Weekly Devotion July 24, 2023
This Devotion was written by Sportsmen Devotional and posted with
permission
Bible Study Verse: John 8:32
"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (NIV)
Thoughts: The south Alabama spring morning exploded with the gobbles of thirteen turkeys.
With this many birds hitting it this hard, I could already smell a bird in the oven. I eased down
into a bottom where an old boss bird was shaking the woods with his gobbles. This wasn't going
to be hunting; it was going to be self-defense. After getting set up, I sent out a smooth set of
yelps; and he just about strangled gobbling back at me. Within five minutes, I could see glimpses
of him working through the bottom about eighty yards out. Back and forth he would strut and
gobble, but he would not come any closer. The morning passed on; and finally, after an hour-and
a-half, he walked away. I was sick. Why, wouldn't he come? I walked to the area where he had
been and found my answer. There was an old barbed wire fence stretched across the bottom, and
he wouldn't cross it. He was a hung-up bird.
Action Point: Life has a way of being full of hung-up birds. We get hung up on all kinds of junk
that keeps us from the awesome life that the Lord has for us. Today, you may be hung up by not
being the person you are called to be. Let the Lord cut the old barbed wire out of your life and set
you free. The Bible teaches us that, "We shall know the truth and it will set us free." If you are
hung up today with a problem that just won't go away, or by the hope of an opportunity that just
won't come, then apply the truth principle to it: Discover God's truth as it relates to what you are
dealing; then, apply that truth and move forward into God's blessing of freedom.
Sportsmen's Tip of the Day: There are times in turkey hunting when you have to relocate. Had
I known about the old fence, I would have simply backed off and somehow eased around the
fence and set up. There is a danger of relocating too quickly or too often. But, some days it is a
must-do trick in order to harvest Old Tom.