The 2013 wild turkey season is rapidly coming to a close and I’ve been determined to go as often as I can, but my heavy schedule has interfered greatly this year. So when I do get an opportunity I want to make the most of it.
Recently I was happy as a lark to find a morning to go and was eagerly anticipating a great hunt. Finally the morning arrived and my hunting partner and I headed to one of my favorite locations. Conditions were not ideal and it was Florida steamy hot and humid, which means mosquitoes and lots of ‘em.
In order to be successful one must walk to your hunting place long before daylight in complete darkness and then quietly sit until daylight. Turkeys can see and hear very well even in the dark. I’d located a mature gobbler and he was smart and I knew that everything had to go exactly right in order to bag that wily old rascal.
So I admonished my hard-headed partner to be extra quiet and when we got to our hunting location that he should remain motionless, something completely foreign to him. He yawned as I told him what I’ve told him a hundred times before. He doesn’t listen well and the first thing he did was get out of the truck and slam the door. I glared at him and admonished him as he looked on in amusement.
Great . . .
We got to our hunting location and quietly sat in the black darkness and listened to mosquitos buzz around our heads for the hour or so until daylight. Turkeys begin gobbling right after daylight and when they do the hunter softly purrs, clucks and yelps seductively trying to invite him over for what he perceives is going to be a little “romp in the hay” with a lovely little lady.
Late in the season however, they become more and more cautious and it’s difficult to call one in even under ideal conditions. Things were looking good though and we were minutes away from “show time”, that glorious portion of the day when the orange sun begins to appear and the gobblers wake up with love on their minds and begin gobbling their desires to all in the forest.
Suddenly my partner screams one of the loudest sneezes I’ve ever heard, scaring everything within a mile and a half out of their wits, (including me).
Great . . .
So I’m sitting there thinking that I got up long before daylight, got dressed in full camo, slogged through the mud and sneaked along like an Indian close to a mile in utter darkness, risked being bitten by a poisonous snake, and endured enough mosquito bites to need a blood transfusion and catch malaria fifteen times over in order to match wits with a very smart and educated “long beard” wild turkey, and right at the most critical part of the hunt my hunting partner emits a blood curling sneeze-scream at the top of his lungs. There was no way – no how that gobbler was coming in now . . .
When I asked what the #$*% he was doing, he nonchalantly said, “Bah . . . it didn’t hurt anything I just got ‘em stirred up a little.”
So much for being remorseful or having a contrite spirit.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
So I was thinking I know what I would like to do to him, I’d like to strangle him with my bare hands and beat him repeatedly about the head and face, but what would Jesus do?
Hmmm . . .
God is love and the Bible defines love for us in 1 Cor. 13:4:
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails . . .
When I read the very first three words, Love is patient, I knew I was sunk . . . So how does a mere mortal emulate Christ?
Zech. 4:6
Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
April 10, 2014 – Click here to listen