Our eyes are peeled. It’s that beautiful time of year when new life emerges. We are so privileged to be able to witness, sometimes on a daily basis, new life. You see it’s drop time. That time when the does start dropping their fawns. We spend time watching the fields to see if the pregnant doe yesterday is nursing a fawn today. Nature teaches us some amazing things about our God.
After a doe has delivered, it is her job to protect that baby. I’m sure mother deer love their babies, but it’s not like we love our babies. They love their babies out of instinct, out of a need to survive, or maybe it is the same.
We know that in the animal kingdom it is definitely survival of the fittest, we all remember Marlin Perkins and Mutual of Omaha’s…W-i-l-d K-i-n-g-d-o-m. Frankly, W-i-l-d K-i-n-g-d-o-m was pretty ferocious and predictable. We knew the ending every week, beautiful innocent animals just wandering around out for a meal, minding their own business, when suddenly something swoops in and the fittest prevails, yet we watched. Brutal. Back to the does.
So after a mother deer delivers, she’s right back to what we usually see her doing, eating. She must stay strong in order to provide for her baby. Oft times we don’t immediately see the fawn until it’s a few days old. So, where is it? Right where the mother leaves it. You see a mother deer will bed down her fawn during the day. She places it in a safe place, tells it to stay there and then heads off for sustenance. It’s interesting to watch a mother deer bed down her baby. She finds a protected, safe spot, pushes her baby down, and if it moves before she tells it to, she takes her nose and baps the baby on the head. It only takes a bap or two for that baby to stay put. It will stay put until the mother deer comes and retrieves it many hours later. Some does put their babies down in the morning, head out for a day of foraging returning at the end of the day. We once watched a retrieval. It was amazing. A mother deer returned to her bedded down baby under one of our fences (the one in the pic). She paced back and forth the opposite fence line to make sure the coast was clear. She then bleated from about 20 feet out and that baby jumped up and ran to her. It recognized her voice. But, that baby would not move until called, under no circumstance.
That mother’s instinct is to protect her baby. That mother enforced obedience with a bap on the head because she knew that her baby’s life depended on it. That baby wandering from a safe place could end up the next episode of W-i-l-d K-i-n-g-d-o-m.
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve certainly had my share of baps on the head and there’ve been times when I should have had a bap on the head and the Lord was merciful. Just like in the animal kingdom, obedience to Him is a matter of survival. It is a matter of life or death. And it is the exact same for us.
At the end of the day, the doe calls to her young, they move off into the evening, the baby nurses and gains strength from the mother’s milk, and they bed down together. It is absolutely no different for us. We do not have to live out W-i-l-d K-i-n-g-d-o-m, but if we are not obedient to the Lord, we will. This world is full of predators just waiting to attack the weak and defenseless. Predators swoop in and the fittest will prevail. When we are not obedient to Him we are the weak and defenseless.
The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to fight in battle when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the LORD, and the LORD vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us—a land flowing with milk and honey.
Joshua 5:6
The Israelites are a great example. Yet we probably don’t have to look that far. Obedience to Him, for our own protection, keeps us from being devoured by this world.
The New Testament in Modern English, under the heading “Your knowledge of the truth should be your safeguard” states:
All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the faith and correcting error, for re-setting the direction of a man’s life and training him in good living. The scriptures are the comprehensive equipment of the man of God, and fit him fully for all branches of his work.
2 Timothy 3:16
All we need to know to be obedient is in the Word. All we need for life everlasting is in the Word of God. Obedience is a choice. Every choice comes with consequences. If we are not obedient to God, through His Word, we subject ourselves to the consequences and it won’t be a bap on the head.