Keeping a Steadfast Heart When the snake Bites

The words hissed menacingly on the page.  I distinctly hear our enemy of old, the serpent, as I read Acts 28.  The serpent bit the shipwrecked man.   Already Paul's life circumstances were stressful, and now this venomous snake clings to his hand and threatens to undo his emotional composure and sabotage the work of his physical calling.   When Paul looked down at his hand, he must have heard the echo of the Garden, "Did God really say?"   Crafty in his timing, Satan surely thought after a shipwreck, a cold, wet, miserable Paul is bound to doubt the goodness and deliverance of God.  Oh, but the beautiful uplifting part is Paul shook that snake back into the fire.   While Paul was letting loose of the foul serpent, he was holding fast to God's promise for him in the previous chapter.

God had spoken words of fulfillment that had yet to be fulfilled.  Paul had a future appointment with Caesar.   Paul knew Jesus was a promise keeper, always faithful, always truthful.   How could Paul's story end here with a snakebite?

While the islanders on Malta expected Paul's imminent death, Paul was living for the morrow, the fulfillment of God's prophecy over his life.  Snakebit Paul made a choice like all of us must.   Do I believe Jesus or become paralyzed and maimed by my circumstances?

I pondered how this story might have turned out completely differently if Jesus hadn't hushed the snake's hiss on the cross.  Our Lord Jesus gave us what we don't deserve and speaks wondrous futures over our messed up realties.  When our lives are hidden in Christ, the snake has no authority to take them.

Though Paul's fingers did not swell to match the circumference of the serpent's girth, Paul's spirit could have ballooned dangerously large if he had harbored the thought, "God, you are unfair.  I deserve better."  Having a snake attached to your hand, it would be natural to breathe in fear and breathe out anger. Indeed, Paul had the potential to let circulate a more deadly poison in his bloodstream.  All he had to do was disbelieve God.  Isn't that what has been perpetuated since the Garden?

When we dismiss God as a liar based on our bleak circumstances, our entire world reels and we lose our equilibrium.  If we believe that the one who hung the solar system in place can't be trusted, our mental spinning accelerates down a wobbly, out-of-control path.  Of course, self-injury results, because we have left Satan's fangs in our tender flesh.

But Acts 28 is no ordinary chapter.  Paul did what we often forget to do.  He took human responsibility by placing his focus back on Jesus, the Crusher of the serpent, the Keeper of Life, and the Victor of Difficult Circumstances.  I'm persuade that the snake in Acts 28 knew he was beaten and slithered back into hell fire.  With extreme caution, I warn that our enemy is waiting to emerge on someone else's unsuspecting hand preferably after a shipwreck.

In this life, we'll experience shipwrecks and snakebites, but whether we remain injured, helpless victims is dependent on whether we start shaking off lies and finish by holding onto the Person of Truth, God, himself.  As I read Acts 28, I was reminded Jesus can be trusted.  Keeping a steadfast heart when the snake bites is a matter of focus.  Will I gaze at the uplifted Jesus or study the snakeskin?
 
May it be said of us we looked at Jesus.