"7 Nights and A 6-Pack: My Darkest Hour" Trust The Guide #10, Christian Hunter's Fellowship

okay apparently there's still people watching these things so i'm gonna keep doing them ah i got my trusty mask on probably should be wearing two of them in a face shield what could possibly go wrong totally meant as a joke my wife made a joke that she said you know i swear every mask they sell comes with a pair of dead eyes attached to them because i feel that's exactly what what they do you know you can't see people's faces and expressions anymore and yeah just one more thing to kill our spirits the way i look at it anyways ah thanks for joining me here today it's a little bit a little bit sunny as you probably noticed i don't look like a total schmuck today i actually got some new threads on so uh seven nights in a six pack that's the story that i'm going to be sharing it is a uh was a chapter in my book story that took place about 20 years ago now and this is going to be i'm going to be sharing a story i don't think there's any question the darkest period of my whole entire life it was over 20 years ago don't want to get too long-winded on this story so i'm going to kind of brush through various parts fast forward through various parts and highlight various parts here uh but this yeah my darkest hour so to speak dated a girl in high school on again off again in high school a lot of out of high school long story short i won't bore you with a lot of the deep details this is a story that i often share in my you know when i speak at wild game dinners and like christian outreach deals but we dated for many years uh a few years anyways i guess and local local girl very good good young lady you know we were both very young and long story short she you know we kind of talked about marriage and you know we're in her early 20s and she was going to college and i was doing the alaska thing and so i was kind of here and there and you know coming and going and things were going okay i thought you know and um eventually you know she was maybe looking for i don't know if she was necessarily looking for more commitment you know that's what you know what she said it just seemed like that was the natural order of things to do you know is you date two or three years and then you get engaged and then two or three years you get married you know you just just be the stupid sheep and follow the world's ways you know and i just kind of figured i knew that i probably shouldn't get engaged until i was ready to get married and you know at that point i definitely didn't feel that i was ready to be married and anyways long story short we we broke up and you know it was okay at first and and then i couldn't help but wonder if i'd made a mistake you know and then as time gone time went by it was like i wondered more and more if i had made a mistake i'd always kind of done things that's scout by the way i actually kind of love that dog let's go here's go come here come here come here you know he's such a fufu thing but he's actually got a lot of heart and he's i especially love him because i'm his favorite i'm the only one that takes it well i take him outside the most and do things with them yeah i kind of love the little knot head but i do think it is time we get a real dog get a lab or something um but yeah so you know i always kind of did things i always like i never did anything conventional you know i was always kind of like a loner a lone wolf if you will you know i kind of did sports but even then i kind of never really had a click of people that i hung out with um i don't know i always maybe had a chip on my shoulder i always figured everybody else was doing it wrong you know and maybe and i kind of maybe think that that was the one thing i was right on um but you know because i just think that everybody has to live live their own individual life you know and i think so so many of us all of us at least at times were um we just succumbed to popular opinion or just do the status quo and that is so boring to me but it is this this you know this decision that i made and it just led me into question myself question everything because you know here i couldn't help but wonder if i didn't make the biggest mistake of my life you know if this wasn't you know the woman that i was supposed to spend spend my life with because i more or less kind of figured that i was choosing alaska over her at least that's what it seemed like in my mind whether that was really the case or not but you know that definitely strained our relationship me being gone as as much as i was but i did i did know in my heart that if i didn't like um like fulfill whatever it was in alaska that you know i this dream that i had since i was a kid that i would resent her for it forever and that and that i was right i i'm sure of that um but i questioned that and over this two-year period of time i i sunk into this deep depression but when i was in alaska in the wilderness everything was was fine but when i was in the real world it was like i made the decision that i made was counter to the real world you know i i dare say that i loved her i mean i i mean i i i would say that i did love her and the crazy thing is i love her to this day you know she was she is a great woman i mean i we don't uh stay really in touch per se but i mean she was a great person and you know probably much like my wife maybe probably a better person than what i deserved and i mean i kind of knew it then but anyways maybe that's kind of kind of not important but it just seemed like i very well was making the biggest mistake of my life and i sunk into this depression like i said when i was in the real world you know pounding nails working a job just you know i don't know just trying to figure out life you know i was in my early 20s and then i just in this depression it just it just nothing made sense nothing no food tasted good i gained a fair bit of weight i know that i ate quite a bit but really the ultimate thing was is just there was no joy there was no happiness and i would say there was probably a period of about a year really at the at the worst of it where i questioned whether life was worth living every day and many days if not most like almost a minute to minute basis i never stuck a gun in my mouth but i thought about it i mean i thought about any number of ways to end my own life i was steeped i was just buried in this selfishness and just this utter despair you know the bible talks about um hell will be weeping and gnashing of teeth you know and it sounds like almost i don't know kind of what the word is that that sounds like so odd that it's like easy to to dismiss that but i've felt that just deep deep grief and despair that i feel i understand what weeping and gnashing of teeth means just just you can't stand it anymore you know and so as i was going through this and it kind of it brought me it made me seek it's i started going to church again kind of got more i once i got more lost but just really didn't find anything at church but i was really really seeking and so i was going to church and i actually decided i'd moved to alaska so i packed up a bunch of stuff i was still living in wisconsin and just going up for the seasons actually i was staying up all summer um you know spring through fall then i'd go to idaho guide there for a couple of months and so then i'd always come home to wisconsin for like four months in the winter time so i packed up all my stuff went up drove up uh guided for this an outfitter that i'd never guided for before he had a one hunt for me to do in the spring in may and we were hunting out of cordova and i remember just i just think you know i'll go to alaska and i'll i'll get a fresh start so i mean my plan was basically just go to alaska get this spring hunt figure something out do for the summer guide all fall spend the winter you know get residency and just kind of see where things went the outfitter drops me off you know so we fly out drops me off in the middle of nowhere no sat phone no communication and i had a tent and he just says i'll have a hunter for you in two days so during the course of the next five days i never saw another human being you know two days comes and goes and i knew going into this hunt that i just felt like this was gonna be a pivotal moment i just felt like you know i need to find some direction here on this hunt as to what i should do you know moving forward i just i knew in my heart that this was like a pivotal moment like i was starting over i suppose that i had already planned that i was moving to alaska you know that this was like my jumping off point that i was going to start over because because i was like i i didn't have any uh um like resolution or anything i mean this depression was still there but i just knew the road that i was going to was leading to death and i mean literally i mean i at my current pace i i was the only thing that kept me holding on was the love of my family to be honest i could not stand i couldn't stand the idea of maybe more than anybody my mother for my mother to have somebody say penny i'm sorry but you're you know billy committed suicide that was that was probably the only thing yeah i would say it was just my mom you know i mean i not that i didn't worry about my dad or my brother or anything but i mean ultimately it was my mom because my mom loved me so selfishly selflessly my whole life i mean my mom's love was and to this day she's so very very selfless particularly with their children but i just knew that i needed some new direction i figured you know i was kind of running away from my mistakes really but so i'm in this this new camp we're in this on this uh landed on this gravel bar and there's mountains huge mountains surrounding me and we're at this delta these two rivers coming together there's big bears in that country but pretty tough country to hunt because it's very thick i didn't see any bears i saw this moose cow in her yearling calf they would ford the river right by my camp a couple of times a day sometimes i saw a bull moose he had you know velvet antlers saw him a couple of times and this cow and her yearling they i don't know they were a little bit sketchy of me at first but eventually they kind of really didn't pay much attention to me and this whole time that i'm there you know i had all this time i was uh i was pacing up and down this gravel bar that we were landing on and i pretty much had like a trench you know where i had walked back and forth and i was praying and praying and praying and praying the reason why i'm sharing this story now is i've gotten a lot of messages about prayer you know you know does it work and then guys that have been praying like never before you know they're they're seeking you know and so that's why i'm sharing this story i don't know is that i was i didn't anticipate to share that i figured i would at some point i didn't figure i'd be sharing it this early but um yeah just i just figure i need to it's it's a part of who i am and it's a part of a huge part of why i'm here and why i'm doing this and so i'm praying i'm praying for god i mean i mean i'm talking i am praying like a hundred times a day sometimes just short prayers and and the bible the bible says this is in psalms psalm 46 uh verse 10 be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations i will be exalted in the earth be still and know that i am god that is something that ever since i've been to alaska ever since i really started spending time in nature like like i feel like i understand that you know especially in our modern society where you know i got my phone here i mean i call it a depression depression device because it's just there's just so much white noise or static i mean most of what goes on in our modern world is just noise it's just static it's it's stuff that doesn't matter that needs to be tuned out and when you're in the alaskan wilderness you can't help but just any wilderness for that matter particularly alaska because of the enormity of it you just can't help but feel very humble and insignificant and as i'm praying you know for god to help me just god just show me that you're real give me a sign get me through this tell me what i should do you know just help me i mean that's that's largely it you know just give me some direction and i remember looking at those hills those mountains so we're in kind of southeast alaska and just thinking of you know the native people that the the inuit that were there beforehand and then when the russians came with the fur trade and then people came in to look for gold you know just think of how those people struggled up those mountains just for hope that they could you know have a make a way of life and then i thought of my own family my grandpa and his parents and they emigrated from from germany and the the the trials that they went through in their life and the hopelessness that they undoubtedly endured at times and the things that they went through and i kind of started to feel this maybe this sense of gratitude for for what i did have in my life maybe that spirit of selfishness that i was certainly feeling was was somewhat eased you know but i wouldn't say that you know at that point it wasn't i was just i was becoming comfortable there being being there by myself you know i was anxious to start hunting you know i was still young and gung-ho so after five days the outfitter he comes flying in and i figured oh here's my hunter you know and but there was nobody in the back seat and so he lands and he gets out of the plane and he's got a six-pack of beer and a bag with him in the bag was a package of pork chops and he's like yeah sorry i took your hunter to another guide he had tagged out and they were seeing a lot of bears and so i put him with him he's like i'll have 100 for you in two days i'm like well that's what you said you know five days ago but whatever the case i was kind of like i was getting to the point where i was really enjoying that alone time and so i was like yeah whatever and so he hops back in the super cub and he takes off and so i go back to my little pup tent and my a little backpack or stove in a pan and so i threw one of the pork chops on the pan i didn't have anything but time so i just figured well i'll just cook them one at a time and eat as many as i want because all i had was like freeze-dried food so i cracked a beer and fried the pork chop and all of a sudden here comes this cow with their yearling calf and this cow is pregnant you know she's about to have another calf here fairly soon and she walks across the river she starts nipping on these willow buds and as her yearling is going across the river i just watched her look back at her yearling just to check on our yearling and as the pork chop is sizzling all of a sudden it was just boom like a light switch right there in that instant i just recognized that that yearling there yeah that yearling calf any any day now that cow is gonna go off and you know leave that yearling to itself because you know nature's black and white there's no gray area with nature that cow would you know however they do it i guess i don't really know you know banish that yearling because it needs to take care of its new offspring it's new calves calf or calves and any day now that yearling was going to be left to fend for itself there would be wolverines bears wolves any number of things in the wilderness would try to kill this yearling but without fail what i recognize is that yearling would never ever ever quit that no matter what happened to it it would strive to survive to maximize its life to maximize its potential until the day that it died and i recognized right then that that's the case with everything in nature and i also recognized that that is not at all what i had been doing for the last two years whether i had made a mistake at that point it really didn't matter i it just it just floored me to know that whatever is in store for that moose that earling it is not afraid and it's not thinking about it it is not worrying about it whatever mistakes that moose made it's not even cognizant of any mistakes if it didn't you know made any but um you know there's there's no such thing it's just only forward for for anything in nature certainly it's learned lessons from things that have happened in the past but it's always moving forward and for me i mean i'd read was that book men are from mars women are from venus i'd read self-help books i'd watched videos you know my parents and other people in my family kind of tried to you know they they've helped me as best they could but you know it was just something that i really didn't talk about to be honest i mean i never went to a counselor or anything you know too tough bull headed for that um not that i don't i don't know that i you know i suppose there's a time and place for that but i don't know that that would have helped anyways um but that right there i mean it was literally light switch two years of depression ended right there and that was that was the end of it i mean it really was yeah there was maybe times where i thought about it but i just finally came to this this point of i believe that my prayers were answered that day whether god orchestrated that cow those moose to be there or whether you know just that prayer that that time with god like um quieted my mind enough and maybe helped me to surrender enough to maybe pay attention to the blessings that i had and maybe you know maybe i'd have found that light scout hey hey maybe i'd have found that that light switch somewhere else maybe um but i mean nature was nature's kind of what i've always been interested in and what i've always understood and it always spoke to me and i i just i just knew that i was i was it was gonna be okay i knew that that was a chapter in my life that was behind me and so i mean i don't know to this day to be honest i just don't know if god orchestrated that time alone you know be still and know that i am god i felt like in that five days i uh well seven i guess is what it ended up being um i came so much closer to god and and i'll be perfectly honest i i then after i got through that to let you know of kind of how i've worked in the past you know i was like 20 years ago i'd usually come to god when i was in a jam and then i'd you know i'd i'd seek him and i'd get close to him and he'd help me out and then i'd drift away and then i'd come back and you know now i feel like you know i'm doing my best to like never never leave him to stick close to him in everything that i do um which by the way one of the things that i've i've done and i'm not saying this to like brag or anything but um i have no problem with people drinking i mentioned the beer thing simply because that's what happened that's what's in my book it's not something that i'm gonna hide from and you watch some of my old videos you'll see me you know drinking carrying on and being quite a buffoon um i i did have a tendency to get pretty witty and and probably funnier when i drank than than i am when i'm not but um my point is is like i don't wanna i don't i really don't wanna hide from my past i don't wanna flaunt it you know it's something that i've been kind of cognizant of um you know and i'm studying it you know try to try to do what god would have me do and i guess until i i become reproved on it i'm just gonna let my past speak for itself you know on my videos and such you know you know i'd definitely say it was never an elf alcoholic i mean i i've been drunk before for sure um but i mean god still had his grace on me and i'm not saying that i don't know is that you i think i think you can drink and still be a christian um but paul does talk about how you know he became a teacher i guess i kind of in the end i don't want to get too far into this but paul talks about everything is lawful but not everything is expedient or or ultimately good for you and that teachers will be judged more severely and so i guess i basically for the next year i've i'm not i won't drink i'm not gonna drink any alcohol um and i'm just gonna kind of see where it goes for you know for the next year i think health-wise it'll be good for me again not that i ever really drink that much but that's just kind of where i am with drinking and the fact that i i mentioned the that i had a beer because i'm just i'm just trying to be truthful i definitely wasn't under the influence when this happens but or when that event happened but um i did have a six-pack beer so we'll lay that to rest whatever shakes out it's just fine but um there's a script a scripture on persistence so this is uh luke chapter 18 verse 1. then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart school bus saying [Music] there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear god nor regard man now there was a widow in that city and she came to him saying get justice for me from my adversary and he would not for a while but afterward he said within himself though i do not fear god nor regard man yet because this widow troubles me i will avenge her lest by her continual coming she weary me then the lord said hear what the unjust judge said and shall god not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears long with them i tell you that he will avenge them speedily nevertheless when the son of man comes will he really find faith on the earth so here we've got a guy this parable is that here you got a judge that you know he doesn't doesn't really care necessarily what's right or wrong but this woman keeps coming to him and clearly somebody has has wronged her or you know she needs um i guess he believes that this woman has been wronged he doesn't really care about it but just so that more or less to shut her up he is going to um rule in her favor and so hi guys and shall god not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him though he bears along with them so the saying of god shall god not avenge so if someone's if if you're if you're in his spirit if you're on his path and there's something that's blocking you from from doing what is right will he not help you so i don't know you know this uh i don't i don't under i don't understand if this is necessarily saying that you know if you ask enough he's going to give it to you i i don't think that's the case but what he is saying is that persistence and prayer that if we continually come to him you know whether that's that's faith per se but just the persistence the persistence in prayer that if this unjust this unjust judge is going to rule um in this woman's favor wouldn't all the more wouldn't uh god do that for us his own elect someone who is following him so so to be his own elect you basically have to be you know be a believer in someone who is following him this is a scripture that super powerful in my life and i'll share this story maybe i'll do it next week it's from john chapter 14. uh now we'll do verses 12 to 14. most assuredly this is jesus speaking most assuredly i say to you he who believes in me the works that i do he will do also and greater works than these will he do because i go to my father so when jesus ascends into heaven and then the holy spirit comes in to um for all of us to access through belief in jesus and through baptism that holy spirit comes into us and what he's saying here is that we are to do greater things than he did because of the intercession of the holy spirit so verse 13 and whatever you ask in my name that i will do that the father may be glorified in the son verse 14 if you ask anything in my name i will do it so there we see that or here we're seeing that okay you can't god isn't necessarily going to you know give you anything whatever you pray for but if it is in his will that the father may be glorified in the son he will do it now that doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to do it immediately but he will do it so there we see the need for persistence to come in is you know god's timing is not our timing that's for sure you know when i look at i won't say that i'm an expert on prayer i've been kind of studying this maybe because i need it more probably the biggest thing that i'm maybe lack is thanksgiving to god to sing his praises for the things that i do have and i'm i'm i'm definitely shifting on that i'm recognizing that a lot more here more recently the things that i've been blessed with and usually it seems like when my prayers are answered that that kind of comes hand in hand that before my prayers are answered there's definitely a level again of like surrender of like of trusting god and also acceptance that whatever the case may be uh you know whether god answers that prayer or not or however that situation works out there gets to be like an inner peace with it maybe oftentimes like it doesn't matter or whatever it is i'll accept it really seems for me anyway and there's probably scriptures in that to highlight that but i mean that's definitely something that i've noticed like you know you can't come with like haste or you want it now and i'll i'll share this i'll probably do this story next i mean it was like it was so so powerful like the story that i'll share next week it was like i said this prayer and before i even happened i knew it was done it was it was i'll share that one next week um but here's here's some other um again and you know a lot of this stuff like please note that i feel like the only thing or the most valuable thing that i can offer i don't think i'm not experienced enough to be a preacher you know i'm not a theologian so what i feel is most valuable that i can offer is just my experience and my stories of you know my faith walk here's uh you know i just i just kind of looked up some um verses on prayer james 5 chapter 5 verse 13 is anyone among you in trouble let them pray is anyone happy let them sing songs of praise that that one that one really struck me you know just that of how many times i would come to god when when i'm in trouble but how many times when just like right now you know i mean in my house i've got my three girls and my wife and i've got a warm fire and my wife had to run to the twin cities take my oldest to a doctor and they brought chipotle home you know which is a real treat for us because we live out in the sticks and you know how how good that is like my kids like they're like like a wolf on a fresh kill when you bring chipotle home you know that's their favorite and it's just like those simple things in life i'm here to tell you of all the things that i've done in my life and places i've gone it just doesn't get any better than that you know the warm sun hit me on the face and just going in there to hear about the um how their day went when i'm in alaska those are the things that i miss i read with my daughter last night a story about skyscrapers you know for school and it's just that's that's it that's that's the that's the i mean that's about as good as it gets just nurturing your your children and loving them love is the most powerful thing there is and god's love for us when you know you just stop and you think about that and so many times i know for me it's like i need i need some train wrecks to happen in my life for me to really realize all the blessings that i have first thessalonians chapter 5 verses 16 to 22 rejoice always pray continually give thanks in all circumstances for this is god's will for you in christ jesus do not quench the spirit you know do not do not stifle it do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all hold on to what is good reject every kind of evil test them all that is probably my specialty if there's anything that i've done right is i've tested things i have doubted things i have questioned everything you go to the turtle lake high school and you talk to any teacher that ever had me as a student and they will tell you that i tested them all guaranteed without fail because i just i don't know maybe i don't know if that's character flaw probably is definitely is to some degree i i always had to find out for myself unless unless i really believe nah and that's that's not fair because like with my grandpa i'd believe like my grandpa if he told me something about trapping i believed him and i would do it his way but i because i trusted him in such a deep level in that regard because i knew that he he knew what he was talking about i mean my my grandpa was like grandpa was legit as a trapper i mean he was like jeremiah johnson kind of stuff you know he he knew what he was doing but otherwise you know like most of my teachers in school there was a couple of them that i i you know that spoke to me mr krenz was one of them um you know i i don't know i guess i could relate to him but like anytime like anybody and maybe that's why i had kind of problems in a church like any time anybody like all they could really do was read stuff out of a book and said okay go and memorize it and believe it that never resonated that never worked with me and and i got and i believe and i know from sharing campfires with other men that i know there's other people out there like me so that's why the people that really led me towards god were the people that had similar life experiences that i could relate to and and that's why i'm sharing these philippians chapter 4 uh verses 6 to 7 do not be anxious about anything that that's probably the biggest thing that i that i struggle with you know my i guess probably say a lack of faith is just like um you know believing what you can't see you know shutting out um you know the physical world and and trusting leaning more into the the spiritual world and trusting god's precepts because god's ways often times you don't see the fruit of of god's ways and god's plans until long long after and you know the world is all about you know what can i get now as fast as i possibly can so you know that that's that's a this is a huge verse for me and i there's one that i study regularly but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to god so with thanksgiving it seems to me like i said before like and i think that that thanksgiving definitely has to be honest you know you have to praise god in your prayer when you're requesting something i don't know if it again if that shows like a level of submission but that's that's very much a common a common thread so with thanksgiving present your request to god and the peace of god which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in christ jesus prayer i would say as much as anything is conversation with god at least that's that's what it seems to me it it becomes like that and when i feel like i'm when i look back in the times when i've been closest with god it's just like i'm having a in a dialogue with him continually often times throughout the day i've got one more here these are these i just kind of picked at random matthew chapter 7 verse 11 if you then though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him in luke chapter 6 verse 12 one of those days jesus went out to a mountain side to pray and spent the night praying to god you know jesus you know there's a few different times in the bible where they talk about how he escaped to the wilderness another time one time that comes to mind is after he taught a multitude of people for a day or two he went off by himself on the mountainside to pray he he wanted to escape from the people so i mean we need that we all need that time to break away and i think that's why so many hunters they love they love hunting they love being out in nature you know and i they think it's a big buck that they're after but i really don't think it is they just they feel god's peace and god's presence there in nature and that's what they're uh you know that that's what's drawing them out there and i don't even you know like when you're just going to sit on the deer stand for an afternoon or whatever uh it's not as easy to recognize that but you get away on a you know 14-day hunting adventure by yourself and the bob marshall or the frank church or you know go to alaska or you know in my case i was very blessed i'd go to the wilderness for months at a time you know you can't help but you know shed uh the world away the world's values the world's ways and just consider more of a natural order of things and come into closer um [Music] communion with god i mean that's that's been the biggest blessing in my life you know and you know when i look back all those years ago when i went through that such a difficult time questioning you know should i have gotten married you know i would have been the lousiest husband on earth if i had married that girl when i was 20 years old because i would have i would have felt if i had to quit going to alaska i'd always wondered what if what if and i would have been sitting on a bar stool every day and just just dying a slow miserable death at that point really you know i hear the term like you know life on cruise control that being a christian is life on cruise control at times yeah but boy it's been more like country driving for me you know it's not being a christian for me at least what what i've experienced thus far there isn't much there isn't much freeway time you know you don't get to use cruise control all that much because i i mean i i feel like being a christian is like the ultimate adventure man god's got god's gonna be sending people into your life all the time daily the ups man the bus driver um i mean that's the adventure um you know just being able to our ups man like he's the nicest guy on earth my wife and i talked about inviting him and his wife over for uh it had like the the makings of like a sitcom thing you know but i just really like that guy we just have brief conversations we've invited him into the house a couple of times and you know just chit chat he's got work to do but you know that's i mean that everybody every every christian like everybody you meet that's that's who you should be influencing in in you know hopefully they see a light in you um but being a christian i don't think it's there's much i don't think we're supposed to be on cruise control very much we're supposed to be getting out there challenging ourselves because with every challenge we're gonna learn more and we're going to get closer to god um you know just like your spiritual life's just like your physical life you know if if you're physically if you're on cruise control you're getting weaker you know i mean if you go for the same walk every day yeah i mean that's that's good but you know the guys that are really getting after it and they're continually pushing themselves and you know as obviously as you get aged get older i mean if you can maintain a level of fitness throughout your age that's very good but it's probably going to take more work i guess that's that's maybe my point um okay yeah so and i think that's where prayer becomes so important because you're going to be getting um into new situations and you're you're going to find yourself in uh you know climbing a ridge that you've never been on before and you've got to find your way through it you've got to seek god to guide you through that as different problems arise or different people come into your life and you want to help them and this journey for me you know sharing my faith i mean a lot of things have been coming up and just the other day i was with my kids and we haven't seen the sun very much beautiful day i really appreciate it here um just a week ago whatever it was it was with my kids and the sun was out and it was like the first time all winter where you could really feel the sun's heat and i talked to my kids you know i'm like you feel that heat like just think about that how far away is it it's like i don't know 393 million miles away or something and then we talked about the earth's atmosphere and how every thousand feet you go up above the earth it gets three or four degrees colder but even though you're going towards the sun you know you go 30 000 feet towards the sun and it's 100 degrees colder but you're closer to the sun you know so we're talking about uh the earth's atmosphere and different things and and but how how powerful that sun must be so we probably talked about it for 15 20 minutes looked it up on the internet a little bit and that was that so the very next morning i was praying and i just said god you know am i on the right path here you know i just kind of didn't feel like i just wanted to make sure i just came to this point like hey am i doing everything right here am i am i doing this right and so i i said a few prayers um the night before and then the next morning i was i was doing my bible study and i just said a prayer i'm like lord i just just really need your guidance i wasn't sure what i was going to talk about next and like am i doing is this right you know am i doing this for me am i doing this for you just let me know just just let me know give me a sign of some sort to go off of just so that i know i'm on the right path here and i go to check my email i mean i'm talking like not just right after that and i get this email yeah where we are dear mr moles i trust my email finds you well my son gerhard now five and a half and i have been watching your shows both hunting and campfire shows on youtube since march last year we are enjoying every minute of it he already knows more about alaskan wildlife than most south africans you may appreciate the following story yeah so this was at 8 30 a.m i mean this was like i don't know it's like darn near the time that i was praying south africa or or minutes later south africa has also been subjected to a number of kovid 19 related lockdowns with the strictest one where people were basically confined to their houses for five weeks being forced during april and may 2020 having traveled extensively [Music] for work and recreation over the last 20 years i certainly wasn't used to being confined to my own house for more than a month being a hunter and fisherman and enjoying the outdoors my son and i escaped via the hunting shows on netflix and youtube one of the shows we came across was obviously modern day mountain man each show opens with the row boat scene and the words pardon me if i misquote i was eight years old trapping muskrats on lightning creek when one day something came alive inside me my son four and a half at the time understands english fairly well even though we are an africa afrikaans speaking family and he asked me what was meant by something came alive in me inside me i explained to him as best i could he listened paused looked at me and said oh so thy son het inside heart ingestion literal translation oh so the sun shone right into his heart i had to agree with his explanation that's how you became known in our house heart literal translation the guy with the sun in his heart thank you for the great shows safe hunting and may god bless you and your family best regards skulk when i read that there was no doubt in my mind there was no doubt in my mind that that was god speaking to me when you know my my kids and my young ones are nine and ten and you know yeah we've talked about the sun but i mean and as long as they've been alive we've never had an in-depth conversation of the power of the sun and then he sends me that and he says that in his house i'm known as the the man with the sun in his heart like i i literally cried over that i mean it just brought it just brought tears to my eyes and what i feel what i feel god was was telling me is that and i don't think i'm unique in that regard the power god's power is in all of us all of us who come to jesus and accept him and are baptized and receive that holy spirit we have we have his power in us you know jesus says that you know you'll do great we'll do greater things than he did because he goes to the father and the holy spirit is here we just have to push ourselves out of the way to access that and allow that to come forward we just need to follow him and and do what he says to do and man it was just it was just so pop when like like right when i when i needed it and it because and i came and i came to him i was like hey do do i continue with this or do i not and then later this that the week that followed i would say i got probably like double maybe even triple the messages that i have before one was a guy that just stands out comes to mind um he struggled with alcoholism and ended up losing his job and you know the first thing he started out with is something of the effect of i i'm not being over dramatic in saying this but your videos may have saved my life and he kind of went on with his story and that's powerful stuff and particularly you know so now here i am maybe to some degree that's what kind of caused me to share this story too like i went through that period of depression i mean that's no joke i mean i thought about i mean i thought about taking i mean just think about that you know thinking about taking your life i mean this is no exaggeration from admit like there were many many days i dare say hundreds of days at least a hundred days where i would say i thought of taking my own life at least every minute i mean it i couldn't get rid of it it was the lowest of lows and there's been there's so many things that happened and so many people came into my life just to give me just a just a little bit of light just a little bit of water just a little bit of refreshment just a little something that i needed at that time like there's really nothing else in my life that matters other than to try to be that person for somebody else and it took going through a lot of things on my own of testing um how we're supposed to test things uh where was that yeah i was on my computer but or on my phone um that we're supposed to test things we are you know i talk about uh i kind of rag on guys that are bar stools all this i maybe kind of came up with this term like a bar stool christian you know you kind of you just kind of sit there and you get comfortable and you tell the same old stories and you really don't do anything about it you know i would say i probably was a bar stool christian i definitely was a bar stool christian for many many years you know i kind of and i never felt right about it um you study the bible much and you'll see that the bible very challenging you know we're to always be challenging ourselves particularly you read any of paul's writings you know paul was paul had some guts man um that dude he wasn't scared of anything you know and and he had some adventures you want to talk to a guy about that had some adventures he he absolutely did and i guess my point through all this is that as long as you're doing it right i don't think we as long as you're really walking as a christian you're gonna need prayer in your life all the time you're going to be coming up to things that challenge you and i and i have to believe that as i become more seasoned if you will just like a sheep hunt you know i go into a sheep hunt like i don't think about sheep hunting really at all until i'm there i don't know if i'd say that i'm an expert but i mean i'm becoming i'm getting close to it let's just say that and it's like i know i'm gonna have situations that i've never been through before but many that are similar and i know that my learning curve has been honed down to a pretty narrow margin and i know enough people who are in the spiritual realm are like what i am in the alaska hunting realm like i have a ton of experience that yeah there's circumstances that i've never been through before but i know how to get ahead of the curve maybe if you will or to um you know they i rarely i really am am i going to get any big surprises if that makes sense and i i know people in the spiritual realm um one guy who's mentoring me and that's kind of why he's my mentor is he has a very similar background to me and i mean he you know we talk every week or two you know and you know just his wisdom and conversations helped me immensely um but prayer is in in getting into situations that we need to seek him we we have to have those these cert situations because then by seeking him we naturally just become closer to him uh romans uh chapter 1 verse 16 for i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god to salvation for everyone who believes for the jew first and also for the greek so for anybody you know he was uh paul was a you know basically he was a pharisee so i mean he was a jew and then he was persecuting jesus and then that long story but anyways he kind of really started preaching to the gentiles as well for in it for okay for i'm not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god to salvation for everyone who believes for in it the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith as it is written in habakkuk the just shall live by faith that never ends it never ends if that communion with god that need to trust and have faith in him never ends in our circumstances and it never will and i suppose if it does you know that's when we know we're dying you know when we're not when we're not seeking him anymore that's when we've basically set up on the bar stool and we're just like you know what i'm just gonna ride it out in my mind that's what cruise control is when you're just like you know what i'm just gonna ride it out here retirement like retirement what is that nothing in nature retires you know i'm not saying that people that are retired a lot of people when they retire that's when they go and do the lord's work right i mean so that's a great thing but if you think about that it's like man i'm gonna live my whole life and then i'm gonna retire and a lot of people's idea of retirement is just sitting on the porch and you know just doing nothing um but that's not the way it is at all for in the righteousness of god is revealed from faith to faith god's righteousness we'll learn it as we step forward in each circumstance from faith to faith and i believe there's the greatest thing you know i talk about the power of of the sun you know and the god creator god who created the sun who created the heavens and the earth and everything in nature his love his love is the most powerful thing that it is i mean that there is that's what's going to change this world i mean there's there's nothing greater there's nothing greater than love and man and i've experienced that many times around campfires like this with other men you know especially you're doing such a macho thing such as hunting and there again it's like those greatest bonds that we have that i have are you know my greatest friend greatest friends and the greatest bonds that i have with the people that i've been with when they like surrender when they let their guard down so to speak like i said the only stories that interest me are the ones where you know guys are silent before they they really come out with the story and that shows i mean that shows a level of love that shows a level of trust a level of surrender like hey i'm going to let you in i'm going to let my guard down let you you know let you see my heart i'm going to be vulnerable to you and that that shows a level of love on their part and that is a beautiful thing and that's why i'm sharing this story of my more vulnerable and probably probably the most vulnerable moment my whole entire life is because i believe there's someone out there that you know is going to benefit from that story maybe needs to hear it so with that let us pray heavenly father come to you we all many of us here are coming to you this day grateful for the many blessings that you've bestowed upon us lord i particularly thank you for those people who you've called to pray for me and my family to encourage me to continue sharing my walk with you lord i thank you for my family thank you for my my great grandma and my mother my great grandma who's 96 now and and always showed me such a great love and my mom who gave me such selfless love that maybe maybe saved my life and encouraged me to pursue my dreams which ultimately led me led me here lord i i pray for um the people that are in this fellowship that are that are seeking you through um through the experiences that you've blessed me with lord it asks that you you help those who are struggling in marriage be with those who are going through depression who are in fear help them to know that where fear is you are not there that that that love is the opposite of fear and and you are love help them to recognize understand your love give us all more discernment that we may identify [Applause] your love your light be with those who are struggling financially who are are having more stress due to the you know our current political situations lord help them to seek you and and give them the confidence and the faith that if they seek you that they they will find a way out that you will deliver them that you are with them no matter what and lord we continue to pray for don johnson and his family lord we pray for the the gentleman who um who lost his job recently and he quit drinking lord and ask that you strengthen him preserve him and give him the strength to continue seeking him and and just live day by day and lord we ask of all this um in your name the name of your son jesus amen so don johnson is uh he's out of the hospital now he's still um still got a long ways to go trying different chemo said he's going to try to get a new pill which is 30 000 a month um any they're trying to see if his insurance is going to cover that but so we continue to pray for don um again if you want to um support offer some support to him and his family you can go to i don't know if it is uh episode number six it was a head underwater hand on the plow and then there you'll find a link to donate to him and his family yeah my challenge for everyone here is to just look up prayer just look up some verses on prayer just look it up on the internet you'll find a whole bunch of them and you know try to just get an understand better understanding of how to do it again i'm definitely no expert on prayer i've had it i've had it work several times but i probably need to be studying on it as much as anybody maybe more than most so that's just my challenge because that's something that i know that i'm going to do and again that's something that i received messages from a lot of people recently and with that i just just wanted to thank everybody for your continued support i would ask if you would be so kind to subscribe feel free to leave your comments again i love the fellowship going on so you know if this story if you if you feel like it was meant for you by all means leave your comments and and if you're so inclined you know maybe encourage some of the guys who do leave comments if you've gone through similar situations iron sharpens iron and you know like i said before i feel like a lot of my life i've been a lone wolf and i'm sure a lot of you guys can relate to that and like for the first time in my life i feel like i need to be part of a pack if that makes sense i i really appreciate those guys that have um i really appreciate the encouragement and the prayers that i know that i'm receiving from people around the world and um yeah i thank uh skulk and gerhard for reaching out man that uh that touched my heart i definitely believe god's hand was in that and so with that i just want to encourage you to trust the guide and it's our job to follow him and i use the analogy to blaze the trail because i believe that's what the bible calls us to do is to trust him and when we find his path and we know we're following him is to blaze that trail behind us for others to follow so with that uh you guys have a great week and we'll see you at the next campfire

Channel: Billy Molls Adventures

Views: 22,805

Rating: 4.8654866 out of 5

Keywords: Man Chuch, Men's Ministry, Christian Outreach, Man Church, The Good News, Christian Sermon, The Gospel

Id: m2otqBji__Y

Length: 70min 10sec (4210 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021