Firestarters of the Soul by Gary Fultz Picture Truth # 5

Watching the snow fall outside my window stirs the desire in me to go winter camping!

     I’m serious; it can be an unbelievable great time. Some of you would start planning and packing if I invited you on the next outing! For others the very idea glances off their brain like a bug on a windshield in a Nascar race.

     I can assure you that snowshoeing on the lakes is completely safe as most of the ice is 2 to 3 feet thick (except where the water is moving underneath and tends to keep the ice very thin).

     I could tell you that the snow is so bright that you can travel at night through the woods by moonlight and not get lost (unless the clouds move in and it’s so dark that by flashlight you will still get lost).

     Our adventure proved that even in 3 feet of fluffy snow, snowshoes stay high enough to get you and your gear sled safely through the unmarked trails…most of the time.

Mark, another Firestarter

There are some dangers to be aware of while winter camping. Some dangers are actually more subtle. Did you know that every breath of air you take has very little to no moisture in below freezing temperatures? There is a high percentage of moisture in every breath of air you exhale. This means you dehydrate fast just by breathing cold air!

     Did you know that when you settle by a nice cozy fire… your body quits making heat for itself and begins to rely on external heat? It only feels good till you walk away no matter how warmed you were. Then if you climb into your super high technology sleeping bag that’s supposed to keep you warm, you could die in your sleep. Your great sleeping bag is the temperature of the great outdoors until your body heat replaces all the cold that the bag is now storing. If your body has shut down by the fire it won’t start up by climbing into a super cold sleeping bag.

I know people who claim to be spiritual. They look like good Christian people and do all the right things. I would suggest to you that only going to church and listening to the right music is like sitting by the fire. 

    Life is as dangerous as winter camping. Unless the fire burns within because we walk and talk and worship our great God daily, we shut down. 

Firestarters of the Soul

 

I took this long shot picture of my friend Brad snowshoeing and pulling a sled full of gear. He is as rugged as the rocks behind him. His sense of adventure in winter camping and his walk with Jesus is attractive. He is a good guy to have in camp and he will probably out-fish you.

     Somehow it got dark before we found the hidden trout lake in the wilderness. The sun went down and the clouds rolled in and there was no trail or markings other than a spot on the wilderness map. Our compasses went every direction because of the iron in the rocks. Somewhere on a hillside in the very dark woods, in three feet of snow, the four of us made camp. We built a fire, cooked a gourmet supper over it (steaks, potatoes, vegetables, peppers, and …wow did we eat). We ran in the deep snow to super heat our bodies, climbed into our bags, and had a great nights sleep under the stars. We were prepared and we would find the lake in the morning.

     Are there any good guys in your camp? Do you have friends or a group of people who are not content to let you just sit by the fire spiritually in your walk with God? Are you trying to live life alone and relying on your own perceptions and inner compass? I wouldn’t consider winter camping alone. Some do but it’s too risky for me.

     I would suggest that Life is much harder and the stakes are too high not to have good people around to keep us walking with God. People who love us enough to be motivated to keep our marriage healthy, mentor our kids, and pass on healthy legacies to the next generation. We all need someone to get us away from the fire and make us run in the snow. Those encouragers of developing our own walk with God... Fire-starters of the soul.

Tell us how you stay close to God and Grow. What is the hardest part of your spiritual journey? Do you have any firestarter people in your life?

Gary D

Angry Beaver -- Picture truths series #2 By Gary Fultz

Vicious beaver

Here I was, minding my own business on an absolutely calm evening with the lake all to myself. I was catching a load of crappies from a canoe barely drifting through the moon lit evening. I just about tipped the canoe when the water was torpedoed by this angry beaver. This beaver demon was acting out the lake equivalent of road rage. Evidently the lake was not big enough for the two of us even though it is almost a mile long. This big old beaver stalked me wherever I went and would get by the canoe and slap the water with his tail. It sounded like someone was throwing big boulders off a cliff into the water. He was acting like he overdosed on sugar maple trees!

I finally went after him because the crappies quit biting. The beaver dove and disappeared; the frogs started croaking “jaws” music as daylight was gone. Even the moon was trying to get behind a cloud as its normal aura was being disgraced. A strange sense of evil settled about me so I quickly turned to look for the landing.

I began having visions of the beaver eating my only wood paddle as I picked up the pace to get to the safety of shore, all the while pronouncing blessings on the early beaver trappers in this country. Crappie fishing might never have been discovered without those trappers. I realized that as the light was fading so was my grip on reality!

       

Strange things happen in the dark! Our mind adds to the strangeness, and literally if unchecked, the mind can become completely irrational. I don’t remember feeling fear for my life or anything (and I wouldn’t admit it if I did), but that beaver surely became a monster in the water that I didn’t want to agitate anymore. I would really rather face a bear than a vicious underwater monster that eats big trees for a living! Lately I have solved the problem by bringing three paddles!

These are the things people laugh about by day and yet experience by night. What is it about the mind that can manufacture embodiments of fear in dark places? Is it possible that darkness has its own powers? Could it be that the absence of light is a camouflaged environment for evil? Whatever people think about the darkness, it’s easier to do wrong in the night. It’s easier to deceive and be deceived in the dark. It’s easier to imagine that unseen and undiscovered evil feels ok in a totally darkened and depraved mind.

What a shock to discover that our inner being is naturally a dark place without light as we are born that way! The sin condition (and a totally darkened mind) has infected all mankind and has deluded our thinking, reasoning ability, and our ability to see truth in this ever present darkness. We in essence have become the monsters while pretending to be the angels to the rest of the planet! Why? Because it’s easy to deceive ourselves in the dark, and think we have some light in us that can be fanned into a source of light.

All over scripture, light is associated with the presence of God and darkness is associated wherever God is not present. Look it up; 2 Samuel 22:29 says “the Lord turns my darkness into light”. Psalm 18: 28 “My God turns my darkness into light”. This is a thread from cover to cover and part of Gods daring rescue of mankind through Jesus, to let God’s light shine in our inner being through the person of Jesus! “In Him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1; 4)

Light came into the world again

        

When we believe in Jesus we let Him, and all He is (The way, truth, life, and light itself) come in, Jesus says to the Father “We’re in! The Holy Spirit is already starting to clean up! Let’s see how many no trespassing signs we can take down!” “Let’s see how many dark places we can light up.”

About that beaver; He is back at the lodge telling the little ones a bed time story about his latest dangerous mission, driving away a terrible threat to the beaver kingdom and their way of life. The little beavers ah… in unison as he brings out a piece of a canoe paddle and lays it on the mantel.

Truth: 1) I took a picture of an angry beaver, he followed me everywhere and ruined my fishing, and I have a bit of an imagination sometimes.

2) God is light, we are not.

3) If there is light in us; it’s Jesus himself shining through us (that’s a lot of lumens).

4) I really was catching a lot of crappies till that beaver started stalking me!

              Gary D