You’ll Know.

I love to hunt. I mean love. Mostly, I love to be in nature and watch animals. Hunters get the bad reputation for being like Rambo, mowing down everything in sight. But, that’s not the case. I love the outdoors, and I love the process. I shoot about .7 deers a year. That’s one deer every three or four years.

In early 2023, I was sitting in a deer blind in the last couple of weeks of deer season. Often, I’ll watch for deer until sundown, then spend a few minutes looking to shoot a wild hog. That evening was one of those evenings.

The sun went down and I sat and watched for wild pigs. But behind me, I hear a faint noise. I glassed the area with my thermal scope, and a deer was about 20 yards away from me. It was a monster buck. The kind of trophy that you would take to the taxidermist and get mounted. And you would hang it on the wall and you would tell the tale to friends and family.

But….the shot would’ve been illegal. In Texas, you can shoot pigs and coyotes after dark; no big deal. But not deer.

That buck had lived this long precisely because he wasn’t moving around during the day. He had gone nocturnal and, consequently, lived to be this big. I could see his tall rack and he was so close I could see the details of fur and ears and eyes.

The entire time I had this thought: I’ll know. Maybe nobody would know that I shot that deer in the dark, but I would. It would live on with me and I would have to obscure facts and not tell the entire story. I would know.

When you’re dishonest, don’t underestimate the drag it will have on you in the future. Like the Jon Mayer line, “You’re going to live forever in me.” The deer would die, but the lie would live on.

Proverbs says it this way, “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”

The lies will be a drag in such a way as to create fleeing behaviors in its host.

When a press secretary has to lie, they themselves will know. If you have to lie at your job, you’ll know. It will have its effects on you. Like heavy metal poisoning that gets in your system and quietly does its poisonous work, the lies will live on.

And others may not know, but one person will. You’ll know.

Amazing photo by:

https://unsplash.com/@mitchellleach