Another turkey season has come and gone. I spent the last several days chasing two gobblers that teased me every day until the season was officially over. They showed up each day within two hundred square yards of the previous day. Sometimes I would just sit in my truck waiting for them to come out into their strutting area. I would then plan my strategy that included both stalking and calling. Several times I decided on an ambush. Other days it was more of a traditional approach. And even though I did kill one there a few days earlier, these two were too smart for me. I couldn’t believe I could know so much about these birds, hunt them for several days in a row, and yet come up empty handed. I noticed during a stretch of several days, I would constantly think about how to go about tagging one of those birds. It seemed it was always on my mind and even though I was confident in each new plan I devised, they always came up short.
We are all good at making plans. They are always based upon what we know – or what we think we know. We especially do this when it comes to the things of God. Most people take the influences of family, friends, work, and the media, and form a plan for what they believe about God, His ways, and even their hope for Heaven. They have formed their belief system on what someone else has told them and the only thing they have weighed its genuineness against, is if it sounds and feels right. That is a dangerous gamble. Each one of my plans to shoot a turkey sounded and felt right. They were based on the knowledge I had from what I saw and heard from those gobblers and from what I had learned from my hunting experiences and from other hunters as well. But each plan failed because none were guaranteed. In our spiritual life uncertainty does not have to rule our minds. The Scriptures give us the measure for everything we see, hear, and feel. They allow us to test if what we feel has backbone or is it just an untrustworthy emotion. They also allow us to lay what we see and hear alongside its pages to make sure our eyes and ears are not deceiving us. They give us the guarantee that we all want in life and in death. Don’t wait for a pastor or priest to open the word of God for you. Open it for yourself. Learn from it. Know it. It will give you the surety you need for this life and the next; because life is a lot more fun when you don’t have to wonder about the things that really matter.
Gary Miller
gary@outdoortruths.org