November 16, 2021
The cold weather has made a couple of mice show up at the church. They are living in a closet where we store surplus food for needy families. I set a trap in order to catch them. I baited it with peanut butter and left it to do its work. These have to be the smartest, craftiest mice ever. At least 4 times I would come to check the traps and all of the peanut butter would be gone and no mice had been caught.
I put out a glue trap with peanut butter in the middle. One of the mice got caught in the trap and tore off some of his fur but escaped. I threw that glue trap away and put out another one and the little smarties have totally ignored it. I am now at this point declaring an all-out war on these mice.
I switched the bait on the trap from peanut butter to cheese that I smushed into the trigger part of the trap. I come back a couple of times and all of the cheese is gone but the traps are not sprung. I either have defective traps or the world’s smartest mice.
I came and checked one day and all of the cheese except one little smidgen was gone. I was going to rebait the trap but got busy and forgot. When I checked the next day, I had caught one of the mice in that trap. He/she had gotten greedy and had to come back and get that last little sliver of cheese and it cost it its life.
Our enemy Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy us. He is constantly setting out traps for us. He baits the traps with things that allure us – things that we really want. He makes the traps look, smell, and even taste so good that he thinks that we can’t resist them. His whole purpose is to lure us in and then see the trap do its job and destroy us.
Fortunately for us, we can resist the traps of our enemy. God has given us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us to help us not only identify the traps but also resist them. HE gives us the power that is stronger than our will power (And our will not power). He provides a resource that helps us overcome the fleshly desires and temptations that will lead to our downfall and even death.
Our task is to trust the Holy Spirit and allow it to “lead us not into temptation but to deliver us from evil” If we encounter a trap and we escape it we should be smart enough to ask God to direct our paths away from that temptation. Also to help us have the wisdom to not keep on going back to the same old traps and expecting different results. This mouse would not have been caught except in its greed it had to have that last little bit of cheese.
As I continue my war with the mice, I am reminded every day that I am also battling Satan and his traps every day. But the good news is that “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” and my Jesus has overcome the world and Satan with all of his traps and temptations. My prayer is “Dear Jesus please help me every day to avoid the traps and snares of the enemy and give me the strength and power that you used to defeat him while you were here on Earth.”
In love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs