Rugged Pursuit
Withdraw to the Wilderness
Squirrelly Spirituality
Photo courtesy of Bryan Eastham
“People aren’t hungry anymore.” This was the explanation my dad gave when I asked him why people don’t hunt squirrels like they used to. His words really struck me. Sadly, the same thing happens in our pursuit of Christ. People stop seeking when they lose their hunger.
“The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”
Psalm 34:10
I was standing out in the yard talking with my dad one evening. I brought up how it seems like no one is hunting squirrels anymore. It seems to be a dying art where I live. I asked him why he thought that was. His response was “People aren’t hungry anymore.” That answer really struck me. I believe he’s right about that being the reason people are no longer hitting the squirrel woods like they did back when he was a kid. Back then, it was common practice for boys to take their single-shot, break action H&R shotguns out to the wood lot behind their houses in pursuit of an old bushy tail.
At the time, it was sort of a family tradition, you could say. Kids would be wielding squirrel guns across their bicycle handlebars long before they could drive a car. They would go out with their dads, their uncles, and their grandpas, shoot a limit of squirrels and take them home for Grandma to cook. What they couldn’t eat right away, they would freeze in empty milk containers, two per carton, filled the rest of the way with water, to save for a later day. Squirrel hunting was an activity rich in camaraderie, tradition, and sometimes necessity.
Nowadays, hunting is more commonly viewed as more of a hobby or pastime than as a necessity. It is seen mostly as something to do on the weekends, or a fun way to spend some vacation time. While the overall hunting tradition itself has continued to hang around, the dependency on the meat is much more rare. There are now very few people in America who hunt to survive. Food is readily available in grocery stores, where you don’t have to get your hands dirty. Even when you can’t afford to buy groceries, there are programs to assist in obtaining them. This was not always the case. There was a time, not all that long ago, when people hunted as a way to supplement their diet with wild game for cheaper than they could buy groceries in the store. People have stopped hunting squirrels because they just aren’t as hungry.
Hungry for Truth
I think this is the same reason people in our country are no longer seeking God the way they used to. They’re just not hungry for biblical truth anymore. Just like people no longer need squirrel meat to survive, people feel they no longer need God in order to get by. They depend on their jobs, their money, their connections, and their work ethic to get what they want and be successful. They think they can take care of themselves.
Folks don’t always take their families to church on the weekends, as was the tradition for generations before them. Crowding in the car on Sunday mornings happens more often now for travel ball than for Sunday School. Younger generations just don’t see the need in seeking God anymore. He is viewed by culture as an unneeded, distant deity belonging to their grandparents, rather than the ever-present King of the universe and Lord of their lives.
It isn’t until a crisis hits that many start to find their faith. In times of trial, we turn to God, and we should! However, the key is to then stay focused on Him and not lean solely on our own abilities. We have to resist the temptation to drift away from God once life starts getting sunny and smooth again. As people who like to view ourselves as self-sufficient and self-made, we kind of ride this roller coaster of spirituality sometimes. We are high on the Gospel when it benefits our current set of circumstances, then we coast into apathy when the track flattens out, then step off towards the exit once the ride slows down and the hills of life are under control. When the need arises, we get back in the queue to do it all over again. Don’t just pick and choose when to follow God. That is squirrelly! Are you with Him or not? Can you do life alone, or do you need His guidance? How quickly we forget that our help comes from God above, not from within ourselves.
“You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.“
Psalm 63:1
Every summer, I anxiously wait for opening day of squirrel season when I can get back out to the woods and start scanning the treetops. I, for one, haven’t lost my hunger for squirrels. And I pray I never lose my dependence on God to sustain me both spiritually and physically. On top of the mountain, or down in the valley, I seek God with an insatiable hunger that can only be quenched with devotion to, and relationship with, Christ.
Knowing how easy it is to become complacent in our spiritual lives, I make a point to keep my focus on God. I do this by scheduling time with Him. I am a person of routine, and I know that, for me, if it isn’t scheduled, it isn’t happening! Before I get breakfast out of the cupboard, I grab my Bible from the table and start my day in the healthiest way. My hunger has shifted from my stomach to my spirit. In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus… first, before anything else.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Eastham
Stay Hungry
So, whats your story? Are you still hungry? Have you lost your sense of need for God? Are you growing weary of doing it all by your own resolve? Let’s wake up now and recognize our need for Christ before, like squirrel hunting, Christianity runs the risk of becoming a thing of the past. Let’s reignite our passion for pursuing Christ and pass that devotion along to the coming generations! Take a kid hunting, and tell them about Jesus. Otherwise, both traditions will soon be only read about in history books, rather than experienced through firsthand interaction.
I don’t want my great-grandchildren to ever have to ask the question of their fathers, “Dad, why aren’t there many Christians around anymore?”
So when it comes to your pursuit of Jesus Christ: Stay hungry, my friends! Too much is at stake.
8.8.18
Rugged Pursuit 