Those Traps

Sunday Night at the Rock and Roll Church,
by Pat Darnell

We have settled on a church. Brazos Fellowship has three services in the mornings and one at 6 PM. Last Sunday we attended the evening service. There is a rock and roll band on stage every time. Reminds me of... well it's all new to me. My tweens love it. (HERE)

Our pastor is good about bringing "visual aids" to the pulpit. Pastor William, "Will" for short, this time he brought out a cart. In the cart hidden from us was a "varmint trap."

He explained that he had asked Academy for a "Bear Trap," but they only carry Varmint Traps. Then he told us today's topic is about how traps are set for us on a daily basis. Then he sat down and forced open the jaws of the trap with his feet, set the firing mechanism and placed a chunk of ham on the trick arm. So he set it up on top of the cart, sprung and primed, and awesome.

Pastor Will described a host of problems that lead many to falling into traps. The common thread to all those situations had the element of temptation.

The story is his to tell, so I need not tell the whole thing here. And you guessed it: his sermon led to his pushing on the pressure plate with a long stick, and its exploding the ham shank in all directions, pieces landing like Gallagher's smashed melons.

My point today in telling this is that as Pastor Will went about telling the various angles of the scriptures and how traps are set by the temptations, including fight or flee adrenaline reactions of us the prey, he waved his hands too close to the primed trap, for my comfort.

Finally, I had to look down and away. I could not take the vision of him getting too close, or accidentally setting off the elements. Even my blood pressure started rising. I worked into a sweat just sitting and waiting the inevitable, unable to watch.

I am a worry wort, born and bred, no lie it was discomfiting. Please join me in watching out for temptations' traps: I think it is important to look for the traps, and to actually ask Jesus right away to move them away from my hands and feet, and all extremities of my wife and kids, and puppy; in context of last Sunday evening... in a building on the Parkway, in a little town in the middle of America. A ham shank and a bear trap... lesson learned -- is funny, huh?