DEER, ME!

I'd been running errands and came to a stop sign just around the corner from our home...and looked straight at ten deer just yards away. Well, hello! I thought. Behind them was a large empty lot full of juicy spring grass. They must have been waiting for some straggler friends to join them in this feast. By the time I got home, grabbed a camera, and walked back to the lot, they'd galloped to the end of it, a few hundred feet away. Returning home, I peeked over our back fence (which borders the lot) and spotted this deer closer to my home tugging leaves off a tree. With its super-sized ears and keen hearing, it heard my cautious steps and froze.

Whenever I see deer, I think of passages like Psalm 42:1 (“As the deer pants for the waters, so my soul pants for you, O God”) and Habakkuk 3:17 (“He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights”). In arid central Washington state, where I live, big, sturdy deer sometimes come down into town for food and water from their natural habitat in the arid, high-desert hills surrounding our valley. Even though Palestine's deer differ genetically from our Western America deer, they share the same danger of dehydration. They're a universal illustration of Christians in need of spiritual refreshment from God's Word, the “River of Life.”

Commentators say the deer in the Habakkuk passage (“hind” in King James) is a type of gazelle that's swift and sure-footed in rough terrain. In running, it can place the back feet exactly where its front feet just “exited,” giving it speed and stability. It's known for its skill in scaling unusually difficult terrain to escape predators. Does that remind you of another Biblical principle?

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

But then, like a warning about “rough spiritual terrain ahead,” the previous verse (v. 12) says: “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!”

We won't see deer in that lot anymore. The next week, huge earth-moving machines moved in to turn the lot into a community of 32 townhouses. This photo was taken at the same place just ten days after a friendly deer stared at me. Two thoughts came to me: that the things that matter—our relationship with God—can't be knocked down by a diesel-run mega-machine. And also that my “close encounter” with deer for the last time in that lot was a gift from the Creator.

Danger at the sunny spot

This week’s blog is for all you who once devoured kid-friendly mystery books whose titles included scary words like “trouble,” “secret,” or “danger.” It could have involved blood and murder on our front porch. The innocent victim was approximately 100 people years old (18 years in feline equivalent), taking his afternoon snooze in a sunny spot on our porch. One wall away in our bedroom, we (Augie the cat’s owners) were taking an afternoon snooze when awakened by growls, barks, and snarling wails. I rushed to the front door and saw Augie, fluffed to twice his size, trying to hiss down a boxer-type dog that outweighed him probably five times.

When I opened the door (risking the dog attacking me), both animals fled at high speed.  I didn’t know our cat had that much energy left in him. And, seeing the jowls on that dog, I decided the incident probably extinguished our cat’s  final “9^th life” and he surely was dead of a cat heart attack somewhere.  About twenty minutes later, the dog’s owner turned onto our street and shooed him into her car.  Apparently he’d gotten loose, and his meandering through nearby neighborhoods had brought him to our porch and a likely candidate to taunt. 

We called and called, using the magic words “Friskies” and “treats” (two “people” words he understands). I poked my head through the broken fence between our house and the next where he may have made his getaway.  Still, no response to kitty-calls. An hour later, our insulted senior cat returned home and was properly “treated” for his success in fending off canine snoops.We laugh about it, but it's no laughing matter when we're victims of spiritual attack. I've been there with someone else's mean and irrational behavior.  At such times, I'm reminded of Peter’s picture of how Satan tries to attack believers:

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Like the “prowling dog” on our street, Satan likes to pounce on the unsuspecting. We’re not alone in facing such attacks.  Peter further taught: Resist him [the devil], standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings (1 Peter 5:9).

Spiritual reality is that we’ll all experience a “danger at the sunny spot,” maybe more often than we’d like. One well-known example is the church at Corinth, struggling with enemy attack in the form of lust, idolatry, sexual immorality, disbelief, and grumbling (1 Corinthians 10:7-10). Amidst these temptations, the apostle Paul urged the believers, stay faithful. God isn’t taken by surprise by these attacks.  I like how the Amplified Version (which tries to more accurately translate from original languages) puts it:

But God is faithful [to his Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always]also provide the way out—the means of escape to a landing place—that you may be capable and strong and powerful patiently to bear up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13b Amplified Version 1958, boldface added)

Is “danger” snarling at your door? Remember your divine escape route!