I'm thinking today of Ecclesiastes 7 .26. It
says, And I discovered, more bitter than death,
the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose
hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God
will escape from her, but the sinner will be
captured by her. Ecclesiastes 7 .26. This is
probably talking about actual women. It's also
a metaphor, of course, and can speak about a
lot of things. And the truth is, we're not just
talking about women. We've heard so much about
wicked men by this point in time in the book
and all throughout the Bible that we know that
both men and women are like this. People can
do this to one another. To escape means to be
at least briefly trapped or nabbed, latched onto.
When a person has no proper relationship with
God, they are in real danger. They could be both
trapped and trapper. That's why we get codependent
relationships. where people are in a relationship
making the other person out to be something they
need them to be because they need them to be
that, and both things are bad, but they need
the codependent relationship in order to feel
alive. Living without the life giver of the universe,
without a real relationship with God, becomes
a life seeking day by day. You look for life,
look for positive things in other people, or
even bad things, so that you can feel better
about yourself. The problem is... People will
always fail. People are not God. The relationship
you were created for is the relationship with
the God of the universe. A sinner will get trapped
in these kinds of relationships. But a person
who has a relationship with God, even should
they be nabbed shortly, will break free.