Posts with the category “daily-devotions”

I didn't have a deadline. There was no pressing matter involved. I was a little impatient, but it wasn't directed toward anyone or causing me to have a bad attitude. But it impacted my judgement. It caused me to move forward when wisdom would have waited. And it cost me. Not in a life-changing way, but certainly in a way that I could feel the pain. Have you ever moved forward when you knew that yo...  Read More

I saw 2 photographs yesterday- one of Laura's dad when he was 3 or 4 years old, and another of her mom and dad when they just started dating. We live in the present. God is not constrained by time. When he looks at you, he sees that little girl who loved to twirl, that little boy who dressed up like a cowboy. He sees you as you were learning to read and to write. He remembers every accomplishment-...  Read More

The complexity and beauty of the created world never ceases to amaze me. The Great Smoky Mountains were bursting with fall colors as we drove narrow, winding roads to Gatlinburg. We had the added pleasure of seeing a black bear and two wild turkeys on the drive. The 6 kids (ages 3-9) were mesmerized at a beautiful aquarium for more than 2 hours. Even at my age I saw a number of creatures I could n...  Read More

Our luggage came off the carousel one piece every 10 to 15 seconds. We stood for almost an hour and a half, and when we left probably 3/4 of the plane had not yet received theirs. Two very long phone calls during our layover held my rent a car reservation for 24 hours... they said. But that was not the case. Somehow the message never made it from Thrifty corporate offices to the desk in Atlanta. A...  Read More

Mmmm. Morning again. What did I say about travel? Sixteen to twenty hours one way? We're 28 hours and counting. If all goes well, about four more should do it. But- I shared Jesus with a server from Mexico, with a couple on their way to Kona for vacation., and with a man standing in line next to me. I shared my testimony and the gospel with a gold miner on his way home to Nevada, and got to know a...  Read More

Travel' means something different for those in Alaska. Airplanes are a necessity, but even then travel is often long, difficult  and expensive.  When you add weather delays and 'bad service' delays we often have 12 to 20 hours on a single one way trip. But... it's a lot faster than a ship or a horse or a covered wagon. I need to remind myself that travel is not simply about the destination, it's a...  Read More

Snow. It had to come sooner or later. I look out my window and see a covering of white. Everything is fresh and clean and beautiful. Isaiah 1:18 says, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Snow is a beautiful reminder that God forgives- that he's always willing to make us clean- to give us a fresh start, a new beginning. Come to him with your sins- be open and honest...  Read More

In Matthew 7:15 Jesus said, "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." 2 Peter 2 warns us that there will be false teachers among us. There are Christians with whom I strongly disagree on points of doctrine yet I know they are brothers in Christ. Being a 'wrong' teacher is very different from being a 'false' teacher. To be a 'false ...  Read More

Jesus once said to the disciples, "I have food to eat that you know nothing of," and then, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." There was a 'food' that his disciples didn't understand- a filling that nourished the soul. Jesus was giving hope to a foreign woman who  was in the middle of a tragically disappointing life. Some things are not only more important than o...  Read More

Even though I had a cast on my leg, I had a 12 gauge and a 30.06 in my truck, with my bird dog 'Tucker' sitting on the front seat beside me. It was winter, the temperature was below zero, and there was at least 3 feet of a soft snow on the ground. I was driving the road looking for ptarmigan, grouse, fox or wolves north of Paxson, Alaska. I parked my truck at the base of a high ridge, looked up, a...  Read More

As a young man I was utterly directionless. I lived as though the world revolved around me. I was concerned with my immediate pleasure and honestly never even considered a future responsibility to earn a living or care for a family. When you live that way (as though everything is about you) it's impossible to move forward. You stand still- the world is spinning- and eventually you begin to sink. M...  Read More

I once read that Mark Twain said, "The boy who picks up a cat by the tail learns a lesson he can learn in no other way." As funny as the thought is, it would actually benefit us if all of life's lessons could be learned that quickly. That boy would go from mischief to an immediate and overwhelming FEAR along with PAIN and perhaps a few SCARS. From this moment forward, that boy will have a reverent...  Read More

We'd spent long, hard days with little sleep. Our feet and bodies were battered and sore. The hunt was over, but we still had a lot of work to do. Gear had to be cleaned and dried, the tents needed to be pitched so they could dry out before storing, and bloody backpacks needed to be disassembled and washed. Our sheep meat needed to be cut up, wrapped and put in the freezer. Rifles needed to be cle...  Read More

The next morning, we followed the small stream down until we found our packs. By the time we broke down our spike camp and carried that and our sheep up to our main camp, hours of hard labor were behind us. But we weren't finished yet. We were on a brutal, bone-jarring trail with the ATV's heavily loaded- often off-balance and in danger of tipping. There was a good deal of winching, lifting, pushi...  Read More

We had a good idea of where to find our tent. But by the time we stumbled across it in the dark, it was 1:20 AM. This had been a very long day. We were soaked with rain on the outside and drenched with sweat underneath. My feet were raw, and as I crouched to get into my tent I wasn't sure if my shoulders, hips or legs hurt worse.But on the inside I was smiling. We had two rams. This had been a gre...  Read More

By the time we spotted our rams, climbed up to them, and finally had all the meat and horns and capes packed, it was somewhere between 10 and 11 PM. By the time we got off the mountain and then down the valley to the end of the ridge, it was after midnight. It was dark, we had no flashlight or headlamps, and we knew that we might have problems finding our tent in the next valley. We dropped our pa...  Read More

There were two big rams. We took careful aim, quietly counted to three and fired. We cringed as we watched the rams fall through the air for perhaps a 100 feet, land, tumble and freefall again. Everything happened so quickly that we didn't even consider the cliffs beneath us. Believe me, we considered them now. We had no way to drop off this ridgeline to our sheep at any point. We would have to fo...  Read More

As we continued to sidehill in the shale just beneath the clouds, the ridgeline above us got closer and closer as it 'ramped' lower and lower in elevation. While there was zero visibility in the clouds, there was perfect visibility just beneath them. We hated walking in this direction because the eight rams we were after had disappeared over the saddle behind us the day before. We finally reached ...  Read More

We stood in the deep fog having a quiet conversation. If we moved forward and the rams were near us, there was a good chance we'd scare them completely out of the country. It was a chance we weren't willing to take. We decided to lose elevation to get under the fog, so we side-hilled through rock and shale to a lower ridgeline. We were literally walking just under a thick canopy of clouds. Sometim...  Read More

Though raining, we had good visibility in the valley, but the tops of the mountains where we were headed were socked in with clouds. By the time we reached a high saddle we were standing in those wet clouds and could only see 15 or 20 feet through the foggy mist. This is the place we'd seen the rams disappear the day before, but on this day they could have been standing 50 yards from us and we wou...  Read More

My sheep hunting partner, Dan, is a lot tougher than I am. I tend to try to sit out the rain, waiting for it to clear. He gets up and goes. Of course, I follow- because as a man, I must. I can't stand the thought of someone enduring hardship that I'm not willing to endure. It was day two. We'd carried a 'spike camp' off in the direction where we'd seen rams run and disappear the day before. The gi...  Read More

It was by far the biggest dall sheep I had ever seen. The massive horns were the result of both age and genetics. We had spotted a band of rams on the top of a 'pinnacle' mountain several miles away and were simply making our way towards them. This ram surprised us. Suddenly it was right there- just above us- easy rifle range. We were thinking of flipping a coin to see which of us would be the luc...  Read More

Heavy frost and stars shining brilliantly against a black sky. The Big Dipper is directly overhead and looks almost close enough to touch. In less than 2 hours we'll have a beautiful sunrise. Jesus once criticized people saying that they could read the signs in the sky and know the coming weather, but couldn't read the spiritual signs that were all around them. It's true. While America's depravity...  Read More

As I did the calculations in my mind, I thought I could drop those 20 trees in about an hour. This was good because that was all the time I had. I was wrong. The hillside was steep, lumpy, and had high brush and devil's club. Near the valley floor, the ground had little pockets of water that didn't even seem to have a bottom. At times I couldn't even stand up on the side of the tree where I needed...  Read More

From the top of the steep ridge, I identified about 20 large trees that needed to come down. But I also stood gazing from side to side as I considered the ORDER in which they needed to come down. You see, other trees would block many of them from falling in the direction that I needed them to fall. Those 'blocking' trees needed to go down first. Also, the trees farthest from me needed to go down f...  Read More

Let me ask- how hard are you willing to WORK for what you WANT? The answer really rests upon how badly you want something. I once packed out a whole dall sheep and my camp nearly 9 miles. I was motivated. Because I REALLY WANTED to get a sheep, I was willing to sacrifice- to suffer- do a tremendous amount of work. But to want something in theory (daydreaming) and to want something in reality (purs...  Read More

I had one of those rare moments last week. We were in between rain storms so I went Into the woods behind my house and sat down on a little knoll for more than an hour. What was rare? You have to live in Alaska to understand this, but it was PEACEFUL because I wasn't swarmed by mosquitoes or no-see-ums (biting gnats). Don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed the wilderness thousands of times when they w...  Read More

A lot of people 'wish'  they were more patient. If we translated their thinking into a prayer, it might look like- "Lord, give me patience, and I want it RIGHT NOW!" When you pray for patience, God does not miraculously bestow it upon you. No, he gives you opportunities to BE patient. While taking a deep breath or counting to 10 may allow you to better control your impatience, it does nothing to c...  Read More

The grass is mowed for the final time and mowers are stored for the winter. Getting the snow plow mounted and ready to go. Still need to split and haul a lot of firewood. It's that time of year in Alaska. There's lots of snow in the high country, and we don't know if we have days or weeks before it settles here. But we KNOW it's coming. We PREPARE for those things that we KNOW are coming. Athletes...  Read More

Why are many of those without Christ so angry? They are simply channeling feelings of frustration. It's part of our fallen human nature. Think about it. How does an infant or toddler respond to frustration? They get angry. But let's go deeper. Why are they so frustrated? At the root of this, certainly for those under the age of 40, is the problem of not understanding or embracing their God-given i...  Read More

The bear was too big to drag. I was by myself... in the rain... I looked at my watch... Bible study night... I didn't have time to skin it and pack it out. I passed. Priorities change. As a young Christian. I was so committed to hunting that I refused to serve on Sundays at church. I still love to hunt, but I hate missing church. I love to worship. I love the preaching of the Word, and I love the ...  Read More

By keeping our destination in sight, we made it safely across the glacier. We achieved our goal but found ourselves utterly disappointed. It wasn't what we expected. We were on the wrong side of a raging torrent of water. After all of that misery and hard work, we expected things to be easy. We were hopeful that things would be perfect. At the very least, we expected things to be a lot better. Thi...  Read More

A friend and I once spent hours on the ice- in the rain- crossing Kennicott Glacier. We had no crampons, ice axes, or ropes. We had no maps or aerial photos. We were picking our route 'as we were going' with no idea what lay before us. Only one thing kept us motivated and on track- we could see our destination. So many of life's wrong turns- bad decisions- stresses, fears, and anxieties- could be ...  Read More

I've always had an excellent internal compass. I was helping my dad look for a big whitetail buck he'd shot with an arrow. He shot it right before dark and didn't have a flashlight. By the time he made it out to the road, drove to a phone, called us and we made it down with lights, a couple of hours had gone by. He was scouting out a new river bottom and had climbed a tree when he shot the deer, s...  Read More

Jesus, in words to his followers, said in Matthew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth." That's you. That's me. Salt. Salt influences everything where it's spread. Whether you use it on a steak, french fries, or put it in a glass of water- salt changes things. Salt preserves things and adds flavor, but it is also critical for life. The average adult has more than a 1/2 pound of salt in his or her ...  Read More

Another moose hunting season has passed me by without seeing a single legal bull. But we did have the chance to help another hunter and invite him to church. He lives in Anchorage so I told him that we had just started a new church there. He asked the name and where it was. I said, "It's called 'The Crossing' and it's in South Anchorage in Sand Lake." He replied, "I was just at that church last Su...  Read More

Time passes swiftly. I know this will sound strange to you young people, but high school honestly doesn't seem that long ago. I don't want to go back to those days. In all of eternity, we only get to 'age' once. Embrace it. This is the experience of a lifetime. Ask God to grow you and teach you and show you everything that He desires for you to learn in this brief moment of your eternal history.  ...  Read More

In the old days, rafts were not self-bailing. An essential piece of gear for whitewater was 'scoops' (generally, coffee cans, buckets or a milk jug with the bottom cut out). A group of friends invited me to 'paddle raft' Lion's Head- a stretch of serious rapids on the upper Matanuska River. My job was 'bailer.' That seemed like a waste of time to me. I thought perhaps I should have an oar and simp...  Read More

Cold outside- snow on the mountains- yellow leaves falling like rain. Everything in Alaska is getting ready for winter. People are cutting and splitting wood while the bears pack on their last pounds along the salmon streams and the berry covered mountains. In life there are often 'seasons of preparation.' It may be studying or training for a career, it may be getting a house ready for a new baby,...  Read More

I detest hunting from a treestand. I still do it- willingly- when I have the opportunity, it's just hard for me to sit patiently for hours hoping that something will walk by. I'm a wanderer at heart. I love the experience of silently hiking up and down hills and through valleys- always listening- always looking. Yet even though I prefer walking, I have seen a great deal more wildlife and been far ...  Read More