A nature hike on a 38-degree night

The boys and I spent Friday night at Camp Hantesa near Boone, Iowa, for a father/youth overnight event that included games, camp songs, sleeping in a cabin (heated, thankfully!), and a nature hike in the pitch black of the night.
One of my favorite parts of the event was the campfire dinner. We wrapped meat, vegetables and potatoes in some tin foil and threw it into the fire to cook (fire+meat= yum!), The boys enjoyed the games, getting to stay up late, and the freedom to get as filthy dirty as they wanted as we explored the beautiful creation of our Creator in this rural part of Iowa. As one might expect on a typical April night in Iowa, we were thankful to have brought our winter gear along for the adventure.
As we headed out for the nature hike around 9:00 that night, the temperature had dropped below 40 degrees and the fierce wind didn’t encourage us to want to go out very far or for very long. The recent rain storms hindered our movement as our guide had to take us around the flooded paths that she normally uses.
The boys were excited about getting to hold the flashlight to help us see where we should and shouldn’t step. I was reminded of Psalm 119:105 as we ventured into the cold, wet darkness of the timber: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” I instructed the boys how to hold the flashlight just ahead of where we were walking for the best illumination of where we needed to step.
The same is true of how we use the Bible. In order for it to give me clear direction in my life, I need to be reading, studying, memorizing and meditating on it regularly. I realized that night that I probably spent more time instructing them on how to use a flashlight correctly than I have on instructing them about the importance of filling their minds with the truth of God’s Word and to show them how to read it. As their dad, there is nothing more important that I could ever teach them than to learn to read the Bible and to do what it says. The world they are growing up in is in a constant fluctuation of what is popular, right, moral, and acceptable by society. I want them to learn about the unchanging truth of God’s Word and how it will transform their very lives.
I thought I was just going to get wet and cold that night. God used it as a teachable moment in my life as a dad. The first two people I need to train to be disciples of Jesus Christ sleep in bunk beds in my own house.