I have most of Eddie Askew’s books and now his daughter is bringing together many of the writings she found after his death. One of the fairly recent ones is “Snails have no reverse Gear” which my husband, Ray, gave me for Christmas.
Eddie Askew has the knack of bringing the ordinary everyday things to us and bringing another meaning to make us think. This is probably where he was when he wrote it.
I can only find one reference in the Bible to snails and it is in Psalm 58 when David was being watched by Saul’s men in order to kill him. Verse 8 says “may they be like snails that dissolve into slime” and snails are slimy and most of us would not like to touch them.
I usually come into contact with them when I am watering my flower pots and the water suddenly goes slower and slower. As many of you gardeners know snails seem to love getting up the spouts of the watering can and have no reverse gear so they die. Quite sad really.
How many times do we get stuck in a situation where we have trouble in backing out of it? Sometimes we get angry or annoyed to such a degree that we say things we do not really mean and then find we have trouble in backing down. We should take time to listen to people, perhaps put ourselves in their place and see their point of view.
Let us remember the snails and not get ourselves into that situation.
Prayer: Lord, I may be asking a lot of you, but help me to think before I speak, and then not to say too much. Amen.