Bait in the Trap

Your cheatin' heart

Will make you weep

You'll cry and cry

And try to sleep

But sleep won't come

The whole night through

Your cheatin' heart will tell on you...

Your Cheatin' Heart - Hank Williams

A cowboy who has been bitten by a rattlesnake will flinch when he sees a piece of coiled rope. This writer's own father was bitten by a rattlesnake as a young boy, on our farm, on a path, at night, in a time of slow transportation-few doctors, he almost died. He knew the physical entrapment of an animal, I never knew him to not wear shoes outside again. Usually animals are caught by a trap of some type, usually through the seduction of bait. When Caesar crossed the Hellespont, eastern edge of the Mediterranean, after an African War, many of the strange animals which Europe had never seen, were caught and brought back to Italy in strange cages because they were caught in traps by bait, lions caught in large camouflaged dug-outs (We don't know how Caesar's famous giraffe was captured, this tall animal which was marched all the way from Rome to Paris with peasants lining the roads on both sides to see such a sight). Rats, order Rodentia, who have a genome just five percent away from Man (more recent estimates place the similarity at 97.5% of working DNA), species Homo Sapiens, do not have the mental ability to stay out of traps... nor does the rat's close relative man. Even a dog, caught in a steel trap, who had to eat away his own leg to escape the trap will get caught in a similar device again. Over and over, we see men fall into the entrapment of sin, not just sex or greed but the well known sins of pride, anger, envy, lust, gluttony, laziness. Men still try to find answers to their problems at the bottom of a bottle when they have seen so many destitute drunks. More and more, everyone becomes addicted earlier in life... addicted to sex, money, designer drugs, enticing foods, lifestyles of the rich and famous which they cannot afford.

It started with our first parents, Adam and Eve, placed in a garden of perfection, they chose the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life, the seduction of power. Satan and 30% of the angels in Heaven had been kicked out of Heaven by God because of the seduction of power. God set up his perimeters for man immediately, after all, he is boss, "Don't touch that tree." BUT, from that time until this day, man has an insatiable desire for power, ask any politician... so many low people in high places.

The world's greatest tragedy, men and women climbing the ladder of power and success, falling for any bait, even seducing and enticing others with bait, just to get to the top of the ladder. I have known so many who got there, just to find at the end of life that they had their ladder placed against the wrong building. "What is the profit of a man to gain the whole world only to forfeit his soul." - Mark 8:36

This writer, on the staff of a large army hospital, a two-star general dying of cancer said to me, "You are the only young officer with whom I can talk. In all my years of military achievement, many chaplains assigned to my units, not one ever spoke to me about my eternal soul." He related the torture of the military climb, which he knew I could understand. He related how his own wife had "circulated" herself at the officers club... to help him up the ladder of rank. He related how he had ignored his own children. He said, "Now, at the end of the line, I have nothing, except a soul condemned to Hell." He believed that he was condemned to Hell, never knowing that God had provided a plan of redemption-salvation for him... THAT HE WAS NOT CAUGHT IN A TRAP.

How careless to wait until the end of life to realize that you are the bait in the trap. Every day of life is a blessing but not one day can be guaranteed. Like the 300,000 species of plants, there are 900,000 species of insects, it is constant warfare to protect your plants from insects. Think of the species of germs that can permeate your body, kill without warning. Just one bolt of lightning has more heat that the sun. Surely you have seen how a lightning strike can vaporize a tree. "14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." - James 4:14. You may put on your socks this morning but the funeral director may take them off tonight. Don't get caught in the trap of planning too far ahead. Remember from God's operating manual (the Holy Bible), he tells us about one man, wealth management, "Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.""- Luke 12:18-19. 

Christianity is not complicated, just tough. I have watched too many so-called "Christians" just playing games with God. Most do not understand that we are on the battlefield. The famous writer C. S. Lewis, who came to Christ late in life, in one of his books "The Screwtape Letters", told how Uncle Demon was advising his young nephew demons, "These Christians do not realize that we are even around." Most Christians do not realize that we are at War, want to operate from air conditioned foxholes... powdered and perfumed, pampered, puffy pillowed pews. "Don't bother me about those stinking poor people on the outside." The spiritual world, like the secular world, has learned to just swallow anything. A drone can drop a bomb to kill one man, but we believe what they tell us when they say that they cannot drop munitions in the right place, give General Dynamics a check for $600 Million for more materials of war. We are flushed and blush at the young couple who kill their small baby a few weeks after birth, but just take in stride the millions of babies killed just before birth. One father was changing his tire, on a busy highway, his distraught daughter on the inside of the car said, "I want to change channels." We have several generations addicted to the magic of the talking box, that life is more fantasy than reality.

70% of the world's lawyers are in America. America imprisons more people than the rest of the world together, 25% of the worlds prison population is here in America. Yet, America is known as a Christian nation. We send more foreign missionaries to the far corners of the Earth than any other country. My only child and his wife were foreign missionaries for many years (now teaching at a seminary). They professed that America needs missionaries more than other parts of the world. When this writer was a child, we visited relatives, few had radios, television yet to be invented. I enjoyed hearing old people talk, in the home of one Aunt, there was a large ornate picture. The scene was an old home with people sitting on the front porch. Under the picture, these words, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." - Matthew 5:8.

For the world of sick care, the big three bringing most Americans to their death: heart attacks, cancer and stroke. Too many of us have heart trouble... the traps of life.

Gaucho Belt

The Russian poet said, “The sweetness of the nectar of a flower is only fragrant when you can share it with someone.” I want to share with you an experience in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a time when the country was in the shackles of corruption, following the tyrant Peron and his wife, Evita. I was staying at the Sheraton, in Buenos Aires, had gone across the street and was sitting on a bench in the park. Almost always, in world travel, someone always appears trying to sell you something. Since the financial situation in Argentina at that time was so cruel, uniformed soldiers standing on every corner with guns, a man came up and told me he would like to sell me a gaucho belt. The Argentinian cowboy is called a gaucho and many of the cowboys out on the plains (Argentina is known for its cattle and beef) would have handmade, wide, beautifully tooled leather belts with old coins and semi-precious stones attached to the leather. Such was this one; many silver coins, many stones. This was many years ago. I don't remember what I paid for the belt, nor do I remember what I sold it for online. It hung in my den for many years and was always a conversation piece because most people had never seen anything quite so beautifully crafted. The lesson is, this was probably the most valuable possession of one human being as he worked in Patagonia. And, it probably made a big difference to the relative who sold it to me. Its history made a difference in my life and I hope the buyer did appreciate the belt.

On an island in the Mediterranean in the same decade, it seems that it was the island of Rhodes, I was on all these islands at one time or another. In Santorini, the most beautiful place I have ever been, I was eating a meal in a hotel dining room and the movie actor Yul Brenner came over and joined me. It turns out, he was much more interested in me than I was in this great movie actor who was on the island with others making a movie. (It seems I remember the name Sunny Bono.) Anyway, this great, bald movie star (The King and I) was interested in my world explorites; the fact that a aging, blind man still had curiosity about the world. People are the same all over the world. The poorest are always the happiest and life is a continuous learning experience regardless of your ability or disability. I told him about my love for the movies. How, like a book, you can completely escape a limited existence. I told him about the first movies I ever saw in a town, near our farm, where westerns were shown on the side of a building. I said, “The poorest people in the town were exposed to life experiences that they could dream about and sense, through eyesight, in a fraction of a second a picture is established in the neurology of the mind, there forever. And, like a book, serves as a great memory reference library.” I told him about an expedition to Antarctica where I shared a cabin with a fleet street banker from London. The banker said to me, “You can tell about the future of any country by the culture of it's people.” The western decadents of Britain and the United States, laziness and disorganization, will eventually destroy these great cultures.

Just recently, a study revealed that of 143 countries the happiest people were in Latin America with Costa Rica heading the list of 143. USA ranked 114 out of 143.

Brittan has borrowed more money than their entire welfare budget and more than in cost to fight WWII. They are now deciding if they can maintain their Trident nuclear submarine fleet. USA will be facing the same with the tremendous expenses of NASA and space exploration. Those who are on the Obama train ride, refuse to look out the window on either side, right or left, because they are afraid of what they will see. An energy tax, which will become an international tax, for the nations that can afford it and you will find that your electric bill will go up many hundreds of dollars, as well as government inspections of your houses and all other buildings. A value added tax (VAT), will be required to finance the socialized health care which will bring in 40 million additional people to a Medicare and Medicaid system, already bankrupt and already overwhelmed. Mr. Thomas Jefferson, second president, perhaps the most remarkable mind in our country's history said, “Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us.”

Everyone deserves a chance to live a happy life. I have experienced poverty at its worst. I worked alongside parents, siblings, and hired farm laborers drenched in the sweat of endurance, joyful in the faith of opportunity. Like Paul, a rebel against God redeemed with joy on the road to Damascus. I have had the privilege of walking down the street called Straight in Damascus. Paul, though blind regained his sight. I, at the time, had sight but now have joy in blindness. Because, like the Argentine cowboy, knowing the freedom of Patagonia, I have the liberty that only comes from a free man in a free country knowing the liberty provided by God in Christ. I believe this is the reason that many of the poorest people in the world are the happiest. (Most of the poverty of the world is below the 30th parallel: South America, Africa and Asia.) They know the splendor of the beauty around them and are not entangled by “things”. There is no technology developed by man that comes close to the technology developed by God in the body and mind of man. Like the mosquito on the railroad track, shouting at the approaching train, “I don't believe in you,” many have found a happiness in faith that more than satisfies.