Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl

by Jase Robertson

  “Don’t you dare get out of this car,” she said.

  Before she could finish her sentence, I’d jumped out of the driver’s seat and was maneuvering my way to the frog. I moved toward the back of it, assumed the frog position, and then leaped on him! Missy and Mia were screaming in the car, and my boys were laughing. As I got back in the car, I explained to everyone that I probably saved that frog’s life by catching him at a busy intersection. I held the frog in one hand and drove with the other the entire way home.

  When I walked into the kitchen, Missy asked me, “What are you fixing to do?”

  I cleaned the frog on the kitchen table and fried its legs in a frying pan.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” Missy said. “I thought you saved his life.”

  Hey, but I gave him a noble death.

  Despite our differences, Missy and I built a foundation for our marriage in Christ. Before we were married, we were mocked by some of our friends and acquaintances for being virgins. I remember one of my friends constantly belittling me and saying I needed to experience sex before marriage just to know what to do and how to do it. I saw him years later and quickly told him, “I’ve got three kids. I figured it out.”

  Marriage is about so much more than sex. It takes a lot of work on a daily basis to have a successful relationship. Missy and I are spiritual partners and best friends, despite the constant changing of circumstances. I have realized that my dad was right, women are strange, but the differences we have keep life interesting. The righteous acts we commit in overcoming our differences are what make marriage exciting. It does not matter to me where we live or what we drive; what matters is the person I have chosen to be with and how long we reside together. My number one goal in life is to help my wife and kids get to heaven, where we plan to live together as part of a forever family. While we are on this earth I try to live out on a daily basis the words of Joshua 24:15: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

  8

  RAINOUT

  NAVIGATING YOUNG MARRIAGE

  Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

  —PSALM 96:3

  As a duck hunter there is no greater satisfaction than calling in a bunch of ducks and shooting all of them. It doesn’t happen very often. We try to get the ducks in as close as we can, so we can wipe every one of them out with a volley of gunfire. There is a method to our madness, though, because the more we shoot out of a bunch, the fewer ducks we disturb. The faster the hunting party can get away from the duck hole, the better the chance you have for a good hunt the next day. Ducks are smart, and it usually doesn’t take much for them to become wary of duck blinds and decoys.

  Through the years, us Duckmen have become famous for our “rainouts” on our hunting DVDs. “Rainout” is a term we coined as hunters, and it happens on the rare occasions when the majority of the ducks, if not the whole bunch, fall from the sky. Rainouts are the indelible moments that have become stories we relive over and over. Of course, our quest for perfection in duck hunting causes daily debates about what went wrong and who should be blamed. We’ve had arguments that lasted for years, especially between Uncle Si and me, but it’s all in good fun. Last year during teal season, the first bunch of the year came in perfectly to our decoy spread after some timely calling. There were six of us in the blind, and we each shot three times—shooting multiple ducks per shot. There were twenty-three teal in the bunch, and we shot every one of them! None got away. It was probably the best whacking of a bunch we’ve ever captured on film.

  The only thing in life that gives me more of an adrenaline rush than a massive rainout is watching someone put their faith in Jesus Christ. And when it comes to salvation in Christ, I don’t want a single one to get away. When I discovered who Jesus was, what He does for me, and what He will do, I was filled with an incredible desire to make it known to everyone. Duck hunting brings temporary enjoyment and delicious table fare, but Christ brings an eternal joy and real meaning to life. The joy I found in Christ led me to make a decision to dedicate two years of my life to studying God’s Word at a seminary in my hometown.

  During the two years before Missy and I were married, I attended the White’s Ferry Road Church School of Biblical Studies and graduated the month before our wedding. Missy had planned on attending Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, which was her parents’ alma mater. One of the biggest reasons her parents were initially opposed to our getting married so young—I was twenty-one and Missy was nineteen—was that they really wanted her to go to a Christian college. Missy told her dad that she knew the only reason he wanted her to go there was to find a Christian husband. She didn’t understand why she needed to go because she’d already found one in West Monroe. What was I? A potted plant?

  In the back of my mind, I thought going to “preaching school,” as I called it, could possibly lead me to transfer to Abilene Christian University as a junior, if Missy and I decided to go there together. Plus, my going to preaching school sounded pretty good to her parents, who still weren’t quite sure about me. Another reason I decided to attend seminary was because my older brother, Alan, was going there, too. Even though I attended White’s Ferry Road Church, to say I didn’t fit in at its seminary would be a massive understatement. To be honest, I stuck out like a smooth-faced man in a duck blind. Al is a bookworm and is kind of nerdy. Conversely, I’m not a big fan of reading or studying, unless I’m forced to do it. Even worse, the seminary had a pretty strict dress code, which I nonetheless constantly violated.

  Since I’m an outdoors type of guy, it didn’t take me long to become frustrated at seminary. I hate being cooped up in a room with no windows (it’s the same problem I currently have with the duck call shop), especially during hunting season! I actually learned how to sleep with my eyes open in some of the more boring lectures. To break up the monotony, I ended up becoming the class clown and troublemaker. I constantly argued with instructors and fellow classmates. My main point of conflict was that I felt sometimes we studied the Bible as a legal document instead of a letter from God. I’m still convinced my point of view was correct, but I did a terrible job of communicating it. In fact, I nearly started several fights with my classmates. Our classes lasted from eight o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon, five days a week. During duck season, I got up very early to hunt before going to class, and then I went back to the blind as soon as classes were over. By the end of the school day, I was itching to get out of there! Well, one day this guy asked a question at four P.M. Then he asked a follow-up question after the bell rang.

  “Hey, why don’t you shut up?” I told him.

  Well, three guys met me in the parking lot after school. They were trying to rebuke me in a godly way for being rude. I responded with a misuse of Galatians 2:9: “How about I give you my right hand of fellowship?” Fortunately, they overlooked my anger, we resolved our differences in a Christian manner, and there were no fisticuffs. More than anything, seminary taught me a lot about discipline and commitment. In a lot of ways, it was a mental marathon. I studied Greek, Hebrew, English, and grammar, along with several classes in the Bible, history, world culture, and religion. The workload was extremely strenuous, and it was very difficult. It was like a spiritual boot camp. I would have never made it without Al’s help and encouragement. Of course, he passed with flying colors, but I had to work extremely hard to graduate. We formed a special bond as brothers because we spent so much time studying together and encouraging each other.

  Finishing seminary gave me a lot of confidence. It helped me get over my fear of public speaking because we were required to give so many presentations in front of our classmates. Graduating from seminary was a significant accomplishment for a guy who never really liked school. Somehow, I made it through two years of studies, despite spending an inordinate amount of time in the dean’s office.

  In spite of my rebellious tendencies, my church elders knew
I loved the Lord, and they offered me a position as a paid intern. I accepted. Because the pay was minimal, I had to supplement my income in other areas. Along with helping my dad build duck calls, I chopped wood with Mike Williams and worked for a roofer, while Missy worked full-time for a local doctor’s office. When we decided that I would take the position at our church, it meant that she had to forget her ideas about going to college and help support us financially. We were making enough money to pay our bills, but it was killing me physically. I knew I had to find something else to do, or I wasn’t going to live very long. On top of that, we were spending as much time as we could bringing people closer to the Lord. Like a lot of young couples, the start of our marriage wasn’t easy, but our early obstacles didn’t have anything to do with money. Perhaps the main reason the first year of my marriage was so bumpy was because I rarely saw my wife.

  Our ministry work began shortly after we returned to West Monroe from our honeymoon. Blake Gaston, my best friend from high school, was one of my groomsmen and was the only non-Christian in our wedding party. We had a bunch of wedding showers and other parties leading up to the wedding, and he attended most of them. I had already tried sharing the Gospel with him a couple of years earlier, and I remember sitting back and watching him, wondering if being around so many Christians was having a positive influence on him. About a week after we returned from our honeymoon, Blake called me and asked me to go fishing, which was his code for wanting to hear more about Christ. Blake was the first person I baptized. From there, it was like a domino effect.

  We studied the Bible with so many people, including many I didn’t even know. Missy and I baptized more than a hundred people in the first year of our marriage. Many of the people were my friends from high school. We would baptize one of my buddies, and then we’d baptize his girlfriend, her sister, her brother, and the rest of his family. It kind of blossomed once we started. It became a movement of people changing their lifestyles and declaring, “Jesus is Lord.” Christ’s message was constantly being shared.

  For all the good work we were doing, our ministry was really straining our marriage. After a while, Missy was very frustrated.

  Missy: I worked in a doctor’s office from eight A.M. to six P.M. every day. On most days I was home in time to cook supper for us. After dinner, either people would show up for Bible study or Jase would meet them in town. Most of our mentoring and “mission work” got cranked up around eight P.M. The people we were ministering to had former lifestyles that consisted of partying and staying out until all hours of the night and then sleeping away most of the day. Even though these new Christians were trying to change their lives, we realized it was going to take some time to change their behavioral patterns. Jase felt like he needed to be around them to help them stay out of trouble during those long nights. And most of those nights would result in additional Bible studies with new people he met while he was out. I remember many mornings when he would come home and crawl into bed about the time my alarm was going off. Many evenings were spent in our apartment studying the Bible with people or just entertaining them. Ultimately, this began to put a strain on our marriage. We didn’t have a lot of time to be together because of our commitment to the people we were trying to help, and it ended up being a big sacrifice for both of us. I knew in my head that we were doing this all for God, but my heart longed for my husband.

  Despite the difficulties and extreme fatigue that accompanied dealing with so many people, I witnessed the power of the message working. I like to think that much of our ministry was focused on relationships. If you love people and care about them, the greatest gift you can give them is eternal life with God. There were several times where the message had a profound effect on people I didn’t even know. One night, I was at the house of a guy I didn’t know and was sharing the Gospel with a guy I had only recently met, Kevin McIntosh. Kevin, just happened to show up at the house, but he seemed freaked out that we were having a Bible study there. Apparently, the house was a local gathering spot where they played video games and partied. When Kevin arrived at the house, I asked him if he wanted to sit in on the study, but he emphatically declined. He went into the next room and played video games while the rest of us talked. I passionately shared God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ. But the guy I was talking to did not seem interested whatsoever, so I left to go to Wednesday-night church.

  As I was walking to my truck, Kevin walked out of the house.

  “Hey, I’m ready,” he said.

  “Ready for what?” I asked him.

  “I was listening to your little study,” he said. “I’ve never heard that before. I’m ready to get in on that.”

  “Well, climb into the truck,” I said.

  I took Kevin to church with me and quizzed him about his lifestyle, but mainly I wanted to see if he really understood what I had just shared. I was stunned by how much scripture he had retained and his love for Christ in such a short time. I felt indescribable excitement as I witnessed how the power of the message had cut his heart. He was baptized later that night. Here was a guy none of us really knew, but through a chance encounter he overheard the Gospel through a wall while playing games. It changed his entire life. He had no previous religious background or Christian friends before that night. That is some serious power! Kevin became one of my closest friends, and he became more like family. First Corinthians 1:17 says: “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” We point people to Jesus, but God opens the heart for one to respond. Once Kevin heard it, he underwent a complete transformation. He called his friends and told them about it, and every time I turned around he was there. Kevin was a very good athlete and was great at about every sport or game he played, which came in handy as we were sharing God’s Word with others. If we weren’t hosting Bible studies or some other function at our house, I was usually with a group of guys at a pool hall. We would go and have as much fun as everyone else, but the difference was we were sober. One of the things that helped my relationships with those we were reaching out to was that I was not afraid to go to rough places or hang out with people who were cutting up. We were looking for opportunities to share the message with people who wouldn’t be caught in a church—unless they were wheeled in via a casket! Matthew 11:19 says this of Jesus: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”’ ” Jesus didn’t get that kind of reputation from hanging out only in temples and church buildings. Going to a bar or pool hall doesn’t mean you’re a drunk, just like sitting in a henhouse doesn’t make you a chicken. It’s the same in the opposite setting. Sitting in a church building doesn’t make you a follower of Christ. In fact, Acts 17:24 says: “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.” God lives in heaven and in the hearts of men and women on earth. Misunderstanding this principle is one of the reasons so many people act one way in a church building and the total opposite everywhere else.

  One night, Kevin and I were at a pool hall where we saw a guy playing pool by himself; this guy looked like a hustler. He asked me if I wanted to play for twenty dollars.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I told him. “You can play my buddy Kevin. If you win two out of three games, I’ll give you twenty dollars. If he wins, you have to leave with us and go to a Bible study.”

  The guy looked at me like I was nuts. He walked around the pool table a few times, pondering my offer. I took a twenty-dollar bill out and placed it on the table.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  What he didn’t know was that Kevin is quite the player and that I don’t make bets with eternal consequences on the line unless I know we’re going to win! Of course, my buddy Kevin beat him. In fact, Kevin broke and ran the table in two straight games. The other guy never even took a shot! To my surpris
e, the guy followed through on his bet, although he didn’t seem too happy about it. As we walked to my truck to leave, he threw a full can of beer across the road and declared he was ready for a change in his life anyway. I thought that was a powerful statement since he didn’t even know what we were going to share with him. He knew how we rolled, despite our presence in such a rugged place. We studied the Bible with him for several hours and baptized him the same night. What I didn’t know was that the guy was sentenced to prison for an earlier crime the very next day! I wouldn’t see him again until he showed up unannounced with his Bible in hand at my house on Christmas Day a couple of years later.

  “Hey, I just got out of jail,” he told me.

  “Did they let you out or did you escape?” I asked him.

  “I was released,” he said.

  He then tearfully thanked me for sharing with him and let me know that was the best thing that could have happened to him before the two years of prison. Obviously, neither one of us believed our encounter had been an accident. He came to our church a couple of times over the next few months, and I continued to study with him. After a while, though, he quit coming around and I lost track of him.

  Missy and I lived in an apartment for about eight months after we were married. Then we moved into a small two-bedroom house on Swiss Street in West Monroe, which is near White’s Ferry Road Church. Missy found the house in the foreclosure listings, and I never saw it until after we signed the documents to buy it. I put into practice my idea that it doesn’t matter what kind of structure you live in. I think we paid thirty thousand dollars for the house. It was old and small, but it was our first home together, and it was where we lived when our oldest son, Reed, was born.

  Our first house is where I learned the true meaning of “love your neighbor.” On one side of us were three guys who seemingly stayed drunk twenty-four hours a day. I preached Jesus to them one day, only to get threatened and cussed out. I ended up putting up a privacy fence because they were so loud and vile. Some of the people I shared Jesus with were initially met through confrontations. There was a very large man in our neighborhood who walked through our backyard daily. He was probably six feet tall and weighed more than four hundred pounds. He was a giant man! He lived behind us and kept walking through our yard to go drink beer with my other neighbors. After a couple of weeks of watching the guy, I confronted him by yelling across my yard.