God's Extraordinary Lessons in Ordinary Thingsಮಾದರಿ

See the Fox?

There’s a fox in our neighborhood—maybe two. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. There’s a real red fox...roaming around.

Do you know how I know this? Hearsay. I’ve never seen the fox, even though many in the community have seen it and even taken pictures of it. My husband has seen it, yet still, with my own eyes, I have not. I’ve seen evidence of it with overturned sealed plastic bins on my back porch where we keep bird seeds. But that’s not actually catching the guy in the act.

On our neighbor network, there was chatter about these sightings.

One said, “This is a real threat to our small dogs!!!”

Another added, “I wonder if the city can set a trap and move them somewhere else out in the country...”

Replies came back: “Which country would you suggest?”

Another replied, “We live in the country.”

And finally, “We encroached upon their habitat.”

Foxes have gotten a bad rap over the years. When someone is cagey and up to no good, they’re said to be sly as a fox. Even the Bible demeans this animal. Song of Solomon says, "little foxes come in and spoil the vines.” And there’s the saying about a fox in the hen house… but I digress.

No matter what is said about these creatures, I’m skeptical of their existence…at least in my backyard. I haven’t seen the creature(s) in question. Not yet, anyway. So, do they exist if I don’t see them?

As the adage suggests, seeing is believing, so why are we implored to completely believe in Him we have not seen?

It’s not clear whether Jesus was chiding Thomas when the disciple refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead without seeing it with his own eyes. The Lord says to the others, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” John 20:29

Other places in scripture say this:

Romans 8:24: “For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?”

2 Corinthians 4:18: “….while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the world has been created by the word of God so that what is seen has not been made out of things that are visible.”

I may not believe in foxes in the neighborhood, but I do in the One who created them.

And by the way, there are no bears in the mountains of North Georgia either. I lived there for seven years and never laid eyes on one.