The Bear, Oh My!

This is a story I pasted from one of my many news letters sent to loved one during our time in the Adirondacks. Enjoy!

We discovered each other at the same moment. I spotted her as she turned to look over her shoulder in the direction of my oncoming car. In less then a blink of an eye she made her move. Moving with a grace that seemed impossible for a creature her size she barreled across the road directly in front of my vehicle. Her long black shiny hair swinging with each stride, just making it to the other side, to simply vanish into the thick wall of trees that threatened to swallow the curvy road as it cut a path through the mountainous dense forest. It was the biggest bear I had ever seen!

Stephen and I have lived in the Adirondacks for a little over a year now and in this time we have been privy to the observation of a variety of wild life. I suppose if you had ever heard the sounds of a screeching owl in the dead of night you would probably have a better understanding of why all those city folk stay the few short hours away, instead of pushing their way in to the largely unpopulated and predominately desolate Adirondack region.

Now as I make my way about, I ponder the trees and the deep intensity of the forest in which we live, realizing it holds far more and far bigger wild life then I first imagined. I wonder to myself, how does something so large dwell among us in such stealth? What else thrives quietly about as we carry on with our day to day lives? What other things largely loom before us, that we some how miss? I think to myself how large and black un-confessed sin must look as it dwells with in our hearts, taking every opportunity to feed and grow.

I think though that the biggest thing most of us miss, some of us our entire lives, is the power of God. I believe a large amount of us finds forgiveness in His infinite mercy and grace, but then in our contentment we are blinded. We some how deceive our selves in to thinking that we need not do any more then sit at the foot of the cross making it an end unto itself rather then seeing it as it truly is; a bridge to a deeper more satisfying relationship with our Lord.

What is the saying? “We are unable to see the forest for the trees”?

Acts 1: 8 “But ye shall receive power, after that
the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in
all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost part of the earth.”