More Than Enough

December 30th, 2022

Have you ever had God teach you an important lesson through a hobby, an everyday task, or even one of your favorite activities? Join us today as one of our speakers, Frank Figueroa, Jr., reflects on a true sense of reliance on God's provision that he experienced while on one of his recent hunts.

“Tis the season.” or “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” are phrases often associated with Christmas. But if you are bow-hunters like my wife and I are, these words are more aptly applied to us during the hunting season.

I don’t know if there’s anything that gets me more excited (outside of the ministry, of course) than getting out into nature and seeking the opportunity to harvest one of America’s large game animals using a primitive weapon to provide food for my family. There are months of planning, strategizing, equipping, and adapting as part of the process. Having the right tools and the right mindset are key to whether or not we view hunting as a “success” or not.

When all of these things come together, it is nothing short of incredible! But what about when they don’t? Is the success of the hunt determined by punching your tag? Is it determined by the size and gender of the animal you take? You would almost think so by the way the majority of people react to it. But what about when you have a rough season? What about when you’ve done everything by the book, and still nothing seems to break your way? If you’re like me, you start to use your time to pray and seek the Lord so that you may learn the purpose and lessons behind the situation you’re in . . . And this season I realized that there are many applied theological principles that run parallel in both our Christian walk and hunting. And some of these principles were addressed by Jesus himself when He taught the disciples to pray:

Luke 11:1-4
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Now we understand that this is one of the most profound patterns to prayer ever recorded in Scripture. But why did Jesus teach it? There came a point in time when the disciples realized their ministry was certainly far short of their Master’s ministry. And one day as Jesus was praying, it dawns on one of them (who remained anonymous), that maybe the reason is their ineffective prayer life. Let’s be real . . . There’s a difference between knowing about prayer and knowing how to pray.

Man . . . If we could only be this open and honest with Jesus. No pretense, just an admission of not getting it, and asking again (remember . . . this was the second time He explained this), “Lord, can you teach it to us one more time?”

This season, I had this epiphany. For the past decade, hunting had become more predictable. If I do these things, then I will yield this result . . . until it didn’t. Yes, I would still pray to the Lord for “success,” but it was almost a token prayer in that I was assured of the result in my own mind because I put in the work. But then day after day, sit after sit, NOTHING! It was only after I had hunted harder and longer than I ever had before that I started to realize that I was under the misconception that I could accomplish this by my own efforts.

It was then that God allowed me to taste brokenness in hunting like never before, and I hit the starting point that I should have been at from the beginning. “Jesus . . . I cannot. But you can.” I needed to stop being “RELIGIOUS” and start being “REAL” in the relationship I have with Jesus! When I don’t get it, I need to tell Him. After all, He knows anyway.

After Jesus caused me to bend the knee, my eyes started to open to so many things that I had previously failed to see. Notice the pattern for prayer starts with “Our Father.”

Luke 11:2b "Our Father in heaven"

This encompasses both His paternity and His sovereignty. God is not just a powerful Being “out there.” Rather, He cares about us as deeply as a father.

As I love to talk about all of my hunting adventures with my dad and other “father-ﬁgures” in my life, so too, my Heavenly Father wants to be included in all of my conversations. After all, His desire is to provide what we need in a way that only He can:

Matthew 7:7-11

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will ﬁnd; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks ﬁnds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a ﬁsh, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

But along with this, I have to recognize God’s Sovereignty.

Luke 11:2c "Your kingdom come."

One good way to see where our heart is, is to ask a very honest and what could be self-incriminating question, “Whose kingdom do we spend more time praying for . . . our’s or God’s?” In other words, who does my hunting glorify? If I am honest, the answer largely is myself. I wanted my hunting friends to click “like” when I post the picture of the harvest. I wanted people to know my efforts and knowledge acquired throughout the years had paid off. I guess in some deceived way, I was secretly building my “hunting kingdom” rather that giving all glory and credit to God as I should’ve been. So I have nothing to boast in. It is all by His grace that I even have the opportunities that I do.

Let’s just be straight-up honest . . . Whichever one we spend more time, thoughts, and efforts on, is the kingdom that we are pursuing.

It was then that I also started to recognize God’s provision.

Luke 11:3 "Give us day by day our daily bread."

There were many other truths that started to reveal themselves. The land I hunt on is not mine. The animals I hunt, I did not raise. Most of the equipment I use besides the bow and arrows were purchased by others. And although I knew all of these things, I never truly realized how much God was providing, through all of these amazing people, things that I did not earn or deserve.

This is exempliﬁed in the request Agur made to God:

Proverbs 30:7-9
Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): Remove falsehood and lies far from me; Give me neither poverty nor riches— Feed me with the food allotted to me; Lest I be full and deny You, And say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal, And profane the name of my God.

His prayer was simple . . . It was that God would deliver him from two extremes:

Poverty, which might tempt him to steal, and
Excessive Riches, which might tempt him to arrogantly deny his dependence on the Lord.

In other words, “God, give me “enough” according to your standards and will. But then we have to ask the honest question, “Are we content with “enough?” And as an American, I can sadly say that many times I mistakenly view even excess as not enough.

Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the ﬁeld, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the ﬁeld, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

“Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?’ or “What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek ﬁrst the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufﬁcient for the day is its own trouble.

God knows what we need . . . Worrying about the physical needs of this life is foolish and sinful. Why? Foolish because it goes back to the fact that God is our FATHER and He knows what we need, and sinful because we are acting like we are orphans when we say we don’t have enough.

And then, after all of my wretchedness boiled to the surface, and confession had taken place, God provided me with a harvest with only a couple of days left in the season. It was not a big buck like I have prayed for. In reality, it was one humble doe. But it was what He had provided for this year, and it was more than enough . . . Much, much more.

I’d like to end with a quote from Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis, where he summarized this so well:

“Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made this discovery, God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now.”

God, I thank you that You are the One Who not only sees me and knows me, but You love me anyway. Thank You for allowing the fortunate failures hunting this year, so I can clearly see Your paternity, sovereignty, and providence. Thank you for Your provision according to Your plan and purpose. Teach me to be content. Teach me to be thankful. Teach me to see You at each and every opportunity. And, thank You for being more than enough.

To learn more about Frank, or to book him as a speaker, please click HERE.