I’ve been on a semi-vacation and have been deer hunting and have had my sights on a large deer and didn’t want to spook him, so I parked my truck over a mile away and quietly walked to my deer stand. I was hunting late one afternoon and several does were in the vicinity and though it was getting dark I stayed until I could barely see my hand in front of me to avoid spooking them.
Finally, I got down out of my tree stand and departed and began the long walk back to my truck. I didn’t have a light so I was walking along a logging road in pitch black darkness. I began hearing something that appeared to be following me. When I would stop to listen, it would stop. When I would resume walking, I could hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of it walking.
We had been seeing a big bear in this vicinity and I began wondering if that bear was following me. Usually they are harmless, but a big sow with cubs is no laughing matter. I unshouldered my rifle just in case. This went on for quite some time. If I would walk I could hear it walking, and when I stopped it stopped.
It was an eerie feeling. I’ve never been afraid of the dark or being in the forest even at night, but this incident reminded me of a spooky story my father’s family used to tell of one of my cousins riding a horse by a cemetery late one night as he returned home from a visit with a neighbor several miles away. His horse was walking along and he similarly heard a strange noise. Whenever the horse was walking he would hear the noise; when he stopped the horse, the noise stopped.
When he got home he shared his experience and discovered that unbeknownst to him someone had been buried in that cemetery that very day. Before hearing that news, he had described the noise to his family as sounding like someone digging with a shovel.
Yeow! All us kids would be scared out of our wits as this story was recounted on dark nights.
Well I don’t know if my cousin heard a ghost or not, but I discovered what was following me.
Nothing!
My cell phone was in my hunting jacket and every time I would take a step it would flop over and hit a plastic cartridge holder that was also in my pocket. When I would stop, the cell phone would be immobile; when I would walk, it would bang back and forth with each step making a noise. I laughed out loud and put my rifle back on my shoulder.
Sometimes what we think we see and hear in life is just not true. Someone can in good faith think they see something and jump to conclusions, but other times folks for reasons known only to them just make things up. Either way it is best to think things through long and hard especially before sharing something unkind about another.
I once had a neighbor who told one of my friends when he stopped in his store for directions that I was a “reclusive multi-billionaire” and I occasionally flew into my hunting plantation on a helicopter and was building hundreds of low income homes on my property and lowering everyone’s property value. I am not reclusive, a billionaire, and I’m not building low income housing or any housing on my land. Where could such a story have come from? I cannot tell you, but half my neighbors were up in arms over this total fabrication of the truth and some of them still glare at me when I drive by.
By the way I got that old buck.
Be careful of what you say about someone. The Bible is clear that gossip is a serious sin and nothing good is derived from it. Often it is derived from some envious, covetous, deceitful, mean-spirited person who thrives on telling a pack of malicious lies and I’ve found if they will talk about others to you; they will talk to others about you.
Romans 1:29
They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
December 5 2016 – Click here to listen