This, Too, Is Worship

Rain stitched the windshield as we wound our way down Y Highway, the Ozark hills draped in October fog. Trees, still clinging to their last red and gold, leaned over the road like parishioners bowing toward the aisle. Light sifted through the canopy in trembling shafts. The world felt hushed, reverent, like a church before the first hymn.

This land knows how to wait. It waits through long winters, swollen springs, and slow-burning summers until fall arrives like a whispered blessing. And this year, it carries more than color. It carries promise. My family is moving back to these hills. And with them, two of my grandsons.

Ministry has kept Joy and me on the move for decades. You follow the Lord’s call, pack the boxes, say goodbye more often than feels fair. But something is different now. The roots are going down. My children are planting themselves near us, and for the first time in a long time, the idea of home feels less like a tent and more like a table.

Last Saturday, before cottage prayer meeting, I found a few free hours to take Weston, my oldest grandson, fishing. He’s nine. That golden age where he’s old enough to bait a hook, but still young enough to think spending a morning with his grandfather is a fine adventure.

We started our day with the steady drip of October rain. The kind that doesn’t threaten the trip, just baptizes it. We needed supplies anyway. The tackle shop’s door chimed as we stepped inside, and Weston’s eyes swept the aisles like a boy surveying the armory of a knight. He studied every tackle box like it held treasure. Clicked open lids. Ran his fingers over mesh pockets. Judged the size against his own shoulder.

“Papa,” he asked, “how many lures can one box really hold?”

“Depends on how much you’re willing to carry,” I told him.

He settled on one with enough compartments to make any angler jealous. A red-and-white Rooster Tail, a pack of PowerBait, hooks, sinkers, a stringer were all were tucked inside.

We drove to Taneycomo.

That lake smells like my boyhood. Cold, green, steady. A breath from the past. We pulled into Lilley’s Landing. Mist curled over the water like it had just woken up. From the dock, the bells of College of the Ozarks drifted faintly across the surface, reminding us both that this place is steeped in something sacred.

I prefer a boat. But trout here don’t mind the bank. So we stood at the dock’s edge, surrounded by the golden spill of autumn, rigging up rods as the lake whispered below us.

First cast. His line zipped out. Landed just shy of the current. Not two minutes later, it went tight.

“I got one!” he shouted.

Rod bent. Elbows locked. The trout flashed silver in the shallows. He worked the reel with the wild joy of someone catching a miracle. It fought, then yielded. When he finally swung it onto the boards, he let out a yell that startled a heron nearby.

“I did it! papa, Look!”

He had. A strong fish. Clean speckling. Good weight. He crouched beside it, still grinning, and asked if he could put it on the stringer himself. I nodded. That’s a holy moment, the first fish you keep.

We stayed two hours, maybe more. Caught eight in total, though Weston says six and he might be right. We kept three. Enough for supper, more than enough for a memory.

Afterward, I showed him how to clean them. We stood side by side at the cleaning table at the back of the dock, sun warming our backs.

“Watch the blade,” I said. “Right behind the gills. Then down.”

He watched. Listened.

“Now pull the guts, but don’t stop there. See this line?” I ran my finger down the bloodline along the spine. “You clean this too. That’s where the bitterness stays. You want it gone before you ever heat the pan.”

He didn’t speak. Just nodded, hands red and learning.

There’s a theology hidden in that moment. The kind only caught in the doing. Some things you can’t just gut. You’ve got to cleanse. Not for appearance, but for flavor. For wholeness. The bloodline matters.

I looked over at him and realized I wasn’t just teaching him how to fish. I was handing down something older. A rhythm. A way of being still. Of providing. Of noticing what God has placed before you and saying thank you before you ever take the first bite.

We drove home with the windows cracked and the smell of lake and rain in the truck. He rode with me, quiet now, tackle box in his lap. I looked over and whispered a prayer.

Thank You, Lord. For the fish. For the boy. For the grace to see it all.

These hills have always been beautiful. But beauty only means something when it’s shared. And this fall, as the leaves turn and the fog settles low across the lake, I see it clear as water: the joy of this season isn’t just the color in the trees, it’s family at my side.

A grandson. A stringer. A memory made from the quiet miracle of enough.

Sometimes worship isn’t a song or a sermon. Sometimes it’s a fish pulled from cold water, a child learning to clean what he caught, and a bell in the distance reminding you that everything good still echoes from the heart of God.

---

For more devotions click here.

Sign up for my email list here.

For a list of other essential Christian reads click here.

---

Enjoying this content? If you’d like to support my work and help me create more Bible-centered resources like this devotion, consider buying me a coffee! Your support means the world and helps keep this ministry going.