| Outdoor Truths: Aiming Outdoorsmen Toward Christ Aug. 16th |
Gary Miller ~ outdoortruths.org
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Scouting for the upcoming deer season is in full throttle. If you’re hunting familiar property this might be as simple as making sure nothing significant as happened to the area to impact your deer’s regular travel corridor. But most likely it will involve finding out about where the food is; namely the acorns. And sometimes it’s not enough to find one oak tree; it might be that just over the hill there is a whole ridge full of them and this is perhaps a better place to see more deer. It takes lots of information in order to come up with a good game plan.
I used to think that one could simply hang a tree stand in any part of the woods and he would see deer. I thought it was good enough to find a trail and set up somewhere near it. I hardly ever considered that perhaps my part of the trail was only inhabited at midnight. I didn’t realize that while it might be good to find one sign of deer in my area, it was better to find several signs. It might be good to find a well-worn trail, but what if I could find a well-worn trail, in the middle of an oak flat, and deer droppings scattered throughout, with a few trees with rubs on them. Now that’s where I’m putting my stand! I fear, however, that many of us settle for the first place we come to because we see, what we consider to be, enough evidence to hunt right there; while just around the corner is the real place to be.
I also believe this happens in church life as well. Just to be honest, it bothers me that there are so many bad churches. As a result, many people don’t attend one because they assume this is just the way “church” is supposed to be – irrelevant, boring, behind-the-times, and full of preachers who use the pulpit for their own personal soap box. It is the equivalent to nothing less than road rage cloaked in spiritual verbiage. (I know, I guess I’m on my own soap box now) The reason it bothers me, however, is because it gives true spirituality and the true church, and even God, a bad name. And this ought to make anyone who is a Christian mad, because true spirituality and how church is really meant to be, and God Himself, is anything but boring, irrelevant and behind-the-times. Yes, my friend, you need God and you need the church. Don’t assume that just because you are struggling to find the signs that the real thing is not there. Just keep scouting. You will eventually find the perfect place to hang your stand. And when you do, you’ll be glad you looked a little deeper or traveled a little farther to get to the place you always knew existed.
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