against the Current

One of the most remarkable spectacles in nature is the return of salmon to their birthplace to spawn. These fish battle swift currents, leap waterfalls, dodge hungry bears, etc. all to return to the exact location where they were hatched. Depending on the species, young salmon may spend anywhere from a few weeks up to two years in freshwater streams and lakes before heading out to sea. Once reaching the ocean, it will be between one and eight years before they are instinctively drawn back to the place of their birth.

Salmon hatch in the relative safety of shallow upstream creeks and rivers throughout the Pacific Northwest. As they grow, they move to locations where they can find food to feed their growing bodies. Each time they move to find a better food source they are also exposing themselves to more danger from predators. Eventually they reach the open ocean where they face danger in all shapes and sizes.

In many ways our development as humans shares many things in common with the salmon. We are born into the relatively safe world where our parents protect us from danger. As we grow older we are exposed to not just physical dangers, but things that are dangerous to us emotionally and spiritually. And just as the salmon must eventually leave the safety of the stream where it hatched and enter the ocean, so too we must leave the safety and protection of our parent's home and venture out into the world on our own.

We know that God has given the salmon an instinct to return home at the appropriate time in order to breed and begin the cycle over again. I think He has done something similar for us as well. I believe he has given us an instinct, a nature, to seek Him...

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Tony Whiddon
(Roanoke, AL)

Updates

• Flyer for the 2018 Fellowship Conference (5/20/18)
• 2017 summer meeting from Antioch in Douglasville, GA has been posted on the Sermons page. (3/13/18)
• New sermon added to the Sermons page from the February meeting at Taylor's Cross Roads in Roanoke, AL. (2/27/18)

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