Getting and Staying Close
Written By Keith Cline, God’s Great Outdoors board member
1 Chronicles 16:11
Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually.
It amazes me sometimes how much I think about deer and how to hunt them. Season has been over for quite some time and I’m really looking forward to the next season to enjoy it again. I should chase turkeys harder than I do but having beef cattle and the babies that come in the spring, I’m really limited on the amount of time to hunt. Because of this, the turkeys are safe most of the time around here. I’ve been thinking of trying bowfishing after seeing the success photos online and in magazines. Thank goodness for a few 3D shoots throughout the year to expend some of that excitement on foam and, of course, the Nebraska Bowhunters A Jamboree is always an event to look forward to. But it’s chasing whitetails that really keeps me going.
Throughout the summer, when checking our cows, spraying for thistles, or clearing cedars, I am constantly paying attention, looking for signs of what the deer are doing. As I study and try to figure them out, I have concluded that I never will learn it all. I will sit on a sidehill with binoculars trying to pattern them only to have one buck go north and another heading south on the same trail, the same night, and have no idea why. What made one go north and the other south!!
But isn’t that what makes it fun, the devotion and passion seem to grow especially when they make a fool of me. I guess it’s the competitive side of me to continue to chase and pursue, hoping for everything to come together.
Hunting with traditional equipment, I accept the fact that getting close is the main hurdle to overcome. When I see a deer at fifty yards, that’s when the hunt begins. You can learn so much about them in the next thirty yards or so that I would never have seen if I shot it at 50 yards.
My first trad kill was a nice 4x4 that I shot at 3-4 yards. I can still remember him coming under my tree and, as he came by, his antlers hitting the scent wafer that was hanging on a branch. I can relive that sight as if it were yesterday.
Sometimes I wonder, do I pursue the Lord with the same passion and desire I do deer? Do I put as much effort in trying to figure out His ways, to know Him more intimately? Do I try and see how close I can get to Jesus, to be able to understand him better? The truth is that a lot of the time I don’t.
Col 3:1 tells us, “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
The verb “keep seeking” has the thought of seeking right now, in the present and to continue to seek. It means seek with the intention of finding what you’re seeking for. The word for seek encompasses aspiration, desire, and passion. These are the same tools and emotions that we use to figure out the game we chase. We are to seek to find out what the things above are where Christ is at, using our thinking, meditating, and reasoning to figure it out, and then to aim for it. The cool part of hunting for God is, that if you do it with all of your heart, you will be successful.
Jer 29:13 'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
God bless, pick a spot, and shoot straight.
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