Snares & Traps...

Here is a story I had in my draft file... thought you might like to get some real deal stuff from my life.

I was listening to some folks talking about there high adventures @ a local redneck breakfast joint recently... I just sat and listened to them laugh at the "fun" and hung my head in shame just so they would not see my countenance. As I rode home I got to thinking about snares and traps of this old world and how the devil makes fun so enticing.


Years ago I loved trapping wild critters like coons, foxes and bobcats. Oh I cleverly would set the trap... so I understand how we are drawn into this dilema. I especialy loved catching foxes. now they were slick little willies but I got pretty adept at out foxing the fox. You see it was all based around pride and self. There was one fox that was constantly stealing the bait and tripping the old steel clamp type trap. So I got a bucket of dirt and ran the trap thru the mound I built and set it on top... in the wide open. The bait was laid @ the base of the mound but the placement of the dirt was on top of a hill overlooking the field below. The fox took the bait of pride and jumped on top of the hill to look out not even bothering with the bait...


Uncle Son was lieing in bed and called my dad to come see him. He had been sick in bed for quite some time and daddy asked me to go with him to pray for his old uncle. What I saw was shocking as this old man lay in a bed of despair from years of drinking rot gut whisley. the stench of vomit and death filled the old room with bare wooden walls. All the money for a decent home had gone into a bottle and the fruit was a life shattered with heart ache. I got angry @ the devil for his deception to my old uncle and pulled up a chair to his bed side to hear his story.


I asked him why Uncle Son, why did you let it get to this stage? Why could not you stop the daily torment of a taste of liquor? I thought his answer would be something like, " I just loved the taste or the delirious high" but it was not anything like I expected he would say... here is is story.


Uncle Son was a WWII veteran and he began to tell me his story of the day of the Normandy invasion or what we call D-Day. This day in history He made it off the PT boat and splashed onto the beach... he said I never dug a hole so fast in my life that day in the sand with the bullets whizzing past me. I crawled int he hole and began to shoot at the Germans as they started to pour down on us. I would shoot and shoot and shoot bodies falling everywhere, limbs flying through the air, etc... the lull would come and the shooting would begin again. Never knew all the hunting I did in as a kid growing up in Amite County would help keep me alive these days on this beach. For 19 days we went through this same routine... the shooting, the dieing, the cries of men hurting and in pain. 19 days I was n that foxhole, 19 days that changed my life forever. I cralwed out of that foxhole into a whiskey bottle after those 19 days and have never been able to put those days behind me.


My dad and I cried as he took a swig of whiskey and grimmaced a smile then leaned over and pucked it up into a 5 gallon bucket. The hurt and pain on the inside had never had a chance to heal. Vices and sin in people's lives are often the result of a deep wound and hurt the enemy has scarred their life with... Uncle Son was in desperate to forgive need of a savior and to forgive himself of those 19 days in Normandy.

We prayed with him and it was sad to see this man wilting away... Lord teach us to watch the snares and traps of this life.