What a beautiful Sabbath afternoon. The sun’s rays are streaming through the trees as the leaves make the light dance. It is almost enough to tempt me to go outside… I’ve never been one for the outdoors. Too many bugs, wind blowing my hair in my face, and where we live I may accidently run into *gasp* our neighbors. I don’t mind our neighbors, but I can never remember their names and so I get a bit self-conscious. Our neighbors on one side of us we’ve only spoken to once since we’ve lived here.
It was a summer day and we noticed the day before that a fawn was in our fenced in back yard. We opened the gate and hoped the little deer would find its way out. Well… a day passed… and it didn’t. So Ryan and I trudged out into the back yard and tried to chase the fawn out the gate. Ryan exercises almost every day… I unfortunately do not but even with his extra fitness Ryan wasn’t faster than the deer (although he was faster than me!). Then the neighbors appeared. Apparently, they’d been doing exactly what neighbors do… they were watching us trying to chase the deer. “Oh yes” they said “we saw that little deer in your yard a day or so ago. Would you like us to help you chase it out?”
It makes me wonder, if Ryan hadn’t been staring out the back door and happened to see the fawn lying in the yard would it have died here? Obviously, the neighbors who KNEW about it weren’t going to say anything… And I wouldn’t have noticed it. If it’s not in the laundry room or the kitchen or at work or a yowling cat I probably won’t notice!
So anyway, there we all are chasing the deer not really getting anywhere (because honestly the neighbors weren’t any more physically fit than we were and that little deer was fast!). But their big cat happened to come over with them. And shockingly enough the cat is the one who really chased the deer out of our yard. I wish I’d had a camera because it was almost too strange to believe even witnessing it first-hand.
Now how many spiritual applications can this story have? I can see a good children’s story coming from this.
His Way Not Our Way: Nothing we did could get the fawn out of the yard. It took a cat to do it for us. How many times does that happen in our lives when we think we can do something ourselves but truly we need God to help us or to even do it for us. As we spoke about in Sabbath school today, we are saved by grace. Nothing we do can “earn” us a place in heaven.
Awareness: In the parable of the 10 virgins how many were sleeping? Was it 1? 5? 8? Nope, all 10! Why did I not see the deer in the yard until Ryan drew my attention to it? Well I wasn’t paying attention. I was letting the things of this world fill my mind and cloud my focus. Do not let yourself be blindsided. Pray to God for Him to make you aware of the sins in your life that need attention and for Him to help you overcome those sins.
Witnessing: Also pray to God that you will be a light to those around you. When opportunities arise shine a light on the deer in their backyard. Share with them the truth you have found hanging out back there. Pray that God will make you aware of such opportunities because awareness is half the battle!
Keep the Gate Closed: Like the parable in the Bible says, when the house was swept clean and everything in its place then the demon came back with 7 worse than him (Matthew 12:43-45). Keep the gate of your mind closed to temptations from the world. If you’re going to do something that Jesus or your grandmother (because sometimes visualizing Jesus is a bit hard and abstract) would not be proud of then maybe you should reconsider.
Cultivate Good Habits: Did you know that the program I’m writing this in is so smart that at the beginning of each of these 5 points after the second one it knew to bold the text before the colon… Computers are amazing and in some ways our brains are very similar. As we make decisions our brains, over time, rewire themselves to make those same decisions more quickly. (Look it up; it is very fascinating.) This can be a great benefit to us as we are constantly trying to be quicker and more efficient. However, this can be bad when the habits we’ve cultivated are not beneficial. If I always leave the back gate open when I go to do my walk around the neighborhood then deer etc. will get into the yard. I must retrain myself to shut the gate whenever I go in or out. The same is for exercise. If I always say how much I hate exercise, then I will never learn to at least appreciate it for the healthful benefits. I will instead be constantly focused on the negative. It takes time to rewire your brain whether in changing a physical habit (shutting the gate) or a mental habit (not complaining). But over time you will see change taking place.
Don’t be a hypocrite (or at least try your best not to): In the beginning of this piece, I said how our neighbors only have talked to us once since we moved here. The truth is that we didn’t go to talk to them either. As we spoke about today in Sabbath school, we often find ourselves doing the very things we dislike in other people. So the next time you complain, take a moment to consider… am I doing this too?