Standing Firm: Stay Alert

If, you have ever been near a lake, pond or a creek I am sure, at one time or another, you have seen a tree or two that look like the Tasmanian Devil got a hold of them. You know the ones where the bark is missing and if you get up close you will see teeth marks all over that joker. Well those teeth marks belong to what is called a beaver.

Now, I am sure beavers have a purpose in God’s creation or they would not be here, but, when they kill trees and then said tree falls and blocks your route to the lake…well let’s just say you learn to not like them too much.

Beavers are cautious critters. If they see you or hear you before you see them all you will hear is a big splash in the water as they slap their tail on top of the water, as they dive down, as a warning to the other beavers. So killing them is not an easy task.

The man giving the lesson last night at Celebrate Recovery used his childhood and disdain for beavers to describe a verse in the Bible and I just loved his analogy.

He worked on a farm and the beavers damned up a creek that ended up flooding their crop. He was upset and angry at the beavers…kind of like I was and he wanted them gone.

So they called a trapper that would set out traps that would ensnare the beaver and then kill them by crushing their necks in said trap. But the traps had to be strategically placed. You could not just place them anywhere. As I said earlier, they are cautious critters.

Beavers are at home in the familiar water in which they live. So the traps had to placed under the water where they are less cautious and not on the alert as they are while on the banks.

The traps were set under water along the trenches in which the beavers swam from their den to the banks. And yeah, they were trapped.

This so parallels our lives and how the devil attacks us. He catches us where we are comfortable.

As a new believer or a recovering addict we are very cautious as to who we hang out with, where we go, what we look at and what we listen to. We are prayed up. We read our Bibles, go to church and meetings on a regular basis.

As we continue to grow and learn we become a little more secure in our walk. In essence, we become comfortable.

Here in lies the problem…our enemy, the trapper, is not comfortable. The Word of God tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 that he is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is always on the hunt. He is always preparing traps to put in our path in order to ensnare us.

So by becoming comfortable and thinking we are standing firm, just like the beaver in familiar water, we can, in fact, become susceptible to the traps the enemy so precisely places in our path. And we fall.

And that dear friends is something we can’t afford. Stay alert! Stay prayed up! Stay focused daily! Stay aware!