October 28, 2012   

Today's Photograph . . . . Through These Situations We Learn Something About Ourselves or More Importantly About  our God   (Michael T)

Bible Study Verses  

Psalm 37:3-7 

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! (ESV)

Thoughts

The sound of hooves crunching through the woods was music to my ears. I slowly began to scoot forward carefully and quietly grabbed my bow. The tree stand creaked. I held my breath and stopped. I clipped my trigger release onto its normal spot, took a deep breath and waited.

It was a cold and frosty morning, not more than sixty yards away a small puff of fog emerged from behind a tree. The puff of smoke billowed again, and this time a whitetail buck walked through it. 

Immediately, I knew it was a shooter. The buck came towards me. He was looking well beyond me obviously searching for a doe and a potential date. Forty, thirty, twenty-five and then at twenty, the deer gave me a soft quartering shot. I unleashed death.

I watched the buck hunch and then bolt out of sight. Now, all that was left to do was to wait patiently and give the large buck some time to go to sleep. In the meantime, I called my father and a friend over to help me track this deer. 

The blood trail was a good one and we found the arrow the way we would like to see it after coming out of a deer. We followed the trail through the woods, through some thickets, and with every step we got a little more excited. The trail led us from the woods to an open field and that is where the story turns. 

At this point the deer could have gone a thousand different directions, but which way? Unfortunately, there was no more blood. We searched all morning and afternoon and even the next day for any sign of blood, or a limp less body, but to no avail. I spent the next few days in mourning over the disappointment of losing out on that trophy buck. 

(Mike T)

Action Point

Life brings about many disappointments and heartache. It is often through these situations that we learn something about ourselves or more importantly about God, or both. 

In my case, I realized that I was beginning to worship that trophy buck far beyond the normal fascination of what was acceptable. In fact, I was tying my worth as a person to that monster deer. I thank God for showing me otherwise.

Sportsmen's Tip of the Day
If you ever lose a blood trail and this is allowed by law, contact a local K-9 retrieval unit in your area within twenty-four hours of shooting your animal. Put their phone number in your cell phone. I wish I had.