Fishing With The Guys

Our Annual Guys Fishing Trip is coming up - Thursday evening through Saturday morning (June 14-16, '12).  It has been one of the major highlights of my year for over decade and a half now.

Tim, Jay, Darrin, Chad, myself - and now Andy - have been carving out 2-3 days every Spring to just get away from it all - to do some fishing and do the male-bonding thing.  Chad's family owns a nice "get-away" cabin on their family farm property - and it sits right on a beautiful 3 acre lake.  It does not receive that much fishing pressure throughout the year, so when the weather conditions are good - the fishing is utterly amazing!!  Crappies or bluegill will bite on almost every cast - and when the bass are hitting, it is possible to reel one in the size of a small Buick.

Even better than the fishing is the genuine Christian fellowship and friendship we experience and continue to develop with each other.  When we started going out there we were all young husbands and dads - with young careers or ministries.  So much has happened in our lives since those early years.  We have all weathered significant joys and struggles.  A LOT of support, encouragement - and admonishment - have been given and received over the course of our journey together.  Yes, the weekend is full of fishing and bad jokes and eating and watching western/action flicks and late nights and a few beers.  But it is also full of life-changing conversation and sharp discussion and sometimes painfully vulnerable sharing - and prayer - the kind that ALL guys need to stop being stupid and start being smarter.

I look back at the early years of our Trip and I have to laugh - we were so clueless!!  And maybe we still are now...  But that's not the point.  The point is that God has used this Trip in our lives to continue equipping us for the Seasons of our lives - as we go through them!

Much of what we get to experience every year at the Hertz Cabin, some men never get to experience - in a lifetime!

The best way to describe what happens to me - what God does to me - through these Fishing Trips and through these "I'll Take The Hill With You" friends, is that I am - STRENGTHENED.

I recorded/edited this from our Fishing Trip last year:

Annual Guys Fishing Trip - 2011