Tip of My Iceberg

photo courtesy of Jan Kopriva on Unsplash

I don’t like snakes. I don’t know many people who do. My manly son and sons-in-law loathe them–and they’re not bothered by much.

We had an open field near us growing up, and we often found garter snakes there. A few of the boys we were friends with showed me how to pick them up–they aren’t poisonous, so I wasn’t fearful of dying holding that innocent snake.

I was a kid.

As the years have passed, I’ve come to respect what snakes can do. When my oldest was in high school, she was washing our car and went to turn off the water. Under the spigot was a snake, coiled and looking menacing. I ran to get my neighbor, who didn’t like killing anything. As he peered at our snake, he changed his mind. “It’s poisonous. I’ll take care of this.” And he chopped its head off with a shovel. The mouth continued to open and close, even after it was separated from the body.

Living in Florida, six of our forty-four species are venomous. The one we see quite a bit is the cottonmouth, or water moccasin. Because we have several bodies of water around our home, we’ve seen them more than we’d choose.

A few days ago, I got a call from my daughter down the street.

“Mom, there’s a water moccasin on our front porch.”

Thankfully, it was a two-foot-long baby. I told her to chop its head off with a shovel.

Fear is a funny thing. You view something you know you probably can do, but in the moment, emotions bubble up like lava from a volcano. Logic goes out the window.

Which it did here.

She finally smashed it with a shovel; her delight at her own bravery was immense.

Fear is very much a part of life. Snakes reflect the very base fear we have about what feels hard and evil.

In the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve had a deeply personal relationship with God, they had one command they were asked to follow. They weren’t to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden–the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did, they’d die.

“The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?’” Genesis 3:1

The serpent–Satan–knew how to confuse people. He told a partial truth–could they not eat from any tree? Satan seeks to confound us by combining a bit of truth with a lie. He didn’t leave it at that.

“‘You won’t die!’ the serpent replied to the woman. ‘God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will BE LIKE GOD, knowing both good and evil.’” Genesis 3:4

The enemy of our souls knows what we long for–autonomy, to be in charge. His temptation set them up to defy the One who loved them the most. To not trust God but to trust their own desires.

We’ve been doing that since the beginning of time. Wanting what we want, often not caring that what we want isn’t good for us.

Books and movies are full of snakes as enemies. Harry Potter is a prime example. Voldemort, Harry’s nemesis, was able to possess snakes, and Nagini, his snake, was one of the things he put part of his soul into–a horcrux. A horcrux anchors a soul to the ground; God wants to free us to anchor our soul in Him so we may have hope and heaven.

We will always have fear as long as we’re in this world. Snakes will always cause terror in hearts.

Jesus conquered the enemy once and for all on the cross.

We need to be aware that snakes are out there. Ready to terrify.

God is greater than our biggest fears.

He doesn’t promise us protection FROM all hardships; He promises protection THROUGH hardships.

Love operates like that.