Minnesota winters can be harsh and bitterly cold. A 72-year-old man went out in the backwoods to hunt grouse and got lost. He nearly died because of the subzero temperatures and deep snow.
Dave Quiser called his daughter on Christmas Day, 2017, to tell her that he was going hunting and to let her know where he would be. As he drove along the narrow, unplowed logging road, a tire on his pickup truck got stuck in the ditch and wouldn’t budge. He was unable to call for help because he had recently sent his cell phone in for repair. He was forced to spend Christmas night inside his truck, running the engine and heater to keep warm in the 30-below-zero freeze.
When his daughter didn’t hear from her father by that evening, she got worried. She had neighbors check to see if he was home, and when he wasn’t, she called 911. It was 10 p.m. on Christmas night. Immediately, a search-and-rescue party was formed to find Mr. Quiser. Though they searched all night, they were unsuccessful in finding him.
Mr. Quiser was not where he said he would be. Ten miles into the logging trails from Cook, Minnesota, he had been backing out from a narrow logging road when he got stuck. He was actually a couple of miles from where rescuers were looking for him. It would not be until just after 4 p.m. the next day, Tuesday, before he would be found by two loggers who happened to be driving down a back county road. They had no idea that rescuers were looking for a missing person. When he was picked up, he was actually another two miles from where his truck was.
Earlier on Tuesday, fearing that he might run out of gas before nightfall and believing that he needed to get to a main road in order to have a chance of being found, Mr. Quiser picked up his walking stick and started on the three-mile hike. “I have emphysema and the farthest I’ve been able to walk is one mile,” he told CBS Minnesota. He started walking. He was actually able to walk for two miles before he finally fell, unable to walk anymore. Then he began to crawl on his hands and knees, ripping the knees out of his pants. On he went through bitter, burning cold. “I couldn’t get up, but I wasn’t going to quit!” he said.
Mr. Quiser’s “never quit” attitude showed how important surviving was to him. He would have most certainly died if he hadn’t reached warmth and treatment. It was also important for the rescuers to find this lost hunter, to the point where they searched through the long 30-degree-below-zero night and into the next day. And it meant enough to Mr. Quiser’s daughter that her father be found that she had called 911 for help. Much time, energy and effort were put forth by all of these people, because they really cared about Mr. Quiser’s scary situation.
But there is something much more important than saving life and limb, as precious as that is. It is your eternal well-being. We all have a never-dying soul and spirit that will either go to be with the Lord Jesus after we die or will go down into hell, separated from God forever. Your soul is your feelings, intellect and emotional make-up; your spirit is that God-conscious part of you. How important is it to you to know God and His way of salvation? “Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:1313And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)). With “all your heart” means that you really care and are seriously committed to making peace with God–you’re “not going to quit” until you do.
Sheldon Sokoloski and his son Prestin decided to go out and move a bulldozer of theirs, which was why they were driving down a back county road. In the gathering darkness, they just happened to see Mr. Quiser crawling on his hands and knees! By this time, he was so cold that he had trouble communicating. Loading him into their truck, they rushed him to the local hospital, which was 20 minutes away. From there, he was transferred to a regional hospital with a burn center. Both hands and feet were badly frostbitten.
“He got lucky,” Sokoloski said. “The county had already plowed the road we were on and I don’t think anyone else would have been driving there that night. It doesn’t get much traffic.”
God was gracious in sparing Mr. Quiser’s life. One doctor even stated that if all continued to go well, he might not even lose any fingers, which would be a great relief to him and his family. His daughter had only praise for the many hundreds of people who searched for her father, and especially for the Sokoloskis who rescued him.
God is graciously offering you true happiness, salvation and eternal life today. Do not look in all the wrong places, such as good works, strange beliefs, or what others believe. Only trust God and His Word, the Bible. God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die on the cross for your sins. It is only by acknowledging our sinful condition before God and trusting the finished work that Jesus did on the cross, that we can be saved from a lost eternity. Faith in Christ alone will save us. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36)). To decide for Christ is the most important decision in life that you can possibly make. You will never regret coming to know the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior. Do not carelessly ignore or shrug off God’s gracious invitation to come to Him!
ML-01/13/2019