Traps of life are our business

Running to the farmyard, the mouse warned, “There is a mousetrap in the house!” The chicken clucked and scratched and raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.” The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized but said, “I am very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it.” So, the mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse, I am sorry for you but it's no skin off my nose.” So, the mouse, with head down and dejected, returned to the house to face the mousetrap… alone.

That very next night a sound was heard throughout the house – the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she could not see it. It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home, she still had a fever. Everyone knows that you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued. Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. But alas, the farmer's wife did not get well… she died. So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them at the funeral luncheon… And from his crack in the wall, the mouse looked upon it all with great sadness.

What traps have been placed in our paths? The enemy of our soul, the devil, tries telling us we do not need to believe in Jesus. He tells us we have plenty of time to make that decision. But Scripture tells us, “Today is the day of salvation.” “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” ( John 3: 16).