Fearless or foolish

I have always been an extreme risk-taker and adventurous and my nature is to be intense about what I do. I have always loved the outdoors and that includes big game hunting and fishing. These are not mere hobbies, but “passions” of mine, and I often go to the extreme with it and push far beyond reasonable safety zones. As a result of this fearless attitude, (some including my wife might put it another way: foolish attitude), I have on more than one occasion found myself in very serious and life threatening situations.

I remember on more than one occasion of being on a hunting trip in some isolated and remote region of deep woods or swamp and walking for miles and miles and pushing far within the wilderness in pursuit of finding some trophy. During the hunt I was only thinking of my passion of finding and taking a magnificent trophy and nothing else entered my mind. Sooner or later the hunting would wind down and my thoughts would turn to returning to camp. After looking around at the terrain which often looked the same for hundreds of miles, I would exclaim, “Uh oh not good”!

I would realize that I was completely lost with not one clue of how to get back to camp. With modern day GPS units one might wonder how this occurred. Simple I did not have one with me. It is on these occasions that I would pull out my trusty compass and look at it. It is incredible how many times that I have looked at my compass under those conditions and actually could not believe that it was accurate. My internal compass would be just the opposite; the compass would indicate that I needed to go one way and that would be just the opposite way that I felt I should go.

More than once I have moved to another location and read the compass again, because I was convinced that there had to be some magnetic rock or forces that were altering the compass, because I was so convinced that I knew that the way back to camp and my feeling was that it was diametrically opposite of the direction the compass was indicating.

I was thinking and reminiscing about one of these trips in a wilderness area in Utah this morning and I thought about how similar this is to the lost souls of this world. They wander around through their lives in pursuit of their passions, not even realizing that they are lost or even thinking about it for a time. Sooner or later they come to a point whereby they do realize that something is bad wrong in their lives and that they are lost and they look for the answer. When they hear the truth of the gospel they innately want to reject it because their own internal “moral compass” seems contrary to God’s direction for them. The Bible states that there is a way that seems right to man, but is wrong and this passage seems appropriate to address this issue.

I always took the advice of my compass in spite of my sometimes strong feelings that the compass was wrong, (and I was right), about the direction that I should take. The only reason that I am here alive and well and recounting this adventure today is because I was not too stubborn to put my faith in something besides myself and I did so.

It is my hope that if you are at that point in your life whereby you need to take that step and put your faith in something other than yourself, that you read the book of Romans in the Bible. It is a book in the Bible that will explain in simple terms what you must do to find God and put your faith in Him and allow Him to lead you home, safe and sound. Without God in this world you will remain lost and with certainty will die in your sins. Follow Him and He will forgive you of your sins and importantly lead you to safety, far removed from the dangers of this wicked world. If you follow the Lord, you can enjoy peace and happiness in this life and for all of eternity and be with Him. If you choose to go it alone you will remain lost and spiritually dead without hope, peace, joy, or happiness and will eternally reside in darkness and separated from the God of light.

For the record my wife was wrong about me being foolish instead of fearless. One can be fearless as long as they have a way of finding their way home. Christians can live a fearless life as long as God is their compass and they put their faith and complete trust in Him

Thinking ahead she might ask, “Well what about the time you forgot your compass, was that not foolish?” My reply: “That is another story for another day”.

Proverbs 15:32
He that refuses instruction
despises his own soul; but
he that listens gains
understanding.