By Kiera Rich – KRich13@bellsouth.net
We had an interesting thing happen on Friday morning. Shortly after we returned from a morning workout that neither of us were interested in, the phone rang. I glanced at the Caller ID and was more than a little confused by what I read as it was our name and number. Had the cats finally figured out a high-tech way to alert us to the fact that they were out of food?
Jeff was in the other room and out of sheer curiosity, he did answer the phone. It wasn’t any of our critters. It was Dish Network calling with a “special” offer. It would have had to be extremely special as in our heavily wooded apartment complex, we don’t get a satellite signal.
I seethed about this event well into Friday afternoon. How dare they? We did what we were supposed to. We jumped all over the “Do Not Call” list and registered ALL of our numbers — including home, fax and cellphones. We re-registered our numbers before they expired. Thankfully, the FTC adopted a new policy in February 2008. Numbers no longer expire and drop off the “Do Not Call” list. For more information on the “Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007″ click here or visit the National Do No Call Registry page here.
And yet, we still got a call from a telemarketer. It definitely violates the spirit of the “Do Not Call” list but I had to ask myself, is it violating the Registry rules if we call ourselves? Have the clever, enthusiastic people who want to clean our carpet, sell us satellite service, and install vinyl siding simply figured out a way to beat the system?
When I was in elementary school, we lived very close to a murky, smelly pond. As an adult, the memory of the pond makes me reach for Lysol; but, as a kid? I thought it was the coolest thing ever. In the winter, we ice skated. In the summer we caught frogs and some kind of tiny crab. And we fished. Or we tried to.
The fish in the pond were a special breed. I believe their official Latin name was “Makeus Kidz Crazius”. Those fish were incredibly smart. Probably from a lifetime of summers spent with kids trying to yank them out of the pond. They seemed to always sit just below the surface and double-dog dare us to catch them.
We tried everything from nets to fishing poles to big, pokey sticks. We even tried to knock them out one time with a baseball in a tube sock — figuring that once they were lying unconscious in the shallow, pungent water, that they would be easy to catch. But those wiley fish scooted away concussion-free while still managing to get me in trouble for ruining my good basketball tube socks. Infuriating, clever, little fish.
This went on for several summers. Each year, I got older and my fish-catching schemes became more elaborate and refined. I was really quite tired of being laughed at by a bunch of fish who proved year after year that their raw intelligence eclipsed mine by a long shot. Thanks to the Girl Scouts, I could pick a Mocking bird out of a line up. I’d really never heard of them before; but, I was quite sure that if I searched hard enough, I would find written evidence of Mocking fish. Their natural habitat? My neighborhood pond, of course!
And then came the summer of the bologna sandwich. I was between 5th and 6th grade and my parents had just gotten divorced. I was facing a long summer at home alone because I refused to go to the YMCA’s day-camp. (Little did I know that in a few short years, I would be working at that very same day-camp.) And I ate a lot of bologna sandwiches because with my pre-teen wisdom, I had decided that peanut butter was for babies.
Our house was already up for sale and I knew that this would be my final pond summer. With dogged determination and an air of finality, I made the decision to catch one of those stupid fish once and for all. And the plan was hatched. Nearly every day, I packed a lunch and headed for the pond. Armed with a fishing pole, my dad’s tackle box, a library book on fishing, and a little hammer (Whack-a-fish, anyone?) I was ready for action. And every day, I came home hot, smelly, and fishless.
I honestly thought if I was patient enough and smart enough, I would eventually catch the fish. The only problem was that the fish were unfazed by patient and smart. They had seen it all before.
I had tried every kind of bait I could think of and several ideas I had garnered from my library book. Nothing worked. I had mentally moved on to the plan that included trapping the fish by damming off a portion of the pond. Then I figured I could drain that area a bucket of water at a time and catch my stupid fish. Thankfully, the plan was never launched because I was finally sick of bologna.
One afternoon, I sat on the edge of the pond throwing bits of my sandwich to the ducks who were the daily spectators to my fish quest. I figured I owed them something for not laughing at me. And then it happened. I tossed a piece of sandwich and a bad throw landed it in the pond rather than on the grass. Two dozen fish instantly clamored to the surface, vying for a tiny morsel of Wonder bread and dried out bologna.
Faster than I could sing the “Oscar Mayer” song, I had a bologna-baited hook and my line in the water. Not two minutes later, I had a startled, gasping, fish laying on the grass next to me. I’d done it! I finally outsmarted the fish that had mocked me for most of my childhood.
I was reminded of my successful fishing experience on Friday when the telemarketer called. We have learned what telemarketer numbers look like on Caller ID and we ignore them. We have learned what area codes they call from and we ignore those too; but, like any good fisherman, they have learned to switch the bait. A call from our own home number? Sure, we’ll bite! How could we resist?
And isn’t that just like satan too? (No, that’s not a typo. “satan” should not be capitalized.) Just when we figure out how to deflect an attack, he switches the bait to something we don’t recognize. Something much more enticeing than stale bologna and Wonder bread. Something we just can’t resist.
1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
We all have our areas where satan loves to attack us. I’m extremely protective of those areas of mine and I am always alert and watching out for the enemy’s games. But I have to wonder how many areas in my life is he attacking me without notice because I’m not looking for it there? How many of his traps have I fallen into because I haven’t recognized the bait?
Unlike the fish I caught, satan doesn’t throw back his prey because he feels sorry for them. He plays for keeps. Always has. Always will. And he will always continue to switch the bait.
