Original Entry: August 4, 2008
McMinnville, OR
For the
Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. Luke 19:10
As a young
man my dream gun was the coveted Weatherby 7mm Magnum. Being a local company (Atascadero, CA) these
guns are highly prized around the world. I was ecstatic the night that my dad
won a raffle for a Weatherby and presented the gun to me as a gift! A few months later I was ordained in our
denomination and my wife bought me a Leupold rifle scope as an ordination gift!
Equipped with my dream gun and fueled with passion to use it I began scouting
for the perfect place to hunt a trophy Blacktail buck. I counted down the days to the second
Saturday in August, which is the California A-zone opener. It couldn’t have
come quick enough.
Making a
long story short, I decided to pack into my hunting area with a junior in high
school named Trevor and set up a dry camp (camp with no running water around
it). We would haul our own water weeks
in advance to a small gully that would be our home for the weekend. However, on the first evening of our hunt I
was able to take the biggest Blacktail of my life! We stood in amazement over this awesome buck
watching the steam rise off his expired body as the sun quickly set. Wanting to make it back to our camp I gutted,
then threw the buck over my shoulder, handed Trevor my Weatherby, and
side-hilled it the half mile to our camp. When we arrived I noticed that
Trevor’s eyes were bigger the halogen beam on his headlamp.
Wide eyed
he simply confessed, “I lost your gun!”
“What! Where is it?” I shouted.
“I am not
sure; I set it down somewhere and was so excited about the buck I left it but
can’t remember where!”
My dream
gun of over $1,400 in value was gone!
We
searched the hill side in the moonless night in vain and at midnight we decided
to walk the three miles back to the truck, get some help, and return early the
next morning (a whole other story).
Needless to say, after my dad cussed me out at the trail head, we hiked
in, and searched for several hours before finding it. Trevor had set it down just 100 yards from
our camp and it had slid down the hill we were on, coming to rest in some
brush.
Trust me I
feel the punch behind Jesus’ words “to seek
and to save what was lost!” The
higher the value of what a man loses the greater the passion he will have to
find it. Do not allow your family to slide away from God in pursuit of success
and later feel the gut-wrenching pain of such a great loss. My rifle is only a
material possession that is worthless in the context of eternity. How much greater are those lost souls that
Christ loves to the degree that he gave his life to save!
Imagine
the passion behind Christ’s love for you and me! It must be unquenchable!
