Posts with the category “daily-devotions”

I'd forgotten the stillness. Climbing a mountain in the early morning darkness- the white of the snow touching a sky lit by stars and moon- the only sound is my soft breathing and the rythmic crunch of my boots on the snow. It's been cold, true, but the air is crisp and clean and somehow exhilarating. From high on this mountain, 'Peace on Earth' actually seems possible. Luke 5:16 says, "Jesus ofte...  Read More

Several weeks ago I got ready to climb. I set out my crampons, poles, gaitors, boots, headlamps, pack and gear. I put on my climbing clothes and was ready to go. Then Laura reminded me of an important appointment early that morning. I didn't have time to climb. Then for three weeks or so, there were many mornings when I COULD have climbed, I just lacked motivation. Yesterday I finally did it- my f...  Read More

It was a sunny morning in the middle of August- the kind of morning sheep hunters remember. Of course, hunting is when you go where the animals live and try to get one. It's more accurate to say that I was 'hunting for a place to hunt.' I hadn't seen any sheep, didn't know if there were any in this stretch of mountains, but it was too beautiful a morning not to climb. Besides, I only had two days ...  Read More

I'd only been to this mountain one time before. It had involved side-hilling through heavy brush right at treeline. I had to 'walk' the machine down several steep cuts and then winch it back up the other side. It was extremely slow, extremely difficult, and very dangerous. Not only that, but it didn't get me 'to' the mountain, it only got me close. Now, years later, I found myself on an old trail ...  Read More

Cold and dark. That's our Alaskan morning. We all know that 'cold' is a word we use to describe the absence of heat, and 'dark' is the word we use to describe the absence of light. Our God is a Consuming Fire and The Light of the World. Heat and Light.But more than that, God is GOOD. Thus, the ABSENCE of GOD is the ABSENCE of GOOD. This is what makes hell so terrible. If you want nothing to do wit...  Read More

As I walked into the empty church in the early morning darkness, I was overwhelmed by the beautiful Christmas scene. Trees are lit and covered with ornaments, garland and lights decorate the stairwell, and somehow the combination blankets me with a feeling of peace.... and joy... and gratitude... For me, there is something holy about Christmas lights shining in the darkness that makes me want to w...  Read More

I spent much of yesterday in the wilderness. Although the sun was not yet up at 10 AM, the temperature was a balmy 10°. The only problem is that there's so little snow that I have to ride an ATV. In fact the freezing rain last week settled the snow down to about 8 inches off the trail. What we need is at least 2 feet- 3 feet is better. The moose population in my area is at a historic low. In over ...  Read More

I laid awake that night with my foot throbbing in pain. When I got up in the morning my foot was so stiff and swollen that I could barely make it down the stairs. I allowed things to 'settle' for 2 or 3 days and then I climbed again. Each climb was not quite as slow as the one before and my recovery time got better. As the first few months went by, I continued to climb- continued to get stronger. ...  Read More

A normal, good pace for me coming down Bear Mountain (which is faster than going up) is about 40 minutes from the summit to my house. I was still near the top and 40 minutes were already behind me. The first hour stretched slowly and painfully into the second, and I was still a long way from home. With my damaged and swollen foot, coming down the mountain was far more difficult than climbing up. I...  Read More

By the time I reached the summit, the other climbers had long passed me by, yet I was so overwhelmed with thanksgiving that I had tears in my eyes as I  was pouring out praise to God. The others were standing around a blazing fire as I hobbled into to the circle. I didn't stay long. I was cold and knew that I was going to have a hard time of it going down. Much of the descent was near vertical, an...  Read More

The night finally came- New Year's Eve. When I walked downstairs wearing my climbing gear, Laura's first question was, "What are you doing?" I hadn't shared my plan with anyone until that moment. When I stated nonchalantly, "I'm going climbing," I was met with a chorus of, "You CAN'T do it, you're not ready!" "You're NOT doing it!" "PLEASE don't do it!" But I was determined. A group of local climb...  Read More

Many times each day I forced my swollen foot into my climbing boot. I timed how long I could stand the pain before pulling the boot off. Soon I could endure a minute and then two minutes and then five minutes. By the end of two weeks, I could leave my foot in the boot for an hour and was able to hobble around the house with both boots on. My goal was to climb Bear Mountain on New Year's Eve- exact...  Read More

I spent several days looking at my climbing boots and gathering up my nerve. My plan was to shove my foot (thick and swollen and full of stitches) into my climbing boot so that the rigid boot would force my foot to heal into the shape of the inside of the boot. That way I would be able to continue mountain climbing. I had my son, David, bring me my boots. He saw what I was thinking and said, "Don'...  Read More

I asked my spinal surgeon what kind of activity my back could withstand. He said that I could do anything that I could stand- that I would have pain but was in no danger of further injury. In fact, he said that those three fused vertebrae were now the strongest part of my spine. Now I could focus all of my 'rehab' attention on my foot. That got me thinking about climbing. I always tell people that...  Read More

In addition to my crushed foot, I also needed surgery to fuse three crushed vertebrae. So as not to leave me completely immobile and bedridden, they decided to do the spinal fusion after I got the cast off my foot. Every month I had to go in for a back x-ray to make certain that those damaged vertebrae weren't moving. The day finally came, my cast was removed. I was shocked by the length of the th...  Read More

Crushed vertebrae, a crushed foot, and over 3 1/2 months in a wheelchair. My leg was in a cast, my body was in a shell, and I was in a lot of pain. I was content to lie still from the end of August to the middle of December. I love to climb mountains, especially in the snow. According to my journal, the previous winter I had summitted 83 times. That summer I summited Mount Rainier. I mention this ...  Read More

I still needed to butcher my deer and get it in the freezer, but it was in the truck and I was pointed toward home. The moment I started my truck and put it in gear I felt an enormous sense of relief from not only half a day of grueling hard work, but also from the intense mental pressure of needing to get this deer out. Almost like flipping a light switch, everything changed in an instant. I was ...  Read More

I was drenched in sweat and my shoulders were raw from the thin rope harness I made to drag my deer, but I somehow made it up out of the coulee onto level ground. But I faced another problem. Directly between myself and my truck was an old barbed wire sheep fence with wires stretched so tight and low to the ground that I couldn't get the deer under it. It took all of my strength to cut the wire wi...  Read More

The antlers made nice handles, but I couldn't budge the mule deer even one inch up the side of the steep coulee. I decided to backtrack, climb out on my own and head back to get my truck. My hope was that I would be able to drive around the coulee and park close to the upper edge. In my truck I found a 10 foot piece of rope, cut it in half, made two loops and tied one on each of the buck's antlers...  Read More

As I hit the edge of yet another coulee I jumped a nice mule deer buck. It was a large mature buck, but looking back, the antlers were clearly average. He was doing that bounding 'bounce' peculiar to mule deer when he stopped broadside halfway up the coulee wall. In my excitement and inexperience, I shot him right there. If I had waited another minute, he would have climbed up out of that coulee o...  Read More

The high plateau that borders Montana's Missouri Breaks looks flat and lifeless. Sagebrush and tired looking soil called 'gumbo' go on for mile after mile. That's at first glance. In truth, the country is rich with game. Antelope herds thrive on the plains and small draws called 'coulees' offer shade to deer and elk during the heat of the day. I was hunting deer by myself, walking those draws and ...  Read More

And so we passed on the buck of a lifetime and made our way in silence down to the truck. I was not a Christian then, and I said in a moment of honesty, "Doug, if you hadn't been here I would have shot that buck." He grinned and said, "If you hadn't been here, I would've shot that buck." Though we would never have gotten caught, accountability kept us legal. Face it, we are all sinners. Having bro...  Read More

We stood motionless on the steep, snowy mountainside, senses on high alert. We were hunting elk, and a deep, musky scent told us that an animal was very close. The sun was just going down as we saw the tips of very large antlers not 30 yards beneath us. The animal was still hidden by a small knoll, but as he moved our way, we saw long tines and a wide spread. We already had our rifles up when he s...  Read More

I couldn't get my frozen fingers to work. My partner loaded my rifle and zipped up my coat. There was a foot of fresh snow on the ground, and we were at the bottom of a steep ridge. I started climbing immediately. Ten minutes later, part way up the ridge, I was warm and toasty and felt fine for the first time in many hours. We walked all day and saw nothing but an occasional track in the snow. We ...  Read More

My body hurt. I was in significant pain and could not stop shivering. My hunting partner was breathing peacefully beside me in his goose down sleeping bag. I simply suffered minute after minute as the hours slowly dragged into morning. When we ran out of propane for the heater, we closed the side windows of the topper on my pickup to try to retain heat, but we could not keep out the bitter cold. D...  Read More

It was my first hunt in Montana's Crazy Mountains. My 'guide' and hunting partner was Doug Bingeman, the science teacher in Moore, Montana. I taught elementary school there. We decided to take my truck because I had a topper on it and had cut out a foam pad and carpet so that I could sleep in the back. It was mid-November, long after dark and bitterly cold as we opened the side windows of the topp...  Read More

The cold snap continues with the temperature in the single digits. I saw a crew working on a metal building yesterday. I've worked construction in these temperatures. It's impossible to keep your fingers warm. You lose dexterity- even the ability to pick up a nail or a screw. Everything becomes more difficult. This same truth applies to those who are spiritually cold. Believe me, I've been there. ...  Read More

"Are you guys awake?" My hunting partner and I had taken an older teen on a hunting excursion up the Snow River past the glacier. We had three small 'solo' tents pitched about 20 yards apart. As some of you know, camping out in country that is full of bears can be interesting. At times your imagination can run wild. My buddy and I were used to this and did not realize that our teenage companion wa...  Read More

Clear skies, stars and a quarter moon. My phone says 11 degrees but it's colder than that here. Something inside me has been rebelling against climbing. Perhaps it's jet lag or recovering from two busy weeks of work and travel. Sometimes I need to remind myself that Jesus rested. I often feel guilty when I'm not busy. God created our bodies to be very active, but think of this: He created us to ne...  Read More

I had this trip planned for months. Even so, 3 of my 4 flights were canceled. They swapped my aisle seat in row 7 for 31F. My 5 hour drive to Atlanta included coming to a complete stop three times on the Interstate. I learned long ago that if I am doing all that I can to move forward, then I just need to let the day unfold. Impatience solves nothing. It's like the person who said, "If you allow th...  Read More

I had taken my first two bears in the same week, but I had never yet eaten bear. Laura did not even want me to cook it in her kitchen. I was working for minimum wage and she was working part-time, so we were living on an extremely tight budget. I put a roast in the crock pot on Sunday morning, which she only allowed on the condition that if we didn't like it I would take her out to lunch. We were ...  Read More

By the time I skinned my bear, boned out the meat and packed it out of the mountains, it was after midnight. As I pulled into our apartment in Chugiak, I was excited to show Laura my bear. We had been married 8 months and she did not grow up in a hunting family. We lived upstairs in a 4-plex with thin walls, so I was being as quiet as I could. It turns out that Laura was sleeping. When I turned on...  Read More

I followed the bear into the heavy brush- bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. There was no blood. Again and again I circled, but there was no sign of any kind. Finally, I went back to my tree. I thought, "Where would I have run if I was a bear?" The answer was the exact opposite of where I had seen him run. It was up a narrow draw into the mountains. As a last resort I decided to simply wal...  Read More

I didn't see anything in my bear stand again that night. When I call it a tree 'stand' understand something- there was no seat, only a platform for my feet. I had to literally stand all of those hours every night I hunted. For weeks the only animals I had seen were squirrels. I headed out again the next night and climbed up my tree. After several hours I caught a glimpse of movement, and then I sa...  Read More

When I got back home with my cinnamon colored black bear I immediately grabbed my bow and went into the mountains to hunt from my stand. In over 3 weeks nothing had come in, but I remained hopeful. As I drew near I was shocked to discover someone up my tree and in my stand. This stand was hidden and far off trail. I could not imagine anyone 'stumbling' upon it. Then my shock increased. It was one ...  Read More

Though this was my first bear, I had been sure it was a black bear when I shot it. I decided to take it to Fish and Game in Glennallen. Either bear was legal for me to take, but I was only allowed one grizzly bear every 4 years, so I needed to know for sure. When I explained to the 2 wildlife biologists that I shot a bear and wasn't sure if it was a black bear or a grizzly bear, they both rolled t...  Read More

Though nothing was coming into my bear stand, I made the drive and hike into the mountains night after night for several weeks. I continued practicing with my bow and was confident that if I was given the opportunity I could make a good shot. I had been out of the army for about 4 months, and Laura and I had the opportunity to go to Glennallen and Kenny Lake to officially accept our first teaching...  Read More

When Laura and I were first married I decided I was going to hunt black bear with a bow and arrow. My Hoyt compound bow was the first quality piece of hunting gear I'd ever purchased. I had met 2 guys at the archery club who also wanted to hunt. We made a good plan. We decided to set up 3 stands in different locations and then we would take turns hunting whichever stand had bears coming in. In tho...  Read More

For many years I have found that 'getting' in shape and 'staying' in shape do not come automatically. More than that, both are in many ways unpleasant. What I want NOW is a terrible master. What I want NOW is to eat more than I should and exercise less than I should. Our physical bodies make wonderful servants, but when allowed to lead, they soon become tyrants and dictators, don't they? So here i...  Read More

All of humanity once had one language. For any kind of relationship to exist, there must be communication. For people to work effectively and in unity, there must be communication. So why did God confuse mankind's language? Why did he- in a moment in time- separate people by language groups? Ultimately, it was because of the sin of PRIDE. It was not by mistake that Satan named one of his great mov...  Read More