When A Good Thing Turns Deadly

—Dr. Wes Bredenhof

There are only about two more weeks left in the Tasmanian trout season. For the first time since 2015, I didn’t buy a license. So I’ve done zero fishing over the spring, summer, and autumn here. It feels sad and strange; like a beloved friend has moved away.

Early in the season I did some reconnaissance on my favourite streams. I walked their familiar waters but didn’t see many of their familiar brown trout. In about four hours of searching, I think I saw three. Other anglers have complained of the dearth. Something is off.

That something is a sea bird known as a cormorant. Cormorants love trout and, unlike me, they’re excellent fishers. Over the last couple of years, there has been a plague of hungry cormorants on our little island. This plague has gravely diminished the trout populations in many Tasmanian streams and lakes.

A fellow fly fisherman told me a tale which somewhat soothed my angst. Not far from here is a small trout hatchery. Normally, the young trout are protected from predators by netting over their pens. Some enterprising cormorants, however, were able to break through the netting over one of these pens. It became a trout massacre. But the trout had their revenge, on behalf of themselves and their piscatorial fans. Some of the cormorants engorged themselves so much on the trout that they were no longer able to fly. One or two were even so gluttonous that they drowned themselves in the trout pens, unable to float because they were too much weighed down by their overindulgence. Sweet justice, I say.

Trout are a good thing – good to eat, too, whether you’re a human or a bird. Fishing is a good thing, quite enjoyable. But in this case, too much of a good thing became deadly. It happens so often.

It can happen with food. Food is good and necessary for us. But too much can kill. If you don’t have a healthy diet, including moderation, you can develop metabolic syndrome, which in turn can lead to deadly conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

It can happen with alcohol consumption. It’s not necessary, but Christians do have the liberty to enjoy alcoholic beverages (Ps.104:15). Still Scripture many times drives home the dangers of drunkenness (e.g. Prov.23:29-35). Moreover, medical science also warns us about the long-term health effects of drinking too much. For example, an alcoholic’s life-expectancy is reduced by some 24-28 years.

If you exercise too much, you can develop a life-threatening condition known as rhabdomyolysis. Getting too much sunlight can lead to skin cancer. The list goes on. There is no shortage of ways to get a deadly amount of a good thing.

You might look at that fat cormorant drowning in the trout pen and laugh at its foolishness. But the irrationality of that bird is just as much yours and mine when we indulge destructively in too much of a good thing. It illustrates the sheer stupidity of sin. When we see it in our lives, we need to bring it to our Saviour. We need his forgiveness for it because this irrationality is driven by the sinful inclinations of our hearts. There’s still something destructive in our hearts desiring sin. But more than forgiveness, Christ also offers us power to change through his Holy Spirit. As we call out to him for his help, he supplies it through his Spirit. With the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit helps us to see things clearly and rationally. He can and will help us to say “No” before, like those cormorants, we kill ourselves physically (and maybe even spiritually) with too much of a good thing.