The Mind Trap

“What’s so bad about being lazy?” said eleven-year-old Jim. “I like being lazy!”

A quiet despair arose in the heart of his teacher. Hardly anyone realizes how awful sin is until they try to escape it. But Jim didn’t care. His feelings ruled his life. His parents didn’t know how to handle him, so he did what he pleased at home. When he didn’t feel like doing something he got bored. He ate when he felt like it and didn’t like to work. It made him tired.

At school Jim had a hard time studying. His mind constantly jumped around, looking for whatever felt interesting for a moment. When he had work to do he would fidget and distract himself. Jim’s mind was like a little puppy that has never been trained. It would get very excited and rush about, and even want to work for a little while. But not much would get done. He had not trained his mind to obey.

The other children at school began to train their minds, and Jim started to fall behind. “I’m just stupid,” Jim would tell himself. Why did he do that? It was easier to tell himself that he was stupid than it was to learn to work. So Jim lied to himself.

“You are not stupid,” his teacher told him. “You can learn if you will apply yourself.” Jim didn’t want to think about that. He was stubborn and he didn’t want to be wrong. It was easier to be lazy and think he was stupid.

Every now and then, something would catch Jim’s interest and he would really try to learn. For a little while Jim would actually work hard. He would enjoy his lessons and his teachers would begin to have hope for him.

But at home Jim was poisoning his mind. His favorite thing was to watch TV and play video games. The more bad guys and killing the better. As he killed millions of imaginary enemies he felt like a hero. His teachers warned him that he was destroying his mind and heart, but Jim didn’t believe them. At school he was made to work hard and think about useful things. But at home he was allowed to drink all the poison he wanted.

The video-game poison made Jim act strange. “Bang! Pow-pow-pow!” he would say when he was supposed to be studying. Another bad guy was blown to pieces and Jim would smile to himself. But it was all in his imagination. While Jim was pretending to blow the enemies away, the real enemies were really blowing Jim away. Real monsters like Laziness, Stubbornness, and Pride. And behind it all, their master: the DEVIL. And it wasn’t a game; it was real life! How the devil laughed!

Jim thought he was a hero, but was he?