When You Hit a Deer

I hit a deer the other night. I preached in Greenfield on July 23rd. We were driving between Greenfield and McKenzie when Tara yelled, “Deer!” I locked the Odyssey up to no avail. That brought us to a stop. I had other places to be, but we were stopped in the road. After some cleanup, we were on our way. Lord willing, the van will get fixed this week, and it will continue to bless us with safe travels. This incident (and the fact that I need to get something out of this incident) got me to thinking about life. We had experienced rain on the way to Greenfield; stop signs, traffic, and turns, but nothing stopped us in our tracks like hitting that deer. What do you do in your spiritual life when you hit a “deer?”

Most of us expect ebb and flow in life, like the stop signs, turns, and traffic while driving. These things can be annoying but are usually expected. What happens when something big happens? Maybe your deer is a job loss, a bad medical report, the loss of a loved one, or whatever major thing hits your life. What do you do? I will share with you what we did. We checked on ourselves and those that were affected. Is everybody ok? We have a new reality that we all need to adjust to. We checked on the damage. The car had damage but was still functioning and still able to be driven. Pieces of it were scattered across the road. We tried to pick those up so others would not be affected. We eventually went on our way. You cannot quit driving because you had an accident. You cannot quit walking with the Lord because something bad happened. The Bible refers to it as faithfulness or perseverance. Some passages that come to mind are Revelation 2:10 and 2 Peter 1:6. There are plenty of other passages that teach the same thing. The reality is that bad things come up in life. Will you continue to walk with the Lord?