Eating scorpions in the Sonoran Desert. Wrestling wild boar in the Appalachians. These are the kinds of challenges Creek Stewart takes in stride. But it took giving up his self-reliance – and discovering the power of generosity – to learn what it truly means to thrive.
Creek’s moment of reckoning came at the height of his career. With several books and hit TV survival shows, he’d built a brand that turned his childhood nickname into a household name. Yet, as he paced around the house he no longer called home, he knew the divorce papers on the kitchen table told a different story.
“On the outside, everything looked amazing. But my marriage was in shambles. I wasn’t living at home with my wife, Sarah, and we had a newborn son,” Creek says. “You can have everything according to the world’s standards and have absolutely nothing according to God’s.”
Creek realized that, although he could navigate any challenge in the wild, he was hopelessly lost inside. So, he surrendered his marriage to Jesus. And things began to change with Sarah and, eventually, in all areas of his life.
“When the Lord restored and redeemed our marriage, I knew my life was never going to be the same,” he says. “It was like Jesus walked up to the shore of my life, and I knew who I was looking at.”
The legacy of Primrose
But surrender, Creek would learn, is rarely a one-time decision. Several years later, Creek and Sarah’s third child, Primrose, was born with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder with a very poor prognosis. They prayed for a miracle throughout the pregnancy, but their precious Primmy passed away only four hours after her birth.
“It was the passing of our daughter that brought the clarity of full surrender,” Creek says. “I was drawing my identity from what I could do, the successes that I could create, the money that I could make, and the name that I could create for myself. That was what I was hanging on to.”
After Primrose’s death, Creek woke up one morning with an unmistakable prompting. For 25 years, he had built his wilderness survival empire around a beautiful 10,000-square-foot lodge on 20 acres in Central Indiana – the property he used to film all his videos, host all his courses, and ship all his products. Now he felt the Lord calling him to sell it and donate the proceeds to ministry.
When he turned to tell Sarah, she already knew. “Me too,” she said immediately.
“I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was an ask from the Lord,” Creek says. “And I knew that this would be a defining moment for me and our family,” Creek says.
Gifting land, gaining peace
But what wasn’t clear was how to go about the gift. That’s when a friend introduced them to the National Christian Foundation (NCF) and Kyle DeFur of NCF Indiana. “I remember having the conversation with Kyle and thinking, ‘Man, there is actually a place that does this?’” Creek says. “What a weight was lifted off my shoulders. NCF added a lot of peace to my life and allowed me to experience the joy of generosity throughout the process.”
Working with Kyle and NCF’s in-house team of charitable gift planners, Creek and Sarah donated the property. Later, when it sold, it resulted in a much greater amount available for giving than if they’d sold the property and then given from cash. When the property sold, and the net proceeds reached their Giving Fund at NCF, they recommended a large gift to a local Christian school whose mission had captured their hearts.
Miracles in the wilderness
The gift launched them into uncharted territory. Creek could no longer depend on his wilderness empire for income, yet he still needed to support his family. “It just put me into a very uncomfortable season. I was just completely dependent on the Lord,” he says. He began to wonder if he’d made a mistake.
Creek didn’t have to wait long to see God show up.
Just weeks later, his phone rang. It was the owner of 700 acres adjacent to Creek’s old lodge. “I felt like the Lord was asking me to call you,” the owner said. “Is there any way you could use this property?” He offered Creek the use of his land at no charge.
The following week, the director of the Salvation Army in Indiana invited Creek to teach wilderness survival at their summer camp for at-risk teens. He also asked Creek to do something outside his comfort zone – share his testimony and invite the kids to accept Jesus.
“I’d never been so nervous in my life,” Creek says. When he gave the invitation, 28 out of 30 kids jumped up to accept Christ. “It was one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever experienced,” he says. “I saw how the Lord had been preparing me for 25 years, even though I’d squandered it for 23 of those.”
The next morning, the director offered Creek a large portion on the Salvation Army’s 700-acre property to teach his courses. Creek broke down. “The properties are so much better,” he says. “I don’t own them, but I don’t need to because the Lord’s plan was so much bigger.”
The ultimate survival lesson
Today, Creek is focused entirely on kingdom work. He is hosting his Wild God survival courses, writing books, and filming a pilot for a new show, God in the Wild, where he takes people who’ve had a crisis of faith into the wilderness.
Creek still doesn’t have it all figured out. But he’s learned something more valuable than any survival skill: “Self-reliance is my business,” he says. “The shift I had to make was the total opposite of that. I had to put myself in complete dependence on the Lord. That’s exactly why he asked me to do it. Now I’m going to say ‘yes’ to God for everything for the rest of my life. The biggest swings? That’s where you see the Lord show up in the biggest ways.”
Finally, the man who knows how to survive anything has discovered something even better – how to thrive by surrendering everything.
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