The broken antler and the Arrival of the King!

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Its late fall and for me and my son that means spending long hours together in the woods of NC waiting patiently and sometimes in my son’s case not so patiently for that one big buck deer to show himself. One day this week I was reading in my ground blind and around the corner of the creek that one big buck deer did show himself. I waited for the right moment, and let a round from my .308 go flying. The deer immediately went down. I was so very thankful. My heart raced, my spirit soared at the thought of a full freezer and those log hours of preparation rewarded. That was until I got up to go and retrieve the big guy. Through my binoculars I could tell he was at least an 8 pointer. For those of you that don’t know that is a good deer. My buddies met me by the creek and we went to the spot where I shot him…nothing! We looked for any blood on the ground, nothing! Then my friend Robbie said, “Hey dude, there’s his horn!” On the ground was lying 1 broken antler. I was nauseous. I had shot his antler off! How did I shoot that high? We looked around and by now there were four of us, including my buddy who is our local wildlife officer, with camera in hand to record the moment. But we were robbed of that. I found a sapling about one inch in diameter that had a brand new horizontal crease through the bark. My round had struck the tree and caused the bullet to veer upward! I never saw it from 80 yards away. Something so small caused me to miss what I had been longing for. I was so close, but so far. All that being said its closing in on Christmas. In the church we call it advent or the arrival of the King. Long ago God decided to invade this world not with an Army, but with a zygote in the womb of a 14 year old girl. People had been longing for the arrival of Messiah, yet only a few really saw this miracle for what it was. Most were looking for a Warrior King, (by the way He will come in that role someday). But because of very little things like wrong attitudes, desire for power, a temporal rather than eternal focus, most missed it even though God Himself put a real, unbelievable, miracle sign in the sky to announce His invasion. But only some sheep herders and some star gazers from down east really got it. I pray that we’ll get it this year and not let something so small change our trajectory; that we ought to have our hearts waiting in glorious anticipation for the arrival of the King.

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