Original Entry: November 16, 2011
Ruch, OR (Jackson campground)
Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for
he sees by this world’s light. It is
when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.” John 11:9-10
This morning I
finished our public land do-it-yourself hunt by taking a beautiful four point
buck with a muzzle loader, and my good friend Ben Sullivan took the biggest
buck of his life on our first day. With three
days until our vacation time ends I pen these words.
The one
question remaining is about the big boy that eluded me. A trophy by any standard, this Blacktail buck
had to be twenty-plus inches wide and at least that high on a four point frame
with extra points. Knowing he did not go
far after our morning hunt I had Ben drop me off at the top of a six mile ridge. I would walk the ridge to the sheer end where
we hoped the buck was bedded.
With only 15
minutes of daylight remaining I made it to the side hill where I believed him
to dwell. Drenched by a constant drizzle
I walked in a dark fog, inadvertently hitting a softball-sized rock which
proceeded to alert everything in the bowl of the presence of an intruder. Across the canyon I caught movement through
the rain of 6 deer including the monster buck cresting the ridge.
With the deer
gone for good I realized I had another problem.
How was I going to get off this hillside in one piece! With the headlamp casting shadows through the
rain my depth perception was thrown off making every step look closer than it
was. I was more grateful about making it
off that ridge in one piece that night than seeing one of the biggest bucks of
my life, almost.
In these short
two verses Jesus compares the man who walks in the darkness to the man who
walks in the light. In 1 John 1:8 we
read, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth
is not in us.” Jesus said that the man
who “walks in he night (sin)” is a man with the “light not in him.” In other words, a man is judged by his
actions more than his intentions.
Too many families
have been utterly destroyed by the secret life of men. Expose the night. Do not try to walk down the steep slope of
sin alone. In the end you will only
injure yourself and those you love.
“A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this
world’s light. It is when he walks by
night that he stumbles, for he has no light.”
John 11:9-10
