There Is A Snake On The Path!!!

On the evening of June 21, 2006 I was walking my dog, Roscoe, on the wagon trail that leads to Johnson Park in Collierville. There was a big snake directly in my path so close that my next step would have been on it. I wasn't looking down and to get my attention it squiggled on the asphalt. I looked down and stopped quickly to see a four foot snake with it's head raised upright about four inches. We made eye to eye contact and it was not going to move. My dog never reacted at all and I quickly pulled him away to avoid a possible dog-snake confrontation. I guess I had quickly surmised that as close as I had been to the snake it would have bitten me if it were a biting snake. Strangely enough I had been studying the Bible about being wise as serpents and harmless as doves in obedience to Christ. Snakes had been on my mind and my first thought as I encountered this snake was that there was a serpent in the garden.

I was far enough from the snake that there was no danger and I thought that it would just move on across the path and we could continue our walk. But it just remained there maintaining eye contact with me and the dog still did not see or at least react to it.

If the snake was not going to move then I just determined to go on back toward home but thought "what if someone comes along and does not see the snake." I stayed there and two ladies came up the path on bicycles. I was afraid that they might hit the snake and cause them to fall off the bikes onto the snake. The first lady came up the path and like a crazy old man I was waving my arms telling her to stop. She ignored me and came on so I motioned her to stay on the far right hand side to miss the snake. Instead she stopped and straddled her bike right beside the snake which had not moved. She looked down and said "I don't see a snake"! The other lady slowed down and said, "I don't see a snake." I was still looking right at the snake and it was looking at me!

From the other direction came a group of teenagers who had a flashlight and I warned them not to go as there was a snake in the path. Naturally they all rushed to see the snake. They returned back to me saying there was not a snake!

Everyone laughs when I tell this true story but it has a spiritual point. If you are a sinner then the god of this world has you blinded to the truth. The dangers of sin are so great and we are blinded to its path of destruction. Our sinfulness is so total that we cannot on our own see our way out. We are lost without hope apart from Christ.

However at this point in time with my farewell to the "friends" on The Cakes Report, Bratton Report and NBBCOF there is a blindness that seems to come from God. A strange blindness that keeps the truth from being given. Perhaps to keep them from coming to the truth themselves or to keep them from hindering others from coming to the truth.

Anyway there was a real snake on that path. It made a noise to get my attention. All these other people who didn't see the snake could evidence the fact that the snake was just an illusion on my part, however way you wish to interpret it, I can only say I saw a snake and I tried to warn folks to keep them from harm! They would not listen.