The weather was perfect. My wife was off work and we had nothing else planned, it seemed today might be the day. I had only been hunting a few times this year with the first month of the season almost gone. But my plans seemed to change when I got a phone call. It was my wife calling to tell me that she got invited to go to a Casting Crowns concert with a friend and the concert was that night. Knowing that God had a hand in her getting invited, I told her to go ahead. “What about your hunting?” she asked. I told her it was no big deal. I knew that if God put it on someone’s heart to invite her to the concert, than she should go.
It wasn’t long and my wife called me back with a plan on how I could still hunt. It didn’t seem feasible at the time but after some checking around, it was all set. I would go hunting and she would still go to the concert. I rushed home from work to get some things done and then showered. While I was getting dressed I complained to my wife that I didn’t have all my hunting clothes washed in the fragrance free soap. She told me not to worry about the deer smelling me because God was in control. I agreed and headed to the woods.
When I pulled into my friends drive around 4pm on that sunny day he was outside cutting the grass. He turned off his lawnmower and I rolled down the window so we could talk. He asked if I had been out there hunting much and I told him only a few times. He apologized that he was cutting the grass but told me he had already put it off for too long. “I will be about an hour,” he said. “Will that mess up your hunting?” “Go ahead and mow,” I told him. Even though I knew that his mowing could be detrimental to my hunting, how could I ask someone to stop mowing their grass? I didn’t get down or upset. I just proceeded to get ready for the hunt. I knew that if God wanted me to get a deer that night I would.
My friend’s hunting woods is filled with deer but it can sometimes be tricky to get to my tree stand without the deer knowing that I am coming through. Today would be different. With the sound of the mower blades buzzing loudly through the woods, I slipped through the trees and up my tree stand without making an audible sound. No sooner than I had made it to the top of my ladder, my friend turned off his mower and put it away. You talk about perfect timing, I thought. I thanked God right then because I knew He had spoken to my friend’s heart.
I hadn’t been settled in the stand 10 minutes when a thought crossed my mind. Tree stand hunting is a much different way to get your food. If you go to the store to get your food, you are buying food that a person raised or grew. Sure God supplies everything and He makes the crops grow, but for a person to buy food from the store, many people must do their jobs to get the food in your hands. When you go to the grocery you know food will be there because people will have put it there. Not so with tree stand hunting. If God doesn’t bring a deer by my stand I don’t eat. You must have faith to sit and wait.
Moments after I had thought these thoughts and even shared them on a social website with my phone, I began to hear commotion just behind my tree. I slowly turned and looked over my shoulder to see a deer feeding on acorns from the ground. My heart began to pound as I turned back around and took a few deep breaths. “Thank you God for bringing deer to me,” I prayed. It wasn’t long and noticed a second deer approaching from the rear. I noticed it was the larger of the two deer as I continued to struggle to keep my heart rate in the normal range. If I could, I knew I wanted to shoot the bigger doe.
While looking over my shoulder watching the deer continue to draw closer I became a bit startled. I heard some scratching coming from my tree about eye level with me. As I continued to listen to the sound and look for what was causing it, a squirrel came around to my side of the tree and his cute little eyes looked into mine. His face couldn’t have been more than a foot away from mine but strangely enough I didn’t get nervous. We just had a stare down for a brief moment. While looking into his eyes I almost felt as if I was looking into God’s. It’s as if that squirrel was part of God’s response to my prayer and He was saying I am with you and watching over you. Then as quickly as he had showed up he was gone.
Moments later a large hawk swooped down in front of me to catch the squirrel that was now on the ground but the hawk missed. The hawk flew back out of sight and I could hear him in the distance possibly verbalizing his frustrations. I was thinking about what I had just experienced when I was quickly brought back in the moment by the sounds of the deer continuing to browse behind me. My heart seemed to beat louder and louder as the deer drew closer and closer. As I struggled to patiently wait on the deer, I couldn’t help but just be in awe. What an experience to see how God was orchestrating everything for me.
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like 20 minutes, the movement of the larger deer just stopped. I turned my head to look behind me but she was nowhere to be found. I had kept my eye on the smaller of the two deer because she was now out to my left but the larger one had vanished. I began to panic that she may have snuck away but all the while I continued to pray that God would help me. I looked again and then I saw her. Why did the noise stop? Because she had lain down a short distance behind my tree. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Now in order to get a shot behind my tree it was going to take quite a bit of maneuvering and maneuvering usually gets you busted by the deer’s keen eye site. But how can a deer notice movement that it can’t see? God had this deer positioned so that she was looking directly away from me. Any other direction at all and she would have quite likely seen me but because of the direction she was facing for all intents and purposes she was blind to me. Because I knew the deer couldn’t see me, I was able to stay calmer than I normally would have been while I maneuvered for a shot. I stood up, moved around to the left side of the tree so I could draw my bow, aimed, and released. God guided my arrow and the shot was successful. The deer ran off but I knew the arrow had hit its mark.
The shot startled the second deer and she ran a bit before stopping. After some time she walked back toward me into an opening through the tree branches and I aimed and released. This shot was also successful. The deer ran away the opposite direction the first deer ran. I tried to stop shaking so I could text me wife to tell her what had happened but my fat fingers seemed to have grown during the hunt. After much struggle I was able to communicate that I had shot 2 deer.
Because I felt the shot on the second deer was better than the shot on the first, I decided to look for the second deer first. I was trying to beat the fading sunlight so instead of looking for a blood trail, I walked to the last place I saw her when she ran away and started looking in that area. Like a magnet being drawn to it, I found the first deer within a minute or two. Upon approaching the deer I fell to my knees and thanked God with tear filled eyes.
Finding the other deer was much like the first one I found. I went straight to the last place I saw the deer run before it disappeared out of sight and started looking. I wasn’t looking two or three minutes when I felt a strong urge to look in a specific location down one side of a hill. I walked down the steep decline being careful not to slide and sure enough, my second deer was right there. I knew God had brought those two deer to me that night and I knew He helped me to shoot and find both animals. He brought them just as soon as that lawn mower shut off so I would have time to get them loaded up before dark.
But some may ask, “Don’t animals have their own instincts? Don’t they just do what they were made to do?” All of God’s creation was created for Him. He will use any and all of His creation to bring about His will and to bring Him glory. He will put it on the hearts of people to bring about whatever He wishes and He can and will direct animals and even bugs to people and places. Genesis 2:19 “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them.” In Exodus 8:24 God brought a swarm of flies into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of the officials.
I wrote most all of this blog the morning following the hunt but I felt it wasn’t finished. Later that day I realized something that I hadn’t realized before. When the deer lie down, not only was it looking directly away from me, it also positioned itself perfectly in an opening through the tree branches. Had the deer chosen a spot a few feet either direction the shot would have been impossible. The following day I went back to my tree stand to make sure I was correct in my thinking.
It wasn’t long and my wife called me back with a plan on how I could still hunt. It didn’t seem feasible at the time but after some checking around, it was all set. I would go hunting and she would still go to the concert. I rushed home from work to get some things done and then showered. While I was getting dressed I complained to my wife that I didn’t have all my hunting clothes washed in the fragrance free soap. She told me not to worry about the deer smelling me because God was in control. I agreed and headed to the woods.
When I pulled into my friends drive around 4pm on that sunny day he was outside cutting the grass. He turned off his lawnmower and I rolled down the window so we could talk. He asked if I had been out there hunting much and I told him only a few times. He apologized that he was cutting the grass but told me he had already put it off for too long. “I will be about an hour,” he said. “Will that mess up your hunting?” “Go ahead and mow,” I told him. Even though I knew that his mowing could be detrimental to my hunting, how could I ask someone to stop mowing their grass? I didn’t get down or upset. I just proceeded to get ready for the hunt. I knew that if God wanted me to get a deer that night I would.
My friend’s hunting woods is filled with deer but it can sometimes be tricky to get to my tree stand without the deer knowing that I am coming through. Today would be different. With the sound of the mower blades buzzing loudly through the woods, I slipped through the trees and up my tree stand without making an audible sound. No sooner than I had made it to the top of my ladder, my friend turned off his mower and put it away. You talk about perfect timing, I thought. I thanked God right then because I knew He had spoken to my friend’s heart.
I hadn’t been settled in the stand 10 minutes when a thought crossed my mind. Tree stand hunting is a much different way to get your food. If you go to the store to get your food, you are buying food that a person raised or grew. Sure God supplies everything and He makes the crops grow, but for a person to buy food from the store, many people must do their jobs to get the food in your hands. When you go to the grocery you know food will be there because people will have put it there. Not so with tree stand hunting. If God doesn’t bring a deer by my stand I don’t eat. You must have faith to sit and wait.
Moments after I had thought these thoughts and even shared them on a social website with my phone, I began to hear commotion just behind my tree. I slowly turned and looked over my shoulder to see a deer feeding on acorns from the ground. My heart began to pound as I turned back around and took a few deep breaths. “Thank you God for bringing deer to me,” I prayed. It wasn’t long and noticed a second deer approaching from the rear. I noticed it was the larger of the two deer as I continued to struggle to keep my heart rate in the normal range. If I could, I knew I wanted to shoot the bigger doe.
While looking over my shoulder watching the deer continue to draw closer I became a bit startled. I heard some scratching coming from my tree about eye level with me. As I continued to listen to the sound and look for what was causing it, a squirrel came around to my side of the tree and his cute little eyes looked into mine. His face couldn’t have been more than a foot away from mine but strangely enough I didn’t get nervous. We just had a stare down for a brief moment. While looking into his eyes I almost felt as if I was looking into God’s. It’s as if that squirrel was part of God’s response to my prayer and He was saying I am with you and watching over you. Then as quickly as he had showed up he was gone.
Moments later a large hawk swooped down in front of me to catch the squirrel that was now on the ground but the hawk missed. The hawk flew back out of sight and I could hear him in the distance possibly verbalizing his frustrations. I was thinking about what I had just experienced when I was quickly brought back in the moment by the sounds of the deer continuing to browse behind me. My heart seemed to beat louder and louder as the deer drew closer and closer. As I struggled to patiently wait on the deer, I couldn’t help but just be in awe. What an experience to see how God was orchestrating everything for me.
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably more like 20 minutes, the movement of the larger deer just stopped. I turned my head to look behind me but she was nowhere to be found. I had kept my eye on the smaller of the two deer because she was now out to my left but the larger one had vanished. I began to panic that she may have snuck away but all the while I continued to pray that God would help me. I looked again and then I saw her. Why did the noise stop? Because she had lain down a short distance behind my tree. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Now in order to get a shot behind my tree it was going to take quite a bit of maneuvering and maneuvering usually gets you busted by the deer’s keen eye site. But how can a deer notice movement that it can’t see? God had this deer positioned so that she was looking directly away from me. Any other direction at all and she would have quite likely seen me but because of the direction she was facing for all intents and purposes she was blind to me. Because I knew the deer couldn’t see me, I was able to stay calmer than I normally would have been while I maneuvered for a shot. I stood up, moved around to the left side of the tree so I could draw my bow, aimed, and released. God guided my arrow and the shot was successful. The deer ran off but I knew the arrow had hit its mark.
The shot startled the second deer and she ran a bit before stopping. After some time she walked back toward me into an opening through the tree branches and I aimed and released. This shot was also successful. The deer ran away the opposite direction the first deer ran. I tried to stop shaking so I could text me wife to tell her what had happened but my fat fingers seemed to have grown during the hunt. After much struggle I was able to communicate that I had shot 2 deer.
Because I felt the shot on the second deer was better than the shot on the first, I decided to look for the second deer first. I was trying to beat the fading sunlight so instead of looking for a blood trail, I walked to the last place I saw her when she ran away and started looking in that area. Like a magnet being drawn to it, I found the first deer within a minute or two. Upon approaching the deer I fell to my knees and thanked God with tear filled eyes.
Finding the other deer was much like the first one I found. I went straight to the last place I saw the deer run before it disappeared out of sight and started looking. I wasn’t looking two or three minutes when I felt a strong urge to look in a specific location down one side of a hill. I walked down the steep decline being careful not to slide and sure enough, my second deer was right there. I knew God had brought those two deer to me that night and I knew He helped me to shoot and find both animals. He brought them just as soon as that lawn mower shut off so I would have time to get them loaded up before dark.
But some may ask, “Don’t animals have their own instincts? Don’t they just do what they were made to do?” All of God’s creation was created for Him. He will use any and all of His creation to bring about His will and to bring Him glory. He will put it on the hearts of people to bring about whatever He wishes and He can and will direct animals and even bugs to people and places. Genesis 2:19 “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them.” In Exodus 8:24 God brought a swarm of flies into Pharaoh’s palace and into the houses of the officials.
I wrote most all of this blog the morning following the hunt but I felt it wasn’t finished. Later that day I realized something that I hadn’t realized before. When the deer lie down, not only was it looking directly away from me, it also positioned itself perfectly in an opening through the tree branches. Had the deer chosen a spot a few feet either direction the shot would have been impossible. The following day I went back to my tree stand to make sure I was correct in my thinking.
I TOOK THIS PICTURE FROM MY TREE STAND. THE CIRCLE REPRESENTS WHERE THE DEER LIE WHEN I SHOT. AT THE TIME, I DIDN'T REALIZE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WHERE SHE CHOSE TO POSITION HERSELF BUT GOD OPENED MY EYES TO IT IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS.
After I had confirmed the deer had positioned itself perfectly for a shot, I went back to writing this blog. I added a bit here and there over the next few days but I still felt it was not done. Then I felt God opened my eyes to something. I started thinking back to where the deer lie down and thought, “Could there be even more to the story?” Two days later I headed out to my tree stand to see if I had lost my mind or if God indeed had revealed something more to me.
As soon as I walked to the tree that held my hunting stand, I climbed up the stand. I looked through the opening in the tree limbs to confirm exactly where the deer was when I shot. I then found a large tree limb on the ground as a reference point and climbed down. Once at the base of the tree, I paced off the distance. Using my size 12 hunting boots, I went heel to toe until I came to the exact position of where the deer had lain. I confirmed my suspicion. It was exactly 21 steps or 7 yards. What is the big deal about 7 yards? If you have read my blogs ‘77 cents is worth so much’ parts 1 and 2, you know God used the number 7 to show me that He was at work. The importance of the number 7 is shown time and time again in the Bible. The number 7 represents perfection, completion, and God’s sovereignty.
What are the chances the deer I wanted to shoot lies down perfectly in an opening through the tree branches, facing away from me, exactly 7 yards from my tree? I have hunted this particular spot for 9 years. I have never seen a deer lie down in that area of the woods in plain sight of the house. I have never in my life seen a deer lie down at 5pm while it was eating acorns. At that time they typically would have been bedded down all day and once up they would be on a mission to get to food and water.
To those living in the world life may appear to be nothing more than a random series of events but this world is not on auto pilot. Nothing happens outside what God allows to happen. God never stops working. He knows every thought of every person “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
As soon as I walked to the tree that held my hunting stand, I climbed up the stand. I looked through the opening in the tree limbs to confirm exactly where the deer was when I shot. I then found a large tree limb on the ground as a reference point and climbed down. Once at the base of the tree, I paced off the distance. Using my size 12 hunting boots, I went heel to toe until I came to the exact position of where the deer had lain. I confirmed my suspicion. It was exactly 21 steps or 7 yards. What is the big deal about 7 yards? If you have read my blogs ‘77 cents is worth so much’ parts 1 and 2, you know God used the number 7 to show me that He was at work. The importance of the number 7 is shown time and time again in the Bible. The number 7 represents perfection, completion, and God’s sovereignty.
What are the chances the deer I wanted to shoot lies down perfectly in an opening through the tree branches, facing away from me, exactly 7 yards from my tree? I have hunted this particular spot for 9 years. I have never seen a deer lie down in that area of the woods in plain sight of the house. I have never in my life seen a deer lie down at 5pm while it was eating acorns. At that time they typically would have been bedded down all day and once up they would be on a mission to get to food and water.
To those living in the world life may appear to be nothing more than a random series of events but this world is not on auto pilot. Nothing happens outside what God allows to happen. God never stops working. He knows every thought of every person “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
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