Posts with the category “daily-devotions”

I forgot rope and a tow strap. Hunting solo with an ATV requires thoughtful preparation. It is very common, especially when going through mucky terrain, to need far more than 50 feet of winch cable. Trees don't grow in the muckholes, and without another machine, trees are all you have for an 'anchor' to winch out. I usually have a tow strap and 100 feet of heavy rope. Because I didn't have those t...  Read More

The mountains are calling. Something about the wilderness stirs my soul. We were created to live in perfect harmony with the natural world. I'm already anticipating the mixture of scent coming from the. fireweed, spruce, and lush green. The stillness is only broken by songbirds, flowing water and the wind. Fall colors are full on at higher elevations- yellow, orange and red, with a massive carpet ...  Read More

During the summer a truck could drive on this trail, so I was leading the  heavy equipment in. We had to 'walk it in' (drive it) about 6 miles. Our piece of equipment was half off the trail with the right two wheels in a muckhole and perhaps 4 feet lower than the left two wheels (which were still on the trail). We brought along two heavy chains, but I did not believe that my truck could pull it ou...  Read More

It could have happened to anyone. It was just a tiny swerve to miss a pothole- to make the ride smoother- and two wheels of an 11,000 pound piece of heavy equipment were off the road and buried in a quagmire. 'Off the road' in a thousand other places wouldnt have been a problem. This was one of the very few 'soft spots' on a trail that was many miles long. The narrow strip of gravel was safe, but ...  Read More

I could clearly see two 'forks' on the young bull moose. This made him legal, and I almost pulled the trigger at 300 yards. I was calling him in by imitating a cow 'call' and a bull 'grunt.' I almost shot him at 200 yards. I almost shot him at 100 yards. It wasn't until he stepped out of the brush at 50 yards that I noticed a third tine on both antlers. This meant the bull was NOT legal. I almost ...  Read More

One of the differences between summer rain in Alaska and most other places is that our rain is cold. I don't mean 'refreshing' cold, I mean if you're out in the wilderness and are unprotected you could die of hypothermia. While the wild animals are seemingly comfortable in every kind of weather, you and I need to clothe ourselves properly. The same thing is true spiritually. Collossians 3:12 says,...  Read More

After three spectacular days, it's raining again. Water is life-giving. It's essential. There's nothing quite so peaceful as being next to a clear, trickling brook on a warm, sunny day. But water can also be dangerous, violent, contaminated- leading to death rather than to life. The Word of God is pure Living Water. It is both life-giving and life-sustaining. But if it is contaminated by false doc...  Read More

Alaska is a land of extremes. When I was younger I made many trips every summer down to the Russian River after working all day. It took several hours to get there so I would begin fishing a little before 10 PM, catch that day's limit, and then after midnight, catch the next day's limit and be back at work by 6 AM. We give time and energy to what we love, don't we? Like so many men, hunting and fi...  Read More

Though I was not yet excited about Alaska, I was thankful to finally be through with all of the continuous harassment and 'head games' that were part of basic training. I thought, "Now we'll finally be treated like men." Imagine my disappointment when at my first meeting with my Platoon Sergeant he lectured me for nearly 2 hours in what he called 'preventative counseling.' He had seen that I had a...  Read More

As I stood in formation at the end of Airborne School, the jumpmasters asked us if we wanted 'blood wings.' This is where they put your Airborne pin through your shirt with no back on the pin and then punch it into your chest. Obviously I said, "Yes," but those soldiers with a more delicate nature declined. Testosterone is a great thing. It's part of what it means to be 'man' created in the image ...  Read More

Jesus called out to some commercial fisherman, "Come! Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!" At once they left their boats and nets and followed him. There is an important spiritual principle here. The very first time that these men encountered Jesus, they obeyed IMMEDIATELY. Isn't that interesting? They didn't say, "Talk to us when we're done with work." They didn't say, "We'll think abo...  Read More

The night before last, it rained like it doesn't rain in Alaska- literally 'buckets' of water falling from the sky. I thought, "We should have laid out the plan yesterday and painted parking lines at the new church." But two days ago the cars of our volunteers were in the way- the parking lot was full. Early yesterday morning the rain stopped and the parking lot dried off.True, it was a small thin...  Read More

It may not be true for you, but for me the hardest part about climbing a mountain is getting started. Just getting up early and putting on my climbing clothes is a victory, but it isn't a total victory. Many times I've dressed to climb and then not climbed. My second victory is simply getting TO the mountain. I must force my 'will' even when I don't feel like it. And then I have to start. Every si...  Read More

Crescendo is an interesting term. As the 'life' of something is being played out, it becomes more powerful, more energetic, more intense, more consuming... Fifteen years ago, the Lord laid it heavily upon my heart that we would one day plant a church in Anchorage- Alaska's largest and 'least churched' city. But I knew all along that this would not be a typical church plant. This would be a church ...  Read More

When I arrived at Airborne School, the first people I noticed were a soldier with one arm in a cast who was painting a building with his other hand, and a soldier with one leg in a cast who was hobbling along pushing a lawn mower. These men were 'recycles.' To graduate from Airborne School, you must complete five successful jumps in a row. If you are injured before jump five, you have two options:...  Read More

The first seven times that I ever flew on a large airplane I only landed twice. The other five times I jumped out of the open door of the plane. Airborne School was three weeks of highly intensive, highly professional training. Nearly 2 weeks was spent perfecting our 'PLF' (parachute landing fall). The objective was to get out of the plane quickly and to land safely. The infantry's small, round pa...  Read More

At the end of basic training, they were assigning us to our duty stations. We did not get to choose where we went, but were allowed to have a general 'wish' list. I was hoping to go somewhere in the south (where I could get a good tan) or overseas. They walked down the rows of soldiers, saying, "North Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas.... and then they came to me. They said,...  Read More

212 men lined up single file in front of the chow hall at meal times. The drill sergeants let in 10 soldiers at a time, and the rest had to do 15 push-ups before the next 10 entered. This was done very rapidly, but those at the end of the line had to do over 600 push-ups (after 2 hours of sit-ups and push-ups) before they got their breakfast. We were then given two minutes to eat and were required...  Read More

And just like that, my Montana life was over. I went to Minnesota to spend Christmas with family, and then headed to Fort Benning, Georgia, for infantry basic training. In those days, there was no separation between basic training and Advanced Infantry Training (AIT), so we had 13 continuous weeks of torture. At 25 years old, I was one of the oldest in my company of 212 soldiers. Life consisted of...  Read More

It was late November and the final day of the deer season. I never had filled my buck tag. I borrowed my friends .222 and went into the foothills of the Snowy Mountains to try to call in a fox or coyote. It was −23° and snowing. That temperature was extremely cold for late November, and it was even more unusual that it was snowing at the time. I was wearing insulated coverals over a heavy hooded p...  Read More

Even an unskilled bowhunter (which I was) will get lucky if he wanders around in game-rich country long enough. Eventually, I made a lucky shot on an elk and was able to stalk and shoot an antelope. I was saving my buck deer tag. The year before I had to pass on a trophy mule deer because I had already filled my tag. I hired on with a local hunting guide who needed help retrieving 4 elk from deep ...  Read More

Fall began in Montana's Little Belt Mountains chasing elk. While I loved the hunting, I felt guilty that I wasn't working. My delayed entry into the army was still several months away. I rented an empty farm house from a rancher friend. I caught Brook trout and shot ducks, pheasants and deer on the creek behind the house and caught a five pound rainbow trout in the pond out front. The highlight of...  Read More

A friend that I grew up with moved into our trailer in the Spring and slept on the couch. Brad G. was all about Montana and still lives there to this day. Recruiters were always coming into the school and talking to students, and I had always regretted not serving in the military. Just like that, the two of us enlisted in the infantry on a 6 month 'delayed entry' program so that we would be able t...  Read More

As a Montana resident, I could finally hunt deer, antelope and elk. For me, the most exciting hunting was going after elk with my bow in the early season when the bulls were bugling. At 20 yards, I was an excellent shot with my bow and arrow. At 40 yards I was not. Why is that? Because I was not properly equipped. Not only did I shoot instinctively (without sights) but my arrows and broadheads wer...  Read More

Year two in Moore, Montana, was even busier than year one. I also taught a unit on evolution. I had been thoroughly indoctrinated and believed (as I was taught) that evolution was a proven scientific fact. In fact, I didn't know that there were ANY people who didn't believe that evolution was fact... until the parent of one of my students came with a simple request: "If you are going to teach abou...  Read More

Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! This was the sound of arrows hitting the side of my neighbor's garage. Oh, he had straw bales and a target, but from 20 yards, he regularly missed the bales. From the sound of things the bullseye was nothing more than a pipe dream. In his defense, learning to shoot 'instinctively' (without sights) is a far greater challenge- especially without someone to teach yo...  Read More

My second year in Montana was even better than the first. I moved out of my apartment in Lewistown and into a trailer that I shared with another teacher across the street from Moore's school. This cut my rent and utilities by more than half and I no longer had to buy gas to commute. What did I do with the money I saved? I traded in that humiliating Plymouth Horizon and bought a small, 4 wheel driv...  Read More

And just like that, the school year was over. I caught beautiful rainbow and brown trout on Spring. Creek,  had become not just good, but to my utter surprise an excellent 'wing shooter' (before Montana I could only hit the side of a barn if I was shooting from inside the barn), and had fallen in love with the people and mountains of Montana. A local rancher, John Hertel, hired me for the summer, ...  Read More

I soon made another good friend. Dan Marshall had graduated from Moore High School and was finishing his last year of college in Bozeman. He regularly drove up on his weekends to hunt. There were so many upland game birds that I literally learned how to wing shoot without ever having a lesson or shooting trap at a range. In fact, I went hunting every day after school during the season and shot thr...  Read More

Another teacher quickly took me under his wing. Doug Bingeman loved to hunt and fish and was the Moore Bulldogs' biggest fan. I was a first year teacher and Doug gave me a lot of sound advice. He also LOVED a practical joke, and was somewhat famous with both students and staff for his classroom antics. Doug reminded us all that working hard and having fun were not mutually exclusive. He did both, ...  Read More

In those days Moore, Montana was an athletic powerhouse. They were state champs in '6 man' football, but basketball was king for both boys and girls. My first year of teaching they actually closed the school several days because so many people were gone for away basketball games that it didn't make sense to stay open. During the off-season, high school boys and girls worked out 'jumping boxes' wit...  Read More

Whitetail deer, mule deer, antelope, sharptail grouse, Hungarian partridge, pheasant- as I drove a few miles from the town of Moore, Montana into the foothills of the Little Snowy Mountains, I had never seen such game-rich country. The wheat harvest was in full swing, and this new place seemed to overflow with abundance. I had come from a place where the average farm was 160 acres, but here the av...  Read More

The town of Moore, Montana, is situated at over 4,000 feet on a high plain that was once covered with massive herds of buffalo. The gravel road next to the school leads through giant wheat and barley fields and straight into the foothills of the Snowy Mountains. I decided to do a little exploring, but hadn't gone a quarter mile in my car when a large grain truck was coming straight at me down the ...  Read More

I rented a basement apartment in Lewistown, Montana, and headed out to set up my classroom 17 miles west in Moore. I would be teaching the largest class in the school- a combination class of grades 5 and 6 with 22 students. The start of school was several weeks away, but when I arrived I found half a dozen high school boys playing basketball in the gym. I wandered all over the school and couldn't ...  Read More

My 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (the engine was called the "350 Rocket") got 14 miles per gallon. I let someone talk me into selling it and buying a 4 cylinder Plymouth Horizon, one of the greatest automotive embarrassments in history. BIG mistake! The engine didn't 'purr,' it sounded more like you were shaking marbles in a coffee can. I couldn't even drive the speed limit up a steep hill, and ...  Read More

After five days, four of them on a Greyhound bus, I was back in Minnesota without a teaching job. Montana was beautiful. I loved the mountains, the dry heat ( Minnesota is extremely humid in the summer) and the lack of mosquitoes. There was a teacher hiring freeze across the entire state of Minnesota, and the only job posting (other than Montana) at my college placement office was in Kuwait. I wok...  Read More

I thought that my interview with superintendent Rich Hughes went well, but I didn't have any indication about whether or not I'd be offered a job. The bus only came through once a day, so I borrowed a ride to Lewistown, Montana, to find a place to spend the night. The next day I was back on the bus for a 2 day trip home to Minnesota. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I had...  Read More

I stood for a moment on the gravel street, suitcase in hand, wondering which way to go. The 'bus stop' was the Farmers' Co-op gas station. I asked the employee- Ralph- the only person I had seen, how to find the school. He pointed to a green, metal 'pole barn' looking building at the end of the street. It turns out that the gravel road I was standing on was Main Street in Moore, Montana. There wer...  Read More

Life was in some respects more of an adventure before we could 'Google.' I rode a Greyhound bus for two days to get to my first teaching job interview. I stepped off the bus on a hot summer day, wearing a corduroy sport coat and carrying a suitcase (yes, in those days they did not have wheels). It was my first time in Montana, and the only thing I knew about this little town was that they needed a...  Read More

Two tundra swans glided silently by as a loon's morning song echoed across the surface of the lake. A light fog is hovering over the water. There's something peaceful- something good for the soul- about being next to 'still' waters. As a young man tending sheep, David must have shared this feeling. He was a musician and is the most famous song writer of antiquity.  He wrote, "The Lord is my shephe...  Read More