My Heart's Cry (The Hunting Report)

As most of you already know, I’m back home from my hunting trip up north. No, I didn’t catch anything, even though I shot at one poor deer. I didn’t draw any blood, but I sure scared the daylights out of him. You had envisioned me as being some great natural born killer didn’t you? I’m sorry to be such a disappointment.

The highlight for me was on my second day. We had just finished our morning drive at around 1:00pm and the guys were all headed to their own hunting spots. I don’t like it when I have to find something for myself to do. I much prefer to have someone tell me, “Kevin – you sit here and shoot anything that comes near you.” Or “Kevin – I want you to walk West North West until you reach the Watergglass ridge. Holler every few minutes so we know where you are and answer on the radio if we give you a call.”

Now that I have my own GPS and have much of our territory mapped out, I can normally navigate wherever I need to go. What I can’t do is think for myself. I mean, other hunting types seem to think that they know where the deer are, where the deer are going to be and where they need to wait in order to intercept them. Even though I’ve been hunting for over 20 years, I just haven’t developed that sort of intuition. Perhaps another 20 years or so might do it.

So I’m standing with the guys, and my dad isn't there to tell me what to do. There is another guy who often helps me named Steve, but he isn't there either. Ed is heading over to the white pail. Phil is going to sit on the bald rock. ‘What are you going to do Kevin?’

Oh no. What do I say? Where can I possibly go that will sound intelligent enough? Where can I go that won’t give away the fact that I have absolutely no idea where I should be?

“I’m going to walk out towards the blue trail, heading back through what we used to call the Waterglass drive. Maybe I’ll push something out to my dad.”

It worked. It sounded like it made sense. At least the guys seemed to be ok with it. It was much better than saying, “I think I’ll find a stump somewhere off of the trail and wait for the sun to go down.”

So I walk west for a few minutes and head north. On the way, I soon discovered that the beavers had damned up much of the area, which made my journey difficult. After having crossed the beaver damn, it seemed like a good time to sit down, eat my chocolate bar and have a pop.

It was a gorgeous day. The air was still, which allowed the surface of the beaver pond to appear as a dark mirror for the horizon. The sun cast a comfortably warm stare as I sat enjoying my afternoon snack. I had been reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians the night before and his thoughts became my own;

“For me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” Philippians 1:21

In that moment, I came to recognize my heart’s desire. If I live, I want to continue to be used of God. Otherwise, I just want to go home to be with Jesus. So I asked Him to honour just that. I told Him that if He doesn’t intend to use me for His glory anymore, that I would rather not leave that place alive. The gang knew where I was headed, so they should be able to find my body.

I’ve been in this place many times before. (Not the damn. I mean the attitude.) I have to believe that my prayer is the kind of prayer that He would honour. I have to believe, that since I am alive and back here in Pt. Burwell, that He still has good and productive work for me to do. I have to believe that. I can’t accept that my days might be spent doing little more than building an RRSP, eating food, being entertained and dying.

I don’t know what you want your life to count for. If you like my blogs, I prefer to think that you want your life to make some type of contribution to the Kingdom. I mean, if you’re the type who just wants to make money, drive a truck, champion a cause, eat exotic foods, go on vacations, listen to music and watch movies, why on earth would you connect with what I have to say?

I know I haven’t been perfect. I’ve given my share of bad advice over the years. Most of you have lived through it. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I don’t know how much I’ll be here in blog world. I had a pastor guy tell me that I needed to set a deadline to get my manuscript edited. Since he is a paid pastor, I suppose I should listen to him. If he wasn’t a paid pastor, but just a volunteer, I could discount what he says, but he’s full time now, so it sticks. I’m going to make a conscious effort of have my book edited by the new year, even if that means letting go of some other areas.