The Bowtreader Podcast
Welcome to the Bowtreader Podcast - a journey where bowhunting, brotherhood, and faith come together. Each week, we dive into the heart of the hunt, exploring the lessons learned in the wild and the deeper truths that shape our lives. From chasing game to chasing purpose, we reflect on how faith in Jesus leads us through every season—both in the field and in life.
Join us as we share stories of brotherhood forged through the bowstring, real-life challenges, and the power of community, faith, and perseverance. Whether you're a seasoned bowhunter, a believer, or someone seeking to grow in your journey, this podcast is a place to find strength, wisdom, and inspiration. Together, we'll discover what it means to walk with purpose and a steady aim, no matter what life throws our way.
The Bowtreader Podcast
Ep. 21 - Archery and Faith: A Journey of Consistency
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Embark on an insightful journey into the heart of hunting and archery, where we promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of the role that consistency and experience play in honing these timeless skills. Ever wondered how to truly listen to the woods or find that perfect hunting spot? Our latest episode, "Archery and Faith: A Journey of Consistency ," promises to guide you through these questions and more. We underscore the irreplaceable value of firsthand experiences in nature, over technology reliance, with engaging discussions on trail cameras and e-scouting.
As we transition into the world of archery, prepare to be enlightened on everything from bow grip techniques to budget-friendly equipment choices. Sharing personal stories and real-life experiences, we tackle common archery challenges and explore solutions that can elevate your performance without breaking the bank. Whether you're a seasoned archer or a newcomer to the sport, our practical advice on maintaining and selecting equipment will resonate with anyone looking to improve their skills.
Finally, our conversation takes a reflective turn as we draw parallels between the consistency required in archery and the journey of faith. Through thoughtful dialogue, we explore our beliefs and respect for people with differing viewpoints, emphasizing the power of authenticity and empathy. We share compelling testimonies of transformation and redemption, offering hope and inspiration for navigating life's challenges with faith as a guiding force. Join us for an episode filled with wisdom, practical tips, and heartfelt reflections.
Thanks for joining us on The Bowtreader Podcast. Leave a comment to let us know where you are listening from as well as any topics that you would like to hear us cover. Be sure to like the episode and subscribe to follow along.
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Hunting Consistency
Speaker 1all right man, I feel more important now you know I try to mix it up, try to mix it up, that's good, there you go, all right. So, um, yeah, should be a good time. I see we're going to talk about arrows at some point and, uh, dub seems to be extremely opinionated on that, so I feel like we're gonna get him to talk today he seems fired up tonight.
Speaker 2Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1Yeah he saw that on the, on the sheet there and, uh, I don't, don't start clicking the pen and everything. We get in trouble for that. Well, we get in trouble for clicking pens and tapping tables and vibrating phones and stuff like that so all right.
Speaker 1So so we got Brandon over here. He is running the show today, and by running the show, I mean he's pushing the buttons. One button, one button. We don't have our headsets on, so we have no idea if anybody's going to hear us or not, but we're going to talk to each other. And then we got Dub sitting across the way right here. Hello, that's all you're going to give people Is hello, yeah.
Speaker 2And you got that big old energy drink and that's all you got is hello Liquid death. Why would you drink something called liquid death?
Speaker 4It's just water. It's water with some agave and lime.
Speaker 2Oh okay, all right, it's really good, I'm not going to try liquid death. Oh okay, all right, that's really good, I'm not going to try liquid death, I'm good, I'm good. I did get hit in the ear with a baseball today at my son's baseball practice.
Speaker 1That's why we don't have headsets on.
Speaker 2I might be a little bit more cuckoo than normal.
Speaker 4That's scary, I know. I told Dub I didn't even know that was possible.
Speaker 2I know I told I told I didn't even know that was possible.
Speaker 1I know I told Dub I was like I don't have many more brain cells to lose. I don't have extras at all.
Speaker 1So no extras at all, all right, so we're going to be talking about how you can be consistent with your hunting, be consistent with your hunting, and really what we're talking about is putting in the time. You know we talk we've talked before about putting in the time with practice and everything and what that looks like and why it's important. You know we spent a lot of time on that last last episode but we didn't really go into much detail talking about you know what practice actually looks like and then really go into much detail talking about you know what practice actually looks like. And then really, the other aspect of that is you know something that you're a big proponent of is just spending time in the woods, um, you know, so that was something that you were talking about before. Kind of we got started. So tell me a little bit about that what you encourage people to do, what you've learned by getting out there, what it looks like, what's the point, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2To me it's just like with anything there's no replacement for experience and there's so much that you learn by just being in the woods, and so you know it's hunting um game other than deer, uh, turkeys, squirrels, whatever it is.
Speaker 2But just being in the woods, learning the sounds, um, learning what the difference and a lot of people listening will have already done this but learning the sound, uh, the difference in the sound of a squirrel and a deer, you know something that's probably simple to a lot of people, but what's, what is that? And I know people who spend a lot of time in the woods could close their eyes and be able to pick out the different sounds that they're hearing. And I think that goes a long way just to being, you know, sharp, to learning the woods, to having good woodsmanship and really honing that aspect of your hunting. One example would be where I hunt there's a lot of planted pine trees, and I know turkey hunting especially, but also deer hunting. You have to start looking under the limbs of those planted pines before you ever round a curve, and the way I learned that was by getting busted you know right, yeah, and so you know, it's just some things like that I think are really important.
Speaker 2I encourage my 14 year old a lot. Just go squirrel hunting, just go get in the woods and learn to be. Still learn to hide, you know at 14.
Speaker 2That's pretty tough yeah, especially for him, like he's, uh, he's, he's, he's a little uh, rambunctious, so but yeah, I think I think those are the kind of things I'm thinking about is just there's nothing that is going to replace that experience you have being in the woods. The best hunters I know are usually people who have spent more time in the woods than anybody else, and it's the people I think of that are really really good at it, and it's because they've been there they put in time. It's not just time scouting, it's just time learning the woods.
Speaker 1It's just you know, I think that. I think is that better. I think trail cameras have ruined people. You know now we sell trail cameras, we use trail cameras and basically everything we use is a cell camera.
Speaker 4They're such a useful tool, but people get lazy from yeah, I mean no doubt, man, and it's.
Speaker 1I mean I think they're awesome. There's some States that they're illegal. You can't even you can't use trail cameras anymore. I don't think we need to go to that extreme. Um, what are some where you can't use trail cameras period.
Speaker 4Really. Yeah, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1But I mean I don't think we need to go to that extreme, like I don't like government getting involved in stuff, and you know. So that's just my take on that. But I mean I really I think that and I say that because I've seen it with myself, you know, I've seen it where I'll put trail cameras out and you, and if I'm getting pictures, that's kind of what I'll base what I'm going to do stuff off of, whereas in the past, when I was younger, we didn't have trail cameras.
Speaker 1When trail cameras first came out, there were some of them that had a freaking trip wire. The animal would trip the wire and that would cause it to take a picture you'd get one picture and it would. It wouldn't. It would be a horrible picture. Yeah, I mean, and um, I think there was some yeah, there were some where you had to take them in.
Speaker 2We'd take them to walmart and get, get them developed yeah, I never used that type uh, I just didn't have them back then. But I've heard a lot of people talk about having to take them in and get the pictures developed and then you've got like 30 pictures of squirrels.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, it'd be, it'd be terrible. They'd be terrible pictures, you know, because the trigger speed and everything was just, was just different. But you know, that's that's one thing that I've noticed, that I think that it's a great tool, but it's something that we lean on a little bit too hard.
Speaker 1It makes it where you don't really get to learn your woods, you don't get to learn the property that you're hunting on. I think one of the most fun experiences that I've had hunting in the past five years was when we went uh, we traveled and went up to Illinois and we hunted on some public land and we did a ton of e-scouting before we got there we were on.
Speaker 1Onyx and the whole group, we were all looking at stuff and we were dropping pins and looking at these different areas and looking at, you know, different topo lines and all this kind of stuff. And then we're on the way up there and one of the guys pulls it up because we're talking about where everybody's going to go the next morning, and one of the guys pulls it up and he's like he said, why is it red? And got these red lines through it. I said man, I don't know. I said that doesn't look good. And sure enough, the weekend when we were traveling up there, there was a special youth shotgun hunt okay all right.
Speaker 1So everywhere on this public piece of property where that was going on, they closed it. Yeah, that sunday afternoon yeah, dark yeah, so virtually everywhere that we had scouted was now a closed area.
Speaker 4All of our pens, absolutely irrelevant, every single one of them.
Speaker 1So we got up there and also the campsite we were going to, which I was told was open. We pull up to it and the gates closed and it says we'll reopen in spring, gosh, wow. So we're up there. You know 9 o'clock at night, or something like that.
Speaker 2And this is Illinois, right yeah, so it's not that far right, right, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1Well, we went there a roundabout way. We went to Arkansas first and did some waterfowl hunting and then went from there to illinois gotcha, and so we get there, you know, after dark, I don't remember what time it was, but it was after dark it was pretty late yeah, because we went to walmart like the first walmart we came to and went and bought our tags it was I mean, yes, it was.
Speaker 4It was pretty late when we got out there yeah, when we got to our campsite it was probably like to our final camping site.
Speaker 1It was probably 11 o'clock yeah 11 12 yeah, but anyway, um, so then we had to basically start from scratch. We went to the office of the, the property that we were at, and, you know, got them to show us on the map okay, these, these are the areas where you can hunt. And then we just went and figured it out.
Scouting for Ideal Hunting Spots
Speaker 2Yeah Well, and that brings up another place where you really have to or have an opportunity to spend time is what you were talking about is like scouting off of the internet or off of an app like Onyx or you know something, and like when you're doing that, what are you looking for? Like when you're spending the time to prepare to go somewhere that maybe you've not hunted before or not hunted you know a lot? What are the kind of things you're looking for that would make you drop a pin?
Speaker 1man, I'll tell you what. If there's one thing I can know about, specifically about whitetail hunting, I I don't know about anything else. You know big like elk or something like that. I just haven't done it, but as far as whitetail hunting goes, if I could only know one thing, I want to know where they're bedding.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1That's what I want to know.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Especially in November. You know, that's just to me's that's what's more important than anything else, because that's, you know, you think about that first week or two in november. Yeah, the last thing on a buck's mind is eating right, they're just not going to that's why they look so bad in december you know, because they've gone for two or three or four weeks basically without eating and running and fighting and all this kind of stuff and um.
Speaker 1So that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for spots that are either really thick or um, like there was a spot that I found up there in one of the areas where we could actually hunt that looked like it was a clear cut several years before and I mean, you know what that looks like yeah clear cut.
Speaker 1A few years later, you can barely walk through it's so thick, it's it's perfect bedding and, um, it was just on kind of like a little shelf, um, and it had a creek bottom on one side, then it had this big um ridge on the top side of it and then on the on the on the back side of it was just this, you know, just this valley, that, um, we went and set up in there and it was a beautiful spot, man, I just I thought, I thought that was going to be the spot where we got it done. Unfortunately we didn't right there, but that that was. Once we got in there, we started seeing a ton of sign, you know. So I mean, they were there. We just we just didn't hit it.
Speaker 1And we we ended that hunt that morning a little bit earlier than I would have wanted to because one of the guys in our group he shot a buck that morning.
Speaker 4So we went over to help him, I gotcha and. Cause those Illinois deer are not small. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's for sure. They are a lot bigger up there. So that deer was he was.
Speaker 4Four and a half years old, I mean.
Speaker 1I guarantee you, he weighed 250 pounds.
Speaker 4He probably weighed more than that.
Speaker 1But I mean, it was like we were not dragging him.
Speaker 4Especially through the stuff that he had gone through man.
Speaker 1So there was these trees up there. They were about as big around as this mic stand right here.
Speaker 4Yeah, and they had like the biggest one was like this big and smallest one was like this big yeah.
Speaker 1But they had spikes, they had thorns all the way around and they look dead. So I was like well, they look dead. So I was like well, we'll just knock them over and walk right through it Nah.
Speaker 2No, they weren't dead.
Speaker 4They're very much alive.
Speaker 1I've heard of people calling stuff devil's walking stick. That might have been what that was.
Speaker 3I got you.
Speaker 1Because, dude, it was nasty.
Speaker 2It was rough.
Speaker 1I tried to push one over and I pushed it over and took my foot off of it and it shot back up and stabbed me right in the which I had long sleeves on.
Speaker 1But yeah yeah, it was, it was, uh, it was insane, but um, but yeah, those are the things that I look for. I look for, you know, I look for um changes in topography. I look for roads and try to get as far away from them as I can. You know, if I'm going to be hunting on public land which is you know really probably where you're going to be doing your most e-scouting is when you're going to be hunting on public land yeah and I just I try to get away from where people are, because people equals pressure right um so, and then you know from there.
Speaker 1You just, I mean, really it's a shot in the dark until you get boots on the ground yeah, so when you're e-scouting, do you use an app?
Speaker 2or using google maps, or like what are you?
Speaker 1I use onyx, okay um, I've used that for years and I I think it's the best tool yeah um, for you know, for that job, uh, I just it's easy to use, use. It seems like they're adding new little features to the toolkit there every time you turn around.
Speaker 2Weather and different things like that.
Bow Grip and Accuracy in Archery
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean and being able to pop into a 3D map and really look at what the tree cover looks like. Now, sometimes I will go, so, like on that spot in Illinois I did use Google Earth because you can go back and see what something looked like three years ago or six years ago or whatever, and confirm that it was a spot where they harvested a bunch of timber. It was a clear cut. So I mean, yeah, I think using a couple different tools, onx is my number one go-to.
Speaker 4I use OnX probably twice or three times a week. I mean, I random stuff yeah, I'll use it.
Speaker 1I mean, I used it today, I used it yesterday, yeah, you know, it's just something that I use all the time um so yeah, I was driving down the bypass.
Speaker 2Um, that was yesterday and I started looking. I'm not gonna tell y'all where it was because I don't want anybody to go ask them before I do somebody's probably already hunting it. If you got five acres in Bullitt County, there's corn in a camera, so somebody's probably already hunting it, but uh, one of the things I like about Onyx is, with Apple CarPlay, you can actually hit Onyx and it'll pop it up right there on your your uh truck screen or whatever and so I did that just to see, like, who owns this property.
Speaker 2It was two development companies, so I don't know how far I'll get with that, but I figure I try to.
Speaker 1You know, run them down and might as well at least ask hey, you get a knock on that door yeah so, but I think that's such a valuable thing and I'm like you guys.
Speaker 2The to me on x has been the um, the best one I've found here's some other ones that I've used and they're not.
Speaker 1They're not bad, but I just I started using onyx a lot and I've just gotten so used to it that I'm just I know what to do to to find what I'm looking for, so that's just the one that I go with.
Speaker 2And just to show you that I don't have brain cells to spare, I always heard of this app, onyx right, and I started using it. I was like Onyx why do they call it Onyx? And finally, I went to Kansas duck hunting and we got in there one day.
Speaker 3I mean, there's just hundreds and hundreds of mallards coming in and everybody's like we were on the x today and I was like that's why it's on, there you go, and so, um, yeah, not, not the I've used an app called hunt wise before yeah, I used to use that too for the deer cast yes, actually works.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't like it.
Speaker 4I haven't used it. I haven't had success with bucks with it in my personal experience, but with does it actually worked really well.
Speaker 2Yeah, some of that I think you know it's all weighted Like the different, the barometric pressure, the temperature change, all of those things and some of that. I felt like they weighted too much, like it carried too much weight in the forecast of what the deer were going to do. But I mean, I know these are people who've been studying it way more than I have, but it just seemed like sometimes like a little bit of temperature variation would completely change the entire deal. And so I don't know, I kind of look at it like you know you can't kill them sitting on the couch.
Speaker 1That's what I was about to say. You know where I've never killed a deer from.
Speaker 2Yeah, my living room.
Speaker 1That's right, we could, we could, but I haven't. As of right now, I have never killed a deer from my living room.
Speaker 2I've never shot any out my back door either.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3Just a few times, right either?
Speaker 1yeah, yeah, just a few times right, but yeah, yeah, it's um, but I, I mean, I I think that you know, use the tools that are available to you, but nothing, absolutely nothing, takes the place of being in the woods yeah you know, because if you're not, if it's hunting season.
Speaker 1You're not hunting you're definitely not going to kill anything yeah you know, and if it's not hunting season and you're not out there, you know learning the, learning the woods, looking at you know stuff that's going on, like you said, hearing, hearing what a squirrel sounds like running through the woods, because they can fool you. Yeah, and I'll tell you, what'll trick me more than anything is turkeys yeah, because that's tough to man. They'll just they, I guess they just I don't know why it sounds the same. They only got two feet, but it will sound so similar to a deer.
Speaker 2And they're usually like you'll see them by themselves some, but there's usually more than one.
Speaker 1So as they're walking.
Speaker 2They're just making a ton of noise.
Speaker 1Yep, that's right, that's right, but let's, let's look at that, that that practicing aspect of it. You know, I tell people all the time. I work with people every day on shooting their bow and so often, so often, I will see issues in the way people hold their bow.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I would say that is the number one issue with somebody being accurate or not is how they're holding the bow. And people will ask me all the time why do I shoot the bow? That I shoot, you know, and it's always. My first response is because of the grip right. Always, and that's that's what I'm looking at every time I pick up a bow. If I'm going to shoot a bow like I'll grab this, I'll grab this bow right here, maybe.
Speaker 3Can you Maybe.
Speaker 1Oh, there we go. So that bow right there, that is a Hoyt, that's an Alpha X 33. Yeah, alpha X, 33. So if you're not, when you go to grab that bow, like if you're over here, like I was working with a guy this week, yeah, and he really just like hooked his thumb so he's putting more wet, more of the pressure on his thumb than on the meat of his hand. No, so what's happening when you do that?
Speaker 1is you've still got that muscle right there below your thumb right, that's one of the biggest muscles in your hand and you really want that on the back of that grip.
Speaker 1The way he was shooting he had that muscle on the side of the grip so it was putting a bunch of you know, lateral pressure on that bow, essentially causing him to torque it. And, um man, we were struggling getting that bow tuned and he shot a bow for a long time. This was a new bow that he was getting this week and the bow that he had been shooting. I think he was trying to get that same feeling in his hand.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1And when he moved to this grip with trying to get that same feeling. It's a bow that he has been shooting for several years. The grip has a really big bulge right there on it.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1So he can probably get away with shooting that way. It's probably perfectly fine with that other bow, but with this particular bow if you're not, so most bows, most grips are going to have a good flat back right there okay so you see that big flat right section right there not rounded, it's not
Speaker 1rounded. Now. It'll be rounded on the edges, just so it feels good to your hand, but it'll be flat right there on the back if you don't get that big muscle right there on your hand, on that flat part. Now some people get up in the dovetail of the bow almost like they're shooting a pistol or something some people will be down lower it.
Speaker 1Really that is a personal preference kind of thing. But if if you're not on that large muscle in your hand, on that flat part of that bow, you're going to struggle with downrange accuracy.
Speaker 4That's what I do, is I jam my hand as far as I can up into the grip.
Speaker 2Gotcha.
Speaker 4And then I try to put my crease of my hand right here.
Speaker 2Yeah, so between your, just for people who aren't watching. Um, between your thumb and and forefinger.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah yeah, yeah, so we are videoing the podcast because y'all been asking us to video, so we videoed. I don't know how it's going to turn out or not. We don't have somebody in here running the camera, we just got it set up and it's it's taking a video, so it'll be better than nothing one thing I want to add real quick this grip will never be as accurate as shooting off a bear riser never, never it just won't.
Speaker 1So you seem really confident in that. I do. I'm very confident, all All right, tell us why.
Speaker 4Target. People refer to it as feedback. Okay, hunting people refer to it as vibration. Yeah, you can feel what the bow is doing a lot better if you're shooting off the riser period.
Speaker 2That makes sense I mean because there's nothing to take away the vibration or the feedback, whatever you want to call it, because you're just right on the bow and it responds to your hand better.
Speaker 1Gotcha.
Speaker 2That makes sense.
Speaker 1So you're saying with no cushion there, you can be more accurate? Yes, a lot of target bows don't have a grip at all.
Speaker 4And the white target bow, the Stratos, and now the Concept X. It's a grip, but it's like a plastic molded grip, but you're still touching the riser.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2No, I mean that makes sense. It'd be like hitting a baseball with a bat that's got heavy wrap or something on it. You can't feel the vibration. I mean that makes sense to me, that you could feel what you're doing better without something in between your hand and the bow.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I'd say one of the things that you need to look at when you're practicing is, you know, making sure your equipment is set up right first, that it's at the right draw length, that the sight, if it can be leveled, that it is leveled and then paying attention to your level when you're practicing. And then paying attention to your level when you're practicing and if you get the full draw and you see that your bubble is way over to the right or way over to the left, you know just when you naturally get the full draw if you see yourself having to do something to manipulate that bow to make it sit level then you need to look at, you know, possibly putting a back bar or a side bar, whatever you want to call it, sit level.
Speaker 1Yeah, then you need to look at, you know, possibly putting a back bar or sidebar, whatever you want to call it on the bow. And so often you know guys that are hunting. You know they'll come in and they'll see that we have back bars available and they're just like I'm just going to be hunting with the bow, it doesn't matter. And sometimes you know, I'll go into the conversation with them about it. Yeah, I never want to make somebody feel like I'm trying to upsell them.
Speaker 2Yeah, so, like for me, I'm not as familiar with bows as you guys are, so explain more like what a back bar is, what's it do?
Speaker 1All right, so he's got one on his bow. Pick your bow up right there. So you've got that bar that comes off the side and you can adjust the angle of it.
Speaker 1You can adjust the angle of it, okay. You can adjust, obviously, the weight that's on the stabilizer, just like you can with a front bar or front stabilizer, and it's really to, um, get that bow to sit level without you having to manipulate it at all with your hand. Cause if you're manipulating the bow, you're I would say, with 90% certainty, you're putting torque into the riser.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And anytime you torque the riser, anytime you torque the bow, it's going to show up downrange. You're going to see your arrow do something weird as it releases from your bow, or right before it gets to the target or something, and that's because you're putting torque into the bow, into the riser, as you're going to shoot. So that's really what a back bar or what a sidebar is intended for. Now, sometimes guys will do it like target guys. They'll do it because they just want their bow to be heavier.
Speaker 1Yeah, because it helps them balance a little bit better or whatever.
Speaker 4Um, I mean like your bow holds steadier, yeah, you'll see some guys on the target circuit that you know.
Speaker 1There's one guy, individual and particularly. I'm not going to drop his name or anything, but anybody that's into archery knows about this guy. What does he call himself? The Hammer, the Hammer.
Speaker 3Oh.
Speaker 1There you go. He will run some of the absolute.
Speaker 2You've got to have a lot of confidence to call yourself the Hammer.
Speaker 1Oh he's good he's good.
Speaker 4This year he had four bars Wow.
Improving Archery Skills on a Budget
Speaker 1But I've seen him before Like he'll do YouTube videos when he's, you know, playing with his setup, trying to figure out what's going to be the best, and it'll look like this ridiculous contraption, like how are you even going to shoot that thing?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know just all the stuff that's hanging off of it and he'll put blinders on his, on his, on his hat and stuff like that, which a lot of archers do, that, a lot of target guys do that. But um, it's just, it's comical to look at I mean it works because he I mean like I said he's, he won, he's really good he won um the tournament he was at, yeah, most recently, yeah, he's he is. He is definitely a pro shooter, there's no question about that For years.
Speaker 4He's been a pro shooter for years.
Speaker 1Yeah, he's like 7'1". I don't know how tall he is, he's big huh.
Speaker 3Yeah, he's a big guy.
Speaker 2Yeah, so the level aspect of it. So I would think that if you've got any torque and it's not level, it's going to be hard to even sight it in.
Speaker 1It is. If all you're doing is going and shooting at 20 yards, you're never going to notice it. Any bow can shoot great at 20 yards. Sorry bow manufacturers, that's just the truth. Anybody can set up a bow and sight it in to make one pin work good. It might take you a little while right but you can get one pin to hit accurately, and I mean even let's say you torque a little bit, you know it might be off by an inch or so yeah at 20 yards.
Speaker 1Well, you know, most people are going to be like, okay, I'm good, and then they'll go out there and they'll be in a hunting situation and they'll take a 30 yard shot or a 35 yard shot. And they'll go out there and they'll be in a hunting situation and they'll take a 30 yard shot or a 35 yard shot and they'll completely miss the deer and they're like what the heck right, you know, and the part that that is unfortunate to me is that they'll do that and then they'll gun.
Speaker 1Season will come in and they'll put their bow away yeah because they're like you know, I just don't have enough range.
Speaker 1You know I need to put some meat in the freezer, I'm just going to pull the rifle out and they'll give up on bow hunting because you know, really because they've never been taught how to go through and set their equipment up, how to shoot properly and everything. And you know, I think part of it is, I think, pride gets in the way, and I know that sounds like a negative connotation. I don't want it to sound that way, but it's hard for a grown man to come in somewhere and just say you know.
Speaker 3I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1I mean, because that's essentially what you're doing when you ask for help is saying I don't know what I'm doing yeah. And what I would encourage people to do come in and see us, especially this time of year, or go into your local bow shop, if you're not here, and just say, hey, listen, can you?
Speaker 3help me with this.
Speaker 1You know any any bow shop worth their salt, whether they've got a range or not, they ought to be able to take time with you, especially in february and march and april, and may just take some time. Would you pay them for their time, you know? I mean, don't go in there and say, hey, can you do this? Well, I didn't buy anything, so I'm not going to pay you anything.
Speaker 3Pay them for their time.
Speaker 1If they don't have a rate for that offer them Say can I pay you $50? To spend 20 minutes with me and show me how to do this.
Speaker 1Show me what I'm doing wrong, because I really want to figure this out. I'm doing wrong because I really want to figure this out. I would say nine times out of 10, they're going to do that Right. At least I hope they will. I know we will and we do it pretty often honestly. You know, because when somebody like we we don't paper tune bows for people, I don't believe in doing that, because I hold the bow differently than you hold the bow. Dub holds his bow differently than I do. So I may be able to pick up his bow right now and go shoot it through paper and get a perfect bullet hole, but I might pick it up and go shoot it and not get a perfect bullet hole and then him do it and it'd be perfect.
Speaker 1And the whole point of doing a paper test is to make sure that that knock is, to make sure that that string is directly behind that knock right, to make sure it's not pushing it to the left or to the right and to make sure that that rest is where it needs to be, or that that d-loop is where it needs to be, that it's not pushing that arrow down or pushing that arrow up right. So that that's what we talk about when doing paper testing or doing paper tuning. The whole point of it is to make sure that that we've got that piece of equipment set up the way that it was designed to function and then from there start working on siding in and putting, putting the human aspect into it right. I mean, when you look at a bow, it's a really simple machine. I mean they look super advanced and, yes, they are hard to build and the things that they put into them.
Bow Selection Based on Budget
Speaker 1It's not like anybody can go and do it Right, but at the end of the day it is a very simple machine. So start by making sure the machine is performing the way that it should. Unfortunately it doesn't have a check engine light, but if it did, there's a lot of people whose light would be on right right, because it's just not right, yeah, so and I think that's I mean whether you're 16 or 60 if, if something's not right, whether it's your equipment or your technique, it's not going to be enjoyable right, so it's going to be frustrating.
Speaker 1So, just at best it's going to be frustrating, yeah.
Speaker 2At worst you're going to put it down, yeah, and so regardless of age, like if you need help, just ask for help yeah, and and let somebody who knows and and I do that all the time, I come here and ask you questions a lot All the time, all the time yeah. I'm surprised you asked me to do the podcast.
Speaker 3I'm surprised you wanted to see me anymore.
Speaker 2But uh, but yeah, but that's been very helpful for me. Um, to admit like, and I told you guys before we started recording, like I know you guys know more than I do. This is the world you live in, so being willing to say what I need to do, you know and um I think about the elk hunt. If I had not asked for help, I don't know what I would have gone out there with. Yeah, you know, and so it's um, just to be able to enjoy hunting more you know, being willing to just say hey, what do you think about this?
Speaker 2yeah, or how could this be better or what am I doing?
Speaker 1you know, I think another misconception that people have is that to get into archery or to, or to, to have fun with it, or they need to spend thousands of dollars on their equipment Now listen, you can definitely spend thousands of dollars on archery equipment. There's no question about it. And are you going to be getting a better product if you spend more money on it Sometimes, yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think yes.
Speaker 1But does that mean that you can't still go have fun doing it? You know we've got guys that are still shooting. You know a 15 year old hoyt right, yeah, and won't give it up. Yeah, they come in, you know, every year and they want us to go through it, make sure everything shooting like it's supposed to. Or we've got some guys like um, I've got a customer that has a switch back and you know, and he knows, he knows that people would give him anything.
Speaker 1He asked for that bow right because it was just one of those bows that people fell in love with, you know. So it's a matthew switchback and he'll come in. You know, every couple years we'll put a new set of strings on it. We'll go through it, make sure everything's working like it's supposed to. You know, if we need something, we can always go to matthews and get parts for it.
Speaker 1Um, that's one of the cool things about matthews is that if they ever made it, you can still get a part for it yeah um, so that that's pretty cool, that that you can still get parts for for anything that they've ever made, and um, you know just, I love seeing them shoot them. Yeah, I love seeing guys shoot those older bows.
Speaker 3I don't I mean I don't think there's anything wrong with it, definitely not there.
Speaker 1There comes a point in time where you've got an older bow and let's say, let's say you just picked up an older bow from a buddy or from your uncle or something like that. Well, if it needs something number one, can we get parts for it. Number two let's say it needs a string set. Well, I mean, you might be a couple hundred bucks in with putting a new set of strings on something and getting it retuned and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4And a lot of older bows required a new cam. Right, yeah, and a cam is most or cams most of the time.
Speaker 1Bucks, yeah, 100 bucks, you know it'll it'll vary a little bit, but let's say, let's say that there's nothing going on with the bow except you know it needs just some regular maintenance, a string and stuff like that. And we put all that stuff on there and then they go and shoot it for a month and a limb breaks and then we can't get a limb. Yeah you know, and it's like man, you have to ask the question. All right, when does it make sense to go ahead and buy a new bow?
Speaker 2right you know, because if you, even if you don't want to spend, if you've got a 15 year old bow, yeah you can buy a brand new bow today for under a thousand bucks it's going to be better than that 15 year old bow yeah there's like there's a point where, maybe not year after year, after year after year I know people who buy new bows every single year, oh for sure, but the technology might not just go, oh wow from one year to the next, it might, but it may not. It's rare. But you get five, 10, 15 years in and there's going to be a big gap in technology.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's pretty rare that you pick up a bow you know two years in a row and you're just like mind blown.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know like if there's anything I could get the bow manufacturers to do, it'd be to stop making a new bow every single year you know, because it would. It would help bow shops from an inventory standpoint, it would help them from a retooling standpoint, would help them to be more efficient and maybe, maybe, drive some costs out of, you know, building a bow, because a lot of what, a lot of what goes into the cost of a bow, is their development of it.
Speaker 1right, you know, I mean, man, they've spent millions of dollars yeah in every case up here on this wall yeah, to develop these things and, um, you know, the reality is bows are probably not going to go down in cost, right, you know?
Speaker 1I mean it's like once you, once you, if you give a mouse a cookie right, yeah yeah, so um, but yeah, I mean I I think that there are a lot of options in the market right now. You know, for bows that are in the 700 800 range that are fantastic bows that if you're looking to get into it, you can grab one of those bows and go to town with it. You know, like I'm shooting a bow right now. That retails 750 yeah, and I love that little bow.
Speaker 1You know, um, I I don't know that that's the bow that I will continue shooting, but I wanted to shoot one because we sell a lot of them, so I wanted to shoot one and what's that about it's?
Speaker 2So I wanted to shoot one and see what it was all about.
Speaker 1It's the Darton Consequence and man, they knocked it out of the park with that bow. I mean it is a blast to shoot and it's easy to shoot. I like the grip on it. It's just a metal grip, shooting off the riser, shooting off the riser. Essentially it's got little side plates on it, that's just a metal grip shooting off the riser shooting off the riser. Essentially it's got little side plates on it that say darton on it.
Speaker 3But yeah, you don't touch them.
Speaker 1Yeah, you don't. If you, if you're touching, if you got side plates on your bow and you're touching them when you're shooting, you ain't doing it right right, yeah, come, come see y'all.
Speaker 2Yeah, um so, uh, from my experience with it, you know, I came in and I had a bow that was probably 10 years old. It was a Matthews. I liked it, but I knew the technology had kind of passed it.
Speaker 2And so I came in and you guys set me up with a Hoyt. It was kind of a mid-level bow, I think it was maybe $800 or $900. Of a mid, mid-level bow, I think is maybe eight or nine hundred dollars. And man, when I started shooting that bow, compared to the one I had absolutely loved, it right, made the biggest difference in the world. Um, I passed that bow on to one of my sons who was getting more involved into it and I came in and you got me.
Speaker 2Well, I had the rx7 which got confiscated by my one of my other sons and so then you helped me with that, uh, that rx8, and so that's what I'm shooting now. And you know, I remember coming in here and you handed me three bows, and I think one was a matthews, one was a hoyt. I don't even remember what the other one was. That day we were putting all that together.
Speaker 4Probably would have been like a Bowtech yeah, Bowtech. Or.
Speaker 2Prime, but I remember you saying you know, shoot these and for me that Hoyt the RX-8, just felt more comfortable. You know, when it was at the point where it would break, it just felt smoother to me and other people, I never have a different opinion, but for me I tried to go back and shoot the um, I guess, mid-level Hoyt that I had and for me there was a really big difference. Yeah, and so well.
Speaker 1So, like I said earlier, I never, I never want anybody to feel like I'm up selling them or something yeah so one of the first questions we ask somebody when they come in and they're looking at new equipment, one of the first questions we ask is is what's your budget? What do you? Want right you know, because I don't want to. I don't want to put a flagship bow in somebody's hands and then they, they don't have the budget. Yeah, if what they're wanting to do is just get into it or they're wanting to.
Speaker 1They're wanting to get an extra month out of hunting season, so they want to. They want to get a bow yeah, you know and it's like, okay, well, if that's what you want to do, that's that's what we're going to set up right because if I put a flagship bow in their hands and then they shoot, they shoot it yeah and then they. You know I really didn't want to spend that much money and anything they shoot after.
Speaker 2That point is not going to feel right, it's not going to feel right. It's kind of like, if the car dealer can ever get you to drive the vehicle, yeah right, it's harder to say no. Yeah, absolutely, like you said, you can be successful with anything and I've got friends who shoot bows that are, you know, like you said, 10, 15 years old, right, um, but it's really all in what you, what you like and what you're comfortable with. But I just know, when I came in and you guys helped me transition from two or three different bows, I could really tell the difference when we once we got to like a um, I guess, a higher level bow for me yeah, there's, there's, there's definitely a difference. Once we got to like a I guess, a higher level bow for me.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's definitely a difference, you know. I mean, it's like I said, you can get into a really great bow for, you know, under a thousand bucks and really be fine with it.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know, and as long as you don't shoot that other bow, you don't know what you're missing Exactly.
Speaker 2Right yeah.
Speaker 1But if you ever shoot that other bow, it's like you. You want to do whatever you got to do to buy it. And I never want to put somebody in that position, and the reason I do that is because I want people to be good stewards to their resources.
Speaker 2No, I good stewards to their resources now I think that's very respectable that you try to give them something that's within their range and that they can be happy with and still be successful with yeah, listen from a from a business standpoint.
Speaker 1I would love to only sell flagship bows yeah that's it. But in reality, I want to see archery grow. You know, I want to see the pie of archery grow, and whatever we've got to do to do that that's what I want to be doing. You know, I want to see this industry continue to do well. I want it to get to a point where it's really thriving.
Speaker 1Yeah, it to a point where it's really thriving, yeah and um. I think the only way that that's going to happen is when bow shops help it along right because there's only so much a manufacturer can do, because they're really not touching the consumer yeah right. So I think it's. I think it's really important that the way we interact with the consumer, as an extension of all those brands that that we represent is is a big deal so I think that's great.
Speaker 2Um I'm asking a lot of questions because again I like to pick your brains on these things, but, um, which doesn't take, that I'm kidding, be gentle. So, um, when you think about, I think about, and I go back to sports a lot, it's just where I spend a lot of time. Um, but I think about with a baseball swing. You know you start with a good foundation you start.
Speaker 2You know we're going to build this thing from the bottom up with a baseball swing, so we're going to start with where's your weight? You know how are you loading your hands or your hip or whatever it is. So the very first thing then you would look at is grip.
Speaker 1Yeah, and you know how? How? How somebody is holding the bow is everything.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Understanding Bow Accessories and Techniques
Speaker 1And, and I tell people all the time, and, dub, I've, I've heard you doing this. I don't know if it's because you're doing what dad's doing or what, but I tell people all the time get your, get your hand, excuse me, get your hand where it needs to be before you draw the bow right you know, don't draw the bow and then try to start moving your hand around, because I mean you can do that, but to me you just need to.
Speaker 1You need to get your hand where it needs to be and then draw the bow. You know, because to me, I just think if you wait until you got pressure on there, you're not going to get it where it needs to be, you're not going to do the same thing every time, and it is about repetition, it's about being able to do the same thing over and over and over again, so it's same thing over and over and over again.
Speaker 2Yeah, um, so it's, it's, it's like. You know again. Another analogy I think of is if you lay the foundation of a house out of square, you can make it look good and make it work, but you're going to be fighting it the rest of the time you're building.
Speaker 2Yeah, that house and so like. That's what it makes me think about when you say that is, if you don't get that part right, then the rest of what you're doing you're going to be fighting through it to try to get a good result yeah, go, go, build a good bit of, build a shed in your backyard, without a square and without a level yeah, yeah, not gonna be good and don't don't come talk to me while you're in the process yeah, that's right, that's right, right.
Speaker 2so what would you guys say is next, after that, the most important thing?
Speaker 1Man, I would say, next, after that is having a good release. Okay, what were you going to say? Dub Rest? Yeah, the rest is important.
Speaker 4Because it's touching your arrow. Anything that touches your arrow is so important.
Speaker 1But I would say this I would say that a whisker biscuit is fine.
Speaker 4Yes, a true whisker biscuit is fine.
Speaker 1Yes, A true whisker biscuit is fine yeah, you know I don't like the ones that are the little brushes. That's like the most impossible rest to tune in the world. It's very bad. But I mean a whisker biscuit is fine, like if you're going to buy a cheaper bow, like if you're going to come in here and you're not going to buy a package. Put as much of your budget as you possibly can into the bow Right, because that's kind of like that foundation. Put as much as you possibly can into the bow and then next year come back and get a new rest.
Speaker 1Sure, or you know, at christmas, you know, or for your birthday, ask for a gift card to a bow trader or to your local bow shop and go in and get you a new, a new site or something. You can always change your accessories out yeah there's always going to be new accessories coming out that you want to.
Speaker 1you know that you're curious about what is this, you know, should I, should I put this on there, you know? So always put as much as you can into your bow so I get what you're saying about. The rest is really important, but I think, even more important than that is your release.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Because if you have a release that's inconsistent, I don't care what you're doing.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know if you're shooting with a little like listen. There are tons of releases on Amazon right now that you can go and you can. You can, you can buy that release and prime will get it to you and, you know, next day or maybe next month at this point, yeah.
Speaker 1They're kind of weird right now, not not what they once were, but um, that $12 or $19 release is going to give you problems. You know now I'm not saying that you need to spend $400 on your release. You don't have to do that, you know. Just because we do. You know, don't do what we do when it comes down to stuff like that.
Speaker 4There's a $400 release. I didn't know that. Yeah, sure there is. It's just for certain people that come
Speaker 2in yeah everybody else is 200 like brandon it's just people like me those extra grace required, people that's right egr yeah egr, that's so uh no, I mean but.
Archery Release Techniques and Practice
Speaker 1But I mean I. I think that I think that having a good, high quality release is a big deal, um, and then knowing how to actually use it. You know, so often we'll see people they'll just slap the trigger Like I mean they'll. They'll be a full draw, they'll be doing everything sufficient. I'm not gonna say perfect, but they'll be doing everything really good. And then they'll reach up and they'll just pop that trigger and it's like what are? You doing? I mean, I've literally asked people that before.
Speaker 4What are you doing? Yeah, I mean, I've literally asked people that before. What, what are you? What did that thing say something?
Speaker 1about your mama or something? Why are you punching it like yeah, every time? My brain is just yeah, yeah, but I can't do that you know, but it's, I mean, that's, that's one of the things, that that's pretty important and if if you hadn't realized already, this is something we can talk about for a very long time.
Speaker 2Yeah, but it. But it's good, like if we're going to spend the time, and we talked about this last week, I think, which last week seems like it was a year ago, I don't know about that for y'all, but like for me it seems like did we record this month.
Speaker 3It was a month ago.
Speaker 2Yeah, it really was, it was last month.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2But it feels like it has literally been a month and but, um. But it's really good because, again, if practice doesn't make perfect perfect, practice makes perfect right. So if something's off, then again you're not gonna get better, you're just gonna get frustrated right yeah, so I think all of this is great. I know we don't have so much time, but, um, and I'm guessing, difference between, uh, uh, like a wrist release and a thumb release preference.
Speaker 1You know it's preference is a big part of it. Um, I think you well, I think you can be accurate with both of them. Yeah absolutely, um, I think that I think that what, what I've shoot the most now is a, is a thumb release, or a handheld release and it's just because I've gotten really accustomed to it.
Speaker 1I fought it for years. I didn't want to shoot one, but with working in the bow shop and being here and just needing to draw a bow, it's pretty aggravating to have to strap a watch on your hand every time you need to do that.
Speaker 4Yeah, I just reach in my pocket, yeah, so I just keep one in my pocket.
Speaker 1I mean, I keep it in my pocket all the time I'll catch myself at church with my release in my pocket. I'm like what is wrong with me? Why do I have this in my pocket right now? But anyway, yeah, I think it boils down to personal preference. But if you're going to do something like that, making sure that that that you really learn how to use it the right way and that, however you're doing it, you're able to to repeat it.
Speaker 1You know, I mean, I say that so often. I get sick of hearing myself say it you know, but if you can't repeat something you know it's, it's, it's going to be bad, absolutely. It's going to be inconsistent if you can't repeat what you need to do.
Speaker 2That goes back to another sports analogy I use a lot when I'm trying to help kids with baseball. Feel what you're doing, right now. Feel it and then repeat it, feel it and then repeat it, feel it and then repeat it, and I think I guess that's that's the same thing with shooting a bow is, you know when you, when you get it right, feel what you're doing so that it can become repeatable.
Speaker 1And that's why that grip on the bow is so important to me, because I the last thing I want to be thinking about when I'm in a hunting situation is is how I'm holding my bow yeah.
Speaker 2And if I see myself having to do something to manipulate my hand or something to make sure I'm holding the bow right, that thing's out yeah, I'm not shooting it, I will not one of the things at practice today before I got earholed by the baseball um I was working with several kids on was I'll tell them no thinking in the box, like once you step in the batter's box. No thinking Like at that point you've done all the work, now it's time for your body to just respond. At that point, look for a good pitch to hit and hit it yeah.
Speaker 2Because if you get in there and you can see some of them, like they're literally, their lips are moving where they're trying to think about what they're doing, and it's hard to hit that way and same thing if you're in a hunting situation like you need to have done the prep so that your muscle memory takes over at that point and um yeah, if you're a dude you can just go into your nothing box real quick yeah, exactly, yeah we're good at that that exists women don't believe that it exists, but it exists.
Speaker 1I've been in there like a couple times while we've been talking.
Speaker 2I've seen you kind of just drift off, kind of your head just turn away from everything. But anyway, I think all of that is super helpful. At what point does where you anchor come in?
Speaker 1as soon as you draw the boat yeah, yeah I mean that's very very important, it's everything. And I I'll tell people I don't care where you anchor, it doesn't matter to me. I mean and truly it doesn't I don't I don't care if you're sticking your thumb behind your neck or right or your finger up. You know, I really don't care, I just want you to be able to do the exact same thing. So the finger up your nose.
Speaker 2I really don't care, I just want you to be able to do the exact same thing. So the finger up your nose is okay.
Speaker 1I've seen it before. I don't think it was intentional, but I've seen it before and we kind of had a little laugh about it.
Speaker 4The one thing that is very I don't want to say very bad, but is inconsistent. When you anchor is some people use their fletching as a kisser button.
Speaker 3Don't do that, which I don't like kisser buttons.
Speaker 4I don't like kisser buttons either.
Speaker 1If you're going to use something, use a nose button. I've set up a bow for somebody before and they wanted a peep and they wanted a nose button and they wanted a kisser button. I'm like dude. Is there something else we can put on this string?
Speaker 1I don't like anything on my string. I want to peep and that's it. But yeah, it's, and kisser buttons had a place at one point in time right, and I'm making thousands of people angry right now but I mean, it's like once you got a peep, there was no reason to have a kisser button anymore. Yeah, you know, that was part of the reason that you had. That was for when you were shooting without a peep yeah but that's just my opinion.
Speaker 1Some people they are so used to it, yeah, that they want it. And you know what. We have them, we install them, we sell them, you know whatever, that's fine.
Speaker 2I think, if it makes you more confident then, use it, but, like you said too, it's going to be different for everybody. I guess I think too. Going back to just keeping it simple, the more simple you can make it probably in anything, I would say the better.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't like weight on my string, so if I can do something to take weight off my string, I'm doing it. Yeah, so that's just. That's my take.
Speaker 4If you didn't know, kiss your button actually slows your bow down boom tremendously per second, and is it really that much?
Speaker 1and oh yeah, I tested it it's.
Speaker 4it's a pretty substantial amount and metal D loops.
Speaker 1Slow your boat down too, yeah, yeah. Those stupid things are heavy. There's actually several manufacturers in the industry that make those and I don't know why, you know how that got started or whatever, but it's weird, yeah. But yeah, they're heavy.
Speaker 4Trying to get you really sawn when your target bug's in front of you. Ting Ting, ting, ting ting.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, weird yeah but yeah, they're heavy trying to get you really song when your target bucks in front of you yeah, yeah it's.
Speaker 2It's weird, but yeah um, anyway, well, that's good. I mean, I think all of that's helpful. I mean it's helpful for me, uh, to hear a lot of that, and I've been bow hunting for a good while, you know, and. But I think there's always room to learn, um, and usually I forget more than I learn.
Speaker 1So it's good to do it again, so you got to keep learning.
Speaker 2Yeah, because you're going to keep forgetting. So no, I think you know, talking and looking at that, that there's really no replacement or substitute for putting in time.
Speaker 1You know, with all of that, yeah, you can't get away from it. But making sure you can't get away from it, I mean you. You can't get away from it and like, like you said a while ago, if you're practicing, but if you're practicing wrong, you need to get away from that.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's just ingraining, I mean.
Speaker 1I'll have times where I'll go out and I'll shoot, and I'm having a bad day and I'll just stop shooting, Absolutely. And I really want to shoot.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know, there'll be times where I just really want to go shoot my bow for an hour.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1And I'll go out and I'll start shooting and I'm shooting bad, yeah, I'll just stop.
Speaker 1Yeah, because I know I'm going to develop a bad habit if I do it, because I'm going to be trying to fix whatever's happening and I know my bow is like it's supposed to be so I know I'm the problem you know, and I'll sit there and fight it for a little bit and then I'll just be like, nope, I'm not shooting today yeah, so yeah, I've done that with with my youngest son hitting like all right, we'll come back tomorrow yeah, you know yeah, just just forget.
Speaker 2Forget what you just did and we'll come back tomorrow. It is frustrating.
Speaker 1You know I'll be coaching kids and they'll be having because they had a rough day at school or something yeah, I just get where they can't shoot and I'm just like let's go back here and look at why. Timing on your bows and perfect important right, yeah and I'll show them how to put their bow in a bow press and and we'll.
Speaker 1We'll work on timing, the bow and how to look at that and how to use the draw board and stuff like that. Because if you, if you sit there and practice and you're doing something wrong, that your first, your first kind of knee-jerk reaction is to start moving stuff on your bow. Yeah, and that is not a good place to be. Now, if you go out and you're shooting and you know everything is fine in your head and then you're shooting and something's not right and you want to start making some adjustments, then that's fine.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1But if you put two or three arrows or two or three groups together and everything looks good and then you start shooting, bad, just stop yeah just quit.
Speaker 1You know that's good, that's, that's what. That's what I would tell people, because, man, I've seen, I've seen and I have done myself where I will. You'll be out shooting and something doesn't feel right. Or you're not hitting where you want to be hitting and man you't feel right, or you're not hitting where you want to be hitting and man, you'll start tearing your arrows apart, not breaking them, but ripping the fletching off of them and rebuilding them, putting new knocks in and all this kind of stuff, and and in all reality, there was nothing wrong to start with yeah, you know
Speaker 2but no, that's really good. So ready to transition this thing.
Speaker 1Let's do it, let's do it. You know, I'll say one more thing from a woodsmanship standpoint. I've spent a pretty good bit of time in the woods with Mr Charles, and he turned 87 in January. He is so particular about how he does things when he is in the woods and it is so cool to watch like he'll. He knows that deer will walk down, fire breaks yeah all right.
Speaker 1So when he crosses a fire break he has a board, like he has a spot on our place where he crosses a fire break every time he goes hunting yeah so he's got this board. It's like a. It's a piece of decking board, five-quarter board, it's like 10 or 12 feet long or whatever. He put wheels on both ends of it, okay, and he will pick it up and roll it across the fire break and then walk across the fire break on the board and then pull it back across the fire break.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, he is so particular about how he does everything and he's like that because he's been hunting for so long. It's something he learned, yeah I mean that caused him to do that and he, he's, he's watched deer go to wherever he walked and put their nose down to the ground.
Speaker 2Yeah, turn and walk the other way.
Speaker 1That's right right I mean, that's how that happened and just spending time out there with him and watching him do some stuff, you know, watching the way he responds when, when he, when he kills a doe, and watching him praise the Lord when he does it. I mean, man, it's so cool, I mean it's just thinking about it right now is like man, how do you get there? You know you've killed your umpteen hundredth deer with a bow and you still are undone and praising God when you're going to pick that thing up.
Speaker 2That's just really cool and it's kind of like if you lose that, then what's? It's not what's the point, but I mean, I mean a little bit like you don't ever want to lose that excitement, you know, and just that I've got a mentor.
Speaker 2He mentors me, as in the church, you know, and he's like that. He's in his late 70s and he is just as excited about the Lord right now as he was 30, 40 ago, if not more so. And to see someone who is at that age, who still has that fire and passion, um, for god and to do the work of god to me, I'm like that's how I want to finish so what do you think causes people to be like that?
Purpose, Perseverance, and Diversity in Belief
Speaker 1because we've seen. We've seen both extremes right where somebody will just get worn out basically and it'll show itself in all kind of aspects of life. But from a relationship with God standpoint, I've heard people say I served when I was younger. I'm just not going to serve anymore.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think a lot of it's perspective um it's perspective on kind of purpose. Honestly, you know, a lot of people feel like you know they're in their mid-60s or whatever and I've done my time and now it's time for me to kind of sit back and rest and let other people do it.
Speaker 2But to me that's like. That makes me question like well, why were you doing it to start with? Because we don't want to do it? Because we're doing our time? It makes me think about the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son who was so upset when his younger brother was welcomed back home. And the father is like you, you've been with me the whole time, everything I've had is yours. Why do you? Yeah, but he the.
Speaker 2The older son's comment was I've been slaving for you all these years yeah you know, and I think a lot of people look at their relationship with God and even serving God and serving in church or serving in the community or just serving the Lord every day as they go through life. Sometimes I think that's what happens, is it's more of I'm slaving versus I get to serve, and I think that really affects you know, the perspective.
Speaker 2And so a lot of people, I think, don't just retire from work, they retire from living, not just living for God. They might still live a moral life and that kind of thing, but maybe not serving God the way they. They have opportunity. So and and yeah, just not, yeah, so, and you know, just not. And bible, you know it talks about um in galatians. You know, don't grow weary in doing good. In due season you will reap a harvest right. And keeping that perspective, that, as long as there's breath in my body, god has a purpose for me here on earth wasn't it joshua?
Speaker 1that was like he was one of the spies that went in and he saw this, this land filled with giants, part of it and and um that he was part of the group of spies dozen spies or whatever it was and and they all went back and there was two of them that said hey, we got this, lord yeah the lord said this is ours, we know where to go. Now, let's, let's go get it. And you know, the short version is they didn't, yeah, that liquid death got him.
Speaker 2So uh dub just had to go to the restroom, or either he got mad and left. Yeah, one of the two, but yeah, so I had a squirrel moment, yeah, and then, and then 40 years later.
Speaker 1So I so presumably he was in his forties you know when they went, went in and did that recon mission. Right 40 years later, they've taken the promised land uh, or at least no, it was Caleb.
Speaker 2It was Caleb. It's one of the most awesome parts of the Bible.
Speaker 1So then Caleb goes to Joshua and says hey, remember, god said this would be mine where I went. I'm going to go and take it.
Speaker 3He wanted it.
Speaker 1He was 80 years old he wanted to go and drive those giants out. I mean he said I'm just as vigorous and strong. I'm just as strong. I'm just as vigorous and strong. I'm just as strong. My eyes have not grown dim. I want to go and do this because God said and man.
Speaker 2That's one of the coolest stories. It's one of my favorite passages because it gives me goosebumps thinking about it, because Caleb's in his 80s and he's like give me my mountain, he's ready to go. He's like give me my daggum land, man. I've been waiting for this for 40 years and I love that. That's such an awesome picture.
Speaker 1Yeah, for sure Now. So we talk about archery and we've been talking about all these different things and me saying I don't care where people anchor, as long as they do the same thing every single time.
Speaker 1Man, I don't care where people anchor as long as they do the same thing every single time. Yeah, you know which? There are some things that are going to be, that are going to lend themselves more to being repeatable and being easier to do over and over again, you know. But then we look at, we look at our relationship with God, and Jesus said that he was the way, yeah, the truth and the life right.
Speaker 3Yep, he was the way, not one of the ways or a way.
Faith, Authenticity, and Imperfection
Speaker 1Now, why do we as Christians, why do we believe that and how do we interact with people that don't believe that? You know, I think that that's something that is important for us to do. You know we live in this culture where things can become extremely polarized. You know where all my friends look the same, all my friends talk the same. You know all my friends are bow hunters or whatever, and you know that's not the way God intended the church to be right. We're not all supposed to just look the same. You know there's going to be a day where all of God's people who have believed in him believed that Jesus was who he said he was and accepted the free gift that he offered of salvation, that there's going to be people from every tongue and tribe and nation in heaven.
Speaker 1And they're all going to look different. That's right. And that's cool, I'm ready. But when we look at our friend groups, do all of our friends look different? Are we only going to be friends with people that believe the same things we believe?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know, and one of the places that I've seen, that you know show up, is in political beliefs.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1You know it's like Democrats and Republicans can't be friends with each other.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And that drives me crazy yeah, it is.
Speaker 2It's so polarizing in the political world right now where you can't have an opinion that differs. If you're not all in this one like basket of belief, then you don't have a place. You know, and I look at that, and I saw a video clip of ronald reagan in a debate. I think it was against maybe walter mondale, maybe I could be getting that wrong, but in that they were questioning reagan's age and his comment was I, you know something to this effect. I promise that I will not use his lack of inexperience against him.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, or I won't use his youth against him. And lack of experience.
Speaker 2Yeah and so, but, and then you know, I think it was Walter Mondale. He's over there laughing at what Reagan says, and so it wasn't this thing where you see today, where people are at each other's throat all the time, they were actually able to sit up there and laugh, even in this huge moment. Yeah, even though their, their thoughts and their beliefs were a little different. Um, I think, when it comes to faith, you know the the challenge with that is there is one way, and so being able to convey that in a way that someone can hear, and certainly the gospel, at times is going to be offensive, but if it's offensive, I don't think we have to make it that way.
Speaker 1Yeah, it doesn't have to be offensive 100% of the time.
Speaker 2Yeah if it's offensive, it's because it calls us to, like we talked about earlier, admit that we need help.
Speaker 1Yeah and yeah yeah, I think that's a good point. You know, our, our, our speech is supposed to be seasoned with salt. Yes, to cause people to want to know. Yeah, well, you know why we are the way we are right, um, you know, and, and, just like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm ambassadors for all these brands that are represented on this wall.
Speaker 1Back, here, I need to do things that put their products in the best light all the time, and they all have their pros and they all have their cons, but, you know, my responsibility is to share what their pros are and why it would be a good decision to use, to, to use any of those or choose to to have one or the other. And, um, you know, I think that the same holds true with how, how I interact with people, about sharing my faith. You know, it's something that we do every day. As often as we get the opportunity, we're sharing our faith with people, and that does not mean we're beating people over the head with a Bible Right? You know, you can share your faith with somebody without ever mentioning the Bible.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know, I would say it's easier if you talk about scripture, it's easier if you talk about a story that's in the Bible, and I would also say that you know that opportunity is going to present itself. But if you walk around being a jerk all the time, you're never going to have a chance.
Speaker 1Part of that, yeah you're never going to have that chance, wouldn't you say that wes? I mean, and you know, most of the time in here we're dealing with people that are happy, they're excited, they're getting, they're getting, uh, they're doing something that is a hobby that they enjoy doing, you know. So it gives us an opportunity just to talk with them and, um, you know, I I think that there's something to be said about that. And then you know how, how we share stuff with people. I think it matters. How you treat people matters. And listen, I'm not going to do the right thing 100 of the time.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mess up every single day, for sure right and um.
Speaker 1Thankfully, that's not what christianity is right it's not saying, hey, I'm perfect, you're not. That's not what church is. You know, it's not a building full of perfect people, because if that's what it was, I ruin it every time.
Speaker 3I go.
The Truth and Offense of Scripture
Speaker 2Yeah, I think about Jesus even telling the disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, and in that he's talking about the hypocrisy Pharisees were the religious rulers amongst the Jewish people and he tells them you know, do what they say, not as they do. Now, think about how much the word hypocrite gets thrown around in church. But I think to me and this is just my thought, I think a lot of times that word is misused because a hypocrite is not someone who's imperfect.
Speaker 1A hypocrite is someone who's imperfect but claims perfection, and so, literally taken from a word that, in greek, was used originally for actors in a play right that would play more than one part right and they would have a mask over their face and they would play more than one part right, and so ask over the face, and they would play more than one part.
Speaker 2And so they played the hypocrite. Well, what were they doing? They were some one person, but they're pretending to be someone else, and I think to me it's important to make that distinction that you're not a hypocrite because you're imperfect. You're a hypocrite when you're imperfect but you have an air of perfection, or you actually claim like I've got this figured out Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And so I think that's important for us to understand is like God doesn't call us. He calls us to be perfect, as he is perfect, but the realization is that is, I need help, right, because I'm not that, and I think that Jesus, when he said that, is trying to get people to realize all right, there's something more. I do need a way to guide that I can't provide myself.
Speaker 1Right, because if we could have done it, we would have done it a long time ago. Yeah.
Speaker 2And again it goes back to that Galatians chapter two, where it talks about you know. If we could be saved without you know, in our own righteousness, then Jesus died for nothing, died in vain.
Speaker 3Yeah, right, and that's.
Speaker 2that's tough to think of, but I think you know, and the passage that we're looking at is John 14, 6,. You know where Jesus answered Thomas, who said Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way? And Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Most offensive passages for people in our world right now, because nobody wants an absolute truth that doesn't line up with their truth yeah, wes.
Speaker 1Why do you think that people are offended by that in your eyes? Um this is the part where I'm forcing the talk there you go probably because they oh sorry, I fidget when I get nervous.
Speaker 4There's nothing to be nervous about.
Speaker 1You're just talking to me and old Brandon over here.
Speaker 2And not the millions that listen to this podcast. One or two, that's it.
Speaker 1One or two Million, just one or two.
Speaker 3Just one or two.
Speaker 2Not millions, just literally one or two Right mama and you know, daddy no, well, yeah, maybe my daddy.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay, all right, there you go. That's the two um probably because they're lazy they want an easier way they want to be able to come up with their own way yeah or just say you know what? God created me, I'm, I'm his yeah I'm his child and and everything's gonna be good.
Speaker 2Yeah okay yeah, I think that's good. You know, I see a lot of it as too, where you know, you hear this a lot now, well, your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth and like that doesn't even make sense, like there's been families and friendships shattered over that crap right there.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, I mean it's it, it's it's absurd yeah it is absolutely absurd that somebody would would think that, well, that's your, your truth. No, it's not my truth, it's the truth.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2Well, and you look at it today and there's so many. It's such a pluralistic society and what I mean by that is it's like there's so many different types of thought. I think about where Paul was, where he went into Athens and he's like I see you're very religious. I even saw, basically, a shrine set up to an unknown God. He said well, let me tell you who this unknown God is, they had altars to everything.
Speaker 2But we're kind of that way today is that everybody kind of builds the God that they want him to be, because they don't want to look at scripture and say this is an absolute and um. So it's just easier to kind of go with the flow of you, you have your truth, I'll have my truth, and kind of like what I was saying, it's like we'll just let that work for us. But reality is it doesn't work and the reason it doesn't is because nobody's done, nobody else has done for us what jesus did. And I think that's the hard thing is for people to realize that there is one way that there is no other option, that there is absolute truth.
Speaker 2you can't say there isn't absolute truth, because if you say there isn't absolute truth, you're establishing an absolute truth, so you're contradicting yourself. And so you look at that and there has to be a standard. And people say, well, all roads lead to heaven, or all roads will lead to the same place. And I'm like, how can they, when they go different directions, if they contradict themselves, how can both be true?
Speaker 1Well, why is it easier to accept an untruth or a half-truth versus something that's proven to be true?
Speaker 2I think it's because it's comfortable. It's comfortable, it's not polarizing. If I just normalize someone else's truth, then I don't have to take the chance of offending them. I don't have to take the chance of being criticized so is it that we're so scared of offending somebody?
Speaker 2I think that's part of it, yeah, and then I think, honestly, the church and believers we haven't done ourselves any favors and really representing jesus in a positive light in many cases. Okay, so what people have seen of christianity you know has been more of. I'm just going to throw it out. There is what so many people have seen of christianity I mean there's places where they're two, three generations removed from a Judeo-Christian background, so they haven't heard the things we've heard.
Speaker 2They didn't grow up in the Bible Belt and so what they know of Christianity is, you know, this pastor of this church, megachurch and whatever was caught embezzling money, or he was caught having an affair, or he was you know those different things, and so that becomes well, that's those christians again, you know, or, um, it's the, the christians who do have that mindset of self-righteousness, and so they do this off-putting to people.
Speaker 2And a lot of it, I think, is people don't want to hear the truth of the gospel because we haven't represented it very well the, the, the culture has known so much more of what we're against than really what we're for, and I think that is a huge problem in the church. Is man, like God is for us, right? He sent his son because he loves us. He sent his son even while we were enemies of him, when we had set ourselves against him. He made a way for us through Jesus, and that's the thing that I think is really important is to be able to convey that in a way that is honest and forthright. But also the good news and so. But you can't have good news without bad news, and the bad news is none of us deserve to spend eternity with the father, none of us deserve to spend eternity with the Father.
Speaker 1None of us, and so, but the good news is, he made a way for us to you know, I think back to another time, another generation, and all they talked about was the bad news.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I mean even thinking back, like into the 1700s. I mean, one of the most famous sermons ever written was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards. And so there is the reality that God's wrath fell upon sin and there will be a judgment one day.
Speaker 2But the great news, the best news that human ears have ever heard, is that God made a way for us to be saved from that. And, um, you know, it's one of those things where, gosh, I look at the cross and I look at what Jesus did for us, and why is he the only way? Again, no one else has done for us what he did and what you think. Well, what did he do? Well, he lived a life we couldn't live. He went to the cross, which was even in the Old Testament. It talks about anyone who hangs on the tree, which means cross, whatever, as you look forward, is cursed.
Speaker 2So he became cursed, so we could become blessed in the presence and the purpose and the power of God, and so what's incredible, though, is that to think about this and this is mind-blowing, it's mind-boggling Jesus didn't just die for my sin or your sin. He died for all of the sin that has ever been committed, is being committed and will ever be committed, and so and all of God's wrath towards that evil which is what it is, if you really call it what it is fell upon him in that moment, Right, and I think about him in the Garden of gethsemane and him asking god if there's a plan b, could we do that?
Speaker 2and he specifically says take this cup from me right and that's referring to the cup of god's wrath that bitter cup that he is and he he was. He knew that, as bad as the crucifixion was physically, he knew that what he was about to endure, as far as the wrath of God falling upon him for every sin that was ever committed and would ever be committed, and the separation from the Father that happened in that moment, was going to be so much worse.
Speaker 1Well, he knew that he was about to experience complete separation from.
Speaker 2God.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Which he never had Ever.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, and that's what he wanted to. Yeah, I mean, jesus the man wanted, didn't want to go through the pain and the agony of it, but Jesus the God didn't want to go through the separation from God, and I mean God literally turned his back on him when that wrath was poured out on him because he can't look on. He can't even look on sin. That's how holy God is.
Speaker 2And what's crazy and so cool to me to see this and makes me so grateful for what Jesus did, is that there was so much wrath and judgment poured out upon him that even creation responded Right Like there was the earthquake. The sky went dark, um, and you think about those types of things that the earth literally split open and because of the wrath of god falling upon him in that moment and this moment that had been, you know, prophesied, forecast, foreshadowed throughout all of history, and in that moment, all of it fell upon him so that it wouldn't fall upon us, who would just believe and call upon his name and receive, like you said, that free gift.
Speaker 2So incredible to think about that. And you know to see, he did that. And even those who were made righteous you can go back and read this in Genesis but like Abraham, and it was just because he believed God Right and he trusted so it's always been by faith but for them their sin still had to be paid for ultimately. And Jesus took that sin, and it wasn't like the little sins we think about, like oh, I told a little white lie, it was like the grossest sin you can imagine All of it. And he died for it and took the wrath.
Speaker 1Hey, he died for that little white lie too, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2they would have sent us to hell just as much as anything else.
Speaker 1I'm talking about busted the gates.
Speaker 2Yes, yes, as much as anything else I'm talking about busted the gates off of hell, yes, yes.
Speaker 1So I think that it's important that we don't get into a trap of weighing sin, because sin is sin in God's eyes and some of it is more offensive to us. And who are we to say, man, that person is so much worse than I am, we're all worse, it's all ridiculous. So you said earlier that the church, meaning us, is bad about saying what we're not for.
Speaker 1That being the message of what we're not for, and we should be a little bit better about what we are for. What are some of those things that we should be better about communicating to the world about what we are for?
Building Strong Families and Priorities
Speaker 2I think that the message of love grace that you're never too far gone to be for God to save you, forgive you, restore you, mend you and it all what's required of you is to receive and just to turn to him. I mean, that's literally what he wants is for us to turn and come to him versus running from him, and to be able to get that message to people that it doesn't matter where you've been, what you've done, who you've done it with, god's arm's not too short to save and Christ paid the price for those sins. And I think you know God, through his intervention into our life, through the power of the Holy Spirit, opens our eyes to see that. And that's the message, I think, the whole message. If you don't get the whole message of the darkness and the light, then something's missing the gospel without sin isn't good news.
Speaker 2But the gospel without hope is just a partial gospel. Yeah. It's not even the gospel. It's because there's no good news.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, I think it's important. The practical things too, right? I mean, like I am for families.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1I am for family. I think family is the building block of any society. I think I could go anywhere in the world right now and if I could find a way to communicate with anybody anywhere in the world, I could talk about how they could do things to make their family stronger, to make their family relationships more healthy, and they would be happy to listen to that. Yeah, and that's what God is about. God is about the family, that's the first thing he ever, the first institution that he ever put in place, was the family.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 1You know, and so I think the church should be about making strong families, making strong dads and making strong mothers and making it that that relationship is is extremely important. Yeah, like you, can't, I can't, I'm not going to say it should be the priority. Our priority should be our relationship with God.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1And this weird idea that you can have more than one priority is is is ridiculous A priority. You can have one priority and that's it. You can't have 10 priorities. If you have 10 priorities, you're just running through life not knowing what you're living for.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know if everything's important.
Speaker 1Yeah, a priority means it comes before everything else, right, right, I mean that's literally. If you break the word down, it means you're putting this before anything else yeah so you can't like as a company. You'll see a company say one of our, one of our priorities or our core priorities are this, and they'll have 10 bullet points on a PowerPoint or something it's like what are you?
Speaker 1talking about. So what you're saying is you really don't know what you believe. That's what I take away from it. So our priority has to be our relationship with God, but one of our big things that we need to be about is the family, about marriage. It has to be a big deal and I think if I'm going to look at how we behave as the church talking about us, I'm not talking about a building with a name on the front of it.
Speaker 1I'm talking about the church, the big C, the people. Then how we treat marriage is a big deal. Absolutely and everybody's looking at that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1If all the marriages of believers look the same as the marriages of unbelievers, what are we representing?
Speaker 2Yeah, and going back to the foundation, I think the challenge for for Christian marriages that was a diet Coke, by the way, but the challenge for Christian marriages is oftentimes they're built on the same foundation as a non-Christian marriage, and oftentimes are even built upon a foundation that, uh, you know is incorrect, and so, again, you end up with something that is hard to sustain or built on, built on their kids. It can be built on a lot of things, yeah.
Speaker 1We'll see that a lot of times where, where a relationship is built around the kids and then when, when the kids fly the coop.
Speaker 3It's like you know what do we do now you?
Speaker 1look around. You don't even like the person that's in the room anymore.
Speaker 3It's like man. How did that even happen?
Speaker 1yeah, you know how, just like we go back to that, that archery thing, or to the hunting thing, we're we're saying get in the woods and be intentional, or get out there and shoot your bow and be intentional and if you see something's not right, well, figure it out.
Speaker 1Don't rock on for 20 years and not address a problem, you know, because you don't want to offend your wife, or you don't want to offend your husband, or you don't want to pick a fight or something. Well, if you don't want to pick a fight, do it in a way that doesn't pick a fight. You don't want to pick a fight or something. Well, if you don't want to pick a fight, do it in a way that doesn't pick a fight. Sure, you know, I mean you got to be able to talk about things.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, sometimes my wife will bring up stuff to me that I don't want to hear, you know, and sometimes I react instead of respond. Yeah, you know, I mean, I am guilty of that and I hate it when that happens, and it usually results in an apology at some point. You know where I go to her. Or I go to my family and look and say, look, I really screwed this up I shouldn't have said what I said, or I shouldn't have done what I did, or whatever you know whoops yeah whoops, um, but.
Speaker 1But I think that when we're looking at those things that we should be communicating, that we're about, you know, it should be evident in the way that we live. It should be evident in how we, how we, respond to things. It should it should be evident in the way we respond to loss. We don't know how to respond to loss, whether it's loss of life, loss of a job, loss of a child, of a spouse, a spouse that graduates to glory sooner than we thought she was going to. We don't know how to respond to it. And we don't know how to respond to it because we never talk about it. That should be something that we celebrate. Mourn, yes, we should absolutely mourn, because when that person leaves, there is a void in our lives. There is a. There's a void in our lives that we have to learn how to, you know, not cope with it, or, or, or, or, you know, make it go away, as fast as we possibly can, right you shouldn't just oh, move on and business as usual, Everything's fine.
Speaker 1Well, no, dad's not here anymore.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know we we have to life's going to be it's never going to be the same again. Life's going to be different now. But how do we, how do we do that? You know, and it's going to be different. It's going to be different. It's going to be different for everybody in the family. It's going to be different a week after and it's going to look different five years after.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Right, but how do we do that? In a way that we're saying, I believe, that when she took her last breath here, she took her first breath in heaven.
Speaker 2Right and.
Speaker 1I'm going to celebrate that and I'm going to be okay with the fact that it was God's plan that she's no longer here with me. You know, but it's also his plan that I'm still here.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So what am I supposed to be doing? How am I still supposed to be growing, how am I still supposed to be a functioning person and not just cordial with people? But, still loving my neighbor.
Speaker 3How do I do that?
Speaker 1And I think it's just something that we don't do.
Speaker 2We don't talk about yeah, and those things are so painful and hurt so much, but ultimately our hope is in heaven. Our hope is in Christ. Our hope is in something that is unchangeable.
Speaker 1I just think we have to remind ourselves of that often I think we do too, and I think we need to remind ourselves of it before it ever yes, it's our door. Yes, if we're not living in that way. That's like if I if I were to go pick up one of these bows right now.
Speaker 1Let's say it was still hunting season and I went and picked up one of these bows and I went over there and I picked up a site and I got my release and I got my arrows and I went to the woods. You know what? I'm probably not going to do very good.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean I might, I might do, okay, you know, let's say I take a shot or two and make sure I can at least hit something, but reality is that I'm probably not going to be successful. Right, because I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared for it, and lack of preparation causes panic.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So if we're not prepared to do these things, like we go to church every week and we talk about how we believe all these things, like we go to church every week and we talk about how we're, you know, we believe all these things, we talk about these things that we believe and we talk about, okay, we don't want to behave in this way because that doesn't reflect what we believe. Or you don't want to do this because, man, you could experience the wrath of God if you do this right.
Speaker 1I mean, that's what we were talking about a few minutes ago the sinners in the hands of an angry God. If you do this right, I mean, that's what we were talking about a few minutes ago the sinners in the hands of an angry God, or whatever the name of the sermon was. But how do I? How do I prepare for every part of life the way God wants me to do it? That's what I want to try to communicate to people. You know what? We're getting ready to go into our eighth hunting season.
Speaker 1And I am. I am preparing to go into that eighth hunting season with this bow shop and I'm so, I'm so thankful that we get to do it. I am, I'm excited about it. Um, you know, I look forward to it I look forward to coming to work every day.
Speaker 1I enjoy what I do. God could take this away tomorrow. Sure, you know. I mean, he could literally take this away tomorrow, or I could make a bad choice or something, and it it be gone. It could go away. And then what do I do? Do I stop praising God because I don't feel like it went the way that I wanted it to go?
Speaker 1No, I can't just praise Him. I can't be like man. God showed up. Look at this, we got a new building and it's this brand new stuff. And he showed up and showed out. Well, I better be ready to say the same doggone thing if this place burns down tonight. And I better be able to really say the same thing if it burns down tonight and then my insurance company comes and says hey, you know, your alarm system didn't work the way it was supposed to, so we're not covering this you know what I mean.
Speaker 1That would really suck.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I'm just going to tell you that would really suck, because there's a lot of stuff in here, that would just be gone, Right, but I'd still. I still got to praise God in that. Yeah, I got to because I said I have trusted him with my eternity. How in the world am I going to be in a place where I'm not going to trust him with today and tomorrow?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And that's what I'm saying when I get mad at him or when I say things that I shouldn't say, or by, or I behave in ways that I shouldn't behave. That's what I'm saying is, I don't trust him.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1That's what it really boils down to and that that'll drive people away from God faster than anything. Yeah, you know, if I say by my actions or my words that I don't trust him, they're going to be like I'm out out. Right, john, don't trust him. You know, after all these years he's been saying how much he trusts and all this kind of stuff. And then you know, the crap hit the fan and this is what happened. I mean, that's a big deal, right? Um, sorry, I'll calm back down.
Discovering Truth and God's Grace
Speaker 1That coat kicked in really quick, um, but I mean I just think that when we talk about that, we should be talking, we should be communicating the things that we're for. I think that it really causes us to do a serious evaluation about what are we for. You know, what are those things that we're for? Yep, and okay, are the things that I'm for? Do those line up with God, line up with god if I'm going to be a man after god's heart, what does that mean?
Speaker 1yeah you know, because who he said that about was david and david boy he had a lot of he made he made some mistakes, but I mean he made.
Speaker 1he made some big mistakes and there were consequences for it. Yeah, you know, and there were a lot of consequences for it. I mean, he didn't get to build the temple that he wanted to build because of the blood on his hands. You know, he lost a child because of his behavior and the things that he did, you know. So I just look at all of those stories that we have in scripture to see you know. So I just look at all those stories that we have in Scripture to see you know, if we don't do things God's way, what it's going to look like my salvation is going to be intact. I never have to pray like David prayed where he said God, don't take your spirit from me.
Speaker 1I never have to do that because Jesus settled that and that's done. That part's done right. Amen, praise the Lord, we can turn it off right there.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1But how do we get into that place where we evaluate what we're for and make sure it lines up with what God's for, and then we know that we're being his ambassador, not just by going around telling everybody what they shouldn't do, right? So that's what Dub would have said, but I was stepping over him.
Speaker 2You're reading his mind. I turned my mic up and he just didn't get to put that out there. No, I think that's good, because, you know, if our beliefs don't line up with our actions, then there's something, there's something's off you know and we're we're being guilty of coming up with our own truth.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Right, and you know, and, and I think that comes back to really realizing that our view of God has to be shaped by scripture, not by what we want God to be.
Speaker 3because if not, we don't really have anything to stand on.
Speaker 2If he's the God of our creation and not the God of the Bible, then it's kind of like a cosmic Santa Claus. We just kind of made him up and made him what we want him to be, and it's certainly not what he is. And I just think about that man, because a lot of what you said, like, is so true. But it is challenging at times, you know, and I think that's why we have to consistently do what we're instructed is to set our minds on things above, you know, to live in that mindset and really to realize that our hope is in heaven, our hope is in Christ, our hope is that our names are written in heaven, you know, and that we are. We have that confidence as children of God. And again, we have that confidence because of what Jesus did for us. Otherwise there'd be no reason for confidence you know, so I think that that's that's so important.
Speaker 2You know, and you know, know as as abrasive as sometimes it can seem, you know, and as narrow minded as people can say it is, there is one way to heaven and it's through jesus. But I tell people a lot of times it may seem narrow-minded, but it's a lot broader path than there was before.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, you know it's broad enough for the whole world to fit through it.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think that it's described as the narrow path, not because it's so hard to get down, because Jesus says that his burden is light, but because not very many people choose to go down.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and um very few believe.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, that's just the reality of it.
Speaker 4So I was at a Bible study a couple of weeks ago and the guy who was leading it pulled up the statistics of what it was, and it was like Christians, or claim to be Christians, had gone from like 70 something percent down to like 50 something percent and then atheists went up from like 15 percent to I think it was like 37 percent crazy well and in the US and what's cool, though, is that god is still saving people, though right and like I think that's something that we have to have confidence in is that the gospel still answers the greatest need that humans have absolutely, and so the greatest, the the biggest problem we have is sin.
Speaker 1Yes, that is, that is it. It's not financial issues, it's not economic problems, it's not geopolitical unrest or anything like that, it is sin.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And when you look at it and realize that that problem's been solved through Jesus and that he is still saving people. I had a guy come up to me after church this past Sunday and he said man, can you help me understand what's going on with me? And I said I mean I'll do my best. And so he was like three days ago I was an atheist, didn't believe in God. And he said I was in my shower and he said I just had my phone playing on youtube and so it was just kind of throwing up different random videos and stuff like that. And he said a video of phil robertson came on and he was talking about the importance of family and he was talking about how poorly he had led his family early on but how, when he came to know Christ, it changed all of that and he began to be the leader God wanted him to be.
Encountering Faith and Redemption
Speaker 2And this man told me he said in that moment, in my shower, by myself, there was a presence that came over me, that was like it was tangible, and he said it was something I've never experienced before. And he said but all I could do is sob. And he said I'm literally in my shower crying my eyes out and he's like had been to church a little bit as a child, but he's like, okay, is this what I've heard people talk about? He's almost like an atheist going is that you god? And so it just kind of opens him up to this place of going.
Speaker 2I haven't believed in god, but something just happened yeah and so he said he called his brother-in-law, who was a believer, and his brother-in-law, who was a believer, and his brother-in-law was trying to walk him through like the Lord's just kind of pursuing you, I mean the only explanation is the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2And so he shared three different passages of Scripture with him. Well, his brother-in-law asked him what's your next step? Like what are you going to do now? And he goes, I don't know. And so he hung up with his brother-in-law and he calls someone else I can't remember Someone else in his family and he said where do you go to church? And they happened to come to our church. So he walked in that morning and he said, from the moment he walked in the doors, he started bawling like god's just all over this guy right. And so he comes in, he says he cries through this like worship time. And then, when we opened the scripture, the three passages of scripture I went to were the same three that his brother-in-law shared from at the same.
Speaker 2And so he's like three days ago I would have told you this was coincidence, but he's like there's too many things happening in my life they're telling me otherwise and it wasn't the moment of salvation for him, but it was just this moment where I was able to say whatever questions you have, we'll do our best to answer and we want to help you. You know, just walk this journey out. And for him it was just that realization that God is real.
Speaker 4Oh yeah.
Speaker 2And I told him this. I said look, today might not be the day that you say yes to Christ, but he's not going to stop pursuing you. He's after you and it's because he loves you and my hope is that you'll say yes to what he's drawing you to. And so it was a really cool moment to be able to help him kind of understand what was happening. But I guess I say that just to say, with all the statistics that point to the wrong direction, god's still turning lives around and that's encouraging, even when man it can look pretty dismal, you know. But our hope is in Christ, who made a way.
Speaker 3That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1It seems too simple.
Speaker 2Yeah, and we like to complicate it. That's right, that's right so well, Dub looks like he needs another liquid death.
Speaker 1All right, we're going to call it right there. Thanks, dub, you did good.
Speaker 2Appreciate you, man.
Speaker 1Led the way, or we should hit the button.
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