Familiar Friends

To the uninitiated, the unprepared, the unseeing person, the wilderness can be a dark and foreboding place filled with savage animals and poisonous plants and reptiles that is best to be avoided at all costs.  The mere thought of sleeping on the ground with the spiders, ants, centipedes and other creepy, crawlies gives them an involuntary shudder.

But for the outdoors person, who has learned about wild, edible plants, the leaves, bark and growth patterns of bushes and trees as well as their various uses, the habits and forms of the animals and insects that live in the natural environment, the wilderness becomes a welcoming friend.

So many people try to survive against Nature.  And it is true that Nature is savage, unrelenting and will take your life if given a chance.  Not that it has any evil intentions or personality, just that the environment that God created to be our home has been cursed and no longer sustains us without significant effort.  The key to survival is knowledge and training and learning to move with the environmental conditions rather than against it.  Nature has seasons and rhythms and our response to them will determine if we survive and thrive or fail and perish.  Knowing what to do in a given situation and having time to practice those skills in a controlled environment is why we teach classes here at the WayPoint Survival School.

Walking through the yard this morning and looking down at the familiar friends, the edible plants and up at the trees, I got a wonderful sense of appreciation for all I have learned over the years of study and practice in multiple environments.  From the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state to Death Valley and the other deserts of the Southwest, as well as the desert areas surrounding the Dead Sea in Israel, from the beaches of Florida, Mexico, the Bahamas, the East and West coasts of the US, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, and the Mediterranean, as well as the Eastern woodlands in which I grew up, I am always learning, growing and hungering for the knowledge and adaptability of the truly accomplished and prepared outdoorsman.  Indeed, like the Marine Corps, our motto should be to improvise, adapt and overcome.  This is the thought process that happens in the mind of the trained person, to look at a situation and Stop, Think, Observe and Plan, (STOP) in order to survive whatever may come their way.

So much of my appreciation for the outdoors comes from my relationship with God.  Indeed, in all the world I see His Handiwork and it pleases me to be a part of it.  As I roam about His Creation, I marvel at the beauty still left to us in this heavily sin-damaged environment and long for the day when He restores all things and then makes all things new.  A new heaven and a new earth in which there will be no curse of sin and once again all of nature will be our friend.  The wolf will lay down with the lamb and the lion will eat straw like the ox!  But until then, I take great comfort from knowing the Creator and knowing that regardless of what happens, even if a tragedy occurs and I do not survive, I am safe in His keeping and He will take me to my eternal home to live with Him.  How about you?  Do you see familiar friends when you look around your home or wilderness area?  How about God?  Is He your familiar friend?  You know, He wants to be your friend today.  Why don’t you invite Him in?  He’s standing right outside your heart’s door knocking……

Scroll down and like and share below.  Help me get the Word out!  Thanks!

PS. We have just added a Facebook Page, it’s WayPoint Survival.  Look us up and send us a friend request!  You can also check out my other websites where you can set up training for many of these skills at www.waypointsurvival.com and look at and order my custom knives at www.benderknifeworks.com.

James B