What's Your Story?

This past Saturday evening, I attended the 4th Annual Outdoorsman Banquet held in Suffolk, Virginia, with friend, pastor and speaker Brodie Swisher (www.thrutheseason.com). Scope & Hook was invited to be an exhibitor at the event as well, which gave me an opportunity to talk with those in attendance about the mission and purpose of the ministry. With spring turkey season right around the corner, I brought my full strut mount with me and placed it at the table, as it serves as a good tool to bring folks close and spend some time initially talking turkey with them. As I fully hoped and anticipated, many a hunting story was relived around that table Saturday. All outdoorsmen are alike in at least this one respect - we all have stories that we like to recall with fellow hunters and fishermen. Stories of special trips in the outdoors with friends and family, stories of days gone by when the game was plentiful and the action was unreal, stories of record book fish and game harvested, and stories of missed opportunities and the big ones that got away. And as more time passes from the point in which these hunting and fishing trips took place, the more chance there is that the story surrounding them has been exaggerated and embellished to capture the attention of even more bystanders the next time it's told.

 

2 Timothy 1:7-9 (NASB)

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity...

 

Down the Home Stretch

Today begins the final week of the 2013 spring gobbler hunting season here in Virginia. The season has been extremely exciting, the best I recall in terms of the numbers of birds to which I have been close and the crazy behaviors I have seen some exhibit. However, it has also been quite grueling, especially with the days getting longer and the sun rising earlier, needing to wake most mornings here lately around 3:30am. You've got to be dedicated, insane, or likely a good mixture of both to stick it out for the duration of the season! With not many birds gobbling during the latter part of the season, most hunters start to opt for sleeping in. But my goal is to fill my third and final gobbler tag, something I have never accomplished, and in order to get it done, I have to keep going, keep putting myself in locations where I know birds are staying and hope that one morning this week it will all come together.

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NASB)
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.