Submit - Resist & Flee

               

This past week I read one of many devotionals. One in particular was stored neatly away in the archives of my mind to be retrieved when God deemed to bring it to fruition. The basis of the topic was that God brings people or topics continually until we acknowledge the point He is trying to make in our lives.
Yesterday, I was waiting at the front of the grocery store for my daughter when a man approached me. I had never met him or seen him before. He smiled graciously and said, Would you mind turning around?" Because of his pleasant demeanor, I decided to play along. My hair was neatly placed in a braid and he began to give it a light tug. I turned around and said, OK with a questioning tone in my voice. He began by telling me that this all correlated with a sermon he heard recently in church. Now, he had my attention! He proceeded with his tale as a young boy reaching for the pigtail of the young girl that sat in front of him in school. He would then place her pigtail under the wooden top of his desk causing her to let out a yell.This of coarse alerted the teacher who would proceed to discipline him by smacking his hands with a ruler. All this didn't seem to deter him from trying this same escapade from time to time. He always received the same reaction from the young girl and his teacher. Alas, he moved away but returned four years later. Upon his arrival, the teacher sat him behind the same pigtailed girl. His absence had not found him to mature in his thinking or his actions. His first thought was, "Here we go again"! Once again, he proceeded to grab hold of her pigtail and shut it in the top of his school desk. Although this time, he received a different response. She ignored him! He tried a few more times but to no avail. As he came to the end of his story, he correlated his rambunctious youth with the sermon he had heard, "The Devils Temptation". He glimmered with one last smile and said,"Just like that girl, we often get better results if we just ignore him and he will flee".
James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (NIV)

On Bended Knee

On Bended Knee

    I often ponder of the vast changes my Grandmother witnessed while walking on this earth. Being raised in the 1800’s and growing up on a farm homesteaded by her father.  She knew that each day contained time, and they used it wisely to provide for their existence. The wood from the trees would build their homes. The wheat was planted, thrashed and sold. The cow was milked and the garden planted and harvested to be canned for their survival. Her mother would spin wool from a spinning wheel and all of their clothing was handmade. Their lighting was by candle or a lantern. They used plow horses for their fields and drove buggies for their transportation. My grandmother saw the first motorized car and many, many years later would fly on a jet airplane.
   I have had a glimmer of what it was like to be without electric. I was glad I had some provision of wood, water, and food to sustain my family during that short week’s time. It’s never been a bad idea to be prepared. I was prepared to play Little House on the Prairie, but grateful when all the conveniences returned.
   I never thought that I would witness the changes that I have seen take place within these past years, months, and days. The Biblical foundation of our country and its beliefs are being washed away. So much has been taken away before my very eyes. These changes echo the words that I read years ago, "If we can change the minds and hearts of one generation, we can change the course of history”. "The Humanist Manifesto"
  With all of this, I still hold dear to the example of this little couple from Sweden that rose early to read their Bible. The sweet memories of the rumblings that were heard by my mother in the stillness of the night; as she peered into the candle lite room to witness her grandfather on bended knee… talking to God.