I awake to the sound of my dad stirring in the pitch black night and within a few moments the light of the old Coleman lantern begins to fill the tent with a soft glow. The year is 1971 and my dad, brother and I are awakening to opening morning of deer season in southeastern New Mexico’s Guadalupe Mountains.
Since that time, my hunting adventures have taken me to many of New Mexico and Southern Colorado’s most treasured landscapes. From the brown, rocky and cactus filled country of the Bootheel, to the cool, conifer and aspen covered mountains of Northern New Mexico and Colorado. Through the many changes that have occurred over the past 46 years, the one constant throughout that time has been family and the outdoors.
My dad, who was a farmer most of his life, understood the connection to the natural world as much as anyone I have ever known. And that connection was passed along to my brother and I. The past twenty years, while others may have taken trips to Disneyland or other far away places, my wife and I have taken our two sons to explore New Mexico’s great outdoors. Much of this time hunting New Mexico’s most wild landscapes in search of wild game.
Today only around 5% of our country’s population participate in hunting making my family a minority in an increasingly urban society. The naivete of my way of life has lead to many questions about why I hunt. Although I often explain about the meat it provides my family, the memories we make in the field, and the breathtaking landscapes we get to visit, further reflections reveals it is much more than that.
Psalms 19:1 and Roman’s 1:20 speak to the majesty of God’s creation and describe the two ways He reveals himself to us. One is the special revelation which is God revealing himself through scripture and through Christ, The second way is the general revelation which is God revealing himself to all mankind through His creation.
It is when I read these passages that it becomes most clear to me why I spend time hunting and in the outdoors. It is here that I feel the awesomeness of God through time spent in His creation. Sitting in a duck blind as a hint of pink pierces the eastern horizon, traversing rugged mountain landscapes in search of a mule deer buck, or listening to the sound of a bugling bull in an otherwise completely silent morning. Walking the quiet of a desert with family in search of Gambel’s quail or near a farmer’s field waiting for dove to pass overhead. These are all examples of the remarkable access we have to our Creator through the General Revelation.
This is all part of God’s creation that He uses to reveal His most intimate characteristics: a God of might, intelligence, and order. A God who controls powerful forces. For those who do not have God’s word, have no excuse for not knowing Him. His creation is a testimony to His existence. And it is creation that allows me to feel a closer connection to Him that cannot be obtained in our society’s urban settings. God does not say He will reveal himself through man-mad institutions or structures, or sports, work or other aspects of our culture’s prominent values. But He does say He will reveal himself through His creation and that is ultimately why hunting in wild places has given so much pleasure. There can be no greater connection to the natural world, than in search of wild game. And it is through this connection, that I am most aware of His presence as He uses the most majestic aspects of His creation to greet me.
“For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20