There are days of discouragement (yes even the Jesus Chick) where the world thumps on me and I just don’t think I can do it, or they will get it, or it will pass, or it can happen. When Satan points out my flaws with a laser pin point to make sure that I know what an utter failure I am. As if he needs too, I’m pretty good at that myself. And then God points out to me who I once was and what we’ve been through using my grandsons who at the ages of 3, 5 and 6 really do believe that you can go bear hunting with a switch. Because that switch is not a stick it’s the biggest and baddest (I know it’s not a word) rifle that anyone on earth owns. And they are the greatest of all hunters having never missed a shot.
I asked my friend and retired schoolteacher, Gloria Jones, “At what point do kids decide they don’t like school?” Her response is seared into my mind “When they have their first bad teacher.” When I speak to youth leaders or at leadership events I remind them of an experience I had as a nine or ten year old child at a church Christmas play rehearsal, when as I read the script for the first time I read a word in my part which was “deny”; for which I pronounced “denny.” One of the youth leaders laughed me to scorn for my mispronunciation and as a child I thought, “When I grow up, I’ll never be like you.” And praise God! because that incident has stayed so fresh in my mind, I’m very careful when dealing with youth to never shatter their “bear hunting experience.” I don’t ever want to be remembered as “that leader” because I do remember it, and her as if it were yesterday.
When Jesus said to the disciples in Mark 10:14-16 ~ …Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
The disciples had forgotten about their bear hunting days. They’d read the story of David killing the bear (1 Samuel 17:36), but now they were a part of the ministry team, there was no time for crazy things like bear hunting with a switch. But Christ reminded them that it was that childlike faith that believed that God could do anything and so can we that was necessary for salvation. And as I was reminded by Luke, Noah and Nicolis, it is needful for everyday living. There are many days in life when the bears I fight with aren’t bears, they’re people or circumstances. It is during that battle that I need to remind myself that a ruddy little boy like David didn’t even stop to think about what he was doing when he killed the lion and bear, he just did it. I need to stop thinking about the people and the circumstances in my life and just do it. What about you? Has someone smashed your bear hunting dreams? Pick up your stick and fight!
