God's Great Outdoors

There are places and times in all of our lives that are special to each of us.  We cherish memories spent with others throughout our personal life or our married life that will always bring us back to where God did something special. There is such a place, nestled into Northwest Ontario Canada on the banks of Populus Lake… a place called Rushing Wind Resort. This week we will meet a couple that first came to Rushing Wind Resort together 10 years ago on their honeymoon.  The husband had been there several times and he wanted to show his wife where his life had changed.  Now they are back for their 10th anniversary celebration.  We’ll learn about how God worked in their lives when a father figure was needed in the lives of some children and then father figure later became a husband as well.

So many times, in our lives we put restraints on ourselves for adulthood.  For the male of our species, it is possibly the hardest to live up to what others think we should be to be truly a man.  Having been raised in a Northern Michigan rural area, our host walked through trails to adventure that he felt showed him as being a man.  The first time a boy catches a large fish or shoots a buck and then brings them home to hear, well done…  For many in the outdoors world, those feel like big steps to being a man.  But manhood is much more. There are also self-imposed hurdles that all men and women set so that we can feel successful.  On today’s program we won’t hear too much about hunting and fishing, but we’ll hear a great story of a city boy that had finally made it in the music world, just to see that it was not all he had thought it was.  He felt like there had to be more than the victories he had been striving for in life.

High country elk camps and the sounds of bugling bull elk draws 1000’s of hunters to the mountains each fall.  People are different when they’re in the mountains.  They drop their guard and relax more than most any place on earth.  Relationships grow in amazing ways when we allow God to move in lives. God has used the mountains in the life of today’s guest as well in the lives of those that he has shared elk camps in the Colorado and Wyoming mountains.  We’ll hear of miracles that were the answers to prayers.

Every one of us has a calling in life.  For many of us, our calling is self-directed and, if we allow, many are God given.  Callings can change from year to year as we move into new places in life. On today’s program we will meet with a man that has been called to reach out to men to disciple them.  He loves the outdoors and enjoys spending time with others on the water and in the woods… especially in those times sharing what God is doing in his life and the lives of others. God is using this friend now to get others out in places where they can share their relationship with God to others as well.  He is stepping up in his calling and shares how you can as well.

To some it might seem dangerous or foolish, but to others it's something they look forward to all year.  People lose their trucks, their ATVs and occasionally even their lives doing it, yet each year they venture out on frozen lakes, ponds rivers and streams to pull a fish through a hole drilled through the ice. It takes a tough person to sit all day on a bucket on a frozen body of water and stare into a hole in the ice.  Makes you wonder about their sanity.Today, we'll meet such a man... a man with a passion for ice fishing.  He's out on the ice every chance he gets.  He'll share his passion for both ice fishing and for growing big Whitetails. 

Deer hunting is probably the number one hunting sport in the world.  In the 2021/2022 season alone more than 6 million deer were harvested in the United States.  Most of those deer were never scored for any record book.  A very small percentage of those deer were scored and entered into a record book of some kind. Today, we’ll revisit a story of a world record whitetail buck that was taken in 2006 in Grant County Wisconsin.  We will hear from the mouth of the lucky hunter that was lucky enough to pull the trigger and down this massive buck.   Then we’ll hear of how that buck became one of the most important things in another man’s life and how it caused strife in his life, before it finally pointed him to Jesus Christ.

Many of us grew up going to hunting or fishing camps from our youth.  For many it’s been a lifelong tradition to hunt with a bunch of others.  Our host grew up where several hunters came together to work as a team to harvest deer.  Then there are others that would much rather hunt and fishing on their own. There are blessings and challenges in either style of hunting, But it our daily lives we need to understand that while there are times to seek out God one on one…  digging into his word and spending time in prayer.  On today’s show we will meet up with a good friend of our host and the two of them will talk about different ways of deer hunting, with a focus on tracking mature bucks in some big woods settings.  This is a solitary sport that takes a lot of stamina and concentration… But is so very rewarding  in the end.

Hunters and fishermen have a serious passion for their sports.  If you mention to a deer hunter what is their favorite day of the year is, most would say opening day of hunting season.  Ask a fisherman what is their favorite day of the years is, you’ll hear, opening day of fishing season.  Many of these say outdoors people also share another passion.  That passion is riding motorcycles. For many of us, when we think about bikers, we think about bikers “gangs” and all that goes along with that crowd.  But there is a different side to bikers, and that is a giving side.  You’ll hear on this program about how giving and caring the biking community can be.

Life is a series of new beginnings. Each morning when we wake up, it is a new opportunity to live for the Lord. This week we move from 2024 to 2025 and we don’t know what the year will bring. It’s often said that we don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. The God that created everything… Is the one that we can count on to see us through whatever lays ahead for each of us.As we move into the new year we thought it would be fun to bring our most listened to and most requested program back for an encore appearance. This program has more laughing that all of the rest of the programs combined. If you have never heard it, you will be greatly entertained and if you have heard it before… you will laugh even harder this time, More importantly, that the laughter is the story of new beginnings with the two brothers that join us. They share how they went from a life of religion to a life of relationship with Jesus Christ. Because of the boldness of a good friend and his persistence in sharing the Gospel

Those of us that live in a time of immediate information have no idea what it would be like to live in a place or a time where you have no idea what is going on outside our little world. The Bible talks about in end times travel and knowledge will increase.  If we look back over the last 100 years travel has increased at amazing rates.  There was a time, not to long ago, when most people rarely traveled 100 from home.  Today many of us travel across the country or around the world all the time. Today we will learn about a chief from the deep jungles of South America and how he went from being filled with demons to becoming filled with the Holy Spirit.  Most of us live in a sheltered atmosphere