My Pastor is awesome.
Seriously, I love his sermons.
I’m never bored, I’m always engaged, and a big part of that is because he didn’t grow up in a happy home, but he’s made no excuses for himself, made good choices and done well with his life. And it shows in his sermons.
He’s someone I can relate to.
I tell you all this so you understand the illustration below. Its a comic I created myself to illustrate a parable he used in a sermon.
Besides being a pastor he teaches Art History at a local college. He loves getting to teach about classical art but says he dislikes the parts about suicide.
He doesn’t want to plant a seed of suicide in anyone. So to counterbalance a lesson regarding a great philosophers self- inflicted death, he told this parable. I tell it to you now as he told it to me.
Once there was a man traveling on foot from one village to another. It was a very long trip and during the heat of the day he decided to rest against the base of a large tree. He fell into such a deep sleep, he didn’t notice a huge Boa slithering down the tree…
He didn’t feel it slowly wrap its cool coils around him.
He slept on as it wrapped itself around his neck.
Only as it began to squeeze, did he wake up to see the huge snakes face directly next to his.
He struggled but the snake only wrapped itself around him tighter. He couldn’t reach his knife. He couldn’t move at all.
The snake coiled itself tighter and tighter until it came over his face.
This gave him an idea. It was disgusting but he had to try.
There was no other choice.
He bit the snake.
Hard.
He chewed the snake chunk to get the scales unstuck from his teeth.
He spat the snake chunk out.
The snake squeezed harder as he took another bite.
Then he bit, chewed and spat some more.
He did this over and over until he’d bitten halfway through the snake’s neck- and the snake lay dead.
He walked away from that carcass sickened but alive.
My Pastor said when he told this story in his class, everyone stood up and cheered.
It was the first time he’d ever received a standing ovation in his art class.
As I type this 147 people have been infected with Covid-19 in my county alone. We don’t know how much longer this pandemic will last, but I do know this:
Whatever is trapping you, whatever snake is trying to squeeze the life out of you, bite it with the teeth God gave you. Use whatever resources you have, no matter how small to fight back. No matter how desperate or hopeless the situation is- Never. Ever. Ever. Give. Up.