I originally wrote this blog in 2015 but when I wrote it, I wrote about how I saw God in the physical world.  Little did I know that not only was God spiritually shaping me into the person He wanted me to be by allowing me to struggle in the woods, He was also changing someone else’s heart.  As I prayed this morning and asked God to help me understand why I was struggling with something in particular right now, He opened my eyes to the meaning of this experience.
 
From November 2015…God is in control of all things.  I was reminded of this on Friday morning.  I was off from work to go deer hunting.  I was about to go out the door for the morning hunt when my kids got into a heated argument.  I decided now was not the time to leave and spent the next several minutes talking with them.  By the time I got out the door the nighttime darkness was just starting to leave.  To say I was upset is an understatement.  Any good hunter knows you want to already be in your spot and settled when it starts getting light outside.  Truth is this is how my hunting season had gone ever since it started.  I had just had a conversation with my wife earlier in the week about my misfortunes.  I told her, “I don’t know what God’s purpose is but my hunting season has just been awful.”  Never in my life had I experienced what I was experiencing.  Every time I entered the woods I would see deer run off and I would see no more.  It happened every time over and over again.
 
As I walked out the door and headed into the woods on that cold, calm morning I prayed to God about it.  I asked for Him to help me.  Just seconds after I entered the woods I saw a flash of movement in front of me about 50 yards or so.  As I had feared, the deer were already moving around because of my late arrival in the woods.  Here we go again, I thought.  Little did I know, God had very different plans for me on this day. 
 
When I saw the deer ahead, I stopped and stood motionless on the path leading through the woods.  The path is large and wide…about 8 feet or so across.  I was hoping the deer would quietly leave without causing a lot of noise like they had done so many times before.  I stood motionless for a minute or so before I started to hear the deer coming towards me.  I squinted through the darkness to see fuzzy shapes coming my way.  After three or four minutes the noises just stopped.  I could no longer see the deer in the darkness as I strained my eyes as hard as I could.  As precious time was wasting, my patience was running out.  Thinking the deer may have slipped away without me knowing it, I slowly began to walk towards my deer stand, the same direction I had heard them coming.  I hadn’t taken two steps when the deer that weren’t more than 10 yards from me, jumped up and ran.  After only running a short distance, the deer stopped.  I continued standing there motionless trying to decide my next move when I again began hearing footsteps.  I thought they were leaving but to my surprise the footsteps continued to get closer and closer, only this time they were approaching on my left.
 
After a couple minutes I was clearly able to make out the shape of one of the deer.  It couldn’t have been more than 15 yards away eating from the ground.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I had no idea why it wasn’t running away but I wasted no time in getting ready for a shot.  I pulled back my bow, steadied my aim, and released.  I could tell by the noise my arrow made that I had missed.  The deer was startled and ran back 20 yards or so in the direction it had come from and just stood there.  I couldn’t believe it was not leaving.  The deer was now 30 or 40yards from me and I continued to stand on the open path in the woods.  How could this deer not see me?  Why was it not running away?
 
Moments later I heard movement again.  The deer was coming back.  It once more worked its way around to my left side and stopped 15 yards from me.  I resisted the shot this time because of some tree branches that were in the way.  I didn’t want to risk hitting one so I waited.  After 5 minutes or so both deer crossed over the ravine to my left and disappeared out of sight.  I finally had the chance to walk to my stand without the deer seeing me…so I thought.
 
I walked slowly and as quietly as I could through the dry leaves.  I made it about 50 yards or so when I began to hear noises coming from the direction the deer had went.  I looked through the ever increasing light to see these same two deer running towards me like dogs running to their owner.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I took a few more steps and stopped.  I looked again and now they were 30 yards or so from me and they were looking directly at me.  I sidestepped to my right and stood behind a tree trying to slow my speeding heart.  The deer continued to get closer and began to eat 15 yards or so in front of me in the woods.  Why did they travel over 100 yards to stand directly in front of me at 15 yards again?  Why did they seem to be drawn to the sounds of my feet?  I tried to find an opening through the tree limbs, pulled back anther arrow, and released.  I knew for sure I had missed again when I heard a funning noise after I had shot.  The arrow had once more deflected off a limb and was sticking in the ground pointing straight up.  That was definitely a first.

By this time you must be thinking these deer are long gone right?  Wrong.  The deer went right back to eating, occasionally looking at me as if they were making sure I was still there.  I pulled another arrow from my quiver and put it on the bow string.  I can’t begin to explain all the thoughts going through my mind at this point.  I didn’t understand what was happening but it all felt very surreal…almost like a dream.
 
After the deer finished eating it decided to do the unthinkable, it was going to walk onto the trail I was standing on to give me a shot without anything between me and her.  There were no tree limbs and no trees to get in the way as it walked out directly in front of me at; you guessed it, 15 yards.  The shot was such a slam dunk and I was so shocked with all that had happened, I missed.  My stomach sank as I stood in disbelief as the deer ran 20 yards or so to my left and just stood there.  My spirit was crushed.  How did I just miss that shot?  Why is this deer behaving like it has a death wish?  So many thoughts were going through my mind.  I was a mess.  I did all that I knew to do.  I prayed.  I told God that if He could just bring that deer back one more time I could make a good shot.   
 
Soon after the deer walked down the hill and out of sight I walked back to retrieve my arrow.  I walked the 50 yards or so down the wide open trail to retrieve my arrow.  When I found it, just as I expected there was no trace of a hit.  I had missed the deer cleanly.  I placed the arrow into the quiver and pulled out another arrow and placed it on the bow string.  Was I really expecting the deer to come back again?  At this point my faith was sky high.  I knew anything was possible. 
 
I hadn’t been standing there 2 minutes when I began to hear noise from the direction the two deer had just gone.  A moment later, coming over the top of the hill immerged one of the deer.  As soon as I saw it, it looked directly at me.  I couldn’t get a shot but no worries, the deer would get into a good shooting position for me.   The deer then circled around so she could again step out onto the same trail I was standing.  Before she stepped out into the opening, she looked at me yet again.  This moment that only lasted for a brief second, is burned into my mind.  In that moment I saw God.  I saw the gift that He was giving me and I felt a love in the deepest parts of me.
 
I pulled back my arrow, the deer stepped onto the open trail at 15 yards, and I released.  The deer dropped to the ground and shortly thereafter, I dropped to my knees.  I looked up to heaven, and with tears rolling down my cheeks, I thanked God for His amazing love.  In that moment, all the frustration of the hunting season vanished.  God had allowed pain in my life because He had something better in store for me. 

Let’s back up a minute, the day before this story took place I ran into someone that disliked me a great deal.  And to be honest, my attitude and heart towards this person at that time was cold.  I couldn’t understand why they disliked me so much.  Their dislike of me caused anger and bitterness inside my own heart.  I was repaying evil for evil and it wasn’t working so well.  But God working through me, showed this person love.  I knew they liked venison so I told them of my hunting plans and offered them some meat if I was successful. 

Upon receiving the deer meat back from the butcher I took some to this individual.  I could not have been more amazed at their response.  I saw a gentleness and gratitude from this person that I had never seen before.  My heart had changed.  Their heart had changed.  Now two years later, we no longer have a wall that separates us.  The feelings of anger and bitterness are gone.

God often sends us trials and struggles to change us.  Sometimes at the time these painful struggles don’t make sense.  And sometimes when they do make sense, we are seeing only a glimpse of the full picture.  If you love God you will experience trials.  When you experience trials, you can be sure God allowed them to change you for the better and we can be confident that someone else is being changed too. 

I want to start this blog by saying I have made horrible mistakes in my life.  I have sinned against God in some detestable ways.  I have spent years of my life stuck in a web of pornography and everything else that the world has to offer.  I put on a good show trying to cover over the secret parts of my life that didn’t look so nice.  I have bullied people, stole, lied and cheated.  There was even a time in my life when I called those chasing after God 'Bible Thumpers' while I myself professed to be a Christian.  How unworthy I am of God’s mercy!  My life and all that I have seen and experienced is a testimony that God remembers our sins no more if we surrender to Him.    
  
Yesterday my three younger kids and I took a road trip.  I needed to run into work and then we stopped off at the store.  We had a good time together and some great conversation about God.  As we neared our hometown, I noticed a group of turkeys next to the road ahead.  As we drew closer they continued to stay put.  When we came alongside them I counted them.  Wouldn’t you know it, there were 7.  Do you know what part of the conversation with my kids was about yesterday?  I was teaching them about how God has shown me the number 7 several times to speak to me.

This morning I was listening to a message about how God speaks to you, by a man I greatly respect.  In this message he was talking about how God often providently leads you to a specific place in the Bible and speaks to you through His Word.  When I heard this I was in total agreement as I have ‘randomly’ opened my Bible sooooooo many times and began reading only to realize what I read was speaking directly to me about something I just heard, about a question I just asked, or about something that I was about to hear.  Anyway, during his message he mentioned a Bible verse and I was like wow, I just read that exact verse yesterday!  Then He mentioned another Bible verse.  I opened my Bible to look it up when I realized I had almost turned to the exact page he was referring.  When I found the verse number on the previous page I realized he misspoke the wrong number.  When I turned back to the original page I had turned to I found the words that he had quoted.  More coincidence?  This happens over and over and over again.    
 
The Bible verse he quoted was Titus 1:16 “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him.”  If you know God He will speak to you.  For most of my life I heard very little from God, or at least I didn’t realize He was speaking to me.  How is this possible when I called myself a Christian and believed in God?  It was because I wasn’t obeying His word.  But through my struggles with pornography, I begged and pleaded with Him to help me.  So many tears fell through the years as I tried to break free from its grip.  Even though I was caught up in a lot of trash at that time in my life, He knew that I genuinely wanted free.  When the time was right, He gave me exactly what I needed to change course. 

Days after the death of my wife my mom came and stayed with us.  She suggested I go to the Dr. and get something to take the edge off for a while as I learned to cope with my new life.  But God was with me.  God helped me to realize that I needed to feel all the pain.  At a time in my life when there was so much uncertainty, I was certain that I wanted to experience the pain.  By human minds this makes no sense but looking back I realize that it was all part of God’s plan.  By God’s power, I didn’t turn to food, sex, drugs, alcohol, or anything else in the world while I was grieving.  I just ran to Him. 

Today I live an amazing life.  I am not boasting about myself or anything I have achieved or accomplished, I am boasting about God.  I am boasting that I know Him and to know Him is inexpressively exciting!  I am boasting that He knows me and that He often speaks to me.  I am boasting that this world does very little to excite me.  I am boasting that He has forgiven my horrible past and promises me a beautiful future. 

If you believe in Jesus you have been invited to the wedding.  You have been invited to receive all that God has to give which is far more than you could ever imagine.  Don’t live a Titus 1:16 life like I once did.       

It was no accident that I stumbled across my journal from 2006 today.  The days following my wife Kari’s death I poured out my emotions and tears on the pages.  The pages must have soaked up a thousand tears.  Little did I know at the time how those pages would help me to write the book detailing my experience 7 years later.  But of course God knew.  I felt led to share some of these entries today.  It’s amazing to me to see how God answered so many prayers when I cried out to Him.  I am not the same person today because of those answered prayers.

The world and all its desires are an incredible temptation.  It often takes tremendous pain and heartache to pull us away from our selfish desires.  But God’s plan is perfect.  He knows just what we need.  When we fully surrender to that pain and cry out to Him like a child, He will live with us.  And there is no better life, than a life lived in God’s presence.  My journey and all that I have been a part of is an incredible testimony of God’s undying love and mercy.  There is nothing in this world that compares to what you have when you let God have full control.  When my wife died I died.  But because I died, I now live.      

“I didn’t cry much today.  I don’t know what to think of that.  Sometimes I just think I am out of tears.  I like to just meet people know.  I just talk more now.  I am more connected, more engaged.  I can make a difference now.  Everyone I meet I can be different.  I can be a shining light for Jesus Christ.”   

“My whole life has changed.  Nothing will ever be quite the same.  I won’t ever get over this event in my life.  I will grow from it, learn from it, deal with it, but this will always be with me.  We all die someday.  I just wasn’t ready for Kari to die just yet.  God’s plan is often different than what we had in mind.  But I trust God.  I have faith.  I believe there are great things for me ahead.  I’m still alive so I must still have work to do.”

“At home by myself today, so hard.  I cried and yelled and cried and yelled some more.  I felt pain I didn’t know you could feel.  Life is so hard.  Life is so short.  Life is so cruel.  Life is ugly.  Life is painful.  Thank you God for catching every tear I cried today.  Lord help me to get through this terrible pain.”

“God has something special in store for me.  I just don’t know what it is yet.  I want to get started on it quickly though.  We are only here for a little while.”

“Alone, depressed, sad…that pretty much sums up my life right now.  My heart is broken.  It hurts worse than I thought possible.  My mind still doesn’t want to believe it.  I am still in shock.  Unless you have been here you don’t know what this feels like.  It is indescribable.  I cried all day long.”

“My heart aches.  I feel so alone.  I wonder when things will get better.  I have a hole where Kari once was.  I was 21 when we started dating.  I have changed so much over those 11 years.  That’s what makes it so hard.  I was changed because of Kari, for Kari, in the presence of Kari.  No matter what happens the rest of my life, the pain and emptiness will follow me.  Maybe not so strong, maybe not quite so often, but it will be there until I die.  I need help to get through this.  I can’t do it alone.  This is too big, too hard, too painful.  It’s all I can do to make it through each day.  I feel so pathetic and weak.  The devil is always trying to attack me putting thoughts into my mind.  Sometimes I feel like I’m going insane.  I can’t explain how bad it hurts.  Sometimes you want to give up but I know that is not an option.  I’m so alone, so scared, so sad, so empty, so depressed.  God help me!  Change me for the good through all this!”

“I will never forget our last kiss.  I was blessed with one the last time I saw here.  We looked into each other’s eyes and time stood still.  We had been working so hard on the house it had been a while since we had a meaningful kiss.  I was blessed with one the last time I saw her.  Later that night we talked on the phone for an hour.  There were no misunderstandings, no harsh words, no disagreements.  Just nice conversation.” 

“My life is a living hell.  I am so depressed, so broken hearted.  I am exhausted.  I have nothing left.  I’m running out of tears.  How long can this go on and how painful can it get?  How much can a person take?  When does it get easier?  Kari and I had become one.  Now I am off balance because I am missing part of me.  I feel I can hardly stand up.  Every task I do is difficult.  I need a break so bad but there are no breaks.  Each day flows into the next like one long nightmare.  I’ve often noticed at graveyards when one spouse dies the other often dies soon thereafter.  I understand how it could kill you.  I am ready to go home whenever God takes me.  Until then Lord Jesus use my hands for your work.  Use this for your glory.  I hope I am changed so much that that through me you can do amazing things.  God thank you for today!”
 

It seems so strange writing a message on caring too much about our physical appearance when I myself have been working out and recreationally bodybuilding for so long.  But that is exactly why God is having me write about it.  I have been there.  I have lived the life of trying to physically impress people.  I know it can be your God.

I have been lifting weights and working out off and on for 30 years…just seems crazy to think about.  I am so thankful to have grown up with family that owned a gym.  I had two uncles that competed in bodybuilding and I was just fascinated with how much weight they lifted and how they looked.  It lit a desire and passion in me that has never went out.  I don’t lift for all the same reasons I used to and its importance to me has dropped off quite a bit, but I still enjoy one of the main reasons I fell in love with it…it’s very challenging!  It requires hard work, discipline, self-control, and patience.  In this way, it mirrors the way a child of God should act.  Obeying God and following Him is by far the hardest thing I have ever attempted in my life.  But like anything in life, the harder you have to work for something, the greater the reward.   Working hard for God is not so much about physically working as it is about denying yourself and learning to live a spirit life in a physical world.  My physical body is dying.  My spirit body will live on.  One day I will be judged…not for how good I looked, how much weight I lost, or how much weight I lifted.  I will be judged on how I lived my life; what was most important to me. 

Some people put all their hope and energy into looking good and impressing people, for what?  Confidence?   Attraction? Praise?  Why do we want to impress people so much?  What is it that drives us to love attention and adoration?  We all desire to be loved because it’s part of God’s design.  But because Satan hates God, he tries to get us to meet our desires and needs apart from God.  Satan tells us if we dress a certain way, or lose a certain amount of weight, we will be wanted or accepted.  Satan tells us others will love us, respect us, and think highly of us based on our outward appearance.  On a superficial level this is true.  The world will judge you on what you look like.  But that judgement is meaningless.  If we need to hear praise from people to make us feel good about ourselves than we don’t know God.  If we know God His love will be made complete in us and we won’t need affirmation from anyone.  We will be able to stand the storms of testing when they come because we know we are loved by our Father in Heaven.

The world’s ways are always backwards from God’s ways because the world is controlled by satan.          2 Corinthians 4:4 “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.”  If the world tells you that what you look like matters it’s because God says it does not matter.  If the world says that what people think about you matters it’s because God says it does not matter.  We often won’t leave the house without looking a certain way but when it comes to obeying God we pick and choose what we hear.  Do we not know this make us ugly in God’s sight? 

If you believe in God it’s because He has chosen you.  If He has chosen you He alone wants to make you feel loved and adored.  If you believe yet look to the world to feel wanted, the world is all you will ever find.  You can attend church, pray, and serve people all day long, but without knowing God it is in vain.  God won‘t compete.  Many think they know God but they do not.  Many people say they love God yet they don’t live in the truth.  To know God we must surrender everything.  To love God we must obey His every word. 

Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?    
  
John 14:23 Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

Matthew 7:14 “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.   Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’…
 
 
 

Recently God put it on my heart a new book.  While I am excited to get started, I can’t start just yet.  God has drawn me to my knees the last week and a half and has opened my eyes.  I am so thankful for His mercy and His relentless pursuit of me.  While I haven’t completely turned my back on Him lately, I certainly have not been giving Him what He deserves.  Through this painful and humbling time, He has been convicting me in a powerful way.  I pray this message speaks to you like it spoke to me.

He was sitting on His throne with a great multitude of angels praising and worshipping Him.  Our perfect God was in His perfect place.  There He was honored and adored yet He gave it up to come to a dirty filthy place where He would be despised and rejected.  He went from receiving His due glory to receiving the worst kinds of physical and verbal abuse imaginable.  Why would a God do such a thing?  Love.

By coming into our world and dying, Jesus made a way for our dirty, sinful spirits, to be made pure and clean.  And while this is a free gift because we did nothing to deserve it, it costs a lot.  It cost Jesus His life.  If we want what He offers it will cost us our lives.  Luke 9:23 “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

If we will humble ourselves and come down off our thrones, and put ourselves in position to be despised and rejected like He was, we will be share in His glory.  If we think we can believe that Jesus is the Son of God yet continue to rule our lives and be saved we are deceived.  There is only one way to have eternal life and that is to personally know God like Jesus knows Him. 

Jesus did not come to earth and live for Him.  He lived here for God.  He did it to bring His father glory.  John 17:3-5 “And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.  I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.  Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.”   We live to bring God glory.  We bring God glory by completing the work God gave us to do.

We were not put on this earth to go where we want to go, see what we want to see, and experience what we want to experience.  We were created for God.  God’s will is for everyone that believes in Him to be saved.  It is the message that Jesus brought with Him and it is the message that Jesus’s followers must share.  A true follower of Jesus Christ cannot help but share this message everywhere they go because the Spirit prompts it.  If we know God we will not desire the things of this world but will desire what His Spirit desires because His Spirit leads us.  1 John 2:17 “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

You believe in Jesus Christ but do you believe that you must obey His commands?  Do you believe that hell is real and this it is the destination for anyone that does not do the will of God?  Do you believe that God sees what is done in secret and judges us according to what we have done?  Do you believe that to love the world and all it offers is to be an enemy of God?  Do you believe God’s words to be true?  Do you believe Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven? 

Humble yourself before God.  Ask Him to have His way in your life.  Plead with Him to change your heart.  God said that David was a man after His own heart because he would do whatever God wanted him to do.  How did David surrender to God?  I can only imagine how many tears fell to the ground as he said this...

Psalm 51
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.  Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.  Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.  Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.  Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.  Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.  Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.  Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.  Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.  You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.  You, God, will not despise.”