Someone once said, “Fishing requires patience. Fishing with children requires a saint.”
             I witnessed the truth of this saying when my youngest nephew brought his two oldest children, ages 7 and 5, to fish at my pond. They were accompanied by my nephew’s best friend and two of his children approximately the same age.
            The fish weren’t biting at a commercial pond they had visited earlier in the day, a pay-by-the-pound operation stocked with largemouth bass and bluegill. The young fathers reckoned they would have no better luck at my place—a muddy pond in the middle of a woods—but at least their wives would be able to enjoy some well-deserved Sabbath rest. 
            Maybe the low expectations for fishing success set the stage for the spiritual catch I was about to witness.
            Beneath a tranquil background of sandy shores lined with cattails, an afternoon of frenzied activity soon unfolded: scooping up worms from overturned tin cans, unhooking lairs snagged in jacket sleeves and retrieving bobbers cast into overhanging tree branches.
            Now and then, between bouts of children shouting, shrieking and screaming, the two dads would manage a brief conversation about sports or the price of gas. But soon they would be wiping tears from a little girl’s face while, at the same time, dumping water from the boots of her brother who slipped from the log he was told to stay away five minutes before.
           No doubt, the expedition required a tackle box full of patience.  Yet, it wasn’t the fathers’ patience that impressed me. It was the pride on their faces each time they glanced at their children.
           Fishing with children might require the patience of a saint, but becoming childlike for the Kingdom requires the heart of a dad.