Hunting Love

No one is beyond the reach of God's love.  And, He is sufficient to save us, to transform our hearts, to 
remove a hard heart and to give us a heart to know Him and do His will. Hebrews chapter 7 states:
25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens...

God is calling us to lay down our lives, to put aside our human strength, and to experience His all-sufficient salvation - He saves us "to the uttermost, " the Scripture says. He has abundant and eternal life in store for us, and Christ desires for us to come to know Him, not on our terms, but on His - that we confess with our mouths His Lordship and believe that He is risen.  We surrender to Him, we die to self, so that we might experience His incredible, powerful life.

+++++

God will work in our lives, even through and, you could say, especially through our pain and our grief.  
2nd Corinthians 1 reminds us of how God wants to work within us:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.

I have to admit, I've never watched Dog the Bounty Hunter; couldn't even tell you where to find it.  Duane Chapman is the star, better known as "Dog."  He is what the title suggests - a bounty hunter; he hunts down criminals for money.  The biography on the "Dog the Bounty Hunter" website states:

Duane "Dog" Chapman began his illustrious career after a stint behind bars. Although convicted of murder (he was not present) because he was affiliated with the shooter landed him in the Texas penitentiary. This is where he developed the knack of locating people. With a healthy push from the warden he set his sights on making a change once released. 18 Months later he was released. Since that day he has made it his life's mission to follow the "Devil's Herd" as he calls it. He has changed countless lives and kept his word to his mother. He has made a difference.

2002-2003 Dog, Beth, and the posse filmed the pilot episode of Dog The Bounty Hunter for A&E. Shortly after filming Dog tracked down and captured Andrew Luster. This propelled his new series into the stratosphere.

Luster was an "heir to the Max Factor fortune: who was arrested, released on bond, skipped out on his court date, and apprehended by Dog.  Duane was married to Beth, who passed away in 2019.  Two spiritual things are apparently going on in Dog's life:  first, he has met a Christian woman, who is now his fiancee; she, like Dog has lost her spouse.  And, he is involved in a faith-based movie called, Hunter's Creed.

Dog and his new fiancee, Francie Frane, met when he was attempting to reach Francie's late husband, Bob, apparently to do an excavation project.  They discovered each had recently lost their spouses, and, as the Entertainment Tonight website puts it:

Duane eventually asked her out and she replied, “Yeah, if you go to church.” While initially brushing off Duane’s advances, the emotional, tear-filled church service culminated in the two holding hands and Duane declaring, “Gotcha!”

Francie is a former rancher and hunter, so Duane says there “couldn’t have been a better pick that God picked” for him. The two quickly bonded over their grief and Duane says he, “knew right away this was love.”

It apparently didn't take too long for Duane to propose. Francie notes: “We're both still grieving. We're never going to leave Bob and Beth behind [or] forget about them. They'll always be a part of us. We thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives with them and that's not what happened and we were dealt a really hard hand. Both of us had a decision to make – are we going to rise up from the ashes and get back to life and what Beth and Bob would have wanted from us?”

I mentioned the movie, Hunter's Creed, in which Dog plays himself - he recently spoke with The Christian Post about the movie and his faith.  The article provides this synopsis of the film: "After losing his wife, a man reunites with his church buddies to film the hunting show they’ve always wanted to make together. Before long, he senses a dark presence in the woods eventually bringing him face to face with death — and his faith..."

Regarding the effect on his wife's death on his own personal faith, Chapman relates: 

"I never doubted, OK, I don't doubt God at all! To be surprised or to say, "Why is this happening to me? Why didn't this happen?" Yeah, that's a normal feeling. And then you go to Scripture, and you listen to the voice in your mind that's in your head that says, "This has happened for a reason." The Bible says you're not to know why this stuff happened. Don't worry, this happened for a reason. So that's what I fall back on. Rather than "oh, there's no God, He don't heal no one," stuff like that, because that's not true.

In the film, according to the article, Chapman offers consolation to the lead actor prior to the death of his wife, telling him to "love all the time, keep close, keep working, laughing and praying;" also, he quotes the Scripture, "Life and death are in the power of the tongue..."  

So many things I've been thinking about relative to this story, and the first one is that God will sustain, even through periods of grief and loss.  He is the "God of all comfort," according to 2nd Corinthians 1, and in our times of pain, we can turn to Him.  Rather than try to mask our pain according to human wisdom or strength, we can come to Him to mitigate our pain.  As Jon Chasteen said on The Meeting House yesterday, we can ask Jesus to walk with us to those moments of pain so that we can experience His healing.  

It's hard to know where Duane Chapman is spiritually, but it appears God is working in His life, and Francie Frane has demonstrated the principle that Barry Meguiar talks about - attempting to move someone one step closer to Jesus.  All of us are on a step-by-step journey, and we can respond to the Holy Spirit drawing us to Himself.  

Duane Chapman has a tough background, including a stint in prison and career of apprehending criminals; definitely not work for the faint of heart.  You could say he is a "tough guy."  But we recognize that no one is beyond the reach of God's love.  Now, human toughness can keep someone becoming a Christian or being productive in a life of faith, and that's something we all have to watch out for.  But, a tough guy or lady surrendered to Jesus can make a determined believer, as God takes someone's personality, the way he or she was created, infuses it with Holy Spirit power, and does incredible work for His glory.