The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) added an exciting benefit for youth hunters this year.  IDNR allowed for the youth firearm deer tag to extend past the youth weekend and into the first firearm deer season. This allowed for an extra firearm hunt with the CTO Sportsmen. It also allowed for our First Hunt participants to get a second opportunity on harvesting a deer this year. I am excited to say that 3 out of our 4 First Hunt participants were able to harvest an animal.

That weekend, we also learned what it meant to seek with your whole heart. Not only were we working to seek the animals we were hunting with our whole heart, but also we determined to see if we used our whole heart to seek Jesus. 

We looked to Jeremiah 29:13 and we asked ourselves, "Do we use our whole heart when seeking Jesus? Do we seek other things with more passion than we do our relationship with the Lord? Did we put more effort in seeking the animals we harvested than we did with our campfire question?"

The CTO Sportsmen had a great discussion with our CTO Guides (adult volunteers) about their personal seeking habits and how they have both been successful and where they have failed in using their whole hearts when seeking Jesus. 

The boys, like most of us, have seasons where we do very well with coming to our Savior with everything we are and opening ourselves up to His presence. Then we have times where we fail to do this with Jesus, but it’s amazing that He is always there waiting on us to reestablish this connection with Him. He allows us to fail and then continues to love us unconditionally. 

He asks us to seek Him with our whole heart because He sought us in this way first. If you are feeling distant from Jesus know that He is only one prayer away from being right there with you again. Why? Because Jesus has been seeking you even when you weren’t seeking Him.