You gotta love grandfathers. They teach the young about how the whole back wood fishing experience works. Youngsters don't always follow the best desire unless their desire is harnessed with a good vision for the evening meal. Grandad used to take me out early in the morning to a fishing pond up in Crystal Lakes, in Northern Colorado. He taught me to fish. There are three things a person must learn about the difference between a temptation that ends adventure in hardship and honest desires that are God given: first is the weight to sink the bate, then the line you cast, and the hook. We will start with an example about the music of life.
In talented music, there is always a good syncing and sinking drop in the introduction that loops the melody with the hook. A good base drop into a heavy drum beat, gets people to sink into the mood of the moment. Neurologically this the way the reticulating activation system, in the back of your brain, creates attention spans with a massive release of serotonin (the satisfaction molecule), that creates attention spans. If there is not enough serotonin, attention spans break because synapses in the brain unlink to other tasks. What this does is create a feedback loop in your brain, making you come back for more. This is called the weighty sinker of your fishing line that enters the water first after you cast your line. The sinker hits the water, drawing the hook and bate down to the bottom where the fish are. In the garden of Eden, the sinker was God's blessing to man with the privilege to have the inheritance of all the garden. Genesis 2:16, "And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden." Notice how the garden created a sinking gravity of earthly joy along with the feedback loop to always return to a heavenly position to thank God. This is called honest desire.
In Genesis chapter 3 we find Satan uses the same technique to capture Eve's attention with a syncing and sinking feeling of dread: "Yeah has God not said, you may not eat of every tree." Notice the difference between the honest desire of God and the plan to tempt Eve to eat of the tree that was forbidden with the threat of death. God said you may freely eat; which gives a birthing desire of plenty and multiplication. The devil quoted God as saying, you shall not eat of every tree. Close in words. Worlds apart in terms of meaning. One leads to satisfaction, the other seeks to take satisfaction away, making a person desperate for anything, even risking life itself.
The next thing is the line or melody. Drums are a good feed back loop. If people enjoy the drums, DJ's will drop in a melody track. This is the line of the fishing tackle that a person uses to draw in the catch. God brought animals to Adam, to see what he would name them. This was his calling to steward the earth. This drew him into fellowship with God. This gave Adam purpose, and then evaluation to see he needed someone to multiply with.
Satan's line was a rebuttal to Eve's feed back. Eve remembered the blessing and said, "we shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest we die." Satan said the tackle line of "Ye shall not surely die." First comes the sinker to catch attention, then the line to draw your desire away from the blessing into the trap, by a lie. Love is how you know God is blessing you. Fear, no matter how small and subtle it is, is a limit. God's love holds no limit. Satan limits you first to create a traditional need to become extremely important to fulfill. The tradition of eating, yet the limit in dogma, to reduce options to a single track path to the luerring lie. This is known as the build up to climax. In fishing; the bate does not seem enticing unless the bate moves, with gentle tugs, as you real in the bate.
Now God's hook to keep man occupied with him in the courts of love, was to make him a woman to share the experience of his love with. Great way to hook a man close to God. Give him a woman he can mate with. Now he always tugs a woman close to him to set the hook. Satan makes a great hook but it is totally false truth. He said if she ate of the forbidden fruit she would be as God, knowing good and evil. Until then, she never needed to know about evil; cause she was innocent and no evil existed that she was aware of. He told her something she felt she needed, now that she was given the sinker of limitation, which is fear, then the line of doubt about what God said, then the unbelief that she was not like God.
Notice the greater promise of Jesus to the disciples: he said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Notice how every one would love to know how to create relationships that bring leverage, advantage and multiplication. Learn from the above model as you meditate over the blessings of God and the counterfeits that appear real. Known as the hook, line and sinker of any moment.
Can you remember a time where you were blessed, and then tempted; did you discern the difference? Write in the comments below.