Faith Afield: A Sportsman's Devotional

Cover

1

Why I Hunt

I believe hunters owe it to themselves to try to understand what it is that urges them out. To fail to examine the source of the hunting instinct is to fail to experience it fully.

Charles Fergus, The Upland Equation, 1995

It’s the night before opening day of deer season and I can’t sleep. I have been doing this for twenty-six years now and it’s always the same. My body is restless and my mind is filled with thoughts of what the morning will bring. Vivid memories of past hunts collide with the dreams of the next. Why does my heart pound with anticipation? What is it about this sport that fills me with so much excitement? Why can’t I sleep? What is it that moves me out the door and into the wild?

I hunt because my father was a hunter, as was his father before him. Our forefathers had to hunt for survival. I hunt because their blood flows through my veins. It’s who I am.

I hunt because I am drawn—no, pulled—into the great outdoors. I need to escape the confines of buildings and offices. I need to silence the noise with solitude.

I hunt because I love the pursuit and the challenge. The kill plays but a minor part. The kill is necessary, but as the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset said, One kills in order to have hunted.

I hunt because I love life. Only when you grapple with the reality of life and death can you fully appreciate life.

I hunt because it is in creation that I come face-to-face with the Creator. There I cannot deny him as I so easily can from within my man-made Babel. Everything in the outdoors declares his majesty.

I hunt because it is a privilege. It is a right (see Gen. 9:3). It is a blessing.

So why do you hunt? What urges you out into the field? Not only does God give you gifts and talents, he also gives you desires and passions. Not everyone is a hunter, but God has instilled in the heart of many people a great love of his outdoors and the desire to match wits with some of his finest creatures. If we do not pursue what God has wired us to do, we do him a dishonor. If you are a hunter, a fisherman, or an outdoor enthusiast, you have been entrusted with a great gift to use and enjoy.

I do not hunt for the joy of killing but for the joy of living, and for the inexpressible pleasure of mingling my life, however briefly, with that of a wild creature that I respect, admire, and value.

John Madson, Out Home, 1979

2

Beautiful Places

In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. The beauty of woods, valleys, mountains, and skies feeds the soul of the sportsman where the quest of game only whets his appetite.

Dr. Saxon Pope, Hunting with the Bow and Arrow, 1923

Recently a friend of mine returned from a successful moose and caribou hunt in the Northwest Territory of Canada. He was 150 miles from the nearest village, accessible only by plane or helicopter. He was surrounded by millions of acres of untouched wilderness and mountains. While he claimed the photos did not begin to reveal the true splendor of this place, I was in awe of the beauty he captured through the lens of the camera. I felt as if I understood what Isaiah meant when he said, The mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands (Isa. 55:12).

Very few people will ever get a chance to visit a place as remote as this and experience its grandeur. Why would God create such a magnificent place and not locate it geographically where most would have access to its beauty? Like a most prized trophy, wouldn’t God want to display it in such a way that it could be admired by all? But would these places be as beautiful if they were commonplace? Would they be as special if they were easy to get to? Would they seem so spectacular if they were always available and easily shared by anyone? Probably not.

God created special places—both physically and spiritually. We get to these spectacular places many times with much effort, and sometimes with pain and discomfort along the way. And once we get to these places, the reward, appreciation, and gratitude are all the sweeter. If God made all special places easily accessible, well, I guess they wouldn’t be special. They are reserved for those willing to make the investment necessary to get to them.

Don’t settle for the status quo. Don’t be content with being as good as the average churchgoer. Press in. Dig deep. Discover God’s great plan for your life. Discover God’s special place that he wants you to experience. It won’t necessarily be easy. There will be sacrifice. But it is worth it!

No eye has seen, no ear has heard,

and no mind has imagined

what God has prepared

for those who love him.

1 Corinthians 2:9 NLT

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

3

The Crunching of Leaves

There is nothing that accelerates the heart rate of a deer hunter more than hearing the unmistakable sound of hoof steps in the autumn leaves—particularly after sitting in a stand for several hours. It is a different sound than the scurry of a fox squirrel or the clumsiness of another hunter. Deer do not step loudly, but there is a sense of heaviness. They are deliberate steps, often with a steady cadence, coming into audible range so subtly that the mind doesn’t process that it is a deer until it is close.

When your ears finally register with your brain, you immediately take mental inventory, making sure your equipment is ready and that you are fully concealed. Your eyes strain to identify the direction from which the sound is coming and to catch that first glimpse of movement. Buck or doe? Is it alone, or are there more trailing? Is this the one I have been waiting for? Adrenaline begins to rise as the sound gets closer. The anticipation is great. This is it—game time!

Hearing steps in nature goes back to the beginning of time. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees (Gen. 3:8 NLT). I’m sure that for Adam and Eve, adrenaline was flowing strongly too. Unfortunately it was not because of excited expectancy, but rather because of embarrassment and shame. They had just disobeyed the one command that God had given to them, charting a course that would plague every person of every generation after them. So they hid among the trees.

The next time you hear the crunching of leaves in the woods, ask yourself this—How would you respond if you heard God approaching? Would you be embarrassed about your behavior and lifestyle and cower in fear and embarrassment? Or would you be excited to meet the Maker of heaven and earth, knowing that your sins have been forgiven and that your relationship with the Lord is on solid ground?

The LORD detests those whose hearts are perverse,

but he delights in those whose ways are blameless.

Proverbs 11:20

Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;

sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Psalm 32:11

4

Aim Small, Miss Small

There is a principle in all shooting sports summarized by the phrase Aim small, miss small. In hunting it is sometimes referred to as picking your spot. Both phrases speak to the importance of aiming at a particular spot rather than the whole target. In target shooting it refers to aiming at the bull’s-eye, not just the paper. In hunting it means to aim at the spot right behind the shoulder of a deer rather than at the whole deer, or at one quail rather than the entire covey. The bottom line behind this principle is that the more concentrated the focus, the more accurate the shot. In target shooting this principle will help you tighten your groups and hit more clays. In hunting it is even more critical as it will help you make a quick, clean kill—an ethical responsibility we owe the game we are hunting.

This is a lesson I learned when I first began to shoot archery. I practiced all the time and became very proficient at hitting a paper plate, which I had been told was the size of a deer’s vitals. A friend of mine came over to shoot with me, and his arrows were always in a tighter group closer to the center of the plate. I practiced even more, several days a week, with basically the same results as I had before. I took my bow into the shop to have it tuned better. Still I shot the same.

The next time I was with my friend, he again shot really tight groups. I told him that I was going to sell my bow and get a new one that shot as good as his. He laughed at me and said that my problem was not my bow but rather my target. Thinking he had lost his mind, I asked him how in the world the target could affect my shooting. He said simply, Your target is too big. Don’t aim at the paper plate, aim at a dime-sized dot in the middle of the plate. As soon as I started aiming at the small dot, my groupings became a lot tighter.

God has asked each of us to aim at a small target. He said, Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy (Lev. 19:2), which means he wants us to be perfect. He could have given us a bigger target—to be good. He could have told us to be nice. Of course, some of the best and nicest people on earth are not even believers.

God said that we should be like him—holy and perfect. You might be saying to yourself, But that is too small a target; no one can ever hit it. You are absolutely correct. No one can, but by aiming at this smaller target we will be a lot more like him than if we just try to be good or nice. The apostle Paul was aiming small when he wrote in Philippians 3:12–14:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Too many believers don’t become all that God wants them to be because their target is too big. Aim small and you will miss small. Pick your spot—focus on Christ—and you will become a lot more like him.

5

Trophies That Last

In my den I have two deer heads hanging on the wall—the first buck I ever shot (a basket rack 10-point) and the biggest buck I ever shot (a P&Y 148-inch). I love to look at them and remember the hunts. Both were very special events for me, and the memories of those hunts are forever etched in my mind down to the finest detail—the location, the weather, my initial surprise at their appearance, the shaking of my arms as I drew my bow, the shot placement, and the satisfaction of recovering the animal. Most people I know have their deer mounted because they want to hang on to those memories and to relive the hunt.

Not long ago I looked on eBay and saw hundreds of mounted heads for auction—many of them were tattered, dusty, and falling apart. Stitches were showing and paint had chipped off the nose and lips. They did, however, have beautiful racks, and I’m sure there were some great hunting stories to go with each mount. Early on, these mounts looked beautiful above the fireplace in the hunter’s home, but now some lucky family members had inherited the old and deteriorated prizes and were trying to unload them. The bottom line is this—very few things last forever. You can hunt your entire lifetime and fill your den with wonderful trophies, but no one besides you will really care about them after you are gone. Taxidermy doesn’t hold eternal value.

There is a way, however, to keep your love of hunting alive long past your lifetime. By introducing a young person to the sport and sharing experiences with him or her in the field, you will pass on the love of the hunt to the next generation. Lots of kids want to hunt, but they have no one to take them. They have the desire to learn and experience the love of the outdoors, yet this desire is going unfulfilled because there are not many adults willing to teach them. If you love hunting and want to make a more significant impact on this world than leaving deer heads up for auction on eBay, take a child hunting with you and pass on your love for the outdoors.

Do you want to make an even greater impact—one that will last for eternity? Then use your time in the outdoors with children and youth to mentor them in faith as well. What better place for kids to learn about the Creator than by spending time in his creation. There are few things that last forever, but people we reach for Christ in this lifetime are trophies that will stand the test of time.

Do not store up for