foxes under my shed

So I have foxes living in my property.

Remembering a sermon about needing to take care of the “little foxes” in life has really brought out a lot of spiritual lessons in this time of having some actual foxes.

When I learned that we had foxes, I was a little happy at first. They’re such cute little animals and we rarely saw them, what could possibly be a problem with them?

Not too long after, the 5 little babies started playing outside of their den. I was awestruck at how adorable they were and how they interacted with their regal-looking mother. But than came a sobering realization: those 5 babies will be ready to mate and reproduce in less than a year – and if all 5 babies and their mother would produce 5 new babies each, I would be over-run with a total of 36 foxes loose in my property come next year.

And that’s how dangerous a little sin or distraction can be in our lives. We might welcome it because it seems good and it might actually be good and God-honoring, just a little seed. Before long, we don’t even notice how much it has grown and taken from us. I certainly didn’t notice that I had stopped enjoying portions of the yard because of the foxes.

How did the foxes come to make their home under my shed? Winter. I had left that portion of my yard alone. Left unto itself, a little fox came around and found a nice quiet place to call home and be in peace. Once during the winter I found some unusual footprints next to the shed. After taking some photos, I dismissed it as simply being a neighborhood cat. Do you see the analogy to sin or small distractions in all of that?

cat footprints?

fox footprints?

Not long after, I became convinced that the foxes had been ‘scared off’, that God had moved them out for us. I stopped seeing them play at their usual place & time and had started seeing them emerge from another den, further away and not in my property. My wife had continued seeing them in the same shed area but not at my usual time. I was deceived! There was an article I read about encouraging foxes to move on/abandon a den – they are very smart and quickly recognize patterns. They simply changed their pattern to not coincide with mine and what I had expected, which led me to believe they had moved on. How very sly indeed! Do you see the spiritual implications in all that?

And after they are finally removed (by a trapper I will need to pay), I will need to put in some effort to ensure that they, or another animal, will not move in to the den under my shed. I am going to put in a number of large rocks (!) blocking the entrance and cover it with a lot of dirt. Given the existing structure around it, I probably will not put a fence over it. To rephrase what I will need to do, I will need to protect the vulnerable area and put a hedge around it. I’m going to use rocks. Do you read the meaning behind all that?