I am passionate about hunting white tailed deer, and I’ve been pursuing that passion for more than forty years. There are many obstacles to overcome in hunting, and I could give you a long list. For now, I’ll chose the one that has been the biggest challenge for me: finding good ground to hunt.

Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about because you’ve always had good ground to hunt. But let me assure you, there are a lot of hunters out there who don’t. I’m one of them.

When I say good ground, I mean ground where I can hunt trophy bucks without competition and distraction from other hunters. To gain that kind of ground, I have tried just about everything.

My career started with being sneaky. I didn’t know anything about hunting, and I didn’t know any landowners, so I looked for land that wasn’t posted and did my best to not be discovered. That usually meant parking a distance from the ground and then walking in before daylight and staying ‘till after dark. That made for very long and cold days, but passion will drive you to do things like that.

When I started pastoring, church people began offering me private ground to hunt on. That was great, but other hunters also had permission – and many of them had been hunting those areas for years and already had their permanent stands in the best spots. My heart wasn’t in it.

My passion then drove me to buy land. Heather and I bought thirteen acres, and for the first time in my life, I had my own ground. Or not. I quickly discovered neighbors who had hunted that ground their whole lives and they weren’t happy about a new owner who was giving them the boot. It got a little ugly, so I wasn’t even able to hunt my own little piece of ground in peace. Again, my heart wasn’t in it.

We later sold that ground and I tried hunting State Game Lands. That was just plain nuts. There was a tree stand every fifty yards, and in rifle season, it looked like a pumpkin patch of orange coats. My heart was definitely not into that craziness.

My passion then led me to leasing ground. I found two-hundred acres in Crawford County in northwestern PA and a small group of friends to hunt with me and help pay for it. It was prime deer habitat with agriculture and thick creek bottoms meandering through the property. There was a lot of big buck sign and everything seemed perfect, until we discovered that the good ol’ boys who lived locally hunted the ground when we weren’t around. The big bucks disappeared. Living four hours away, there wasn’t a blasted thing we could do about it. My heart moved on again.

As kind of a last resort, a friend showed me a place to hunt where the bucks were big and hardly any hunters were crazy enough to access it. Getting to the ground required a two-hour hike up a mountain and deep into state forest land.

I’ll never forget our first hunt. We packed our tree stands in on a Sunday and then made the long hike back to camp – four hours round trip. My boots didn’t cooperate, and I developed a sore spot on my leg. The next morning, we got up at 3 AM and hiked the two hours back in. It was painful, but the hunting was great! Just after daylight, I got winded by a huge ten point that walked in from behind me. Thirty minutes later, I arrowed a nice seven point with long tines. There was no way to drag that big buck out of the woods, so I hung it up, skinned it, and hiked back to camp to get a knife and meat bags. I returned the next morning to get the meat. With a pack weighing about sixty pounds, I again made the hike back to camp. My leg was killing me.

If you’re keeping track, that’s twelve hours of hiking with a sore leg. Nuts, right? You bet. It’s amazing what you can overcome when your heart is in it.

I’ve been hunting that ground for the past ten years. I did find a way in that is shorter, but man is it steep. I’ve even taken up backpacking and spending a few days alone in the wilderness. Sleeping in a tent on a mountaintop in November can be miserable cold, but the two beautiful ten points hanging on my wall tell me the suffering is worth it. It’s an awesome and grueling adventure. I do it because my heart is in it.

Passion and suffering are connected. Some people are passionate about marathons and they suffer months of preparation to finish a race. Others are passionate about music and they suffer through years of practice to master an instrument. What about you? What are you passionate about? Whatever it is, you are willing to endure a lot of suffering to enjoy it. Why? Because your heart is in it.

Christian, you say you love God. That’s good. But let me ask, when was the last time you truly suffered to grow and strengthen your relationship with God? It’s a fair question, and the answer may reveal a bit of a disconnect between what you say and how you live. Is your heart really in it?

Jesus is passionate for you. He suffered terribly to win you and to demonstrate His love for you. Right now, He is sitting at the right hand of His heavenly Father and He is mediating passionately on your behalf. As your High Priest, He has suffered just like you. He is familiar with your pain. He did it because His heart is in it for you.

But what is your life revealing about your love for Him? Can you use the word passionate to describe your relationship with God? Is lukewarm a better word? You say you love Him, but does your life reflect a passion so intense that you are willing to suffer to enjoy the fullness of His power and presence?

Is your heart in it? It’s a fair question, and one I will leave you to ponder while I do some head-scratching of my own. Read Revelation 3:14-22.