by Robert Warren

When I look into the wild, I think of a deer crunching through leaves. It takes a pause and goes “meh”, then bolts off. This is something we can compare ourselves to as Christ followers. I know this is crazy but listen to me, follow me and let God speak to you.

Sometimes we go on an adventure in our lives, crunching through the leaves of our own sinful nature. We take a pause, get spotted and are shocked, when we are confronted by a situation where we see the devil. So we stand there. Just for a second. Just frozen.

We don’t run away yet. We are shocked at our sight. We know we should do something but we debate. Why do we debate? If we do the right thing then things will be better but what is the right thing? If we do the right thingwe make an immediate trust in the Lord, and run from the devil’s pressures on us and bolt towards the Lord. How can we manage this bolt towards the Lord though? How can we avoid getting attacked by a devil that hears the crunching of sin?

I think a lot of this has to do with how we see life and what we commit our lives to. Are we an avid, dedicated and committed Christ follower? Do we know how the Lord wants us to live our lives so we can avoid walking into sinful leaves?

To see God’s way for our life we have to read His word and even more than that live it out. We have to have immediate trust and an unfathomable love towards Him. We have to appreciate His glory and we do that by seeing the detail.

Did you know there are over 60 types of deer? Just to name a few: white-tailed deer, elk, red deer, roe deer, and reindeer among many others. Then the trees alone, full of many branches, there are over 400 billion trees, now imagine all the leaves! So many leaves! We can’t even begin to picture how many leaves! Crazy, huh? It’s incredible.

Each leaf is unique too, like people on this earth, like the deers, like the sounds that happen when stepping on the leaves. What’s the idea here? Look at the detail. Listen to it. God created a big world full of minuscule handiwork that we cannot even begin to comprehend but if we do not pay attention we will most absolutely miss it. Our God is an artist.

“For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” – Romans 1:20

This verse asserts an important point by Paul, that while God is difficult to understand in an invisible nature we can perceive Him through the creation of the world in nature to help us reach conclusions on the invisible nature. This is important here. So if we don’t take time to see this detail, then we are missing a beautiful presence of the Lord that could better help us understand Him and His glory!

So going back to that deer in the wild situation. Let’s look at it a different way. When I look into the wild, I think of a deer crunching through leaves. It takes a pause and goes “meh”, then bolts off.

This time, in theory of being a deer in this situation, we go into the wild. We go on our adventure. When we crunch through the leaves, rather than walking in the leaves of sin we walk on leaves of Scripture. Our crackling noises are our worship songs for the lord. When we see the devil. We immediately bolt. We are safe.

Now, we can pause and meditate and give thanks to the Lord! What a glorious Lord! We are free. Now, when we talk we can look at the world in more of an appreciation rather than being in the dark and gloomy nature of what could happen next. It’s always safer in the light of the Lord.

This is a small thing I thought of today, our journey as Christ followers into the wild. We are searching for our spiritual freedom to one day reach the kingdom of Heaven but we must avoid the hunting devil. Glory to the Lord! We are free.

Give thanks. Tell people you care about them. Spread the word of the Lord. Study Scripture and admire His work. Now let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for your glorious works. Help us go understand your handicraft. Let us escape from whatever dark wildness is in the world right now and show us the way to Your kingdom. We want to love You. We want You to protect us from the crunch of the devil. Let us act immediately to Your will, don’t let us pause, except to admire the glories of Your work. Show us the light, dear lord, that leads to our freedom, and further into Your kingdom. We want to be the people You want us to be, not just the people we want to be.

Then all of God’s people said,

Amen.