When Lars was 8, he loved roaming our neighborhood in search of pets, but not the traditional kind. Throughout his childhood he had a heart for all things cold-blooded: turtles, birds, lizards, fish, and (gulp) snakes.

I well remember the day he came running into the kitchen with a 3 foot long black garter snake draped over his arm. “Mom! Mom! Look what I found!”

He brought the snake’s ugly face up close to mine and said, “Look at his tongue!”

I lunged backwards, filled with fear but trying not to show it. “Yes, I see. A snake!”

“Pet him, Mom. He’s really smooth!”

I forced myself to comply, not wanting to dampen Lars’ enthusiasm, and gingerly touched the snake’s middle.

“Smooth, huh?” Lars said.

“Very,” I said, quickly withdrawing my hand.

As Lars talked he lovingly stroked the length of his new friend like it was a puppy. “It’s ok if I keep him, isn’t it?”

“Only if he stays outside.”

Lars and his snake disappeared, but soon he called me to the front porch. He’d found an old wooden bushel basket and had filled it with fresh grass. “I’m gonna catch crickets for him, Mom. He can live right here by the front door.”

But I knew that snake would slither out of his basket the first chance he got, and by morning, he was gone. Lars was disappointed, but I was elated.

It’s probably wrong to hate one of God’s creatures, but I hate snakes. They’re predatory, quick moving, and unpredictable. That’s why I was startled yesterday to see a snake while walking Jack. It was wound around a small tree in our neighborhood, as big as Lars’ garter snake, but brown.

Fear flashed through me, but in seconds I saw the snake was only an innocent vine crawling up a tree.

But the vine wasn’t really that innocent. It had nearly strangled the life out of the tree. Bulges in the trunk resembled prey being squeezed by a python, and it had climbed high enough to coil around a second tree and then a third. The vine, once a tiny, supple stem of pretty ground cover had grown to 30 feet of stiff strength.

Many of life’s temptations start small just like the vine but end up squeezing the life out of us. It might be a destructive relationship, an addictive habit, an inappropriate goal, or just our belief in a lie. We think we’re stronger than we are and have more will power than we do. The “vine” tickles our ankles, but we ignore it, and it climbs our legs. Before long it’s gripping our hearts and we can’t free ourselves.

But God owns the clippers and is a pruning expert. All it takes is our permission for him to make the cut.

I probably won’t tamper with our neighborhood forest, but it’ll be interesting to see who prevails: the tree or the vine.

“Throw off… the sin that so easily entangles.” (Hebrews 12:1)