A few years back, I read my kids one of my favorite children’s stories, Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. Wonderful story. One of the ones that can make Dad cry. I bring it up here because it has a terrific metaphor for sin and its consequences.
The book is about a boy and his hunting dogs, who spend time after chores each day tracking raccoons through the woods. At one point in the story, the boy comes across evidence of an unscrupulous trapper. Instead of giving the raccoons a fair chance at eluding him, this trapper uses a weakness in their nature to trap and kill them. He finds a fallen tree and drills a two- to three-inch hole in it. Inside, he places a worthless, shiny object, such as a ball of foil. Then, he hammers a nail into the hole at a 45-degree angle.
When the raccoon sees the shiny object, he has to have it. He reaches his hand into the hole around the nail and grabs it. But when he tries to make off with his newfound treasure, the raccoon discovers that with his hand around the shiny object, he can no longer remove it from the hole. The solution seems simple to us. Let go of the shiny object, and you’re free. It’s not so easy for the raccoon. Even though he is a very clever animal, he so desperately wants the treasure that he is unwilling to let it go even as he sees the trapper coming to club him on the head.
Doesn’t it make you mad that this is the same tactic Satan uses on us? He knows men’s weakness for sex and visual stimuli. That’s our shiny thing. We see it. We want it. We go after it. We love it so much that we have to have it even if we recognize that it’s a trap. When I am in a hotel that offers “adult” movies (as if they were only inappropriate for children), I know they are garbage. I’m not fooled by the shiny. But sometimes I can’t help reaching my hand into the trap.
Once we’ve got the shiny, we are unwilling to let it go, even though releasing it means our freedom and victory over the Enemy. Some of us see the Unscrupulous Trapper coming, and some of us don’t, but few of us have the self-control to let the shiny go. We prefer a club to the head over letting go. And so it is that with worthless garbage, Satan reduces us from God’s most intelligent and complex creation into Pavlov’s dog; it’s a basic stimulus-response relationship.
The irony is that the shiny never delivers on its promise. It looks good, but it’s worthless and unfulfilling. We take hold of it, because it makes us feel good for a period of time. But after Satan has clubbed us in the head a few times, we feel much worse than we did before we put our hand in the trap.
Logic means nothing when your hand is around the shiny. A friend and I once implored our accountability partner to consider the consequences of the emotional affair he was engaged in. He had met an attractive Christian woman who filled the gaps he perceived in his relationship with his wife, and the two of them were advancing toward physical consummation. We asked God for wisdom and shared every warning we could come up with, but our friend wouldn’t listen to us. He saw the Trapper coming and didn’t care.
Fortunately, events occurred that forced the truth out into the open. His wife confronted him about his sin, and he had to let go of the shiny. He didn’t get away clean, though, and neither did any of us who were trying to help him get loose. All the friendships were destroyed in the process. As far as I know, none of us talk anymore. It’s one of my deeper regrets, but I willingly trade those friendships for the preservation of marriage and family. Sin always has consequences.
The shiny is a powerful tool in the Enemy’s hands. He studies us, learns what we like and custom makes tempting shinies for each of us. They are garbage compared to what the Lord wants for us, but we have a hard time resisting them. If we take hold of the shiny, it won’t be long before it has hold of us.
