Just an old Coyote

Driving to the office the other day, I was cruising down I-24 with hundreds of other cars.  As I 
neared the Old Hickory Boulevard exit, a coyote shot out from the heavy brush in a frantic effort 
to get to the other side of the busy highway.  The whole event happened so quickly that I had no 
time to react, and my right front wheel hit the poor beast squarely.  I looked in my rearview 
mirror to see his limp, lifeless body spinning off to the side of the road.  My heart sank as I 
considered the possibility of an animal family waiting hopelessly for their provider to come back 
home that day.

"It's only a scraggly old coyote," someone might well say.  And they would be right.  Growing 
up in west Texas, I was well acquainted with that particular species of what ranchers dubbed 
"varmints."  We felt no remorse in shooting any animal that preyed on sheep and other small 
livestock.  Out west, the coyote was one of the bad guys that needed extermination.  But being 
run over by a car when attempting to cross the street hardly seems like an honorable death for 
such a creature.  

I have thought about all this for several days now and have realized how very similar we are to 
that coyote.  I sometimes feel like my life is one frantic rush to get from one day to the next.  
There are so many times in my life when I felt like I just missed an oncoming truck.  And, if I 
could look into the cab of that "truck" I might just see ol' Satan himself at the wheel.  He has no 
regard for my life.  In fact, his reflexes are much sharper than mine and he is eagerly swerving 
that truck to intentionally hit me.  He wants nothing more than my miserable existence to end in 
tragedy, leaving behind me a wake of sadness and suffering.  To him, we're nothing more than a 
bunch of scraggly old coyotes.  

Not so with God.  When one of God's children goes down He feels the pain that only a Father 
knows.  When you and I are running from drudgery to drudgery, He's urging us to slow down 
and take life more cautiously.  Whenever Satan throws up a death-trap for us, our loving Father 
is there to lead us through unscathed.  And His little family of children continues to gather 
together and celebrate each day's victory.  That's what we're all about at Northside.  We know 
that there are times when you feel like a wounded coyote... but we want you to know that God 
sees you as a child trying to get across a busy street.  Part of our task here is to help one another 
get safely to the other side.  

With that in mind, we're praying for you every day.  Come join us, and help us to get others, like 
ourselves, out of Satan's destructive path.  May God richly bless us all for His glory!

Stan Cunningham