August 17, 2022 – Click here to listen
Yesterday I found a big beautiful whitetail buck dead on my property. It was a sickening find. It appeared to have been dead a week or so. I examined it the best I could and determined that it had not been shot. Apparently, it just died.
I’m spending significant amounts of time and money trying to grow big bucks on my farm and this was like a slug in the stomach. This particular deer looked to be young, probably 2 1/2 years old. Most live from 5 1/2 to 7 1/2, so this guy had its life cut short while still in its prime.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this young buck and have tried to recreate its death in my mind. Did it stagger along coughing and wheezing and suddenly collapse from some illness like pneumonia, or did it get struck by lightning, or maybe have a heart attack and die suddenly? These are questions for which I have no answers. However, God knows how this buck died because His watchful eye is on everything all of the time.
The Bible is clear that a sparrow cannot drop to the ground without God seeing it. A beautiful song was written about it and the lyrics are as follows:
Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely,
And long for heaven, heaven, and home,
When Jesus is my portion,
My constant Friend is He;
Oh, his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watched, watched it over me.
I sing because I’m happy
I sing because I’m free
For His eye, his eye is on the sparrow,
And I know, I know He watches over me.
Jesus said in Matthew 28, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell. What is the price of two sparrows — one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.
I assume that goes for Whitetail bucks too. It is ironic to me how some people say that they don’t want anything to do with God and maintain they don’t even believe in Him. But then chaos ensues, and they curse and blame the God that they don’t believe in, nor have in their lives, for the calamity and particularly death that surrounds them.
The Bible is clear that death never existed until sin came into the world. Now all the world, even ordinary animals, are under a curse for the sins of humankind and death is the finale of it. Jesus came and conquered sin and we await the culmination of His period of grace whereby His Gospel will be preached to the entire earth and as many as will accept Him will have done so. Then we will be heaven bound and have so much to look forward to. We who believe in God all the time take heart in this passage:
Romans 8:22
” . . . that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies . . .”
Why is creation groaning? Because there is a great reward awaiting those who believe. I can only imagine a little sparrow-like me being adopted by the Creator.
Revelation 21:4
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”