Hello,
Last week as I was taking my dog, Duncan, for his daily walk in the
fields that lie around our house we ran into some deer. Actually, we ran into
deer twice. Fortunately, Duncan was well attached to his leash, so he wasn’t
able to chase down these intruders.
The first encounter
happened as we came out from a forested area and we surprised two does and by
it wobbly legs the third was apparently a newborn fawn. The does, when they spotted us, took
off leaping across the knee-high grass as if they were running a hurdles
race. The fawn, which could not
have had enough life behind it to be taught, buckled its unsteady legs and
dropped flat to the ground, hidden now by the tall grass.
Duncan and my
intended path would have taken us between the fawn and its mother and
accompanying doe-friend, but having remembered the words of my mountain wise
friend, Ralph, Duncan and I redirected our route in a different direction. What Ralph had told me was that a
mother doe was as dangerous as a mother bear if it felt its fawn in danger. So, knowing that that fawn’s mother was
undoubtedly just over the hill carefully surveying the safety of its child
ready to come charging and trampling any threat, Duncan and I made sure that
our revised path was a clear message to that doe, that she had no feed to
worry.
The new path that we
took sent us around another hill, through another wooded area, and back into a tall-grassed
field. As we walked along the tall
grass, we encountered our second group of deer. At first we only saw one doe striding slowly through
grass. She didn’t see us, but she
did see another doe coming out of a distant tree line. Behind that doe the grass was moving,
and every so often we could see the ears of the very small fawn that was
following her. The first deer sped
up her gait and approached the second doe, and just when they were about nose
to nose, the second deer rose up on her back legs and assumed the pose of a
boxer with her front hoofs. Soon
the approaching deer did the same and a short-lived boxing match began that the
mother doe apparently won as the encroaching deer put down her dukes and
sprinted away. Duncan and I
watched from afar, but as we neared where the boxing ring was located, we did so
wary of being challenged by the boxing mother doe to a fight of our own. Fortunately, neither Duncan nor I found
ourselves in that mother doe’s ring.
It occurred to me
after I got back home, that these two deer encounters might have helped me see
in better detail how God keeps his promise to watch over you and me. Sometimes it might be that when trouble
draws near to me and I have instinctively fallen to my knees and I look around
for God, and he doesn’t seem to be around….maybe God has responded like that
first doe that Duncan and I ran into.
Maybe God has taken off, luring the trouble away from the tall grass that
is hiding me. Even though he may
not be in sight, woe to any evil that might come upon me as God stands poised
to come leaping and bounding ready to trample the enemy.
Other times when
trouble encroaches, God like that fawn-guarding doe, holds God’s ground, puts
up God’s dukes, and says, “You’ve got to get through me if you think you’re
going to get to my fawn!” And woe
to any evil that would want to try a round in the ring with God almighty!
There is a hymn that
goes, “Savior like a shepherd lead me much I need your gentle care…”. After my walk with Duncan, I find
myself singing instead, “Savior like a mother doe lead me….”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and
peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry
Nuernberger
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