Mountain men

I have always been fascinated by mountain men. I like to watch life below zero and shows like that where people live out in the wilderness. I read a story one time about a fur trapper back before you could just buy traps. They had to know the animal they were trapping and figure out how to catch them. The animal this particular story was about was a raccoon. Knowing how raccoons like shiny things, this man found a log laying on the timber floor and there was a small hole in the log. He drove nails at an angle pointing towards the middle of the hole and then placed a shiny coin in the bottom of the hole. The next day a raccoon was there! You see he would reach in with both paws and grab the shiny object but when he would try to pull it out he would get caught on the nails. Now all he had to do to get out was let go of the object and he could pull one paw out at a time but he refused to let go!! The trapper was cunning and had his prey. Don’t we all have those sins that we just can’t seem to let go of? I know I do. They keep us right where we are unable to freely move on to better things. How do we get free from them? Hebrews 12:1 says therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us. In essence we are to just let go of it. Throw it off. Sounds easy right? It goes on to say let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus the pioneer and perfected of faith. Jesus endured much pain and suffering but he had his eye on the joy that was ahead after the suffering and didn’t cling to the earthly life he was in at the moment. He is our example. How do we let go of our shiny object? Keep our eyes on Jesus and the joy we will have with him after this short time on earth is over!! We don’t need sin! The old enemy trapper wants us to think we do and he uses our own natural tendencies to keep us hanging on to our sin like it’s some kind of prize! It’s not! It’s a trap! Tired of being stuck where you are hanging onto sin? Look to the one who can set you free and let go!! Dear Lord, help us to look beyond what’s in our hands and let go so we can run the race in freedom that you marked out for us!! Let go and run today my friends!!