One story from the tsunami disaster was the survival of the whole population of a seaside village. The people observed that their animals were instinctively fleeing to high ground long before there was any evidence of danger. By acting on what they observed, they followed the animals and their lives were saved.
The train driver tells the story of a little fox who also listened to his instincts. He said, “I have been on early morning shift. I take my heavy freight train down the line through the mountains at the same time every morning, and every morning I have been watching a little fox in the early light. He follows a narrow track that takes him home.
It is just on daylight as we drive past his track and we have to wait there for a while for the right signal. Every morning the little fox pauses before he crosses the trainline. He sees that our train is standing still even though it has its engines running and it is ready to move on at a signal. He stops with one paw lifted and he listens.
He takes care not to run in front of our moving train so he halts and sniffs the air and when he knows it is safe, he crosses silently over the lines.
Then he trots along the narrow track that takes him through dangers and home to his lair in the hills. He keeps to the narrow path and he is safe. He is such a wise little fox, isn’t he?”
Follow the ways of creatures, be observant to learn wise behaviour, said God (Proverbs 6:5 and 30:25). So we learn the ways of the fox. He finds a narrow, safe track and stays on it. He observes, he tests conditions, he pauses, he looks and listens.
There is a narrow track we must travel that leads us through dangers to our home, too. Matthew 7:14: “small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.”
Let us learn to follow the fox.
Elizabeth Price