The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways
posted by on 12/9/07
I had been hunting in ideal weather conditions but without success for six days. For three of these days there was not even a sighting of a deer. The strangest things seemed to happen on the days deer were in the area. On several occasions I had a deer in my sights, but it would have been an unsafe shot; either a sky shot or a shot into the open woods of a neighbor. I let a very small deer, probably born this year, walk past. Another deer came trotting, stopped directly behind a stand of trees, and scampered off into a thicket. Then there was the deer I spotted walking slowly toward my tree stand about 50 yards away. Somehow it literally disappeared from sight then reappeared 20 yards directly behind me. I was beginning to get a complex. However, I took last Friday off work to try again. The only problem was I could not get off to an early start because our son would be calling from Taiwan at 6:30 am. The Lord encouraged me to keep my priorities straight and I was eager to talk with Donald so I decided to just get out as soon as I could. However, God’s plan was for Donald’s call not to work out until 8:30 am. We had a nice long talk and I finally left for the woods at 10:00 am. The cold snow crunched under each step. When I reached the tree stand it started to sleet so I had to remove the crackling plastic from my vest to cover the gun while I climbed up to my seat to remove 6 inches of snow. As I scraped it off it fell 30 feet to the ground below. Scrape … splat; scrape … splat. Following a discussion on the walkie-talkie about the location of a book in our library that was needed for the day’s home education class it was 11:00 am and I was finally situated.
“This is useless,” I thought, “I’ll just consider this a preparation day for hunting again tomorrow.” But that is when God likes to show Himself strong; and He did! Only 1 hour later three large doe came grazing into a shooting lane. I got one and Michael got another. On a day like this I would never have guessed for success, but it will ever be a reminder to me that as long as I keep my priorities straight, God will take care of the rest – sometimes in mysterious ways.
I was so glad to hear about your success! I am sure God enjoys it when He can make things like this happen. Enjoy the process of getting the deer in the freezer!
Congratulations, Dad! What an encouraging reminder. God is in complete control and we can be confident that He will work everything out for our good as we follow Him. Praise God!
James and I will be back soon to join you and Mike in the woods again.
That is an amazing story Dad. I was actually going to call you early that day but I didn’t check email to see your “call now” message and, remembering that you all were even an hour earlier without daylight savings, I decided to wait until later in the evening here. Looking back, I realize that was probably the Lord’s prompting to call early and I just didn’t pick up on it. Oh well. What a testimony that God is merciful, sovereign and able to work in any situation. I will probably remember that one for a while.