The Phil Files

Some Saturday’s are just better than others. I got up early today to go out to the country to have some guy time with my friend, Tom Allen.

Of course, before we could go anywhere, we first had to fuel up at Cracker Barrel — can’t have guy time on an empty stomach. Then off to the ranch near Noddle. After driving around and looking at some of the ranch, we decided to take a quick little fishing break. Using a big spinner bait and some plastics, we caught 9 bass in about 40 minutes. Great fun.

Now Tom generally considers his wife, Judy, to be the accomplished fisherperson in the clan, but today, Tom went bushman to snag himself a couple of bass. Cool stuff!

And that’s what the weather was, too. Cool. Perfect and cool.

Then off to explore more of the ranch. After tooling around awhile, we crossed beautiful Sweetwater Creek. So we got out, grabbed a couple of rods, and began to poke around in the waters along the creek. A few perch, a breakoff on a good byte, and several snags in the trees. Then I look up and Tom was fighting a good size fish. When he pulled it in, it was 3 1/2 lb. catfish he caught on an artificial bait. Crazy, but crazy fun. We celebrated with some Dr. Pepper and some target shooting with our handguns.

We bounced around over some more ranch land and found a place Native Americans had made their arrowheads and spearheads. Shards of chipped flint were all around and I found a small bounding stone, used to do the finer chipping on the flint rock.

We tried one more fishing spot on the way out, but the water was too muddy and shallow, so we decided that by this time, our Cracker Barrel fuel had been spent. Seemed we had no choice but to make a bit of a detour and go to Mrs. Allens (no relation to Tom) for some of that legendary, homestyle, cookin’ in Sweetwater USA.

Hard to beat that for a guy day. All in all, we caught a bunch of fish, saw Native American artifacts, shot guns, got some sun, had great weather, and ingested enough calories and cholesterol for a full week.

Now to top it off, just a short power nap and I’ll be ready for more!

If yesterday was “Good Friday,” then today would have to be aptly named, Sad Saturday. This day, caught between heaven and hell, good and evil, Sunday and Friday, is the day of sacrificial rest and remembrance, the day of bitter herbs and distant memories of God’s great acts now seemingly turned impotent and God’s powerful and creative voice fallen silent. I can’t imagine how the closest friends of Jesus felt so many years ago, because crushed seems to mild and devastated too shallow.

So today, as I read about Elijah from Eugene Petersen’s incredibly convicting book, The Jesus Way, I was reminded how much I want to dictate the ways and timing of God. So frequently, it seems to me, we don’t — I don’t — have the patience or the faithfulness to let God work His costly grace in my life. But, just as surely as Saturday rests between Friday and Sunday, so also God is at work in the silent moments when His voice is not heard and darkness appears to reign.

This powerful compilation of an old message and the scenes from The Passion of the Christ remind us of this once again: