I would like to personally welcome each of you to the Hunting the Sacred blog.  I encourage you to become involved in our community by posting in the forum, and listening to our weekly podcast.  As we strive to build a community of bloggers that love Christ and the outdoors, your comments and words of encouragement mean the world to us.  We want to hear your voice as you share your thoughts and experiences in the outdoors and how you have experienced His grace.

This community was born out of my love for Jesus, the outdoors, and my desire to spread His word.  I have a longing to share His word with those of you who already know Christ, but more importantly, those of you that do not have a relationship with Him.  Hunting and the outdoors are simply the vehicle in which I choose to do it with.  Each one of us is at a different point in our spiritual journey, and some of us have yet to take the first step.  It is not my intention to push my beliefs on anyone.  Rather, I am here to quench the thirst for the hearing of His word that so many of you long for just as I do.  The outdoors is the place that I feel closest to God and I know many of you share those same feelings and emotions that well up inside me.  I do not know where He will take this website, blog, podcast or community, but I feel compelled and driven to humbly put it out there in the name of Jesus.

As I think about the commitments and priorities in my life, I am reminded of "The parable of Talents"(link), the teaching in Matthew 25: 14-30.  When we are born everyone is given talents, they may be opportunities in life, abilities, or resources.  We are given the talents of what God wants us to have.  The more talents you are given, the more responsibility you have in life.  In the parable, two of the servants doubled their talents.  They immediately put them to work as soon as they received them.  For me, this translates to giving a full commitment to Christ.  You notice that when they gave back, they did not give back only 80% and keep 20% for themselves, or 70/30.  We need to use our lives to return 100%.  As we prepare for the coming of Christ, we need to do more than just play it safe or only do a little bit.  There is no half way; we do not get to choose when and where we want to be a Christian.  We have given our lives over to Christ in exchange for eternal life, but it has to be all or nothing.  We do not get to worship other idols.  If you are an avid hunter or fisherman, think about how much time and energy you devote to your passion?  Now think about how much time you really devote to God, and secondly, your spouse.  I sometimes get lost in my passion for hunting and take Christ for granted.  Me thinking Christ will always be there for me is not enough.  I need to continually give God 100% and take that 100% and turn it into another 100%.  My heart swells and my pulse quickens as someday I look forward to hearing those chilling words "well done, good and faithful servant". 

I look forward to getting to know each of you, as we share together our experiences in the outdoors, and more importantly in life.  Proverbs 27: 17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another".