Posts with the category “daily-devotions”

When my boys were young, I always made a big deal out of cooking and eating anything they brought home. I wanted them to feel the pleasure and satisfaction of being a provider. And it wasn't just me. Whether they snared a rabbit, shot a ptarmigan or grouse, or caught a fish, Laura was their biggest cheerleader. At mealtime we 'announced' who had provided dinner. Do you celebrate one another for pr...  Read More

When my kids were growing up, we had a 'teacup ' Toy Poodle named Spike. Hewas very well trained and loved to be around people. One fall in the midst of fun and activities at our cabin, someone let him out to go to the bathroom and forgot to let him back in. Because the kids slept in a separate bunkhouse, and the dog was commonly there and in the main cabin, no one noticed that he was gone. We did...  Read More

All five of our children have a wonderful sense of humor. It is a blessing to be in a home filled with laughter. Did you know that on average, a child will laugh more than a dozen times for each one time that an adult laughs during the day? How did this happen? How can that be? Have YOU forgotten how to laugh? Nehemiah, though a slave, had been released by his king to rebuild the walls around Jeru...  Read More

Seven. That's how many days it snowed at my house in May. I only bring it up because yesterday (August 31) it not only snowed, but it snowed so hard that I had to change my hunting plans because of dangerous ice and inches of snow on the highway. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying...  You don't get to choose the weather. What do YOU do when life interrupts your plans? Get angry? Curse? Mutter un...  Read More

They call them 'wisdom' teeth because they come in when you get older. If this was true, then the people serving in congress would be full of wisdom. Yet over half of them have NO wisdom- not as God defines it. Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." This means the 6 year-old who loves Jesus has far more wisdom than the 66 year-old who opposes Christ's teaching. Wise...  Read More

One of my goals when my brother Jim came to visit me in Alaska was to take him on a climb 'above the clouds.' Having lived and hunted elk in Colorado for years, he was accustomed to being in the mountains. Even so, Alaska is somehow different... wilder... more extreme. There is a perspective- a view- that comes only to those who climb. As you get higher the view changes again and again. Your perce...  Read More

Eleven people, three rafts, two kayaks, a mountain of camping gear, a 250 mile drive, and three miles across a frozen lake, dragging all of it. Our aim was to float the Gulkana River from Paxson Lake to Sourdough, but on Memorial Day weekend, the lake was still frozen. In Alaska's interior at the end of May, you need to be prepared for hot weather, cold weather, and continuous rain. At times you e...  Read More

Several years ago, when my uncle Jim and aunt Kathy came to Alaska with my mom and dad, my friend Dan took us fishing on the Kenai. We had missed the run, but through persistence we were able to land a few fish. When fishing salmon in Alaska, TIMING is everything. When Jesus called his first disciples (who were commercial fishermen), he said, "Come! Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men!" ...  Read More

Lifting a bear off the ground is kind of like trying to pick up a handful of jello... that weighs hundreds of pounds. Everything moves away from whatever spot you are trying to lift. Even so, with two men working, we were able to lash the entire bear on a pack frame. That's when the real work started. If you are going to be successful and happy in life, you need to learn to carry your own weight. ...  Read More

The thing about hunting in Alaska is that if you don't find what you're looking for you might find something else. You may be moose hunting in an open area and go home with a caribou or a black or grizzly bear. You didn't get the 'good thing' you were after, but you got a different 'good thing.' This is so often true in the life of a Christian. We are PRAYING for something, LONGING for something, ...  Read More

Three times in my life, friends have flown myself and one (or two) of my kids in a Supercub to go hunting.  Skilled pilots are able to land and take off in a very short distance on extremely difficult terrain- gravel bars, mountain tops, and open tundra. You see, Alaska has many places (including more than 100 villages) that are only accessible by plane. It's true that a person could say, "I'm goi...  Read More

Backpacking Crow Pass was an annual adventure for our high school youth group for several decades. The night before this four day adventure was our annual 'gear check.' This is where 40 students would lay out every item from their backpack on the floor and our leaders would go through each pack- item by item- to make sure that students had every single piece of gear that was on our official packin...  Read More

What really matters to you? Making money? Having fun? Finding the right person to marry? Getting a good job? Those are all good things. But think about the only PERFECT life- consider Jesus. He wasn't focused on making money or having fun or stepping into the right career, and he never got married. When we devote ourselves to pursuing GOOD things in life, it is easy to miss out on the BEST thing- ...  Read More

It seems a lifetime ago that my good friend, Dan Marshall and I spent the night on the snowy ground to fish Montana's Ruby River. Growing up in mountain country, Dan well understood the importance of good gear. After building a roaring fire, Dan laid a quality sleeping pad down on the snow, crawled into a heavy down sleeping bag and went to sleep. Growing up in Minnesota, even though I had been hu...  Read More

Why is a glacier blue? I don't know, maybe for the same reason that the sky is blue and in many places,that the ocean is blue. Color is a wonderful thing, isn't it? One thing we know- it's all wrapped up in how  the addition of LIGHT impacts 'matter'- the substance of a thing. There is something stirring to the soul about a blue sky after days of rain, a blue ocean at the end of a desert, or even ...  Read More

It is a little known fact that caribou love the high places. What I mean is that they love to be on the very top of the tallest mountains, and are very often seen higher than the Dall sheep. When you look up at the cliffs and grey rock, it doesn't seem that there would be anything for them to eat, and yet when you climb those high mountains, you discover that there are tufts of grass and tundra ev...  Read More

Being alone in the wilderness is something very few people ever experience. And yet... there is something about the wilderness that has always drawn me. As a young man I was out continuously. My life largely consisted of packing, going, unpacking, and dreaming of going again. As I have grown closer to the Lord my priorities have changed. I still love the wilderness, but I go much less often. Why? ...  Read More

I've never seen anything like it. It was flat- perhaps twenty feet off the ground at its highest point- and it was below me. I could see it touching the ground on both sides. I could easily have marked the spot. Having a large, full rainbow beneath me and hovering, just off the ground was a new experience. But the purpose of the rainbow has never changed. That part wasn't new. God gave the rainbow...  Read More

Over the years, I couldn't tell you how many times i've found 'life' in unexpected places. I was snowshoeing across a smooth blanket of snow at −30°, when all of a sudden little white heads started popping up through the surface of the snow. Ptarmigan had been living under the snow. I would never have imagined it. The first time that I saw Dall sheep living up in the craggy gray cliffs, I was surp...  Read More

I was sitting outside my tent at 10 PM enjoying the last rays of sunshine. In less than an hour, 59 caribou walked right past my tent. Two things on my part were critical for this experience: my STILLNESS and my SILENCE. We miss so much of the life and beauty that surrounds us because we are so seldom still and so seldom sit in total silence. Too much activity and too much noise not only drown out...  Read More

A part of me was made for wilderness. In the past two days I saw hundreds of caribou and a great deal of wolf and grizzly sign. I climbed two mountains in a place so remote that it is very likely that no one has ever set foot on the ground where I was walking. I was contemplating this almost magnetic 'draw' I feel in those places. I've decided that it's a longing for home- for eternity- and that t...  Read More

I was in the mountains without cell reception today. Though I am getting older, the 'high country' remains my happy place. When I am alone, the climbing is easier. Thisis because I am able to go at MY pace, which is considerably slower than most of the guys who are sheep hunting. Every person has an individual 'rhythm' for optimum productivity. Some people need a laid back, stress-free work enviro...  Read More

Climbing a mountain isn't something that appeals to everyone. It isn't pleasant... often it isn't fun... but it's GOOD. Most of life's GOOD things include HARD things... GOOD HARD things... things like work and study and effort and sacrifice. But those who spend their lives trying to avoid hard things end up in a much harder place! The party life- a life centered on pleasure- always leads to pain....  Read More

Heaven is real. It's a place, it's out there. Jesus literally ascended into heaven- disappearing in the clouds as his disciples watched. He will return the same way- coming in the clouds. This is a profound mystery, because things happen in the spiritual realm that are much different from the normal 'laws of nature' on earth. 'Ascending' defied gravity. 'Appearing' in the room with his disciples (...  Read More

We had the coldest spring in 50 years and the wettest July on record. This made for an even shorter summer in a place that is known for short summers. My lilac bush bloomed late in the first week of July, and in the first week of August almost all of the blossoms are gone. It simply reminds me that we are surrounded by 'temporary' things. Isaiah 40:8 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but...  Read More

39 roses. It's an odd number, to be sure. Each one represents a different year of my life. No, I'm not saying that I'm 39 years old- that birthday is well behind me. It's been 39 years since I said two little words that changed my life. I said, "I do." Those words are not a guarantee, they are a covenant promise. A bride and groom promise to LOVE each other. They do not promise to be IN love. They...  Read More

Except for the fortunate few who live in remote places, the logistics of hunting Alaska are very different from climbing into your tree stand after work. For most of us, every hunt is an expedition. Planning and packing are critical to success- even more so if you are flying in a Super Cub. Weight and volume matter. The goal is the lightest and best quality and least amount of gear that you can ge...  Read More

Occasionally, when hiking across the arctic tundra, you'll see a flash of pure white on the ground in the distance. Like deer, moose and elk, every year caribou shed their antlers.  It is possible to go for days without seeing a caribou, and yet to pick up a number of sheds or even an entire skull and antlers off a wolf kill. It is rock-solid evidence that life was once here- that a caribou once s...  Read More

In the mountains, the weather can change almost in an instant. On our first morning in the Brooks Range that worked in our favor. All night was 100% cloud cover and rain, so when we stepped out of our tent early in the morning to blue sky, it immediately lifted my spirits. A lot of time and effort went into this hunt, and I wanted the girls to enjoy it. Good weather is a gift that Alaskan hunters ...  Read More

After driving nearly 800 miles and then flying in a bush plane, I was disappointed that I couldn't get my girls on a nice bull caribou. We were hunting for our winter meat, and a big bull has fully twice the meat of a cow. Even so, my girls both shot caribou and then helped cut them up and pack them out- one load of meat at a time- in their backpacks. There was no complaining, no "This is too hard...  Read More

When I say that the great strength of a woman lies in her femininity, I do not mean to equate her feminine nature with being afraid of hard labor or getting her hands dirty. Actually the contrary is true. My daughters are as comfortable in the wilderness wearing a backpack as they are in a city wearing a dress. When I took the two of them caribou hunting north of the Arctic Circle, I was proud of ...  Read More

To be a 'princess' is wrapped up in the heart of a girl. And why not? Deep inside every little girl knows she was created to be a daughter of The King. Her true strength- her greatest strength- is found in her femininity. It is a magnificent thing to be 'woman' created in the image of God. There is something forceful- regal- about a woman's strength when it is cloaked in gentleness and good humor....  Read More

For many people, Alaska is an entire 'world' away from family. And for most of those people 'outside', it seems even farther than that. This makes those times when family come to visit us extra special. This last week, my mother and three of my nieces made a very short visit. We shared meals, games around the table, prayer, and- yes, Alaskan adventures. Family was God's idea. He created the very f...  Read More

Twenty years ago I screwed up my courage, bought 7,000 linear feet of log from a mill, and built our house. You see, Laura and I wanted a home that could host large groups of people, and in six years of looking couldn't find a single one that we could afford. Choosing to host others serves a number of purposes. 1) Gratitude- We've had dozens of mission teams come to Alaska to help build our church...  Read More

The world in front of me was almost entirely without color. Of course there was black and various shades of white and gray, but no blue sky, no green plants, no flowers, no sun. It was barren and lifeless. The Gulkana Glacier's moraine became more and more desolate as I continued to climb. Sometimes life feels that way, doesn't it? Our circumstances seem gray and dull- lifeless. But as I looked cl...  Read More

Friends of ours flew up from Florida, rented a car, drove far more than 1000 miles, took a bus through Denali National Park, and in all that time never saw a moose. After enjoying dinner at our house, we opened the door to let the dogs out and a bull moose was standing at the foot of our steps. That's Alaska. That's just life, isn't it? It's often said, "There are no guarantees." That is only part...  Read More

My bear was down- one of the biggest interior grizzlies I'd ever run across. Properly skinning a large bear without help is very difficult. It's impossible to hold up a heavy leg, run a knife, and peel hide at the same time. Add to this that I wanted to keep the meat clean. I've hunted by myself for many years and knew exactly what I needed to do. With strong parachute cord around a tree, I was ab...  Read More

It was one of those rare occasions when everything worked out perfectly. I only had one night to hunt. I had seen sign of a BIG bear in the vicinity... and I only had to wait an hour or two before I heard him coming. Unlike that of the bow hunters who 'pass' on many nice bucks- waiting for just the right one- much of Alaska is not 'game rich' country. I often hunt years at a time without seeing a ...  Read More

Now it was simply a waiting game. The bear had come back on the same trail last night. I was high in a tree 40 yards off the trail. It was 7 PM and I intended to stay until dark (midnight), hoping the bear would use this trail once more. As always, the mosquitoes were so thick that I wore a headnet, two layers of clothing, and rubber surgical gloves. Still-hunting is torture for me, so years ago I...  Read More

Though walking quietly, with the small amount of noise that I was making i knew that I had virtually no chance of stumbling on this bear in the timber. They say that bears have poor eyesight. This may be true, but I've been 'spotted' on more than one occasion at over 100 yards and had bears take off running away from me. Then, again, there have been a few occasions when they've been closer than 10...  Read More