Opening Day

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart! (Psalm 32:8-11 ESV). Tomorrow will be opening day for deer season for those of us in Middle Tennessee. My sincere hope is to be sitting in a tree watching the world wake up. I know it may be difficult to understand that for some. However, I have been able to see and experience God in marvelous ways will being in the woods. I love that moment when I first hear the unmistakable sound of a deer’s steps in the fall leaves, particularly after sitting in a stand waiting in the cold air for the sun to rise. It is a different sound than the scurry of a fox squirrel or the clumsiness of armadillo. Deer do not step loudly, but there is a sense of heaviness. They are deliberate steps, often with a steady pace, coming into audible range so subtly that the mind doesn’t process that it is a deer until it is close. When I do hear those steps, I immediately take mental inventory, making sure my gun is ready and that you are fully concealed. I strain to see what it is. Is it a buck or a doe? Is it alone, or are there more trailing? Is this the one I have been waiting to harvest? Adrenaline begins to rise as the sound gets closer. The anticipation is great. Hearing steps in nature goes back to the beginning of time. When the cool evening breezes were blowing, Adam and Eve heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. (cf. Genesis 3:8). I’m sure that for Adam and Eve, adrenaline was flowing strongly too. Unfortunately it was not because of excited expectancy, but rather because of embarrassment and shame. They had just disobeyed the one command that God had given to them, charting a course that would plague every person of every generation after them. So they hid among the trees. I always wonder when I hear the crunching of the leaves, how would I respond if that were God approaching? The psalmist reminds us to “be glad and rejoice”! That’s the perspective we need to have whether we’re sitting in the woods or beside a quiet fire. Listen and you will hear his footsteps approach. He has the words of life that we so desperately need in a world that is full of death and destruction. Let’s go “hunting”!