“Beware of Snakes”

Many moons ago my step son and I were “shooting hoops” outside on our driveway. I did 3 front flips, (like a ninja) bounced off my car, did a back flip with my tongue sticking out like Jordan, slammed dunked the basketball, and shattered the glass backboard like if I was Shaquille O’Neal. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating (just a little). But, my son did call me Kobe. Or, he might’ve said he wanted to go Kobes, the Japanese Steakhouse restaurant, by the same name. Anyways, when the ball came down, it almost hit one of the roses I have planted in my front yard. So, I moved the portable basketball backboard closer to the street, and away from my bootleg little garden.

Then, an anaconda, the length of, lets say driving from Florida to New York,  popped out and tried to slither away to our backyard. I screamed and shielded my body with my son’s. Used that little brat as a human shield. Ha! Just kidding. Though, I did scream, I quickly opened the garage door, grabbed a shovel, struck it, and drove over it with my lawn mower, and killed the bi ol’ serpent, saving my son’s life, and the lives of my ex-wife and neighbors. My ex says it was just a small black  garden snake the size of an infant’s shoelace, but I felt like a superhero, none the less.

That reminds me of our first parents, who also dealt with a Snake, six thousand years ago, in a place called Eden’s Garden. Adam and Eve were inseparable. Except for the time Adam went to pick some roses for his mamasita, while Eve was out talking to a flying reptile. (Now, I don’t know about you, but if an animal talks to me and Dr. Dolittle is not there to translate, I’M RUNNING!) Especially, if that animal is not a parrot!

Now, when the Bible says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” 1 I think It means, EVER. We were never meant to isolate ourselves from the real world. We need each other. Example, if Adam was with Eve, at the time the Devil was tempting her, he could’ve told her, “Don’t do it! There’s something fishy going on. I named the serpent and the serpent does NOT talk!”

But, he wasn’t with her and Eve took a bite from the mango. (I wouldn’t sin for an apple. So, I refuse to believe Eve did. Now, warm apple pie with ice cream; that’s a different story!) One famous Christian writer says that the serpent plucked the fruit and put it in her hand? 2 Eve never went for it, but she took it. The same thing happens to us, huh? Satan knows Christian teens will never go the bodega to buy some beer, or to the street corner to buy some weed. But, if someone offers it to them at a party; then maybe. Don’t take it!

If you are tempted to take something, though, I can let you borrow my shovel. or my lawn mower or my bratty human shield, and, stomp the heck of that slimy Snake; right in the head. Oh wait. Jesus already did that for you… on Calvary.

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1. Gen. 2:18

2. Patriarchs and Prophets (Ellen G. White) page 30