The Trap

There are a lot of different traps that we use to gather up those annoying little mice along with an array of other traps for much larger game. I honestly remember going after a little mouse with a hammer one day. It proved to be very inefficient and quite damaging to the floor. It became obvious that I would have to use some type of snare to trick that little rascal. A mouse trap loaded with peanut butter does a much better job and it doesn't damage your carpet or tile flooring. The little mouse is a sucker for peanut butter as a late night snack. He travels about in his normal hunting routine, sniffing along and looking for the scent of some tasty food morsel. Everything appears to be the same when the mouse starts eating the peanut butter and then all of the sudden it's over. Wham! The door is closed shut and the life is being sucked out of him.

Does that sound familiar? Life is full of traps just like that. They are set like mine fields all around us waiting for us to succumb to the luring scent of their deception. We don't recognize them because they look too familiar. They look like things that we have always looked at only they are like wolves in sheep's clothing. You think you are petting a lamb and an angry wolf appears to devour you when you are most vulnerable.

Each one of us can look back and recall some of these traps but it doesn't always make it easier to see the new and improved snares that are out there today. Who is setting these traps anyway? Are these traps just life's normal circumstances or is there a sinister invasion going on behind the scenes. The answer is yes. Some of it can be attributed to the school of hard knocks theory but if we understand the Bible even a little bit we have to believe that there is an enemy of God working against us. I don't want to go too deep here but I do think that it's important to recognize one important snare of God's prime time enemy. Satan's intial snare is to have all of us disregard his existence. If we do not acknowledge his existence then we cannot properly defend ourselves against his attacks.

The Lord has given us the weapons of warfare and we can defeat this foe in our everyday life if we have the ears to hear and the eyes to see. He builds traps in the most unlikely places. It's not the obvious vices like alchohol, thievery, murder, pornography, etc. We choose those things and then Satan perverts them even more. The more devious traps are those that look wholesome but can actually do us in just like drugs or alchohol. Religious traps, sports and leisure traps, social climbing traps, materialistic traps, and many more. The deception and entrapment occurs by taking a good thing and perverting it into some self-absorbing life sucking sin. The traps often come when we are living with anxiety, pressure and fear.

That's why we need the Lord.

Proverbs 25:29

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.