Nov

Seek and You Shall Find by Randy Rowley 11/20/25 ©

There were five bucks and one doe in the area when I arrived at the ground blind that I reserved in Granite Shoals, as part of their deer harvesting program, on a cool morning in late October. They bolted when I approached the blind, of course.

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.

I arrived at the blind and settled in. The good news is the feeder was just 16.6 yards away. Also, the blind, a two-man see-through Tidewe, was big. But the middle shooting window was too high to shoot from while sitting down and using a tripod rest for my Killer Instinct KI350 crossbow, and the left and right shooting windows were designed for vertical bows.

The doe, or a different one, came towards the feeder around 10 minutes after I got situated. I was just about to line up on her when the feeder went off. She skedaddled.

Five other does came through the area, but they weren’t interested in the corn, and didn’t present a shot in front of the natural (granite) backstop (harvesters must only shoot when the does are between the stand and the backstop).

The 10:00 AM deer harvesting program quitting time, was quickly approaching, and I was resigned to the belief that I wouldn’t have another chance. Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable sound of deer hooves walking on granite(there was a hillside made up of granite to my right).

A doe came towards the feeder, stopping every few steps to graze. I readied my crossbow, but I didn’t have a shot yet with her in front of the natural backstop of granite boulders. She then trotted over to the left of the feeder, but something scared her, and she ran up the hill to the left. She stood just to the left of a tree with an orange ribbon on it, signifying not to shoot to the left of the tree. Finally, after what seemed like forever she walked back down the hill, stopped, and started grazing.

As she was still on the hill, I had the elevation that I needed to shoot while sitting down. She also presented a perfect broadside shot. I lined up just behind her shoulder, carefully took the safety off, and squeezed my crossbow’s trigger.

She appeared to be hit. She made a U-turn and ran up the hill, then out of sight. I texted Jeff, the Granite Shoals Wildlife Advisory Committee volunteer for that morning, letting him know that I’d shot a doe and was going to wait 30 minutes before I started looking for her.

After 30 minutes, I looked for blood where the doe had been standing and didn’t find any. Discouraged, I started looking for the arrow. It took me around 10 minutes, but I finally found it buried in the dirt under a small bush. There was blood on the vanes and shaft.

Encouraged, I went the way that she had run and started looking for blood, but found none. After 10 minutes, following Granite Shoals’ rules, I contacted Jeff and asked for help.

Around 10 minutes later, Jeff arrived, along with Police Chief John Ortiz, who had stopped by the deer shed to see how the harvesters had done that morning. I showed them where the doe was when I shot her, where I found the arrow, and presented the arrow to Jeff for inspection. I also pointed out the direction that she had run.

We searched for blood. After five minutes the Chief found some – it was around 180 from the direction that I thought that she had run.

A few feet from there he found more blood, and a couple feet from there, more still. We started following her trail. Jeff was good at finding blood, but his skill was eclipsed by the Chief’s. I’d yet to find a drop.

For the next 1 ½ hours we followed her meandering trail. About 30 minutes into the search I found my first drops of blood. She generally appeared to be heading east, then south.

The Chief called one of his sergeants, who brought a drone to aid in the search. The drone was equipped with an infrared camera, so bodies glowed even in the daylight. But he couldn’t find her.

As the Chief and I were searching for more blood suddenly a doe bolted around 40 yards in front of us. Because she was trotting instead of running I knew that she was my doe.

She ran back across the road and into the heavy woods. The Chief pursued, but she ran again. He suggested that we go get lunch and reconvene at 2:00 PM, which would give her time to bed down and die.

The Chief and I met again at the appointed time and started searching. I went down into the creek, but he stayed on the hillside. In around five minutes, he found her. My arrow had hit around 3” to the left of where I was aiming, partially hitting her spleen and gut.

That was the last day that I used that crossbow scope, which tended to be inconsistent with its first shot of a given day, regardless of the time of the shot. I bought a new scope that appears to have solved the problem.

In what came to be known as Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught two revolutionary lessons on prayer. The first is what came to be known as The Lord’s Prayer (see Matthew 6:9-13). The second is Matthew 7:7-8, which says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Why did Jesus say to ask – doesn’t God know my needs? We ask because he commanded us to. Jesus said in John 14:13, “‘And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son’” and James 4:2 says, “You do not have because you do not ask God.”

Why did Jesus say to seek? We seek because God wants us to seek him with all of our hearts. Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’”

Why did Jesus say to knock? We knock because God wants us to be tenacious, and he responds to our persistence. Jesus told a parable in Luke 18:2:8a. It says, “He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.’”

When we ask God, we’re asking for a favor. When we seek we’re seeking God’s listening ear – we’re not seeking a gift, we’re seeking the one who gives perfect gifts. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” When we knock, we’re asking and seeking with tenacity and boldness.

If we only ask, we might miss finding God. If we only seek, we might miss his favor. If we don’t knock, we might miss both. But with all three combined – asking, seeking, and knocking, we have the greatest chance to get what we need. When we ask, seek, and knock in prayer, God’s promises are initiated, and his power is released.

In context, in Matthew chapters 6 and 7 Jesus tells us to make choices. His options included:

Store up treasures on earth or store up treasures in heaven (see Matthew 6:19-20).
Serve God or money (see Matthew 6:24).
Worry about what you’ll eat, drink, and wear, or trust God to meet our needs (see Matthew 6:25-34).
Choose the wide gate that is without effort or conscious thought or choose the narrow gate that is a life of sacrifice and selflessness that looks beyond immediate gratification (see Matthew 7:13-14).
Build our lives on the rock of obeying Jesus, which enables us to withstand the storms of life, or build our lives on the shifting sands of disobedience, and watch our lives be washed down stream (see Matthew 7:24-27).

In the middle of those choices Jesus says to ask, seek, and knock.

Just as we sought that doe with great effort, God expects nothing less from us when we seek him.