I love everything about the outdoors and the adventures that arise from being out in it. As my wife and I were raising kids, we always made it a point to take the kids on outdoor adventures as a family. What we found was that it was a way for all of us to disconnect from our normally busy lives. This wasn’t always true, but when I say disconnect, I mean that in its truest form. With cell phones today, the world is always at your fingertips, whether it’s to contact a friend or find out the day’s news.

We wanted to totally disconnect, so we started doing backpacking trips. Most of the time, this led us into places where there was no cell service. So when we hit the trail, it was just us and God’s creation. Trail time together was always great! We would often rotate who got to be the leader for the day as we hiked to our next campsite, and there was lots of talking, which was a positive because normally we were in bear country anyway. Not only did the talking scare the bear away, it was just fun.

Sometimes, the conversations were deep and thought-provoking, and sometimes they were just silly — talking about nothing in particular, really. But, you’d also have to add in some singing, whistling, or bad harmonica playing into the mix. Sometimes, we just walked in silence as we listened to waves lap up on the shore or heard a loon calling out in the distance. When you are gone for a full week in the wilderness, there’s a lot of time to fill. Part of the time is just dealing with the work portion of the trip, but there were lots of times to be quiet and reflect, too.

These types of trips are a challenge, though. Your bed, your food, your tent….all carried on your back. Weight was carefully measured from pack to pack to make sure it was relatively balanced out with what each person could realistically handle. Carrying this weight wasn’t easy, especially if the distance between camping sites was long or the conditions were just plain ole’ hard. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to reach a breaking point in the middle of the trip — where it just seemed like it was too much to handle. Physical and emotional exhaustion can catch up to a person pretty quickly out there.

Later on, my son and I started doing a canoeing and fishing trip up to Quetico in northern Ontario — just he and I against the elements for a week. Quetico is just north of the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. It would be a straight week of canoeing in an area that was incredibly remote with great fishing, but you had to be physically fit to be able to handle yourself. There’s a series of lakes there where you have to portage from one lake to another. Sometimes, the portages would be a half mile long, and some of them required us to carry our canoe in a craggy rocky dried-up river bed up a steep slope to get to the lake, which was above us. We were able to sleep on islands in the middle of these lakes, and at points see no one during the course of our day. Every day was filled with work and satisfaction at the end of it.

Closer to home, I was often fishing or hunting with each of the kids. It was a great way to get some dashboard time with them — just one-on-one — while we were on an adventure. The kids learned how to scout, how to build blinds, how to track animals, how to be quiet, among a multitude of other lessons.

I was constantly teaching them, but it was pure fun — always an adventure. Ultimately, I was trying to get them to a position where they could experience success in the outdoors as a fisherman or a hunter. Each of them now has their own success stories to tell, but often those stories didn’t just happen. It was through a series of failed attempts before success came, which made it all the sweeter when it did happen. These are great memories for all of us.

But, the one common denominator in all of these adventures that I haven’t mentioned is that almost every time, the adventure would end with us sitting on the tailgate of my truck. Sometimes, we had water or food while we sat there, just resting. Other times, we shared stories or observations about our time out in the woods. Sometimes, we commiserated over a failed shot, and other times, we rejoiced with the success of a hunt.

That tailgate time just organically happened. It wasn’t a strategy or a plan; it was just a place to sit down and talk about what was going on. Every time it happened, we were present with each other.

What I mean by that is that we were fully engaged with each other without distractions. We were having a conversation and completely listening.

As we are just coming off Easter weekend, it just seems like a good time to remember that each Believer in Christ carries with them the gospel message of the Resurrection. Each of us is told to share this message with the world around us, but it’s super easy to get busy and rush through life.

I would simply suggest that if we want the opportunity to share the good news of Christ with others, we need to slow down a bit and, as we have conversations with people, be present.

The opportunity to have a spiritual conversation with someone is often earned over the course of time, and people need to know you genuinely care about them.

Let’s slow things down a bit and have a little tailgate time throughout our days. You just never know when you’ll have the opportunity to share what Christ has done in your life with someone else.

“Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself…” Matthew 6:34a