It Pays To Keep Your Eyes Open

by Curtis Shelburne

WHEN YOU’RE WALKING in dangerous territory, it pays to keep your eyes open. We are, and we’d better.

I’ll not soon forget the day some time ago now when my middle two sons, Jeffrey and Stephan, and some friends, were heading for a favorite bike-riding spotna big caliche pit known affectionately by the neighborhood kids simply as THE PIT.

THE PIT is a hole in the ground filled with bike trails, hills, jumps, etc. It’s not too far off from our home, but far enough off. It’s not totally out of the reach of parents, but far enough out of reach. It’s not like screaming down the rim of the Grand Canyon on a motocross bike, but it’s close enough that a good imagination can supply what’s lacking. And, usually, it’s relatively safe.

But the Pit, or at least the path to the Pit, wasn’t safe on one notable Thursday.

As Jeffrey was crossing the dirt road to head down to the Pit, he took a step, heard a strange sound, and looked down to discover that he was standing on the business end of a rattlesnake.

Dogs may wag their tails to show affection, but that is not what rattlesnakes have in mind.

I can imagine myself and the snake at that point frozen motionless in a mutually unpleasant situation with neither of us knowing how to gracefully take his leave.

Jeffrey didn’t wait that long. In a flash, human boy went one way, rattle-tailed reptile went the other, and both were glad to get away intact.

It was a close call. If Jeff had stepped on the other end of that snake, the day’s events would likely have ended much differently. As it happened, that snake favored our kids with a very valuable lesson: Not all the ground you think of as safe is. When you’re walking in dangerous territory, it pays to keep your eyes open.

We are, by the way. This world is a rough neighborhood with lots of dangers worse than rattlesnakes.

Little kids get leukemia. Families get broken. Dreams get shattered. People get hurt.

Our Creator went to a cross to crush the head of the most venomous Serpent of all. Rest assured, Satan’s doom is sealed.

But rattlesnakes who are dead and don’t know it yet, or who are in death throes and are pretty miffed, can still be dangerous. Until Satan finally quits thrashing and is consigned to the garbage heap, let’s be careful out there.