The Murderer in your Closet

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah-Ps. 9:15-16

It is quite surprising how we live in self made prisons. No matter how we look at it, what we get entangled with in life is usually our own making, whether good or bad. Think of it this way, our choice to learn or do any course that eventually becomes our vocation of which sometimes we use clichés like, "this work is my life", is solely our making. As we gobble that chunk, let us quickly look at it from the point where we need to take utmost precaution. “The heathen are sunk in the pit that they made”, how can one be making a pit just to get sunk in it; “in the net which they hid is their own foot taken”, that sounds to me like bad habits we unconsciously form which eventually enslaves and compels us. Just like Tyron Edwards wrote “Any act often repeated soon forms a habit; and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength. At first it may be as a spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted, it soon binds us with chains of steel.”

 If the heathen had known that the pit they were making will be their undoing, they would have done that with much sympathy or not even try it at all. If they had known that the net they were hiding from the glare of others will eventually claim their feet, they may have withdrawn from the machination. The summary of it all becomes that "the wicked is ensnared in the work of his own hand". Both the “pit” and the “net” are their own making. In life nobody has much power to afflict you more than you have the power to afflict yourself. What other people do can be stopped by your decision, but the very thing which you do to yourself, by yourself and which you consider perfect, if not excellent, will never occur to you as something you need to desist from, because they seem harmless. These pits and nets could look like smartness and ingenuity, they could be fun and trendy, but may actually be your death-trap. How limited we are in our thoughts and imaginations that we announce our obituary without knowing. It cuts across virtually everything we do; feeding, attitude to life, choices we make, etc. How desperate we need a superior guide to guard our life. How apt it will be for us to understand that the life we are struggling to protect in our own way is not our making.

"Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture-Psalm 100:3.

How do we expect to lead this life without the owner’s manual and expect to get the best out of it? It is time to evaluate our works (choices we make and execute), to know what will become of them in nearest future. Or rather it is much better not to execute our decisions if they do not fit into the owner's manual or else we would be digging our pit, with our hands.

No matter how we look at it, life is bigger than us without the creator of life. The earlier we recognize and make him Lord, the better and sweeter our life will be in the future, both in this life and the life beyond. God bless you.