From The Backwoods Pew

Forest Prodigal

he sure felt the results. His right ankle had swollen to the size of a softball. It was hard for him to look

He was deep in at it very long, as the stump hole the Great Swamp had also twisted his right knee, and now, and he knew with its swelling he could no longer it. It had started out see his ankle. He tried to look at the as a simple stroll, a bright side of the painful injury, that small hike if you there had been no snakes in the would, but it hole. It would have been a tough seemed like the woods lured him in Antill day to have a snakebite, broken ankle, and sprained knee all on the further. Really it was one bad deci- right side of the body. Too bad the sion after another that caused him to snake showed up and bit his left be in the predicament he was now hand while he tried to make a in. There was another tree to see, crutch from some fallen branches. another opening that seemed to At least it had not been poisonous, glimmer in the light; one more or so he surmised since he was still stream to cross, and then the bees breathing. and the mad dash! The cell phone Day dawned, passed, and dawned on his belt, the one he had failed to again. Lack of food was taking its charge last night (another bad deci- toll. The bugs had already removed sion), was a useless weight. much of his blood. His leg was a

The mosquitoes and flies, unseen mess, and his snakebite was a or heard when he entered the woods, ghastly site to behold; thankfully it had waited until now to make an had become numb. Through his appearance. He was being ravaged bloodshot eyes and cracked lips, he by the biting bugs. He knew right looked up through the trees, and where his spray was; it was in his mumbled, “I am lost.” truck. With night approaching, it was He remembered the first warning only going to get worse. that came into his mind that day he

His feet were wet. He would have had left the truck and started into the never tried to jump that creek and woods. He could still see the truck, run like a maniac with no care as to felt the call to get his compass, and where he was headed, except for the grab some repellant; but no, he bees. At least he was finally able to ignored them all. He could find his outrun them, but he had gotten turn - way back, nothing bad was going to ed around in the mad dash. He gri- happen; he had done this hundreds maced at the thought of his com- of times. Now, sitting against the pass, lying peacefully on the front tree, he knew he was lost, both in seat of his truck. If he had it with terms of finding his way out, and in him, at least he could see it in the terms of living. There was no one to morning. But first he had to survive know where he was, or how to find the night. him. It was called the Great Swamp

He never saw the stump hole, but for a reason.

It was a hunter, a friend, who eventually found him. In fact, the hunter had been looking for him non-stop from the moment he got the call. On his way home that day, passing by the Great Swamp, he had seen the forester’s truck and pulled alongside it in hopes of talking to his friend. The truck was empty. He noticed through the window that his friend had ventured into the Great Swamp without his compass. As he got into his own truck to head home, a deep dread and foreboding settled upon him. Even then, he began to pray for his friend. That night, when the forester’s father called with concern, he knew where to start looking. He immediately grabbed his gear and headed into the night. The Great Swamp was nearly endless; his friend could be anywhere. With flashlight in hand, he entered the darkness. He stayed in the woods, searching day and night. Calling out his friend’s name at intervals, he pushed through the swamp, constantly praying, that this forester, his friend, could be found and could be rescued.

He found the forester, crumpled at the base of a tupelo tree. He was unconscious, and running a high fever. He was covered in mud. His wounds were ghastly. Another day in the swamp, and he would have been a goner. The hunter gave his friend some water, and some food that he carried in his backpack. He gave him some aspirin to help with the pain, and made a splint for his leg. He made a litter out of two small logs, and gently placed the forester on them. The trek out of the swamp had begun. It would not be easy for either one, but the hunter was determined; he would not be denied this rescue. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed a well-known number, and with joy, told a father his son who was lost, had been found, and was coming home.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”—Luke 15: 4, 5

When Jesus spoke these words in Luke 15, he first gave the picture of a lost sheep being sought by the Good Shepherd; a Good Shepherd that would stop at nothing, searching the wilderness for his lost sheep. And then he followed up that illustration with the story of The Prodigal Son, of a wayward son who all but destroys himself with one bad decision after another, only finally to surrender and return to his father.

You and I are in both stories. Lost in a wilderness of bad decisions, our eternity at stake, it is good to know that Jesus comes into our “great swamp,” searching for us, desiring to rescue us. When life would seem to have you down, when everything appears to be going wrong with one bad decision leading to another, know this and know it well: Jesus is not dissuaded by the swamp. Jesus is a hunter, and he will not sleep while we are lost. He is calling out your name, searching for you in the Great Swamp.

Will you call out to him?

Whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.—Acts 2:21b

Excerpted from Pine, Prayers, and Pelts

Brad Antill, author: find it at www.onatreeforestry.com.

Brad Antill has been a forester in the woods and swamps of the Southeast Coastal Plain for over 30 years. Be sides being a forester, he is also an or dained minister of the Gospel, and to gether they combine as his two passions. He and his wife Cindy creat ed On-A-Tree Forestry as a way of sharing his unique views of the gospel story. They share the fingerprints of God that are revealed every day in those same woods and swamps. Brad is a graduate of The Ohio State University forestry program, and a registered forester in North Carolina and West Virginia.