A Thousand Words of a Ravenous Wolf

Isn't it an interesting phenomenon that when someone (or something) is hurting, their first instinct is to lash out at anyone nearby?  When I read this verse I didn't think of a rabbit in a snare, but something vicious.  After I try to help someone who is hurting and they lash out, my inclination is to throw my hands up and say, "Well, I tried.  It's on them now."  Their bad attitude absolves me of further involvement. I'm convicted by how patient God is with us, and how Christ freed us from the snare of the devil at the cost of his own life.  What a gift!  As we snapped, clawed and tore at him, he let us free from the trap.  Not content with freeing us, he bound our wounds and healed our injuries. With an understanding of Christ's example, it is more difficult to cut my losses and walk away from a snapping brother.  It brings to mind Matthew 18: 'So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you eve...

'They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." For he was saying to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many." ' Mark 5:1-9 Reading thi...