Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper;
The snare is broken and we have escaped.
— Psalm 124:6-7
The world can also come as a snare. A snare is a trap which is filled with bait. When a bird goes after some bait and flies into a trap, it has no idea what it has gotten into. The bird doesn’t realize what danger it is in. We may go after some bait in the world, yet we don’t realize the seriousness of it. The bait of the world is quite attractive, but before we know it we can be trapped in a snare.
We should never think, “I have been following the Lord for a long time now. I know how to handle the world.” No, we don’t know how to handle it. The world is still a snare that can trap us. There are so many things in the world that act as bait to us. We may have the purest motives, but we can still be ensnared. Once we touch it we don’t know what will happen next. Even when we look for a new job, that job can be filled with bait. A new job may include all sorts of promising things. Then we fly in like a bird, and before we know it we’re trapped in a snare. All of a sudden we don’t belong to the Lord anymore. We are no longer free.
But praise the Lord, He always has a way with us. Even when we become ensnared in the world, the Lord still has a way. The psalm tells us, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul has escaped like a bird, out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken, and we have escaped” (v. 6-7). There are times when we are in danger of being caught by the world, yet we are somehow able to fly away. We seem to be captured, yet somehow we escape. No matter how the world attracts us and ensnares us, the Lord always has a way to break the snare.
Adapted from The Journey of Life, page 48-49.
Tomorrow: “Our Help Is In the Name of the Lord.”