Entangled

"but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away." - Matthew 13:25

About a week-and-a-half ago Tom did battle with some pipes underneath the house. Water from the washing machine was backing up in all the wrong places, and the culprit had to be some massive clog in the workings somewhere.

It was a major, y'all! Poor Tom! The first line of business was how to wrangle that big ol' fifty foot reel of electric "snake" into the tiny hatch opening. Well, nothing doing; he was going to have to make cuts into the walls first to even get it under there.

Once inside he had to drag that beast behind him, crawling on his belly over to the cleanout... a dirty job in itself before he even began work on the main reason for being under there.

I was the lookout, or whatever you'd call it. I was there crouching down outside the opening in case. In case of what, I don't know. I'm terrible at stuff like this and even worse in a crisis, but I had a flashlight and a can of Raid at the ready, so I was as prepared as prepared can be.

After what seemed like an eternity and about fifty million unnecessary questions from me, Tom finally yelled back, "Got something! It looks like roots. Gonna try to go a bit farther to see if I get anything else." Roots? For real?? I asked some more annoying questions. "Are the pipes broken? How on earth would roots even get in there?!"

The answer came back, "No more questions!" Clearly, I had picked the WRONG time for inquiries. "Run the water. Let's see if it's clear," he directed. Ahhh... the moment I had been waiting for, a direction and a purpose. "I'm on it," I yelled back.

Success!!!

Soon Tom came crawling back out with two huge handfuls of roots so large and badly tangled I couldn't imagine how even the smallest stream of water had been getting through. He explained that the pipes were ok, but where the joints met was probably the place a tiny, hair-like root forced its way into the pipe.

It had been a hard summer with the drought, and roots will do whatever is necessary to reach that life-sustaining water. Once inside, and with an endless supply of waste water, the root finds fertile ground and contunues to grow... in, around, and over itself, twisting and turning and eventually balling up until it blocks the flow completely.

It's crazy to think about really.. how such a seemingly tiny and insignificant thing at the start can grow to create such big problems.

As I snapped a pic of those tangled roots I couldn't help thinking about how Satan uses the things of this world to set traps for us. He introduces the most miniscule filament of temptation, places it at the door of our heart, and sets it loose to find fertile ground within.

We don't even notice it at first. Life goes on as usual, but in the deep recesses of our heart, that root grows, silently encircling, twisting, gaining ground until it begins to change us. By the time we become aware there's a problem, it has taken over, choking out the living water so vital to our spiritual well-being.

Satan is a clever fellow. He never attacks us in a frontal assault. We'd be prepared for that. We'd see him coming a mile away. We'd arm up and claim the high ground, so he attacks from other directions. His plans are always covert, always unthreatening at first, yet deadly in the end.

The only way to combat him is to stay vigilant, to maintain the workings of our heart, to keep that living water flowing, welling up, pushing back at the things that would so desire to entangle us.

Our hearts are fertile ground. Taking care to mind what makes its way into it is as vital as taking care of what flows from it.

It's important to have a good gate-keeper. Thanks to Jesus...

we do.