Throwing Apples

A couple of evenings ago, as with most evenings, David and I were sitting in the living room, looking out our tall front windows at 12 deer (and yes, David counted.)

A few weeks ago, we had some small apples that were going bad (at least for humans…I wasn’t gonna use them for anything) so I threw them out onto our property where the deer usually come and graze. Sure enough, the next evening, they came up and gently ate the sweet offerings.

So last night, again having some apples that were just a bit beyond using, I decided to gently open my front door and toss them into the yard for the deer that were close to our house.

As you can imagine, opening the door, albeit very quietly, got their attention…ever-so-slightly. I gently lobbed small, sweet apples into the yard (not toward any particular deer) so that they could have a nice treat.

Well, the action of throwing anything in the direction of fragilely-motivated deer caused them to flinch and run a few steps in the opposite direction of the apples.

My human mind told me, “Hey, you silly things! If you’ll just stand there for a bit and then come examine, you’ll see that these are so much sweeter and deliciouser than boring old brownish fall grass!” But, nevertheless, they ran away from the tossed apples.

Their loss, I guess.

But this got me thinking. We as humans tend to be the fearful, skiddish deer that walk about looking for a yummy snack. And as we are doing that, our Father God is standing on heaven’s porch, lobbing delicious blessings to us. But instead of running toward them and enjoying their sweetness, we are startled and scared by them. If we would just stand still, examine the situation, we’d see that these are very sweet and satisfying offerings that God is throwing at us. He’s tossing them onto our path, into our world…not to harm us, but to bless us.

As a human, I want to take the deer by the hoof and lead her over to the apples. But they don’t know me. They’re not my pets.

But in the same way, I’m sure God wants to take us by our little hooves and lead us over to the blessings. The difference is, as believers, we know God. We can trust that what He’s offering is good and sweet. 

(Which by the way, the apples were all gone the following morning. Which is a whole other lesson in itself.)