My wife Sharleen and I were speaking at a church in Troy, Alabama, about a month ago. When we finished the pastor asked if anyone would like for us to pray for them. Several people came forward, some to Sharleen and some to me. The last person who came to me was a middle-aged woman who posed what is likely the strangest request I will ever encounter in a prayer line.
When she approached me I asked her how I could help her. At first it seemed a bit awkward as she said, “ I thought you might know the answer when you came in this morning and I thought about asking you then but I decided to wait.”
“Okay,” I replied, “so what is your question?”
“Can you tell me how to trap a ‘possum?”
I can only imagine the look on my face when the question registered in my mind. At first I felt like I was on Candid Camera and then I realized the woman was serious.
“Uh, well sure,” I said, “here’s what you do. Bait the ‘possum every night in the same place with the same bait. Get him used to the free lunch until it becomes a routine for him. Then, after a while, set your box trap in the exact spot where you’ve been baiting him and put the bait on the pan that triggers the trap door. It helps to put a little food just outside the door of the trap to help him overcome any apprehension he might have about the trap. I guarantee you, the next morning your ‘possum problems will be over. Then you can dispose of him as you wish.”
The woman thanked me and set out to relieve herself of one pesky ‘possum.
As I replayed that most unusual conversation in my mind it occurred to me that I have given the woman the same recipe for success that Satan uses to trap us in sin. First he baits us with something that he knows will get our attention. Then he makes it easily available to us until we assume there is no consequence. Lastly we walk into the trap and he disposes of us as he sees fit.
No one, not even an opossum, would willingly walk into a trap if he were aware of the consequences. So Satan seeks to snare us when our guard is down.
This is what the Apostle Paul warns us about in II Corinthians 10:5-6:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
When we take every thought captive, we can easily identify if the thought (or temptation) is of God or not, and in so-doing we identify the source of the thought and thus avoid the tempter’s snare.
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