The Fowler's Snare

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

     -Psalm 91:3

Since most of us don't hunt our own food, other than to stalk good prices at the grocery store, the image of the fowler is somewhat lost on us. I recently read a book in which the main character has to rely on his survival skills, without any of the conveniences or inventions of modern life. One source of food which he finds is a type of bird that rests on the ground, but is difficult to catch, so he has to hunt the bird in a certain way.

This particular bird would fly at the first approach of anything it saw as threatening. So the hunter learned to not look at the bird or move straight towards it. Instead, he would look to the side of the bird and inch toward it in a way that was not direct, as if his attention was elsewhere, until he was close enough to spear the unsuspecting bird.

Isn't that how our Enemy approaches us, and how sin sneaks up on us? When we are faced with obvious sin, we flee. Like that bird taking off as the fowler closes toward him, we get out of there fast!

But when little innocuous things, maybe seemingly innocent things, sneak up, we don't immediately see the threat if we are not focused on doing God's will and if we aren't regularly in His word. It may be  a pass-time that consumes time we should devote to God, a relationship with the wrong sort of close friend, anger or malice that we allow to fester instead of forgiving, or any other "small" brush with sin that we indulge instead of running from it. We may not even notice as this "minor" sin infects our life and interrupts our closeness with God. And this interruption of communion with Him often leads to being oblivious to even more dangerous sins. Pretty soon, we are caught, ensnared by the things that crept up on us by seeming so harmless.

The secret to avoiding such a snare is told later in the same Psalm. Verses 9 and 10 say "Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh they dwelling."

To have God's protection and deliverance on a daily basis, we need to make Him our habitation. We must be daily living with Him - conscious of His presence, obedient to his commandments, and seeking His will - in order to avoid the daily snares.