One of our adult mentors in our student ministry his family owns land that has been worked to be VERY viable habitat for conservation. They've plotted their stands intentionally and to be honest put in a GREAT spot! The weather was a solid 28 degrees with 15mph winds out of the south.
We hiked in at 5am, got set into our stands by 545-6am and did what all hunters do...waited. Now I did go through my mental checklist to be sure I had everything in place for that 1 moment of action, but while waiting I did the easiest thing I could think of doing, praying.
For 5 hours I was uninterrupted, alone, focussed & had nothing else to do that would distract me. I prayed for my wife, kids, ministry I'm leading, extended family, myself, my boss, my new co-workers, my sons' future wives, my friends on the other end of the farm hunting that day....I can't tell you how refreshing that was. I even asked myself, "When was the last time I put myself in a position to be that focussed and have that much opportunity to just sit & pray with Jesus?"
Answer: it's been a while.
Ministry Leaders, lets face it. We skimp to often on the necessities. We skimp on the intentional focussed times of prayer, reading & mediation. Leaders like action & results and all of those things are not results based activities. They are character shaping moments. They all compile into long term transformation but not immediate results.
Those 5 hours in that deer stand felt very fluid & am quite surprised it really even was that long. I'm almost tempted to go sit in that stand again just to be able to pray with interruptions!
As far as hunting went, I did see one doe about 640 in the morning but wanted to sit on a buck. I didn't see another deer until I was walking back to my truck and I spooked the buck before I could get a shot off. I guess it'll be one more year before I get my deer.
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