The Lord of the Longbeards – Part 2

The Kentucky Spring Turkey Season wrapped up on Sunday. Unfortunately, I finished the season empty‑handed. But I did see some action. One morning, I saw three hens—which are illegal to harvest. One evening, I saw a jake sneaking back to the roost—but only after he caught me on my way back to the house. He, of course, saw me and ran the other direction.
In “Part 1” of this article, we talked about diligence as described in Proverbs 12:27. Throughout the season, I told myself that if I remained diligent, then I would get what was coming to me. After all, that’s what our luxurious American lifestyle has taught us: pick yourself up by the bootstraps, work hard, and you’ll be successful in life.
While discipline and hard work are biblical virtues (Proverbs 6:6–11), Ecclesiastes (which I got to read in the woods) shows us how wisdom and labor do not guarantee success.
Ecclesiastes 2 talks about the vanity of wisdom and the vanity of toil—or hard work. Regarding wisdom, verse 15 says, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also,” referring to death. Wisdom is necessary, but at the end of the day, it does not make us invincible.
Regarding toil, verses 18–20 essentially ask, “What is the point of working so hard if I don’t get to enjoy the fruits of my labor? All of my stuff is just going to someone else who may not steward it well.”
Sometimes, no matter how wise or hard‑working we are, we don’t get the results we want.
In Western society, we have groups of people who think that if someone is struggling, it is always their fault.
We also have groups who think that if someone is struggling, it is never their fault.
Ecclesiastes calls us to be somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, we face the consequences of our foolishness or laziness. Sometimes, things just happen that we have no control over.
This is perfectly personified in hunting. The tom that got away in my first article was due to a lack of wisdom, but the jake that caught me on the way back to the house a few days ago was not.
Sometimes, you fail in hunting because you make dumb mistakes. Other times, you can pick out the best spots, purchase the best gear, and have a perfect plan. But, as my Uncle Brad once told me, “At the end of the day, you don’t know what the stupid animal is gonna do.”
So, if wisdom and hard work don’t always pay off, what is the solution? Ecclesiastes 2:24–25 says:
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”
The solution is this: enjoy God and His gifts. This is also perfectly personified in hunting. I get to wake up, watch the sun rise, listen to God’s creation, and talk to God one‑on‑one. And, Lord willing, I get to enjoy harvesting wild game—an experience I look forward to sharing with my son one day. That is the ultimate goal: to enjoy God through the hunt.

To God be the Glory,
Bro. Casey