Thursday, March 4, 2021

Dawg Tied

Have you ever put yourself in a sticky situation or gotten into a tangled mess?  I do from time to time.  Recently Aaron and I were “Super Gluing” a plastic part on the oven.  It made me think back to my first job a Keystone Metal Moulding in Clanton after graduating from high school.

There was this guy named Jerry that liked to pull pranks on young, naïve, and unsuspecting new hires.  I had never heard of “Super Glue.”  Keystone used this new glue to adhere vinyl to anodized aluminum.  Jerry told me to hold out my finger to which he placed a drop of this glue.  He proceeded to tell me to hold my finger to my thumb.  Well, dummy me did as I was told.  Jerry the jokester laughed when he told me to try to open my finger and thumb. I could not.  Most of Jerry’s victims panicked and ripped their fingers into the quick.  I felt foolish, but did not panic.  I spent several minutes with my finger and thumb soaking in acetone before the Super Glue dissolved.

I told Aaron the story giving a few minutes for the plastic oven part to dry.  Guess what?  I could not put the plastic part down.  I had glued my thumb and finger to the plastic part.  Having been down that idiotic path before, I sent Aaron, who was laughing, to the bathroom to retrieve some fingernail polish remover, which contains acetone.  After a few minutes of slowing massaging the fingernail polish remover between my fingers and Aaron slowly cutting the glue, I was released from my own entanglement. 

Speaking of tangles, I am always amazed how electrical cords can become so tangled.  After undoing a tangled extension cord, I stepped to start the process of rolling up the cord and tripped over the extension cord.  I had wrapped the cord around my feet.  I don’t think I could have done better it I had tried.  I laughed because that was not my first time to tie my feet together by accident.  I had our two dogs, Rockco, Australian Cattle Dog, and Loki, half German Shepherd and half Great Pyrenees, on leashes and in their excitement to spend time with their master they tied me up.  We looked like casting rod line all jumbled together.

One Sunday several years ago I was visiting Calvary Baptist Church.  Pastor Irby had a great sermon on drug and alcohol addiction.  One of the verses he used was from Proverbs about being caught in our own traps or snares.  I immediately thought of an incident at Gallion Baptist Church.

While pastor there, I received a frantic call from the church pianist, Janelle Baker.  Bill, her husband and music director, was gone and she had a critical situation.  Aaron and I jumped into the truck and went to her rescue.

When we arrived, it was ugly what we found.  Bill and Janelle’s favorite beagle, Tuffy, was in a mess.  Bill’s rod and reel stood against the garage wall.  Tuffy, for some odd reason must have thought she was a fish, a hairy bass and decided to catch the fishing lure tangling from the rod.  The light brown beagle was red with blood from its mouth and all four paws.  Tuffy, other than covered with blood, appeared to be praying with her front paws attached to her mouth.  It was bad, but cute.

The best we could decipher was that the beagle got one of the treble hooks in its mouth.  When she tried to get it out with its paw, it got hooked.  She repeated the process with all her paws.  I did not know what to do as the Tuffy whined and whimpered.  I had caught a many of catfish, but it was my first “dogfish.”

I asked Janelle if Bill had a pair of wire cutters or pliers.  She did not know, so I sent Aaron back to the Pastorium to get my tool bag.  When he returned, Janelle and I had calmed Tuffy somewhat, I preformed emergency surgery as Janelle and Aaron held Tuffy.

One by one, I cut the barbs off the treble hooks.  Aaron and I giggled.  It reminded us of the time I cut a hook from his nose.  Jamie, his cousin, hooked Aaron in the nose as she cast her red worm baited hook while bass fishing.  Aaron had to stand still with a red worm wiggling against his nose as I cut the barb from the hook.  That experience enabled me to cut the eight barbs from Tuffy only she was not as obedient as Aaron was.

The episode with Super Glue, electrical extension cords, dog leashes, and Tuffy reminds me of our lives and sin.  For some odd reason of humanity, we get tangled with the snares of sin.  When we try to free ourselves, we are glued, tangled, roped, and hooked even more.

When death and the grave had entangled our Lord, the power of the Resurrection released Him from death and the grave.  That power is the power that frees us.  Like Tuffy, the harder we try to free ourselves, the more tangled we become.

This is how the God’s Word version of the Bible translates Proverbs 5:22, Irby’s text on “Snares of the Enemy,” A wicked person will be trapped by his own wrongs and he will be caught in the ropes of his own sin.

 

He (Jesus) is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay (Matthew 28:6 KJV).

 

I am glad no one saw Rockco, Loki, and me entangled.

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