In the popular game Snakes and Ladders, a player moves their piece across a winding, upward path and will occasionally run across ladders, which will help them advance to a higher position on the board, and snakes, which will cause them to fall back down to a lower position. The snake has always been a symbol of the devil and his temptations and vices. Sometimes we are walking the path of life incautiously, barefoot even, our eyes anywhere but on the way in front of us and we pay the price when we get bit and fall down. Sometimes we may see an old, familiar snake, one who has bitten us many times, but we stoop down to pick it up and try to cuddle with it, convincing ourselves that this time it won't bite, or, at least, if it does bite, we will be strong and won't fall down. We fall down again anyway. Sometimes we see the snake and it makes us mad and we try to kick it, but that only guarantees that we get bit. And sometimes we have put on the full armor of God and are watching our step and paying attention and we somehow get bit regardless of our care and our preparation and that really hurts. It almost feels pointless to carry on. Why bother walking the path at all if we just get bit? Well, one reason is the path is full of snakes, and they’re going to find us whether we courageously pick ourselves back up and continue pressing forward despite our many, many snake bites or simply give up and sit down and shake our fist at God. At least if we're on our feet and moving we are in a better position to at least sometimes see the snake coming and jump out of the way. The good news is that just as the path is full of snakes, it's also full of ladders. Now, climbing a ladder isn't easy, especially for someone suffering from multiple snake bites. It requires effort and discipline and can feel repetitive doing the same things over and over, advancing line upon line, here a little and there a little. But as limited and dull as climbing the ladder might seem, it does help us cut out a lot of the path and get higher much quicker than it would take if we had tried to walk the path normally. But the ladder saves a lot more time and distance than is suggested by the curve in the path that is cut short. There are no snakes on the ladders. We are not only saving ourselves from walking one small part of the path by taking the ladder, but we're saving ourselves from all of the snakes that would have sent us farther down the path and would have required us to walk much, much farther. The real tragedy is that for however many snakes we might find on the path, there are seventy times seven more ladders, and yet so often we refuse to use the ladders that are always right there, or we fool ourselves into thinking that the path filled with snakes is more fun and exciting, or we're strong and tough enough to face it on our own and we don't need or want or deserve the help that the ladders offer. Wherever we find ourselves on the path, we have the power to choose if we are going to keep walking or lying down on a path filled with snakes, or if we're going to choose to climb the ladder and save ourselves a lot of time and a lot of pain. I know that Christ beckons us from moment to moment to put our trust in Him and His forgiveness and mercy and His ladder.
