A few years ago a friend and coworker of mine asked me to check out a video. The video was about a wild boar that was bracing to defend itself against a pack of wild dogs. The boar was at the edge of a river, drinking water. The pack of wild dogs, about eleven of them where waiting for it to come out from the edge of the river. The scene was like an old school western. I could have sworn that I heard the soundtrack of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly playing in the background. The difference though, was that no good came out of this situation. It was all bad and ugly.

While the boar drank water it simultaneously watched the wild dogs. They were staring each other down. While watching this scene play out for a few minutes, my friend nudged me to look more closely at what was happening. That’s when I saw it. I gasped. I didn’t even notice it. While the hog was busy and probably freaking out sizing up his would-be assailants, a crocodile had crept up just a few inches beside it. I’ve heard about being between a rock and a hard place, but never between a pack of wild dogs and a crocodile.

The boar took a few steps forward to sip some more water, and that was its last movement before its life was snuffed out in seconds. Like a snake, the reptile leaped out of the water, seized the boar’s neck between its jaws, and dragged it down below the surface of the water. The attack happened so fast that if you were watching the boar and the wild dogs prior to the assault, and then turned away for a few seconds and then turned back, you wouldn’t have known anything happened, except for the dwindling ripples of water.

We are like the wild boar; not because we’re wild or overweight, but because we often find ourselves caught between tough situations. Unfortunately a lack of discernment often causes us to only see one issue among others. And often times this issue is not the main issue. This problem we’re faced with often seems like the biggest deal. The boar saw eleven wild dogs. Little did it know that its demise was going to be caused by one crocodile.

Many times what we think is the issue is not what derails us. It’s the issue we’re not even aware of. It’s the one lurking underneath the surface of the hype distracting us. It’s the unknown enemy, which suddenly snaps at the neck of our ignorance and takes us down. This is the devil’s strategy: distracting us with things that are prominent, yet, taking us out with something less visible but imminent.

As we address the myriad issues of life, like we should, let’s not get distracted with things that appear to grab the headlines and allow the enemy to creep up and cause us to end up with flat-lines: in our families, careers, marriages or relationships. Let’s pray for discernment and wisdom to see and address the real issue. I encourage you to trust God and not lean on your understanding of what you think you’re facing. God knows all. Trust Him to do this for you:

This time you will not have to leave in a hurry; you will not be trying to escape. The Lord your God will lead you and protect you on every side – Isaiah 58:12 GNT