Snakes and scorpions

“I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy, nothing will harm you.”  Luke 10:19

When I first became a Christian twenty-four years ago, Integrity Music was coming out with a new music CD series.  The songs were written to help people learn and remember the Bible.  All the lyrics were taken directly from scripture.  I ordered these CDs because I thought it would help me, as a new Christian, to learn the Bible.  It worked!  I memorized many passages of the Bible by listening to these songs.  (I now have to sing the song to myself in order to quote the Bible, though.)

One of my favorite song on the CDs was a country tune based on Luke 10:19.  That passage has become one of my favorites in the Bible because of that song.  However, I never really thought I would have the chance to literally walk those words out in my life until two weeks ago. 

It started with our new chicken house.  Here on the farm we raise laying chickens.  We sell the eggs to help raise money to support the work we are doing here.  We are in the middle of building a new house so that we can add more chickens.  We make our own bricks here on the farm.  We have two men, Bob & Kennedy, who are expert brick makers.  They make the bricks in the masonry classroom and then let them cure for a week or more.

So two weeks ago, I was picking up bricks and putting them into the big cart that attaches to our tractor so we could transport them down to the chicken house site.  I was working with a different Bob and with Ezekiel.  As usual, I was wearing my leather gloves.  As we are picking up bricks, Ezekiel, who was in the cart stacking them, came across a large scorpion.  Apparently, this scorpion had been on the brick that I had handed to him.  No worries, we killed it and kept working. 

Later, as I got down to the last row of bricks, I moved one and there, curled up, was a mamba.  His head rose up and he was hissing at me.  He was not happy I had disturbed him.  For those who aren’t familiar, they call the mamba the “three step snake” because if you get bitten, you take about three steps before you fall over and die.  Again, I was not worried, the snake had the opportunity to bite me but it didn’t.  I believe God was protecting me just like in Luke 10:19.  I let Ezekiel kill the mamba because I’m too big-hearted to kill a living creature, even if it’s a deadly snake. 

I shared Luke 10:19 with Bob & Ezekiel that day and told them that God was protecting us.  We continued picking up bricks until they were all loaded.  God proved Himself to Ezekiel, Bob and I that day. 

There were two chances for a deadly animal to bite one of us that day, yet as God’s Word says, nothing harmed us.  Take God at His word today.  As it says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.  And so through Him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.”