Home!

Back to Gretna – Yeah!  Always good to get away and equally good to get home!  Amen?

Thanks for the time to be away!

Andy Buttermore (with son David), Randy McFarling (with sons Jake and Max) and I left Friday morning, Oct. 2, for the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming a set up a hunting camp just north of the wilderness area in order to hunt for a cow elk.  In addition to hunting, we did homework, fished, rode 4-wheelers, did repairs (a trailer shackle mount broke, a 4-wheeler died on the trail, and we had a flat tire in a very narrow and remote area).  It was great to be in such remote country!

We did not kill an elk and only saw one, yet the trip was a great success!

My goals:

1. Get away for a spell – check!
2. Be in the mountains – check!
3. Fellowship with Christians – check!
4. See an elk – Nope!  (Randy did)
5. Kill an elk – Nope again!

So, three out of five!  The top three!  Success!

Two years ago Randy and I hunted the same area with Peter Buttermore.  On one of the walks Randy thought about the fun and great experience his boys would have seeing the mountains and doing the things a mountain offers so he made it happen this year.  That caused me to muse about God and humans.  God’s existence is so incredible that He desired to make beings who could appreciate His life and enjoy it with Him so He created us!   And, one day He will take us into His perfect existence.  What a God and what a future!  Yeah!

We left camp in WY on Friday at 1:30 PM and got to Gretna at 6:30 Saturday morning – 17 hours later.  It was a very good trip!  I would have liked to have brought home elk meat as it is the best, but maybe another time.

Janet and I left for North Platte at 7:30ish on Saturday to be with Dad and my sisters and their husbands.  It was a great weekend.  Church there was very good.

Dad noted that weekends are the hardest time for him with Mom being in Heaven now almost 5 years.  He says he still cries some – especially on weekends.  I do believe Sundays are especially impacting because Mom loved church because she loved God’s people, she loved God’s Word and mostly – she loved God.  Every Sunday all those things came together for her.  She loved Sundays!  I think that love still tugs on Dad’s heart.

The message Sunday was from Revelation 18:1-8 teaching that the nations, being drunk on politics and money, will be brought into judgment by Almighty God.   God calls His followers to come out and not share in their sins.  The call is to us – come out from among them!  We are His people and we are to live, talk and act like it.  We are to live like Jesus – compassionate, forthright, and on mission.  Do we?  Are we giving and forgiving?  Are we pointed about sin and holiness?  Are we daily aware that we are here as His ambassadors – not here to make money, have a joyful home and life, have a satisfying retirement, enjoy music, movies and sports, and stay out of trouble.  NO!  We are called to show and talk Jesus knowing that such will bring rejection, pain, and loss.  We are to be other-worldly!  The world is coming to a rough end so let’s not be duped by its crud but rather be like Jesus calling men to repent and submit to God.