Tales from the woods

On a different hunting trip to the U.P. of Michigan, than the previously discussed excursion (this time with my two "other brothers", Jon and Dave), we found ourselves a bit bored...  Being bored on a hunting trip is a dangerous thing.  Boredom often requires several elements, when combined can produce an undesirable effect that can impact the course of mankind.  The main ingredients of boredom on an hunting trip are: extra time, cold weather, sharply pointed weapons, bad food and no bagged game (any of which by themselves is not good for the average person but being the quality person that I am ,<we are> the pressure built to effect even me ...<us>).  After one morning of successfully freezing my feet and rear end off and downing a less than adequate breakfast (to restore the frozen bits) I retired to catch up on the missed sleep from the night before during which it had snowed and my small tent was worse than cold.  Upon waking from my nap I decided to take some target practice, as up to that point I had nothing of note to shoot at,  I had passed up shots at several June Bugs (hopelessly lost due to the cold) and the occasional snowflake (basically because I was concerned that the release of the bowstring would snap my frozen fingers off).  By the time I woke up and decided to take some target practice the sun was shining and warming up the air to a balmy10 degrees.  My stirring had apparently woke up Jon and Dave who were also trying to recover (apparently the screaming of others moving frost bitten limbs causes sleeplessness)  and seeing me demonstrate my accurately placed shots at a clump of grass they decided to try and show me up.  Unable to match my marksmanship, as my target would often change clumps according to where my arrow had landed, Dave grew increasingly agitated.  He decided, in his elderly wisdom, to add an equalizer to maybe get back some of his machismo.  He proposed to shoot the arrow upwards to see who could get the closest to the target that was 30-40 yards in front of us.  It was a wonderful twist (with the added benefit of learning to shoot accurately over trees and other hunters to get at the deer) with the arrow almost disappearing before coming back down.  Our accuracy was quickly improving as we shot, so to keep it competitive Dave would move the target closer, 5-10 yards at a time (which would enable us to shoot those wily deer, which would often stand behind a tree in an obvious infraction of true sportsmanship). As the target got closer our ability to follow the arrow near its apex diminished.  On one almost fatal shot Dave lost sight of his arrow... we panicked and scattered, obviously we all still had frozen limbs because there was also no lack of screaming... only to find the arrow about 20 feet behind where we were shooting from!  Needless to say we quit practicing and left that shot for use under real and ideal circumstances (fewer people around and equipped with our army helmets).
A lot of us live lives as close to sinning that we can get... losing our temper repetitively, demanding our own ways, looking at and "considering" the opposite sex, letting our thoughts wander and so on and so on....
"What, I need to change and go in the opposite direction?"...  "You mean I need to live a life of blessing and caring for others instead of cursing them? You don't understand... they are jerks!"
Why do we try to keep as many of our bad habits and attitudes as we can and still get into heaven? Living a life with God is one of change and it is not on His part.  Selfishness is at the center of the old man, keeping your habits and attitudes is an act of selfishness to keep the old man ways.  Blindly shooting and hoping you make it is a surefire way to lose your life... the wrong way!