Mouse Trap

The other day my family was innocently watching a movie on TV when I see a little brown mouse dart across the room.  I wish I could say this was something new for us, but unfortunately, living in the country, this happens more often than I would like to admit.  So my brave husband went and got his shoe and a bucket so we could catch it and kill it, and I stood guard behind the couch to make sure it didn’t get out.  The mouse finally came out and we almost got it, but it disappeared down the AC register. (Nasty right?)

So I got out the chunky peanut butter and proceed to set 4 snap traps.  We tie the snap traps to the inside of our register and put them down the vent.  That sounds silly, but we have caught so many mice this way.  In the morning, when I went to check on the traps, I was overjoyed to see that I had caught one.  Now granted, I know that usually where there is one mouse that you see, there are many more that you cannot see, and that one mouse, most likely has a mate and they have baby mice.  Those little varmints carry parasites, diseases, they steal food and hide it around our house, and they aren’t a happy houseguest to have.  It has always amazed me how these chunky little mice can find ways to fit down AC registers that have these little, tiny slats in them.  It drives me crazy when I know that these little things are in my house.  I liked being completely naive about it personally. 

It made me think though – until I notice the sin in my life, or until someone points it out, I choose to ignore it and not do anything about it.  So whether it is a Bible reading in the morning, or a friend or relative calling me out, unless I look for it I am not going to find it.  Unless I “trap” my sin, kill it and throw it away, it will infest my life and my life will have preverbal mouse droppings and things that can make me sick all over it. 

Mice are smart little rodents, like most in the rodent family, if you release them into the wild outside, they will find the same way back in and infest your house again.  So the only way we have found to truly get rid of them is to kill them (although I feel bad about it).  So unless I am being intentional about the way that I look for sin in my own life, it may go unnoticed.  And when I find that sin, I need to set traps – catch it, kill it and get it out of my life. 

I love the section in Matthew 7:1-5 “Do no judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your bother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank our of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Not that this is about judging, that is another topic all together, but to be helpful in any way, shape or form for God’s kingdom, I have to work on that plank in our own eye.  I have to remember that for God to work through me, I have to continue to look for the sin in my life (the plank in my eye, the mouse in my house) and do my best to rid it. 

One of my favorite scenes from “The Middle” on ABC is when they are spring cleaning and they have a clean table.  The dad comes up and puts a coffee cup on it and the mom says- don’t do that it is a clean zone…  well he says, what can one coffee cup on a table really hurt, they turn around and all the sudden the table is PILED high with everything. 

So if I ignore things – or let things slide just a little, “it is only one mouse”, then that mouse can reproduce and multiply and infest my entire life and everything that I live for.  And the thing is, these mice, they can squeeze into the tightest areas.  look at my AC vent for instance.  They dissapear down there like it was nothing.  So even in the parts that I think are good, and tight, I need to be sure to trap any sin that is in those areas too.

So my new goal is to trap every sin that I can see and to confess it to the Lord and hopefully I will be able to be worthy of the title that He has blessed me with, Daughter of God.