Devotions For Outdoorsman: "The End Game Is All The Same"

I put a lot of pressure on myself as the host of Final Descent Outdoors to make sure I kill big mature animals every time. I have a TV Show to produce, fans to captivate, sponsors to appease and so on. It’s a lot of pressure. Most of the time I stumble into a couple kills that allow me to not just host every episode but to actually be in a few episodes as well. But not every year. I have had a few horrible seasons in over a decade filming for the show. I think back to a few years back when I hunted, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, Ohio, Kentucky, and Nebraska. I filmed over 400 deer in 6 states and not one of them was a mature buck! That my friends was a hard season.

If I am being 100% honest I compare myself to other hosts of TV Shows I know. They hunt all these weeks, I see them taking big bucks all over the country and that pressure I put on myself to be like them, to be in the same conversation as them is heavy. So heavy that at times I want to buckle under it. Makes me ask if I am good enough because honestly most of them are better at this gig than I am. I can admit that but the pressure to keep up is great, it makes me weary, and in the end makes me question myself and what I’m doing.

We put a lot of unnecessary pressure on our selves in life. We worry about what others think, if we are doing enough and to be honest much of that is about pleasing others around us. We all sat to be known for being good at what we do. If that’s hunting, our job, our hobbies or whatever we spend out time doing. We all want people to acknowledge our effort and we want to be successful at whatever it is we are doing. Don’t get me wrong, success at those things are not bad! But when it consumes us, weighs us down, and causes us to forget what really matters then it becomes a problem.

Matthew 6: 25- 34 reminds us “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

What a reminder! All this outside pressure we put on ourselves, for what? So we can impress or keepmup with a stigma we have created? What really matters? What really matters to you? At the end it won’t be the majority of the things we stress over I promise. I needed this reminder today and I hope you are encouraged by this as well. Be the best version of you that you can be and trust that God has got it all in His hands.

Author Brad Clay is the host of Final Descent Outdoors and a licensed and ordained minister in Oklahoma. Brad served for 12yrs in vocational ministry before stepping out to do full time outdoor ministry in 2013. Brad resides in Edmond, OK.