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Tag Soup

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later I guess.  I've had quite a streak going that ended this year.  I started deer hunting when I was 12 years old and I have punched my deer tag every year since.  Until this year.  I'm proud of my 23 year success streak, but really I'm kind of glad it is over.  My kids are now old enough to hunt now and I really need to turn my focus towards helping them in the next several seasons.  It will be kind of nice not to have to be sub-conciously thinking about keeping a streak alive.

It is kind of funny how this season went though.  I hunted over on the east side again and put in five pretty long days chasing mule deer around the beautiful and diverse country.  I had some opportunities.  Four in fact, but I missed 3 shots at moving deer and the best shot I had was at 200 yards standing broadside as the last daylight was fading.....well, that opportunity still haunts me.

That haunting though, is what keeps me coming back.  The challenge of the hunt and the fact that killing a buck is not an easy task is what makes hunting so satisfying.

During my hunt when things were not panning out so well, frustration crept in and I was kind of questioning God as to why things were going so poorly.  My question to God was, "What is this all about, Lord.  I'm a good hunter and a good shot, are you trying to teach me something here?"  What I got was just a silence from God which served to confuse me more.

Fast forward a few weeks after and I'm out in the old coast range hills west of the town I grew up in hunting with my daughter.  It suprised me how many times during her hunt I conjured up fond memories of the bucks that got away in those old familiar areas.  The ones that got away still haunt me 20+ years later.

I think when success comes too easy we can miss out on a big part of what hunting is about.  The gutwrench, heartache and deep dissapointment.  The haunting, the sleepless nights, the visions of monsters getting away in our dreams as we try and sleep, the should haves, the shouldn't haves, the second guessing and the realization that maybe we are less powerful than we think we are in the outdoors.  I wouldn't trade those lessons and those emotions for anything.  It is what keeps me coming back!

This year my daughter almost had a chance at a buck.  As she was setting up to shoot the fog rolled up the draw from below on a strong wind and for about five minutes we couldn't see the buck.  When the fog blew out we could not find him anywhere.......haunting.

My son was hunting under the Oregon mentored youth program usingh my dad's tag.  He had a really nice 3 point come into a clearing chasing a doe.  I was by his side as his heart started racing and knees began to shake.  He pulled up for a 50 yard shot and completely missed.  The buck ran off into the trees and he looked like he might start to cry......haunting.

As I watched him groan I knew the exact emotions that he was feeling.  Emotions so familiar, and I think I began to understand what God might have been trying to remind me of during my hunt.

I patted Grant on the back and said, "Grant, the opportunities don't get much better than that.  But you know I missed a lot of easy shots at nice bucks when I first started hunting. It is part of learning and part of what makes this such a challenge.  The memory of what happened tonight will always be with you, but it will make the accomplishment of getting your first buck that much sweeter."

A couple of seconds later he says, "Dad, didn't you miss a lot of nice bucks this year?"  :)


-Scott

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The watering hole...

If you’ve spent any time in the southeast corner of Oregon, you know that water is the defining characteristic of the landscape.  Survival for plants and animals depends on access to enough moisture to meet their daily needs.  Without water, plants turn brown, and animals look for new areas to forage.  You really notice this when you're out hiking and come across a dried-up stock pond or water hole.  There’s no reason for animals to visit the bare, sun-baked earth anymore, and the only sign of their past visits is the deep footprints left as the pond turned to muck before the water dried up completely.  There may be some water when the snow melts in spring, but otherwise these dry beds seem to mock the intelligence of their builder as they lie there, dry and forsaken, with no water or animals in sight.

On the other hand, when you find a source of water, the change is remarkable.  Driving south from Burns toward Frenchglen, you can’t help but notice the contrast between the sage and rimrock on the dry slopes to the right, and the thick, green grasses, willows, and sprawling marshes along the Blitzen River on the left.  This oasis holds far more nesting waterfowl, marsh birds, and mosquitoes than most places here in western Oregon where water is abundant, and more than a few deer, including some enormous bucks found in that valley.  Even in a desert (or especially in a desert), adding a little water multiplies the abundance of life in amazing ways.

With this contrast in mind, I was impressed the other day with the words I read in Jeremiah 2:13.

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

God was warning His people that straying from His ways was really two mistakes in one.  First, they were abandoning the Source of their life, walking away from the cool water, lush green, and teeming life of a fountain in the middle of the desert.  On top of that, they were trying to fashion their own way through life, something that would prove to be as frustrating and ineffective as hoping for water from a dry cistern or stock pond.

It’s easy to think that we wouldn’t make the same mistakes as those people long ago, but human nature really hasn’t changed much.  We don’t bow down in front of idols, but we often put our plans and pursuits in first place and hope God will fit in somewhere along the way.  We would do well to remember that what God said applies to us just as well as to those people back there.  God’s way is a way of life, but we are asking for a double dose of frustration and failure if we think we can find a better way on our own.  Don’t trade the abundant life around the water for the hardened clay of a dried-up stock pond.

God’s life and blessings to you,

Quinton

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A Rant...Kind Of...

It strikes me how some people can think they know it all.  There are a lot of people that just sort of think that they are the end all, know all, discussion closed.

I wonder what Jesus thinks of these kind of people?  I mean, it is good to know where you stand.  It is good to know what is right and what is wrong and where the line is.  There are non-negotiables.  But some people are just unreal in their arrogance.

Maybe I should let you in on what I'm upset about.  Three days ago a book came out called "Beautiful Outlaw".  It is a book and a ministry that I have been praying specifically about for a long time now.  The aim of the book is to cut through the "religious" fog surrounding Jesus and to begin to experience Him as He really is.  To discover His personality, for to know Jesus is to love Him.

Already, there is a host of blogs and facebook messages shooting down this book and calling the author a heretic.  The book is only three days old!  To me this is evidence that satan is trying to discredit this work of God right from the get go.  And it is sad that there are many "christians" standing in line willing to be satan's voice on this.

And they think they know everything.  They think that if, in their "superior" experience, they have never personally understood or met Jesus in the same way the author of the book has, well then their must be something wrong with the author.  He must be a heretic.  This doesn't line up with my theology so it must be blasphemy.

Friends, theology is man made.  I used to get a kick out of my theology professors in college.  You couldn't get three of them to totally agree on any of the doctrines they were teaching.  And they just loved to throw other denominations of christianity under the bus and say that we are better because we believe in such and such.  I never understood how that lined up to Jesus' prayer in John 17 where over and over he prays for the unity of his people.

Here is the couple of points I want to make.
1.  None of us are the know all end all when it comes to Jesus.  There is so much more that Jesus has in store for us.  You cannot master Jesus or the christian life.  You never arrive until you are home.  What I am trying to say is that THERE IS ALWAYS MORE.  Jesus will reveal himself differently to me as I continue to grow in Him and walk with Him.  That should be exciting!  It is an adventure.  Just as I discover more about my wife as our relationship continues.  How boring it would be if we just knew Jesus and that was it.  There is so much more!

2.  Matthew 7:15-17 Watch out for false prophets.  They come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.  By their fruit you will recognize them.  Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

You will know them by their fruit.  I can't see how a book aimed at turning people on to the playful, disruptive, extravagant, and very real personality of Jesus is producing bad fruit.  I'm reading the book and discovering that Jesus was even better than I had originally thought.  I am falling in love Him more and more.  The fruit of my reading has been a closer walk with Jesus.

A bad tree cannot produce good fruit, right?

However, discrediting such a work and turning people away from it based on your staunch, religious ideals and arrogance could be seen as producing bad fruit...couldn't it?

The biggest enemy of Jesus has always been religion by the way.  This is not new news.

Here is what we need whether you read the book or not.  We all need Jesus.  Jesus, we ask for you.  For the real you.  Lead us to discover you as you really are.


Amen!

-Scott

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It's Supernautical

I’ve always been drawn to water and everything nautical.  Growing up on the lower Columbia River, near the Pacific Ocean, I was surrounded by it.  Averaging nearly eighty inches of rain annually, I was immersed in it.  We were joyful when a new pair of knee boots replaced ones that made our wet socks track across Mother’s clean floor.  I’ve also always had a boat of some kind.  At the earliest moment I could play in the creek on our property, everything that floated became a boat. 

At the age of eight, I got my first actual watercraft; a traditional Columbia River double ender lay out boat used for duck hunting.  The boat was rotten when my Dad got it for $10 at a garage sale, but it made the perfect pattern and a summer project as I carefully took pieces out, copied them onto good wood, and then replaced it transforming the old boat into my new boat.  It served me for many years before it was finally stolen.  That boat gave way to another boat, one that I kept for twenty years.  Today I have nearly every way to get to water covered from float tube to canoe, raft and drift boat, and even a jet sled.  When that isn’t big enough, my friends have me covered with their commercial charter boat. 

When I was growing up, I played in the water, while later on I worked on it and sometimes in it.  I commercial fished for a spell, deck handed for a time, and even guided a bit.  I even debated attending California Maritime Academy or joining the Coastguard during various stages of my life all for the love and lure of all things nautical.

I’m also drawn to stories of the sea and I recently stumbled across a story that I found a parallel to this past week.  I want to share what was revealed to me through this story. The story is simply called, At Sea.  It speaks of maritime law and describes a ship as a detached fragment of society under whose flag it sails.  A wandering chunk of Spain, Britain or Panama.  How ever far it travels overseas, it continues to be a fragment carrying the laws, customs, and culture of its home land.  On a cruise ship, one sees this very clearly as you can portage around the outskirts of vile countries, bloody from civil or political unrest while you look at it from the distance and sip some fruity drink.  This life at sea aboard a chunk of your country might seem lawless or free from laws but it is still governed by the code and laws of the flag it bears.

Take for instance the last case of cannibalism to be tried in Britain.  In 1884, the yacht Mignonette was on passage from the place of its building, Essex, to its new owner in Sidney Australia.  The yacht took a breaking wave and floundered in the South Atlantic.  The four man crew took to a dinghy.  On the 24^th day adrift in the open ocean, the four mariners, cast lots and the seventeen year old cabin boy drew the short straw.  The boy was killed and the captain and remaining crew dined on his remains as a means to survive.  Within days, a German ship picked the survivors up and returned them to England.  England decided to put these men on trial for the murder of the cabin boy.  The defense argued that the Mignonette was a registered Britain vessel on its way to be Australian.  When the crimes were committed, they were on a flagless, open boat dinghy on the high seas and in a place of lawless territory.  There was no jurisdiction they said.  The British court ruled that the officers and law extended whether they were on or off their ship, with flag or no flag and they were sentenced to death.  In a turn of events, they were then granted a royal pardon as the population was sympathetic to the ordeal.

My friends and brothers in Christ, do you see the parallel that I see? 

Philippians 3:20 (NIV)

²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As sons and daughters of the Most High, we are citizens of the heavenly realm.  We are adopted sons and daughters and members of a Royal priesthood and a holy nation.  Earth is not our home land but just a sea where we will float until we are picked up and carried home by Christ Jesus at the day of His coming.  We are all fragments of that heavenly realm here on earth, complete with the laws, customs, and culture of the Holy One that indwells us.  It may seem like a lawless place where we are free to make our own code of right and wrong but we are bound to the code and law of God our Father and that known to us as His truth.  One day we will answer for our actions of lawlessness and sin with a sentence of death.  Those under the blood and grace of Jesus will receive a Royal pardon and live in the freedom and joy of our home once and for all.  It is time to quit hiding the flags of our true origin and run up the banner of the Holy One so that everyone knows from whence we came and to Whom we belong.

In the love of Christ,

Eric

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7x7 Roosey!!! Outdoor Dream Foundation Hunt

Hi all,

This week's blog is a special update on a hunt I mentioned weeks ago...one that we were really looking forward to! The link below is to an ifish thread about a bull that 18 year old Jessica, from South Carolina, killed on film last week...a cancer survivor who chose an Oregon elk hunt as her "dream hunt" sponsored by the Outdoor Dream Foundation. I can't begin to express the trials this girl's endured and persevered through, and how amazing this experience was for her and her dad...and everyone who took part in this adventure and made it possible. God is good!

Click HERE to view the story and photos from the hunt...

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Lasagna

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I tried a new italian restaurant in town.  It was nice.  It was nice to be out together without the kids and just enjoy a good meal and conversation with eachother.  That in and of itself probably made the food taste better but the food we had was spectacular.  We started with fresh bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Then we ordered a tomato caprese' salad.  Fresh mozzarella, garden fresh tomatos, pesto sauce, fresh basil and a balsamic reduction sauce drizzeled over top.  Wow!  For the main course I had linguine with shrimp and scallops, in a lemon,butter and white wine sauce and speckeled with capers.  It was delicious!  Charlene ordered the lasagna.  This is not the kind of lasagna you get in the frozen isle of the store.  It was fresh.  Ground beef, sweet italian sausage, ricotta cheese, mozzarella, perfectly cooked pasta and a roma tomato sauce with chunks of fresh tomato and basil.  I stole a bite and it was best lasagna I've ever tasted!

The meal left us happy.  We were satisfied.... content but at the same time longing for more.  We were wishing our stomachs could hold more.  Most of the way home in fact, we talked about what a perfect a meal it was.  I made a statement that I wished dinner could be like that all of time.

Dinner.  It's kind of a funny thing.  It can be so good at times and then other times just be so ordinary, so blah.  A few nights ago I got home late and there was nothing much to eat.  My family had already eaten and they just assumed I would grab something out.  I settled for a few stale potato chips and a bowl of cereal with blueberries on top!

Okay, allow me to make my point.  Our relationship with Jesus is meant to be extravagant. It is meant to be like the fine italian dinner that leaves you satisfied and craving for more.  But I think most of us experience that kind of relationship about as often as I go out for a fine dining experience.  Fairly seldom.  Instead we keep settling for Top Ramen, cereal with blueberries, or lasagna from a box, and we wonder why our souls are longing and our hunger never satisfied.

We need to discover Jesus on a new level.  We need to discover Him as He really is.  He is the thing we are searching for, the very breath we need for our survival. I fear we have grown numb to the affect of Jesus.  We need to know Him.  To know Him is to Love Him.

I'm really excited for a new book coming out this October.  You know by now that Jeff and I have learned a lot through the ministry of John Eldredge.  I have been around John enough to know that this man walks with God. He is a wise sage and when he has something to write about, I try and read it.  His new book coming out in October is called "Beautiful Outlaw."  This book is going to reveal a lot about Jesus, and it is going to take your breath away.  If you are like me and you've slowly grown numb to Jesus, to his personality, his love, his devotion, his strength and courage then I think this book is going to get you fired up again! 

May you come and reveal your true self, Jesus.  It is your true self that we so desperately need.

The link below should take you to a trailer for "Beautiful Outlaw".

http://updates.ransomedheart.com/beautifuloutlaw/

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