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.