Have you ever seen elk in the Rocky Mountains? My family and I just got back from our family vacation in Colorado. The kids had never seen elk in the wild, but now they can say that they have seen hundreds and witnessed dad pulling over a gazillion times to take even more photos of them.
We saw more elk than I have ever seen before, but the kids became unimpressed, because those massive creatures became so familiar during our trip to the Rocky Mountains. We saw the elk in herds. We saw them trotting across the road. We saw them grazing in town. We saw them staring at us. We saw them in snow. We saw bull elks (males) and cows (female elks), but the one elk that we did not see were those with massive antlers. Why? Bull elk shed their antlers every year, during the winter, due to decreased testosterone levels and begin their new set of antlers each spring. Although the antlers are a great source of protection, they also serve another primary purpose…Balance.
Shedding Antlers got me thinking about our lives as Christians and the necessity of shedding sin.
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Heb 12:1-2 NIV)
Do you ever consider the weight of sin?
Do you ever consider how sin throws us off balance?
Do you ever consider the necessity of doing whatever it takes to shed the sin?
Do you ever consider the importance of family during this process of shedding sin?
Some bull elk will only lose one side of antlers and end up knocking the other rack off, because it throws them so off balance. I never saw one bull elk alone this past week. They were always with the herd.
God loves us and desires nothing more than for us to fix our eyes on Jesus and anchor to family.