SINKING
WITH THE TUNA

Topics: Addiction; Pride; Sin; Temptation

References: James 1:13–15; 2 Peter 3:8–15

For the first time in forty-seven years, the tuna were running only thirty miles off Cape Cod. And they were biting. All you needed to catch one was a sharp hook and some bait. And the rumor was that Japanese buyers would pay $50,000 for a nice bluefin.

Many inexperienced fishermen ignored coast guard warnings and headed out to sea in small boats. What they didn’t realize was that the problem wasn’t catching the fish; it was reeling in the giant tuna and pulling it aboard.

The Christi Anne, a nineteen-foot boat, capsized while doing battle with a tuna. That same day the twenty-seven-foot boat Basic Instinct suffered the same fate, while Official Business, a twenty-eight-footer, was swamped after it hooked a six-hundred-pound tuna. Fishermen on these boats underestimated the power of the fish they were trying to catch.

That is what temptation does to us. It looks great on the surface. Only after we hook into it do we discover its strength.

—Kent Edwards, South Hamilton, Massachusetts