I don’t see them too often, but I know they’re out there. And I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking about all the things in my yard they want to eat when the sun goes down.
They’re cute when they’re young, but deer are nevertheless steadily moving up on my “Most Not Wanted” list. They eat my blueberries, my lilies and my roses. Last year, they took bites out of every tomato on our plants, even though our garden was just feet from our back deck.
“Surely they won’t come this close to the house,” we said.
“Silly humans,” they thought.
I would’ve been willing to offer up one or two tomatoes to the deer as a peace offering, but when they left big bite marks in every single one, well, that’s just wrong. How did I know the deer did it? Well, it’s not like I haven’t learned a thing or two from watching murder mysteries on TV. Forensically speaking, everything about the bites on those tomatoes said, “rascally, devious deer.”
In an attempt to protect roses that have also consistently been devoured by deer, I moved my rose bush very close to our house, too. So close that only the most audacious deer would dare denude its stems. When some roses appeared on my bush and actually survived for a few days, I thought, “Well, well, well, I guess I won that battle.”
But the morning after I thought that happy thought, I looked out the window and saw that all but one of the blooms had disappeared. I knew who was responsible.
I’m not ready to wave the white flag, even if my war with the deer has started to feel a bit like a Wile E. Coyote-Roadrunner matchup. I haven’t resorted to dynamite yet, but I did find a bit of chicken wire out by our barn and encircled that doggone rose bush with it. I may have lost most of the battles in this war, but I’m not waving the white flag yet.
There’s another war I’ve been fighting for many years and am destined to keep fighting as long as I’m stuck in this mortal body of mine. It’s the war against sin, and if you’re a Christian, you’re conscripted to fight in it, too. That war includes both grand battles against the moral decay in our culture as well as daily, personal battles in our own hearts and lives.
The outcome of our personal war is determined by how we deal with temptation. James 1:14-16 describes the slippery slope of temptation: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
In cartoons, temptation is usually portrayed as an angel whispering in one ear while a devil whispers in the other. I find pastor and author Matt Chandler’s advice regarding temptation more realistic and helpful. Temptation, Chandler writes, “always looks for self-gratification, seeks weakness, and proposes shortcuts.” Seems like a good checklist to me.
Once I near sin territory, avoiding that step onto the slippery slope to sin simply comes down to saying no. No, that’s not who I am. No, that’s not what I do.
I may not win my war against the deer who are stealing good things from my yard, but God’s Word tells me I absolutely can win battles against sin that can steal much more important things from me: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8:2).
Jesus beat sin and death. Now we who are His have all we need to beat it, too.