Lost Passion

Every hunter who loves nature and the sport of hunting knows that when the thrill of the hunt has gone away, it’s time to give it up. This can be a heart breaking moment, the end of an era of something you loved so much. Over the past 4 years this apathy has been slowly creeping up on me. Although I have taken some of the biggest bucks of my life, they felt meaningless. Sure I was blessed by God to provide food for my family and was able to put a trophy on the wall and in the freezer, but I didn’t get that adrenaline rush that I once cherished so much. I thought for sure this year was going to be my last, as I watched bucks chasing doe and eventually took a young deer last week with a bow, it just felt mechanical, it felt like just killing.

Perhaps it was because of all the tension and anger trying to keep poachers off the property, perhaps it was because when I went hunting it wasn’t for the thrill of the hunt, more like shopping for the family.   (we all know how much men love to shop) or perhaps my adrenal glands were broken. Hunting just didn’t feel like something I wanted to do anymore and I had become apathetic and complacent and lost my passion. Until…

Today while placing out a trail camera, I passed 15 deer in the truck with little interest, driving up to the top road on the property I care take, I looked to my left and saw a cow of a buck bedded down in the middle of the thicket. My heart just about jumped out of my chest this wasn’t the biggest buck I had seen; in fact, I saw a massive buck just 2 hours earlier with little to no interest. As I slowly drove by I was experiencing something I had not had in years, BUCK FEVER! It took everything in me to continue to drive to the top of the hill and out of the buck’s sight. As I looked in my rearview mirror, I prayed he wouldn’t spook.

 I got out of the truck and loaded my 270 Browning A-bolt medallion, grabbed my backpack and started to stalk back to the field the king of the woods was bedded down in. As the field came into view, the doe headed out. I glassed the field and the Buck was just surveying his domain. He was the king of the field, the boss of his heard and something welled up inside of me.

I slowly placed my backpack in the snow and went prone. I didn’t care that I was laying down in water and snow and didn’t notice I was getting soaked through to the skin. What I did notice was my heart and breathing was elevated I was on the hunt. All I could focus on over the next 30 minutes was the buck and shot placement. Slowly the pressure in my finger against the trigger increased, time seamed to stand still. I was passionately in that moment, closing my eyes now I can still see that moment, cross hairs sitting rock steady on the chest cavity. As the report rang out I could see the round hit true. All of the skill wisdom and mussel memory gave the respect that was due to this king of the woods.

In that moment when I looked across the 235-yard valley I felt the passion I thought I lost. My heart pounded at the thought of a clean quick kill, the beauty of the landscape and the smell of the fresh air. I was rejoicing in that moment. I thanked God for the ability to harvest this nice buck, I thanked the Buck for feeding my family and I thanked God again for returning my passion. Not one of the issues that were stealing my joy of hunting were in that moment.  

 Without passion the world becomes meaningless, mundane and routine. This is what my hunting was becoming. Funny thing is that it was just a symptom of a much bigger ailment, I was losing my passion in life. How was this happening? I was allowing the world to influence my life in an unhealthy way. Like the poachers and trespassers were ruining my passion for hunting, so to were the events of life. I was allowing current events to pouch my joy, I was allowing people to trespass upon my life in an unhealthy way. I found myself losing my passion in areas I was very passionate about, including my ministry.

The book of proverbs had tremendous value for me today, Proverbs 12:27 rings truer than ever before, “The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, but diligence is man's precious possession.” Passion keeps us from becoming apathetic, mundane and routine. Passion keeps us working hard for a cause, or purpose. All of our relationships depend upon passion, if we lack passion for God, we make excuses not to make time for worship with Him. We become lazy with our attendance in church, the time we spend in his word and our communion through prayer with Him. This attitude then trickles to every other aspect of our relationships and life and the end result is a dispirited depressed meaningless existence.

Find the moments that you were once passionate about and diligently pursue them. Start with your relationship with God, diligently seek Him through prayer, worship and study of His word. For in those moments all the poaching and trespassing of the world and those who just want to break our joy down, will fade from existence and all that will be left is you in the moment of your crosshairs on the target. I am forever grateful to this King of the field for giving me back my passion.  

God Bless Pastor Ken Bascom    

Are you hearing me?

I wonder how many Pastors stand in front of a congregation and ask themselves,” I wonder if they are even listening?” Every Sunday they look out at blank faces praying to see a glint of something connecting from Gods word. Sometimes they see the Holy Spirit touch a person’s soul and an infusion of Holy Adrenaline called Joy fills the Pastors heart. In those moments, all of the hard heart work that has to be done becomes worth it.

However, it seems more and more common today that many who attend churches try and keep a stoic demeanor, in an attempt to conceal any conviction from Gods word. What they do not consider is they are literally starving their pastor to Spiritual death.

I need to see that look in my flocks face, it brings me joy to see Gods word working in and through them. To see the fruit of God so evident in their lives brings a joy and peace of Gods Calling into the ministry.  It is the very spiritual fruit I chew on that makes the hard times worth it. My faith as a Pastor is built upon it, I don’t know a Pastor who has not asked God, no pleaded to God about His calling into the ministry. Those who are not called will eventually find some excuse to leave the ministry, because it’s just too hard.

Charles Spurgeon wrote in Lectures to my Students,

“If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor or a grocer or a farmer or a doctor or a lawyer or a senator or a king, in the name of heaven and earth, let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants.”

In my 14 years of ministry, I have found my soul pants for God’s word and the effect upon people’s lives. It’s not about the money, there isn’t any, it’s not about the accolades, every nice word is directed back to Gods work in my life, it isn’t about celebrity, truth be told people avoid eye contact now that they know I’m a Pastor.  

It’s about the work of the Holy Spirit through Faith in Jesus Christs calling to be a Pastor. Many I have found view a pastor as some sort of Spiritual combatant, an employee who you can dismiss what they say when it doesn’t fit in your life. When the reality is the Pastor called into pastoral ministry is the Shepherd leading the flock to Good Spiritual food. His soul pants every waking moment to see his flock grow and flourish in God’s Grace. He toils over Gods word to bring solid Biblical food and holds it in his hands so the timid sheep can eat of it, he will be patient and put up with the pain in his back and legs when the sheep finally takes a nibble of Gods wondrous food. In that moment the Shepard’s heart soars in the heavenly realm.

Think on this the next time you hear Gods word preached, know that you may be discouraging the Pastor you are looking at. I’m not talking about some made up emotion, the pastor has discernment through the Holy Spirit to see it as fake. Just be authentic, do not look at the pastor as a combatant, but instead as one who feeds your soul. When we are convicted, encouraged or anything in-between that is the work of the Living Word of God in our lives. It is the very thing Jesus willingly gave His life for. 

In His Dust,

Pastor Ken Bascom 

Calvary Fellowship Hancock.    

Compromise or Collaboration

Collaboration is the key to a life of fulfillment. The definition in today’s society is often viewed as compromise. However, there is a huge difference, look at it this way, compromise means one or both of the parties in a relationship must give something up in order to come to an agreement that both can approve on. This builds resentment in the relationship, and yet sometimes it’s the only way pass an impasse.

Collaboration is different, in that it brings the parties together to deepen the relationship. Instead of giving up something in order to maintain our own direction, we see how we may head down a better path together leaving our own desires apart and desiring to be unified together on a new path.

This is the foundation of the Christian walk, so many people wrongly believe they have to “give something up” in order to be a Christian. If the faith you seek believes that you can still live your path and compromise with God only in the areas you wish, then look someplace other than Christianity, for God the Father is a gentleman of character and He will not compromise your desires.

When a person receives the gift of grace through belief in Jesus Christ, his/her heart comes into collaboration with the will of God. Through the Holy Spirit God, begins a new work in us. This is a new path focused on Gods ultimate purpose to use our unique personalities and gifts to proclaim His Glory.

The Bible states,

 Colossians 2:6-7 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 

        

As we live a life in Jesus Christ let us acknowledge our collaboration with Him. He will change our hearts and desires for a better path toward a life of fulfillment.

In His Dust Pastor Kenny 

Today and Every Day Lord

Today and everyday Lord, thank you for trials and tribulations,

Thank you for my insecurities and my doubts,

Thank you for the financial hardships,

Thank you for the pain in my back,

Thank you for the attacks to my faith,

Thank you for the tests of my convictions,

 For it is only through all of these that I understand that through my trials and tribulations are my insecurities and doubts turned to confidence and trust. In my financial hardships you give me the ability to work until my back is sore. And while I am attacked for my faith both covertly and overtly I grow stronger in the belief that you, JESUS are the way the truth and the Life, that greater is He who is in me then he who is in the world. I am most thankful for the Love You had for me that through all of this I can know that   Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

In His dust Pastor Kenny

Come and see!

“Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”-Matthew

28:6.

Standing vigil in front of the tomb, the Angles , like the American soldiers guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier, called excitedly to the disciples to come and see the hallowed ground where our  Lord Jesus Christ was placed.

On a recent trip to the World trade center and the 911 monument, I was astonished to see how many people will stand in reverend silence on the hallowed ground that bore so many sacrifices. They come from all over the globe just to stand on the spot to feel a connection to those events. And I noticed almost everyone I witnessed was emotionally affected by their time on that spot. They all came away with a deeper reverence of those events far beyond what they may have read or watched.

Although one can say that all of the places that Jesus spoke, taught and preformed miracles, are revenant, no one spot garners such reverence as the place where Jesus was laid. This spot that can only be seen through the pages of scripture is the most hallowed of them all. The Angles rejoice to show followers of the Messiah His place of resurrection while guarding it from those who would deface such a place .Even though we may not now know the actual place of this resurrection, the Holy Spirit has protected its eternal place in history thought the pages of scripture.

Today pick up your Bible and stand on that hallowed ground, let the Holy Spirit show you the “the place where the Lord lay”. I promise you will come away emotionally affected by your time on that spot.

In His dust Pastor Kenneth Bascom