Anybody who’s ever done any hunting or
fishing has their own personal, quirky “you won’t believe it” hunting or
fishing story. My dad’s hunting story
happened while he was muzzleloader hunting years ago. He was sitting up in his stand all
deer-hunter-like. A deer came out into
the open and stood there broadside for the perfect shot. Dad took aim – and he was a great shot – and
pulled the trigger. The gun roared
thunder, fire and smoke (the best part of muzzleloader hunting, if you ask
me). And the deer? Oh, he ran away…White tail flagging its
warning as he ran away unscathed. Dad was
thinking “surely I hit it”. SO he climbed
down from his stand and started looking around where he had seen (and shot) the
miracle deer standing in the clearing.
Blood? Blood? My kingdom for some blood! But, no, there was no blood. It was apparently truly a miracle deer…or a
zombie!! It was a perfect shot, so it
must be dead – and yet it ran away without a single drop of blood. So as he was standing where the deer was, he
turned and looked back toward his tree stand.
And right in a direct line between his stand and the “deer used to be
here” spot, there was a small sapling tree.
“No way!” And sure enough as he walked around to his deer stand side of
that little tree, there was his lead muzzleloader ball imbedded cleanly in the
tree. The only thing that stood between
his deer stand and the deer was one little tree that he hadn’t even noticed as
he had taken aim at the deer. And that
little tree stopped the bullet, and saved the deer’s life. (Unless it was a zombie!!)
On a somewhat related but totally
different note, there’s Jim Croce. The
American Folk singer who sang “Time In A Bottle”, “Alabama Rain”, and “You Don’t
Mess Around With Jim” and had the thick, bushy Super Mario Brothers mustache
before Super Mario Brothers mustaches were cool – THAT Jim Croce. Who was not, by the way, a zombie. He died in a plane crash five days after I
was born. He was in Louisiana and had
just finished a concert at Northwestern State University an hour before the
plane crash that took his life. The
crash was ultimately blamed on pilot error by the NTSB. The plane had apparently clipped a lone pine
tree near the end of the runway and crashed killing all four people on
board. The report stated that the pilot
failed to see and avoid objects, and that the plane failed to achieve an
altitude sufficient to clear the tree.
And the most sad and tragic part of the whole crash? The investigators reported that the tree that
the plane clipped was the only tree for hundreds of yards.
And a tale of two trees – like the
devotional on the Tree of Life way back when – is what we have here. One tree saved the life of a deer. Another tree killed four people. Both trees were alone in their
surroundings. Both were completely
overlooked. Two people with their eyes
on what was lying beyond didn’t see the tree that was right in front of
them. Listen for the Whisper that sings
in a George of the Jungle sorta way telling you to “watch out for that
tree.” Don’t be so focused on the “what
lies beyond” and miss the tree. Don’t
miss the tree that causes you to stumble and miss your target. The temptation that starts you down a road to
addiction. The person needing help that
you overlook as you look way off into the distance. Don’t miss the tree that creates an
unchangeable outcome. The tree of brash
behavior. The tree of unchristian living
– of non-sacrifice that you don’t see in your own life. Paul had a thorn and prayed for it to be
removed. God told him no, but Paul was
aware the thorn was there. Like the tree
that stopped dad’s bullet, they don’t have to be big trees. And like the solitary pine tree that killed
Jim Croce, there doesn’t need to be lot of trees to cause you problems. You can’t always remove the trees…but you
need to be on the lookout for them just the same. Avoid them if you can. Ask for help climbing them if you can’t. But watch out for the tree. Heaven is our goal, but the devil is trying
for all he’s worth to trip us up. A tree
to block the Gospel message…a tree to turn you from God. Lots of different trees out there, but all it
takes is one to change something forever.
Watch out for that tree.
~Dwayne
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