Christian Living

The Bat, The Snake and The Bear

by Brian Douglas
06/28/22
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The Bat, The Snake and The Bear

There was a time when I wanted to know if sin had stolen man’s God-given dominion over the earth from him, or if we had just stopped believing that we occupy that position of authority. The question comes out of the Book of Genesis, Chapters 2 & 3, where God tells Adam to tend the Garden of Eden. The animals were brought to the man to be named, but unlike them, no mate found for him. Then, God put Adam into a deep sleep, took one of his ribs from him and fashioned Eve. We don’t know how long the two people lived in the garden, but one day they listened to a serpent and screwed everything up. They were banished from the Garden and the world has yet to recover. I have heard, mostly in a few passing statements from pastors, that Adam’s disobedience meant that the position of authority God had given him had been usurped by Satan, the Prince of the Power of the Air, but I had not seen anything like that in my reading of the scripture. So, I asked the Lord directly about it in prayer.

 During that time, I happened to be building a cabin, an Author’s Retreat, in the mountains above where I lived. The location was a plot in a subdivision within Angeles National Forest. The Forest Service leases these parcels to people who can then build on them. My customer had owned a cabin in a different subdivision lower down the mountain, but it had been destroyed some years before in a forest fire.

 The new location was further up the highway, above the part that was open to the public. Landslides in the highest elevations had rendered the upper part of the highway impassable to cars and the Forest Service had closed the last 30 miles or so. Residents needed a key to unlock the gate in order to access their cabins. Each day, I would go through this gate on the way up to a certain hairpin turn where a trail led up a narrow canyon beside a stream that tumbled down on its way to the West Fork of the San Gabriel River.

 All the building materials I used had to be brought up this trail to the building site. I counted my steps one day and estimated that I was walking about 150 yards from where I parked to the site. I figured that the plot was also about 100’ above where I parked. This was at an elevation of about 4,000’ above sea level and it was high enough to make breathing noticeably harder, in the beginning. You can see how a good portion of my time and energy was spent just getting materials and tools up the hill. I often used those minutes to chat with the Lord about whatever was on my mind. I imagine that on one of those mornings the subject came up about man’s dominion.

 The Bat

 The project began with tearing down an existing one-room cabin that was one of perhaps four that had survived the same forest fire that had taken my customer’s previous cabin. It had to be removed as carefully as the new one was to be built. When the roof and walls had been deconstructed, I set about removing the floor. This was made of vertical-grain fir planks of the kind I’ve seen used in old farm houses from the early 20th century. I love fir flooring! I hoped to salvage and reuse it, if possible.

 On that particular day, I was up on the floor about to begin the day’s work when I began to be inundated by biting flies. I’d been bitten by them a couple of times already. They have a saliva that burns the skin for about a week. This time, they were swarming and I was getting eaten! I blurted out, “Lord, can you do something about these flies?” Suddenly, something swooped by my face within inches of my ear. It certainly got my attention and I looked up in the trees to see what it was. It was about 11:00 on a summer morning, but nonetheless, a bat was dashing about the area! It flitted here and there for about half an hour and then disappeared, never to be seen again. And so did the flies. They were gone. I was never bitten again by them over the duration of the project.

The Snake

 Months later when the cabin shell had been built and I was fitting the interior, I headed up the trail again one morning. There is a part that zig-zags around a large wall of rock. As you ascend, you pass through a break in the wall and into a little meadow. There are the remains of a burned out cabin to the left between the trail and a drop-off next to the stream. When I came through that narrow place, I heard a rustling close by on the right. I stopped immediately, because I saw it was a diamondback rattlesnake! He slithered through the dry grass and onto the trail a few feet ahead of me. He was some four feet in length and didn’t seem to care that I was following him up the trail. Just before arriving at my cabin, the trail zig-zagged again around a stand of yew bushes. The snake just went straight into those bushes. I hurried up the last few dozen yards to get there before that snake could crawl underneath the skirting. I still had work to do under the floor and I didn’t want his company.

 I hurried up the deck stairs and put my tools inside. Then, I sat at the top of the stairs to see what that snake was up to. Sure enough, it emerged from the bushes and slithered toward the cabin. It was a few yards from the base of the stairs when I spoke. “That is as far as you go,” I said calmly, but firmly. The snake just stopped then and there! He had reached a bit of rock that was mostly buried in the ground. When I spoke, he paused, flicked out his tongue a couple of times and then… fell asleep? I don’t know, but I decided to eat my lunch while I made sure he didn’t come any closer. 

 It seemed like 30 minutes that we both sat still in our respective places. The snake never moved a muscle while I ate. Then, I took one of the 14’ long 2x4s that was lying on the deck and reached it out toward him. I carefully rested the end of it on the ground just in front of him. He didn’t move. I pushed some dirt toward him and just nudged him awake. Then, in the same calm firm voice I’d used before, I said, “Now, you go back the way you came.” That snake flicked his tongue a time of two, turned and slithered back the way he’d come, away into the yew bushes. I never saw him again. 

The Bear

 Now, up the hill above where I was building, there was another cabin. A woman lived there year-round with a man some years younger than her. I learned that she had been a small girl in Germany during WWII. The Allied Forces had bombed her town, Her family and friends had been killed. I’ve forgotten most of the details of the many stories she shared, but one thing certainly stayed with me. She told me of a female bear with two cubs that would come and forage around her cabin. She said she liked to leave food for them on a tree stump. I was not the least bit surprised when she told me of the time Mother Bear had broken into her kitchen through the window when she had gone down the mountain into town. The bear was looking for food and tore up the kitchen in her search. That told me that this bear had lost its fear of humans and I needed to keep alert.

 Near the end of my project, I heard something coming down the side of the mountain from the direction of the lady’s cabin. It was the bear! I had just finished a lunch of leftover fried chicken and I knew she could smell it. I did my best not to panic. She trudged down through the leaves that covered the hill side and walked with determination across the trail toward my staircase. I opened the front door just enough to stick my head out, as she rounded the corner to climb onto the deck. “You go back the way you came!” I called out firmly, but probably not so calmly this time!. Do you know, she heard me, stopped in her tracks, looked at me peering through the barely open doorway, then turned around and loped back up the hillside exactly the way she had come! Like the flies and the snake, I never saw her again.

Three Witnesses

 In God’s word, we read that every truth shall be established by two or three witnesses. This was part of the Law given to the nation of Israel by Moses. I have seen that God keeps this law throughout scripture. Whatever truth He wants to communicate, He provides two or three witnesses so that His people can be certain. Well, when I asked Him whether or not mankind still occupies the position of authority He gave to Adam back in Eden, He sent three witnesses to testify. The bat, the snake and the bear all responded to my words without argument. Each one did exactly what I had commanded, to the letter.

 Am I ready to proclaim that mankind is sovereign and we should all tell wild animals what to do? No. Emphatically “NO!” Why not? Because, God sent those three witnesses to teach me a truth that most people are probably not ready to embrace. Belief is a powerful, powerful force. Who we believe is crucial to our lives and our destinies. We do not see the animals in subjection to us, because we have stopped believing God concerning what He has written. The animals know we don’t believe, so they remain apart from us. They can tear us apart and they know it. If we are not walking in faith to fulfill our commission, why should we expect the creation to respond to us? So, no, I don’t think you should try this yourselves, unless you want to take God at His word as a way of life and not just when you want to pull off some kind of parlor trick.

 But, if you are like me and really want to know God and are willing to go wherever He leads you, I think He will take you up your own fantastic trail and give you your own “unbelievable” stories to tell. That is what I urge you to do.