Posts with the category “daily-devotions”

By three months old, my Chesapeake Bay Retriever, 'Tuck-A- Duck-Away' (Tucker) was hand signal, whistle and voice trained. He loved the water and was an absolute joy to train. He was intelligent, eager to please, and absolutely obedient. Working with him was so rewarding that I actually thought about leaving my teaching career and training hunting dogs full time. I had a very high view of myself a...  Read More

Hosea 6:3 says, "As surely as the sun rises, he will appear."The return of Christ is not only promised, it is imminent. I have many times looked and wondered, "Is it today, Lord?" In fact, I'm looking at the sunrise right now. The Bible tells us that we will all be changed "in a flash- in the twinkling of an eye." Live as though today is your LAST opportunity to tell people that you love them.Live...  Read More

Maybe you remember the old riddle: Q: How do you eat an elephant?A: One bite at a time!Large projects can seem daunting up front. When Pastor Robert Chadwick and I, along with a small group of men, decided that we could build 'a church that could seat 1,000' we had about 200 attenders. Our plan was to do it completely ourselves- all volunteer labor. I was in charge of the fundraising pledge drive ...  Read More

Every hunter knows that the moment of success is when the work really begins. A large animal needs to be cut up right there on the ground. That's hard enough, but when you finish that you need to start packing heavy loads of meat. Once you get the meat home, you need to process it and get it in the freezer. Then everything needs to be cleaned and put away for next time. Work, work, work, work, wor...  Read More

The first time I brought home a bearLaura was a little hesitant about the meat. This was new for both of us.I had taken a big black bear with a bow and arrow and had kept the meat meticulously clean. Even so, I had to 'bargain' to get her to try it. I said, "We'll put a roast in the crock pot before church, and when we come home, if it smells good, we'll try it. Otherwise, we'll go out for lunch."...  Read More

One primary key to a productive life is repetition. But then, repetition is also one primary cause of a destructive life. You see, when you do a good thing again and again, you develop a HABIT, and your habits form your LIFE. Repeating good things- healthy things- is like putting money in the bank. When times get hard or you face BIG challenges, you have an 'account' to draw from. Good habits posi...  Read More

I was sitting on a small cutbank with my legs dangling. About twenty feet beneath me was a tiny trickle of water. I saw the tiniest flash of brown in the brushy bottom, and shortly after saw two grizzly cubs, each about the size of a football. They were followed by the largest interior bear I'd ever seen. Everything had gone from peaceful to extreme danger in a moment. I had my rifle with me, but ...  Read More

As a teenager and young man out working in the world, I always thought I was a Christian. I never read the Bible, I never prayed, I rarely attended church after high school, and I cursed continuously. Then I got saved. A godly pastor suggested that I should get baptized. I resented his saying that. After all, I had been baptized as an infant. In fact, I had never seen or heard of a baptism that wa...  Read More

What comes to mind when you think of Vacation Bible School? We just wrapped up an incredible week of pouring Jesus into children. We had over 200 volunteers, including more than 50 teenagers. We had over 400 children in attendance. We had a worship team and drama team and kitchen team and outside activities team. We had teachers and craft leaders and clean-up crews. We had a tech team that include...  Read More

It had been a long day, and much longer for my young son. I don't know how many miles we walked, but we had been walking all day. I was actually thankful to spot my bright yellow tent in the distance, because the sun went down just before we got back to camp. Thankfully we still had enough light to shoot, because a caribou glided past about 100 yards from the tent. Hunter made a great shot, and as...  Read More

Yesterday I climbed a mountain with our youth group. We had a total of 51 people climbing, over half of whom had never climbed a mountain before. For the first time in a number of years, NO ONE QUIT! It was relatively easy for a handful of super-athletic kids. It was very hard for most. It was grueling for some. In life we will all face many mountains. Some will be relatively easy, some will be ve...  Read More

After yesterday's devotion, I got to thinking about all of the different times I have been upside-down under a machine. Off the top of my head, I could think of five times. All but one were because of bad decision making. In my many years as pastor I have seen dozens of lives turned upside-down by bad decision making. Sexual immorality, alcohol, drugs, dishonest business practices, even laziness a...  Read More

One of the functional advantages of 'mud-gripper' tires on an ATV is that they extend well into the sidewall of the tire. This gives you a tremendous amount of pull when going through muck. But they also come with a unique problem. When you bump the edge of a front tire against a tree or cutbank, the machine will often begin to climb straight up. Under speed, this can lead to an immediate 'flip' u...  Read More

When my daughter Sarah was 11 years old, our friend (and hunting guide) Terry Holiday flew us out of Iliamna on her first caribou hunt. We experienced a night of wind like nothing I've ever seen. Our tent was literally called a 'Bomb Shelter', and with its heavy steel pipe frame and 16 tie-down ropes to anchor us in place, we managed to weather it through. Other hunters with the same tent didn't m...  Read More

For many years Laura and I were locally famous for our car stories. More accurately- for our car troubles. You see, building a church, raising five children of our own and helping to raise nearly two dozen more kept us on a slim budget. In fact, we drove two vehicles that had both been totaled (and not fixed) for many years. Understanding that those two were our 'good' vehicles, you can imagine ho...  Read More

We had driven over 100 miles- the last 60 of it washboard gravel. From there, we shouldered heavy packs and walked at a pace so frantic that at times we were 'shuffling' (an 'almost jog') to add speed. We were hiking along the edge of a glacier and had to be careful not to turn an ankle on the loose, rocky ground. We were after Mountain Goats, but without flying the country we honestly had no idea...  Read More

My wife, Laura, loves to be out on the water IF the water is calm and IF it is warm outside and IF the sun is shining. She also loves fishing IF she is catching fish. She does not, however, have any interest in spending her day being cold and wet and miserable. In fact she once told me that her idea of a perfect hunt would be to cuddle up with a blanket in a motorhome reading a book and wait for s...  Read More

Perhaps you've heard the expression, "It's just the tip of the iceberg." We were snowmachining in what appeared to be a wide open plain at the foot of a glacier. Here and there we saw unusual formations jutting up from the landscape. It wasn't until we got close that I realized we were actually riding on a frozen lake in deep powder, and that the 'land formations' were the tips of icebergs. The ti...  Read More

Before telephone navigation, I often carried printed pages and folders with specific directions to my destination when we were traveling out of state. Our phones are now a wonderful navigation tool. They are usually right. They are almost always right. Almost. But if you are wise you wouldn't stake your life on the accuracy of its navigation. You wouldn't want to bet your house. Why? Because ALMOS...  Read More

One of the best ways to guarantee terrible weather in Alaska is to plan a Dall Sheep hunt. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. In over three decades of stomping around in Alaska's high country, I can only remember a handful of beautiful, sunny days. I'm not saying that we only HAD a few, I'm just saying that those aren't the days that left a strong impression on my memory. Days on end of cold...  Read More

Normally my friend Ed and I have floated Eagle River in our pack rafts several times by this time of year. This year the combination of nasty weather and our own busy schedules have kept us off the river. I have been missing it. There is an old hymn that says, "I have peace like a river in my soul." There is a certain peace- a certain calming of the soul- that I experience when I am on a quiet, me...  Read More

Many years ago we had a visitor from out of state on a Sunday morning who attended a church twice our size. Upon coming in she said to me, "I can't believe the number of men you have serving at this church. I couldn't give you the names of four men who serve in any way at our church." We see this pattern all over America: when a commitment to TRUTH leaves a church, masculine men leave the church. ...  Read More

For many years I tagged along as our youth group backpacked 26 miles from Girdwood to the Eagle River Nature Center through Crow Pass. One year as we finished setting up our tents and were breaking out our stoves to cook our first meal, someone hollered, "Bear!" This was before cell phones, so these Alaska kids were diving into their tents to get their cameras. We gathered all of the teens into a ...  Read More

Late May and the pond at my cabin is still completely frozen. As with all of our lakes, if a person drew his or her idea of what a 'lake' was in midwinter, he would think that a lake is simply a large, barren sheet of ice. If all truth was found on the surface of the way things appear, he would be right. But a lake is NOT a barren sheet of ice. To understand a lake you need to go deeper. Under the...  Read More

Hebrews 12:28 says, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe." We know a little bit about being 'shaken' in Alaska. As unbelievable as it may sound to you, Alaska averages between 50 and 100 earthquakes per DAY. That's a lot of shaking! Our last really big one was about 5 years ago. One of our church...  Read More

I am always amazed at the amount of money that some people spend on their children's outdoor clothing. Not that good gear isn't important, it's just that they grow out of things so quickly. When I was a kid we simply made do with what we had. Waterproof boots? We never heard of them. Waterproofing for us was Wonderbread sacks over our socks. As I've grown older I've learned the importance of being...  Read More

Persistence pays. Trying to get my youngest son a caribou proved to be a long endeavor. It looked like this: drive 250 miles, hunt for 2 days, drive 250 miles home. We did this several times before finally seeing a small band of caribou standing in the snow in heavy fog. My son got one off-hand shot before they bolted into the timber. He said that he thought he hit one, but nothing went down and t...  Read More

If you are fortunate to visit an Alaska native village during the 'run' you will see fish racks drying salmon. In the interior you may also see a cache. This looks like a tiny log cabin on stilts- usually 15 ft or more up off the ground. This is where hunters would store their meat to keep it from predators. The meat freezes in cold weather and is good all winter and spring. When it comes to food,...  Read More

For many years this was the time of year when I harvested our spring and summer meat - black bear. I'd still be doing it if I had a place to hunt... but not because it's fun. For me sitting in a tree until midnight, covered with mosquitoes, is not fun. Skinning and cutting up a bear well after midnight by myself is not fun. Getting a bear roast out of the freezer is fun. Men are wired differently,...  Read More

My wife, Laura, grew up in Alaska but not in a hunting family. As the oldest child she did much of the cooking for the family when she grew up, but she said that she was too squeamish to even cut up a chicken. As a young married couple in Copper River we were allowed one subsistence caribou each. She wasn't happy about it, but I insisted that she shoot one because we needed the meat. She, however,...  Read More

I'm not as strong as I used to be. People who hunt Dall Sheep understand that an 'empty' pack when you leave camp is actually very heavy. You need binoculars, rangefinder, spotting scope and tripod. You need a scoped rifle and extra ammo. You need rain gear and warm gear and an emergency phone. You need food, water, knives and game bags. On top of that, for many years I brought a whole Dall Sheep ...  Read More

While I have crossed many glaciers in my life, there is only one time that I was actually inside of one. Friends and I were out on snowmachines and noticed and opening in a glacier. I walked up to the opening and to my surprise was looking into a beautiful, large ice cavern. I actually drove my snowmachine inside. A year later the opening was gone. You see, to all appearances glaciers are rock sol...  Read More

Though nearly the middle of May, I found myself climbing in fresh snow yesterday. Alaska is indeed a land of extremes. A number of times in my life I've heard people from Southern California complain about the monotony of continuous sunshine. That's never been my experience. Don't get me wrong, I love snow and the crisp, cold air... in winter. But this time of year I find myself anxious for the sn...  Read More

It's May 11th and I have a fresh blanket of snow the ground. About a month ago I got serious about climbing again. It's unpleasant. In fact, I'm always a little bit nauseous until my body adjusts to the exertion. Many of the things that are good for us in the long haul are difficult in the moment. Maintaining sexual purity until marriage, sticking with your marriage even when things get tough, lab...  Read More

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I'm one of those who is blessed with a great mother, as was she. My wife and my daughters are great mothers. Being an excellent mother doesn't require perfection, it simply requires that you give yourself fully in each of your life's roles. For example, you can give 100% to being a mother, 100% to being a wife, 100% to being an employee, 100% to being ...  Read More

Satan continues to wage his war on what it is to be masculine and feminine. Sadly, many young Christians are unknowingly leading their sons and daughters into this confusion. Raise your boys to be strong- guardians, protectors, providers. No, they shouldn't be playing with dolls. Give them a hammer and some nails and a pile of scrap wood. Give them bows and slingshots and knives. Let them cook, su...  Read More

We all came from somewhere. I'm not talking about YOU, specifically, I'm talking about your 'people'- your ancestors. Every person on earth shares a common Grandfather- Noah. We all shared one and the same language, and I'm quite positive it wasn't English! Mankind was settled on an enormous plain in the Middle East, and was building a tower that reached to the heavens- without God- in spite of Go...  Read More

Some people grow up expecting others to do everything for them- to solve all of their problems- to meet all of their needs. Sadly, these wrong expectations are often learned in childhood. It's actually GOOD for people to be a part of the solutions that they need. Years ago my young granddaughter Harper wanted me to fill a small swimming pool with water so the kids could 'swim.' I told her that if ...  Read More

One of the reasons young children learn and grow so fast is that they 'believe' that they can do almost anything. Ask a kindergartner- "Can you run fast? Can you jump high? Can you draw a beautiful picture?" "Yes!  Yes! Yes!"A number of years ago as my 3 year old granddaughter Piper climbed the tiniest little 'rock wall' you've ever seen to go down a slide, I heard her say to herself, "I'm SO stro...  Read More

The statement- "It's a pretty good trail" means something entirely different in Alaska than in other states.  In Alaska it simply means that if conditions are right you will 'probably' get through.... but you might get stuck many times- your ATV may break down- you will definitely want a winch.  Even so, I am thankful for the small number of trails that we have into the wilderness. From year to ye...  Read More