Today, while streaming Facebook, I was drawn to a youtube video that showed up in my news feed. The video was almost a year old and showed two men in a boat, trying to free a buck. The buck was neck deep in the water, fighting for it's life, with a dead buck entangled in it's antlers. The buck was tired. He didn't know that the men in that boat were only trying to help. And every time that buck tried to rest, the men would try and remove the dead buck. Every chance they could, they would hit the antlers of the dead buck, trying to break them free. As I watched, I looked at the men and thought, "Buddy, I bet you feel like another enemy, 'cause I bet every blow to the dead antlers feel like an attack to him."
As I watched the rescue attempt, I could relate to that buck. I had dead weight (even though it was from a victory I had won), somehow there was a part of that victory stuck to me and I couldn't shake it loose. I have been neck deep, feeling as if I'm going to drown and right before I go under taking another blow. I've even cried out to God in anger, "Really?! Can't I catch a break?!?! I need rest, not more attacks!" But as I watched the video, God gave me a new perspective on what I had gone through. What if those "blows" as I labeled them, were really only God's tools to try and shake the dead weight that remained from a battle already one? At one point in the video, one of the men said the obvious, the buck is drowning. Yet every time the men tried to free the buck, that buck would fight. I watched, and the men in that boat were actually driving that buck to fight, and that drive to fight helped keep that buck alive. That got me thinking; what if when I was going through my season of storms, what if those things that felt so horrible were really there to keep the fight in me because God knew I would loose the battle if I lost my will to fight? I watched the men in that boat terrify that buck every time they approached. And when did they approach? When the buck had stopped fighting...when it was giving up and as they approached, he fought. When the victorious buck had been freed from the dead buck's antlers, he leaped out of the water. Exhausted and terrified he never looked back.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." ~Roman's 8:28
Lord, thank You that You never leave us nor forsake us. Thank You that even those things that feel like attacks are merely Your way of freeing us from bondage and dead weight. Help me to stop running from You during those times and trust that You are good and while it may feel like it's going to kill me, it will work out. You will complete the work you have begun.
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