Pouch of Tobacco and Lesson Learned

There’s things in life that’ll make a fella think about things he hadn’t planned on thinking about. Maybe it’s the sound of a whippoorwill down in the hollow. Maybe it’s coffee that’s been reheated three times and tastes like burnt popcorn and financial hardship. Or maybe it’s on the way to walk dogs and you hear a man in the gas station holler, “Eight dollars for a pouch of tobacco?!” and suddenly your mind takes off running backwards like a trashy old bluetick on a cold trail.

That happened to me the other day. And buddy, it carried me straight back to my college days when me and a hunting buddy spent a lot of time around Bland County, Virginia, hunting on my granddad’s old homeplace.

Now back then I thought I was something. I had me a PSE bow loaded down with enough accessories to qualify for low-earth orbit. I had sights, peeps, stabilizers, string silencers, quiver, and gadgets I’m still not convinced had anything to do with archery whatsoever. That bow looked less like hunting equipment and more like I was trying to build a baby carousel.

But I could hit a pie plate consistently at 45 yards, and in the confidence of a college boy, that basically made me Fred Bear mixed with Rambo and a little bit of Ted Nugent.

So me and my buddy got done with classes one Thursday afternoon and headed up during bow season. Spent the evening scouting around and figuring out where we wanted to hunt the next morning. Now somewhere along the way my buddy stopped and bought a pouch of chewing tobacco.

And because college boys have the decision-making abilities of squirrel dodging a car, I thought, “That looks cool. I believe I’ll try that.”

The night before, I tested the waters with a tiny pinch. Spit enough brown liquid to pressure wash a tractor trailer, but technically I survived, so I counted it as a successful experiment.

Next morning I carried that pouch into the woods with me. Quiet morning too. Frost hanging on the leaves. Squirrels fussing. The kind of stillness where every little sound feels important. After a while I got bored and figured I’d “have another chew.” Only this time I put in enough tobacco to tranquilize a grizzly bear.

I’m sitting there trying to act experienced while spitting every four seconds. Then I hear leaves crunching. I ease my head around and here comes a little four-pointer slipping through the timber. Now my heart starts racing. I slowly stand. That deer eases behind a tree. I pull my bow back and right then I made the fatal mistake.

I took a deep breath. Forgot I had a mouth full of what can only be described as Appalachian listerine. Part of that breath went down the wrong pipe and instantly my body decided it no longer wished to continue earthly operations.

I released the arrow. THUNK. Hit a tree so hard I’m surprised that oak didn’t sue me for emotional damages. That deer ran off while I collapsed like a folding chair at a overeaters anonymous dinner.

Buddy… I got sick. Not “little upset stomach” sick. I’m talking about seeing colors not yet discovered by science sick. I threw up till my eyeballs felt like they were trying to escape and start a new life somewhere safer. Finally I rolled over on my side in the leaves wishing a hungry bear would come use me to feed its cubs and end my misery.

A little while later as I was still lying there, I heard footsteps crunching through the woods. It was my buddy. He’d been about a hundred yards away and said he thought I was over there hollering for a fellow named Ralph.

And because true Appalachian friendship means offering absolutely no compassion whatsoever during moments of suffering, he stood there laughing so hard he nearly needed medical attention himself while I looked like a parvo pup beside a white oak tree.

Took me twenty more minutes before I could wobble back to the cabin. Didn’t eat lunch. Didn’t eat supper. Didn’t even want to look at food. Now before somebody writes me a seven-page Facebook dissertation with three prayer requests and two warning labels attached, this story ain’t really about chewing tobacco.

Mama always used to say:

“Don’t drink, smoke, or chew, or date girls that do.”

But thinking about laying there that morning in the leaves reminded me later of one of the strangest verses in the Bible. 2 Peter 2:22 says: “The dog is turned to his own vomit again.”

Now that ain’t exactly the kind of verse folks put on decorative pillows.

You won’t walk into Hobby Lobby and see: “Live Laugh Love and Return to Vomit.”

But Peter was making a serious point. He was talking about people who had heard truth, knew truth, been around truth, but never truly surrendered to Christ. They knew enough about Jesus to sound religious, but their hearts never changed.

And when pressure came…when temptation came…when the old life called…they went right back to what God had delivered them from. Just like a dog returning to vomit.

Now if you’ve ever owned a dog, you know exactly how nasty that picture is. Dogs will do things that make you question whether Noah should’ve maybe left a few species off the ark.

And the Bible intentionally uses that gross picture because sin is deceptive like that. It’ll make us run back toward the very thing that once made us miserable.

That’s what amazes me. There I was in those woods absolutely dying from that tobacco. Hugging the ground like it was my last friend, and yet there are folks spiritually doing the same thing every day.

God delivers them from bitterness…and they go back.

God frees them from addiction…and they go back.

God rescues them from lust…and they go back.

God cleans up their mouth…

their habits…

their pride…

and before long they’re wandering back toward the same pile God already delivered them from.

Proverbs 26:11 says: “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”

A pig can be washed for a county fair and still dream about mud the whole time. And a person can clean up outwardly without ever having an inward change through Jesus Christ.

Sometimes our feet are moving forward, but our heart is still sitting back in Sodom rocking on the porch swing. That’s exactly what happened with Lot’s wife. God was literally dragging them out of judgment toward deliverance, mercy, and a brand new future, yet the Bible says in Genesis 19:26, “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” That glance wasn’t just curiosity. It was longing. It was affection for the life God was rescuing her from. She wasn’t tired of Sodom, she still loved parts of it. The old comforts, the old ways, the old normal had more pull on her heart than the promises ahead. And that backward look cost her everything. Isn’t it amazing how we can pray for God to deliver us while secretly keeping a little emotional storage shed full of the very things He’s trying to free us from? Jesus later gave one of the shortest and strongest warnings in Scripture: “Remember Lot’s wife” in Luke 17:32. Just three words, but they thunder like a screen door slamming in the middle of the night. You can’t fully walk into God’s future while still flirting with the ruins of your past.

Because once you truly realize how sick something made you, you stop romanticizing it. And maybe that’s part of spiritual maturity too. Finally seeing sin for what it really is instead of what the flesh pretends it is. Instead of smiling when you think about it your mouth starts watering from the sickness of the memory.

Because the devil will always try to convince you vomit is a five-star meal.