A Quick Escape

    Summer has arrived in central Texas! It is hot and really dry!  I was out early this morning at the break of dawn, for my morning walk in the woods, trying to stay ahead of the heat. It was to no avail; within ten minutes I was wet with sweat. I don’t mind the sweat too much but I do not like the biting horse flies that are attracted to my sweat in this very dry weather. I usually walk with a walking stick in one hand and a fly swatter limb in the other hand! Thankfully I usually hear their buzzing and scare them off before they start biting on me. At one point on the trail today, I heard a lot of buzzing and started looking around for the horse flies.  I then decided that it must be flies swarming around something dead on the ground. I started looking around to find the source of the buzzing. As I was walking the sound was getting louder and louder. I finally detected the source of the noise, after looking up in a large oak tree. There was a big hole about ten feet up the side of the tree. There must have been a hundred bees surrounding the hole and they seemed to be very agitated.

  By then I was only a couple of feet away from the tree and they appeared ready to attack!  I quickly took a couple of steps backwards and then turned and took off running, not stopping until I was a long ways away! Having already had several run-ins with bees, I was not going to give them a chance to attack first. A couple of years ago I was clearing out a new trail in the woods when I noticed something buzzing around me. No realizing the danger I kept on hacking at the brush with my machete. Too late, I saw the swarm of bees roaring out of a hole in the ground and swarming around me.  I took off running at full speed and ran for at least a hundred yards, until the buzzing stopped! Then I started pulling the bees off my body. I had been stung multiple times. It was an experience that I did not want to repeat. I found a new route for the trail, giving the bees plenty of space. 

     The Bible contains many scripture where we are instructed to turn away from various situations or temptations; and then there are scriptures that instruct us to flee, or run away quickly, from something of danger or evil! As Christians, we need to pay special attention to the things that the Bible tells us to flee from! These are things that can overwhelm us as quickly as a swarm of bees, if we are not alert!

    In I Corinthians 6:18, Paul tells us to flee fornication or sexual impurity. In I Corinthians 10:14, Paul instructs us to flee from idolatry, or as the Amplified Bible translation put it: flee from “loving or venerating anything more than God”. In I Timothy 6, Paul talks of the “love of money” and tells us again to flee from these things. It’s ok to want to be successful, but some people have such a strong craving for riches that it causes them to lose their Christian faith. So the next time you are faced with one of these temptations, just remember, don’t walk but run in the opposite direction until the “buzzing” stops!