Our 17-year-old son is not a morning person.  On a typical day, he would rather sleep in.  On a typical day, we must go down to his room and wake him up.  On a typical day, we might need to call him a second time to make sure he is up and coming to join us for breakfast.  And yet this morning, he was up by himself before 4:00 am.   Why would he do that?

I think it is because the hunting/fishing bug skips a generation in my family.  My dad has stories from his childhood of him and his brothers trying to drag my grandfather out of the bar on a Saturday morning to take them fishing.  He has even more stories of the hunting trips he would take with his brothers and friends in his college days.  My dad has pictures of when him and my mom, when they were much younger, with us kids, when we were wee-little, always with dead animals that he caught or shot.  And if you happen to call and talk to my dad on the phone today, chances are he will tell you how many bluegills he caught the other day and where they happened to catch them and how deep the water was.

According to my dad’s stories, my grandpa would go hunt or fish, but it did not seem to bother him if he didn’t.  Like my grandpa, I like hunting and fishing, but it doesn’t seem to bother me if I do not get out.  I am content to merely tag along with my son from time to time and help him butcher his great trophies.  I just don’t have that hunting/fishing bug.

But when it comes to Jesus Christ, every generation needs to catch the gospel hunting/fishing bug.  It should bother us that there are so many people out there who are lost and going to Hell.  After a long week at work, we should passionately want to go out and find another opportunity to shoot the good news to a neighbor.  We should not be content knowing that one of our family members is not safe and secure in the game bag of eternal life.  When it comes to the cross of Christ, we should always be ready and willing to drop everything to tell the story of our eternal trophy and how we came to find Him.  And the story of Jesus should be like a hunting/fishing story, getting better every time we tell it.

My 17-year-old son got up at 4:00 this morning to harvest an antelope with his bow.  When will you get out of bed to harvest a lost soul for Jesus?  Pray that God would send all of us the gospel hunting/fishing bug.

“Then He said to them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Matthew 4:19

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” 

Romans 13:11