The Secret Lives of Salmon
Every autumn, as daylight diminishes and water temperatures in the Great Lakes start to sink, a switch goes off within countless thousands of salmon which shouts, “It’s time to go home.”
As a native Michigander, I have a much smaller switch that functions in a similar way. The arrival of autumn calls to me to return to places like the Sable river, the Platte, or Otter Creek where I’ve seen, admired, caught, and eaten so many of these beautiful fish as a result of their annual migration back to their natal waters.
But, I’ve always wondered, how do these fish - not exactly the highest IQ creatures of the animal kingdom - know exactly where to go? How do they know how to get back home?
It turns out that salmon navigate back to their streams-of-origin using a combination of a special fish sense of smell and the Earth's magnetic field. As young salmon migrate out into the Great Lakes, they imprint on the unique chemical scents of their home streams, creating a "smell memory." Years later, as adults, they use the Earth’s magnetism to locate the mouth of their home river, and then activate their super fishy sniffer to follow the scents back to their home stream, until arriving at their exact birthplace for spawning. What a miraculous process!
My reasons for bringing this up are: #1) The capacities of the animal kingdom boggle the mind, and #2) The behavior of salmon resonates with me on a deeply spiritual level. I frequently find myself longing for home, too.
What I’m longing for transcends getting back to Michigan in the fall, or visiting the house where I was born and raised, even beyond seeing siblings or old friends. The longing I have - and the longing I believe all of us have - is to get back to where we originally came from, the very heart of God! The Scriptures promise that we are going to get there. Sometimes we call this destination “heaven.” Sometimes we call it “The Promised Land.” The Bible speaks of it simply as being “with the Lord.” And like salmon, we have been equipped with a special sense of smell to guide us on the way: it’s called faith. The gift of faith is a better guide than electromagnetism or a mysterious sense of smell. The gift of faith is a trustworthy, spiritual compass that keeps drawing us inexorably toward the mercies of God, the person of Jesus, and the flow of the Holy Spirit.
And we are not alone in this. We are in the midst of a mighty migration back toward the same God who made the whole family of faith. The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, speaks of those who have gone before us in this way:
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Fall is pretty great in the Midwest. But if you find yourself longing for something truer, deeper, and more beautiful… A better country… Know that you’re not alone and lean in.
– Pastor Gregg