One Mistake by Randy Rowley 11/5/25 ©

At 7:30 AM on the last Wednesday in October, I arrived at the Granite Shoals Deer Harvesting Program ‘deer shed’ close to Granite Shoals’ City Hall.  The program exists to thin the herd in Granite Shoals, which had become a hazard from car-deer collisions and deer eating landowners’ expensive plants, as well as to provide hungry Granite Shoals residents with free meat.

After I signed in and my broadhead passed inspection, Mark Henshaw, the Wildlife Advisory Committee (WAC) chairman, told me that the stand that I’d reserved was in a small area, and the tripod was in front of a tree, which offered good camo.  He then let me go to my stand.

I arrived a few minutes later and saw that parking along the road would be a problem, due to a lot of cactuses.  So, I backed into the stand area and parked around ten yards from the stand, which was the farthest that I could get from it.  There was a doe by the feeder, but she skedaddled when I excited my truck.

I put around 20 lbs. of corn under the feeder, put on my backpack, and ascended the tripod’s ladder.  The branch next to the tripod had a pull rope, which I used to hoist up my crossbow.

I quickly discovered that the shooting rest wasn’t very solid.  Also troubling was the tripod was only 14 ½ yards away from the feeder, I’d be looking right into the sun, and, due to the tiny amount of land, if I shot a doe and it ran more than 30 yards in any direction I’d have to call the WAC staff to assist in recovering it.  They in turn would ask for a police officer to be dispatched to get permission from the neighbor for me to get the doe.

The corn that I put under the feeder didn’t draw the doe back, but the feeder going off at 8:25 AM did.  She was extremely cautious – taking a step, then stopping to survey the area.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, she stepped in front of the backstop (harvesters must only shoot when the does are between the stand and the backstop).  She presented a perfect quartering away shot, around eight yards away.  I lined up on her and quickly flipped the safety off.

Big mistake!  She heard the safety click, got the heck out of Dodge, and never came back.

Thirty minutes later a 6 pointer and a spike came in – they presented perfect quartering away shots, but harvesters couldn’t shoot bucks, as the Granite Shoals city council had yet to decide on how to use their managed lands deer program (MLDP) buck permits.

No other does came in.  At 10:00 AM, the designated quitting time, I vacated my stand, checked out at the deer shed, and headed home.  My mistake of quickly flipping my safety off probably cost me a lot of meat.

There are many people in our world today who had their careers or legacies ruined from one mistake or sin, or a series of them.  Examples include:

• Kathy Griffin’s career as a comedian suffered immense backlash after she posted a photo in 2017 showing her holding a mask resembling the decapitated head of President Donald Trump.  She was fired from CNN, her comedy tour was canceled, and she was investigated by the Secret Service.
• Ray Rice’s NFL running back career ended abruptly in 2014 when a video was released showing him hitting his then-fiancée (now wife) Janay Palmer in an elevator.  The Baltimore Ravens dismissed him, and no other NFL team signed him.
• Lance Armstrong, the former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, was stripped of his titles in 2012 after an investigation found that he used performance-enhancing drugs over his career.
• U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner’s political career unraveled in 2011 after he accidentally posted a photo of his genitals on his public Twitter account and then lied about it, claiming he had been hacked.  He eventually resigned amidst further revelations of online relationships.  His subsequent attempts at a political comeback failed.
• In 1987, Senator Gary Hart was the leading candidate for the 1988 Democratic nomination for President.  Rumors began circulating about extramarital affairs.  In response, Hart challenged the media to follow him around, saying that they’d be very bored.  They did and they weren’t.  Donna Rice, who had met Hart at a New Years Eve party in Colorado, later accompanied him on an overnight trip from Miami to Bimini on an 83-foot-long luxury yacht with the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up name of Monkey Business.  A picture soon appeared in the National Enquirer, and then in hundreds of newspapers, showing Donna Rice sitting in Hart’s lap, with Hart wearing a Monkey Business T-shirt.  Hart’s presidential candidacy crashed and burned quickly thereafter.

There is no evidence that any of the above people repented.

The Bible is full of recounts of people, many of whom did tremendous things for God, only to have their legacies tarnished by one mistake or sin or a series of them.  Some of the best known Moses and David:

• Moses, who God entrusted the Law to, and wrote the first five books of the Bible, was the greatest deliverer of Israel (see Deuteronomy 34:10-11).  After the deliverance of the Hebrews from the Egyptians, he said in anger to the Hebrews at the waterless Desert of Zin, who were wandering in the wilderness after refusing to enter into the land that God had promised to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”  Then Moses struck the rock twice with his staff.  Water came from the rock as God had promised (see Numbers 20:10–11).  But God immediately told Moses and Aaron that because they failed to trust him enough to honor him as holy, they would not bring the Israelites into the Promised Land (see Numbers 20:12).
• King David united the tribes of Israel, brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, established Jerusalem as the unified capital, expanded the kingdom through military victories against the Philistines and other enemies, prepared plans for the first Temple, and wrote many Psalms.  But he coveted Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (see 2 Samuel 11:2-3), committed adultery with her (see 2 Samuel. 11:4), and had Uriah murdered (see 2 Samuel 12:9).  The consequences for David were dire.  God said through the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12:10, “‘Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'”  After the rape of David’s daughter, Tamar, by his son, Amnon, David’s son, Absalom, murdered Amnon in revenge.  Absalom then led a rebellion against his father, which resulted in civil war and bloodshed.

The Bible doesn’t tell us that Moses repented, but he must have, as God had Moses meet Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1-9) and his story was recounted in Hebrews Chapter 11 in The Hall of Fame for the Faithful (see Hebrews 11:24-29) and God used him to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land.  When the prophet Nathan confronted David about his sins, he immediately repented and confessed his sin.  He was also mentioned in The Hall of Fame for the Faithful and God continued to use him by writing Psalms.

If you find yourself in a similar situation to Moses and David – where you’ve make a mistake or sinned or a series of them and think that God can no longer use you.  Don’t think that your mistake or sin disqualifies you from further service to God.  Instead, you must confess your sin and repent, and God will remember your sin no more (see 1 John 1:9 and Hebrews 8:7-12).

Just as my mistake of quickly flipping my safety off didn’t spare me from the consequence of no meat for the freezer, God’s forgiveness doesn’t save us from the consequences of our mistakes and sin, but if we’ve abandoned the conduct and willingly accepted the consequences, God can still use us.  When serving God, mistakes or sin don’t disqualify us – not repenting when we fail does.

The 6 pointer and spike

The feeder, as seen from the tripod

Randy’s truck, and the tripod and feeder, as seen from the road