Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Oh deer…

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When our family was young, we came to the Michigan cottage and its beach often. Something else we did was visit a small amusement park and petting zoo nearby called Deer Forest. We could ride a Ferris wheel, a small train and a miniature roller coaster, but our favorite was mingling with the animals.

It was at Deer Forest that I saw my first peacock. There were also foxes, goats, rams, wild turkeys, massive rabbits and plenty of deer. One quarter bought a Dixie cup of pellets, and I’ll never forget the soft noses that snoofed into my palm to get their treats.

Back then, it was difficult to see these animals in the wild, but today the tables have turned. Instead of paying an entrance fee to get close to a deer, most of us are trying to figure out how to co-exist with them as they boldly search for food in our yards.

One morning Jack and I came across six deer drinking at the creek, and I couldn’t hold him against his desire to give chase. Of course he couldn’t catch them. Each deer-leap equates to 20 Jacks-steps, and his thick body was no match. He even ran into a tree once, in his effort to zig-zag behind a nimble deer.

The abundance of deer has become a cause for people-frustration. They boldly square off with cars on country roads and cause accidents, some with serious consequences. Homeowners have put up electric fences, hung nuggets of soap or garlic, or put up chicken-wire barriers to protect their gardens. They’ve researched and planted flowers that have a bitter taste, in their efforts to keep landscaping in tact. Although the deer used to eat only the blossoms, now they consume the stems and leaves, too. Even hosta plants, never of interest before this year, are being chewed into sticks.

Yesterday while driving on an expressway, I spotted a beautiful buck (similar to the picture below) walking slowly across a railroad bridge over the highway. Every driver looked up as he flew under the concrete at 70 mph, and I nearly rear-ended a truck while staring at the deer in my rearview mirror. He was sporting a giant set of antlers and although he was in danger, didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

Of course the only reason he was on the bridge was a growling stomach, the fate of most citified deer. Except for occasional deer-hunting days in local forest preserves, their numbers continue to increase while food supplies dwindle.

I talked to God about this today, not asking how to help the deer as much as what he wanted me to learn from the situation. And tonight I think I’ve heard from him. Though there is a limit to the resources of the earth, there’s no “bottom” to who God is, how he works, or what he can do. His wherewithal is unbounded, and his power is inexhaustible.

Although watching hungry deer is disturbing, they, too, are within the scope of God’s control. If he wants me to do something for them, he’ll let me know what that is. Until then, my clear instructions are to meditate on his limitlessness and to give thanks for it.


”Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” (Psalm 147:5)

What were the odds?

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Nate and I were born ten days apart but grew up not knowing each other, and our families didn’t meet until after we did. Our childhoods unfolded in similar ways, though, starting with wild tales told by our mothers of what it was like to labor and deliver in hospitals without air conditioning, in August. (My mother’s quote: “A trip to hell’s door.”)

This week, while looking through Nate’s old photographs, I came across a childhood parallel I’d never noticed before. I found a picture I knew I’d seen someplace else. Paging through one of Mom’s old albums, there it was. Her photo mirrors Nate’s.

The pictures were taken of each family vacationing in Silver Springs, Florida, about to take a ride on a glass-bottom boat, popular entertainment back then. They would view brightly colored fish, sunken ships and scuba divers who were busy finding treasure. In my picture, (the one on top) Dad and Mom with us kids sit in the first seats on the left side of the boat. In the other picture, Nate’s family also sits in the first seats on the left side of a boat.

So we had the same family vacation in what looks like the same old boat at the same attraction, some time in the 1950’s. Our fathers both succumbed to buying the photographs, which wasn’t typical for either of them, and both families managed to keep track of them for 50 years. What were the odds?

Mom used to tell of a similar coincidence from her past. When she was an infant, her mother would “air the baby” in a buggy each afternoon, believing children needed sunshine and fresh air. Because they lived in a Chicago neighborhood, an alley ran behind their house, across from which lived another family with children. The two families never met, but after Mom and Dad were married three decades later, the connection was made.

Dad was 13 years older than Mom so had clear memories of living in the house across the alley. He told us of seeing a woman (our grandmother) rolling her baby out into the yard each day to nap. That baby was Mom. Although her family moved away before the two could meet, once Mom and Dad compared childhood addresses and dates, they put it together. What were the odds?

I believe God puts unlikely circumstances like these together continually, around the world. He’s arranging happy “coincidences” by the millions, and is probably doing it just for his own pleasure. When he opens our eyes to “get” even one of these unlikely connections (like the glass-bottom boat or the baby carriage), we all get a big charge out of it. And as we move through the eons of life in glory with the Lord, I have no doubt he’ll reveal every instance of “chance” he orchestrated, and we will be in awe.

We’ll have plenty of “time” to listen to his cleverly executed arrangements and will be mouths-hanging-open-stunned by his ingenuity. Maybe he’ll even let us watch ourselves on a cosmic video of some sort.

But best of all, we’ll be shown it had nothing to do with chance. What were the odds?

100%

”Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works on man’s behalf!” (Psalm 66:5)

Delayed Gratification

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When our Nelson was three years old, he noticed the table set for dinner and climbed into his junior chair, hoping for something to eat. I was busy dishing up four bowls of fruit when he began to whine. “I’m hungry! I wanna eat now!”

“Pretty soon,” I said. “When Papa gets home.”

As his complaining escalated, I became irritated he wouldn’t wait and told him to go find something to do away from the kitchen. But before he did, he asked three weighty questions.

“Do I have to obey you?”

“You should,” I said.

“But do you have to obey anyone?”

For the sake of the analogy, I said, “Yes. Papa.”

“Then who does Papa have to obey?”

I could see where he was going. “Jesus,” I said.

There was a pause, and then he said, “Well… I just heard the Lord Jesus tell you, ‘Give that Nelson a bowl of fruit’!”

It was good theology, but he still had to wait.

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The older I get, the more I see that life is full of unpleasant waiting. This morning during my prayer time, every situation I prayed over was something I’d been praying about for a long time. In some cases it’s been decades.

God isn’t asleep at the switch, and he’s not ignoring me. To the contrary, every one of my prayers has been heard and answered. But almost every answer has been, “Wait.” There’s a valid reason, though. As I’m asking the Lord to do things in the lives of others, he’s also interested in doing things in mine. And insisting I wait is effective toward that end.

He is also “setting the scene” for the best possible outcome, one that belongs to him.

Thirty years ago when our first three children were three, five and seven, they begged to have their own gardens. We’d had a 50 x 60 ft. kitchen garden in previous years, and although the kids had sporadically participated, Nate and I had done most of the work. They did help husk corn for dinner and pick beans to boil, but of course that was the fun part, the grand finale.

I liked the idea of their own small gardens. It would be a good way to teach the difficult concepts of waiting and delayed gratification. We turned over a strip of dirt on the south side of the garage and divided it into three  sections. After a trip to the local nursery for seed packets and a few plants, they proudly stood in front of their handiwork for photos.

During the weeks to come, my nagging them to weed and water grew old for all of us, but they did have mild success, maybe 30%. As for the other 70%, it was just too hard to labor all summer while waiting for produce.

When it gets hard to wait, especially to see a harvest of spiritual fruit in myself or someone else, it’s helpful to remember God’s description of life’s brevity. Because once I’ve left this world as Nate has done, I don’t want to look back at all I missed and say, “Oh, if I’d only waited!”

“Since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4)