October - and the salmon were running

I was privileged to see the salmon coming up the river again this year.  There were not as many as some years, but a wonderful sight all the same.

What an amazing, God-given instinct it is, that brings them back to the river where they were spawned some three years ago!  And think of the perils they have faced.  Hundreds of miles of swimming in the Atlantic, perhaps as far as Norway, avoiding all kinds of danger.  Then running the gauntlet of the seals waiting in the estuary to scoop them up, or the cormorants flying up-river looking for a tasty meal.  Not to mention the human fishermen!  But still they have to come!

And not only the dangers, but the sheer effort of swimming upstream, jumping the falls and leaping up the salmon ladders.  Little wonder that most of them will reach the spawning grounds in a state of exhaustion, with only just enough energy to spawn before they die.  What amazing determination, amazing single-mindedness!

May we each persevere with singleness of heart in the pursuit of holiness. 

… Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus…  Hebrews 12:1-2