The traps we build for ourselves
“The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.” — Job 18:10 I like to take my little dog, Holly, for a drive on the back roads because there is no traffic and we see a lot of cattle and horses. Holly gives her lungs a good workout by barking at the animals and feels she is protecting me.
On the last trip we made I noticed what I thought were two birds on the road quite a distance from when I first noticed them. The closer I got to the birds, the more I could see it was one bird with its wings spread and was picking at something on the road. I thought it might be a snake but when I got within a few feet of it, it flew and I noticed it had what looked like a piece of wood on its foot which I later recognized as a rat trap. The bird flew only a few feet from my truck and that is when I could see it was a trap rather than a piece of wood.
There was no way I could get close enough to help it because it would fly each time I would move toward it. It finally flew into a field too far away for me to try to help it. I knew the trap on its foot would prevent it from catching prey and would eventually starve to death. I felt bad about not being able to help.
The trap was set for other purposes but the hawk was the one to get caught. There are times we set our own traps, which was not our intention, and end up in a situation that can cause a lot of problems for us. Most of those traps are set by negative thoughts and actions we take on those thoughts. All of the traps we set for ourselves are self-inflected by the attitude we may have about ourselves.
The feeling one has of oneself may be the key to what causes problems to become traps. They sometimes can be very difficult to overcome.
When one does not feel good about oneself and feels stupid, ugly, lazy, unfriendly to others, judges others by what they do or any other negative thoughts one has about themselves, it is easy to fall into the trap one builds.
The greatest discovery man ever made was when he figured out he could think and make choices. The choices one makes are what forms the life one lives. There are good choices and not so good ones. The attitude one has about oneself can go either way. The Creative Intelligence of the Universe (God) is around us, through us, and surrounds all life on this planet and is the source of all thoughts the human species gets. The understanding of this Intelligence and paying attention to one’s inner feelings are keys that can bring more good to one’s life.
The not so good “stuff” is still out there, but it is the choice one makes for one’s self that will help keep the traps out of the experience we enjoy here on this planet. Don’t be like the hawk and get into a trap that can drag you down to a level of no recovery. Use good choices to create a life without traps; a life of joy.
