Yesterday’s local newsfeed highlighted a man shooing off the main trek a huge, five to six foot, diamond back rattle snake (I’ll keep that visual to myself; your’e welcome!). Ladies, I’ve never seen a snake so big, and if I had seen this one, I wouldn’t have been on the news as the one escorting it to safety. Snakes, even the “good ones,” and I do not belong in the same frame of being.

Crafty & Cunning, Shrewd & Subtle

God tells us of Eve’s first encounter with a snake; the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Remember it?

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

MORE subtle than any other creature that had been made, and it was the one Satan would use to unfold his evil scheme. Let’s do a quick review of the conversation Eve had when the serpent came to her.

Genesis 3:1-3

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”4“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

What would you do?

That’s the trick of more subtle…from here:

subtle, adjective : not loud, bright, noticeable, or obvious in any way

Sneaky Snake

Sneaky Snake, I mean, Satan. He was there to tempt Eve. God had already told Adam exactly what would happen if he and/or his wife ate from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (And for the record, God never said they could not touch the fruit, those words were added to God’s Word. Sound familiar of today’s ongoings?) . And don’t miss this, either, Adam and Eve knew the consequences of their choice should they decide to do what God told them not to. But the subtleness of Satan overtook Eve, and we know the rest of the story. Yet, look at where it began. It all started with her seemingly innocent conversation with her garden visitor.

Eve’s Weakness’ Challenged

Following this conversation, things changed in a quick minute. Look how the continuing story unfolds, and think about your own life.

Genesis 3:6When the woman saw. Yes, that is not the end of the thought or even this first sentence here in verse 6, but we need to pause for a second. When Eve saw. We have to assume her focal point had changed, because Scripture doesn’t say she continued to look at The Tree, it says, “When the woman saw.” Her thoughts drew her gaze to that tree, The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree the Lord said was off limits for food. And yet, her focus locked in, and she saw.

Satan isn’t stupid

We read all over Scripture of the Evil one’s cunning trickery. This is no exception. Though woman was God’s newest creation, Mr. More Subtle Clever & Cunning himself zeroed in on what he must have known. I have to think that is true because, well, I am a woman who has already lived more than half of my life on earth, so I’ve known a lot of other women, too. And, guess what? We are much like Eve. I can imagine the darts Satan threw at Eve are the same ones that we also find firing up our lives.

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Do you Find Yourself there?

Eve saw the tree was useful: it was good for food.

Eve saw the tree was enjoyable: it was beautiful to look at.

Eve saw the tree was enticing: it was desirable for wisdom.

Any Women’s Struggles

We women have the same struggles in our own lives all the time. It’s not even debatable. Let me look online real quickly, hold on…ok, here are some of the titles from the popular women’s magazines this month:

Cozy Comfort Food

Nourish: Sweet and Savory

How to Network your way through Stanford

Get Glowy Skin Fast

Are you too Sensitive?

You, Beautiful

Good Faith

Strong & Sexy

Same Satan, Same Lies

And the commercials all agree. Society targets women today much the same as Satan did Eve in the garden: Her physical, Her emotional and Her intellectual.

Where is your struggle?

Eve saw THE tree was good for food: physical, it was beautiful: emotional, and it would lead to wisdom: intellectual. Where is your greatest struggle? Stop to think about it because it’s important. Where your greatest struggle is, whether a new, old, short term or seemingly everlasting, there, likely, is your weakness.

Physical, Emotional, Intellectual

There is SO much more to learn right here in the Garden of Eden and we will discuss it further next time-don’t miss it! But for now, we need to stay here and think about our own area, or areas, of pain and struggle. Some of my own life struggles are sure to be familiar to many of you. Physically, my weight has always, always been a fight for me. My hormones have revolted against female common place, and the two most painful by-products have been warring weight and infertility/pregnancy loss. You can imagine, probably, what that has done emotionally over the years. At one time, I bought into the lies that the more education I had, and one more degree would ease the pains of life and make my personal- even secret -insecurities less prominent as if they could be counterbalanced with wisdom. Or maybe I would be a better woman/wife/mother, if I had more education. Foolishness. God has been good to teach me what His truth is through His word, and I’ve since learned that wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord, not from a degree on the wall. Still, I have unwrapped life’s problems under the spotlight of physical, emotional and and intellectual temptations all too long. Like Eve, I listened to the wrong voice, I engaged in conversation-with myself or any other avenue of voice that soothed my fears (others, music, movies, literature…). I mixed in lies with truth, and when life felt too hard or the hurt looked too much to bear, I chose what seemed more useful, enjoyable and enticing: I chose sin over faith.

The Price of sacrifice

It would seem Eve chose to sacrifice disobedience for obedience, same as me. When it’s too hard to obey, or too easy to sin (and are those statements backwards? Is it better stated: When it’s too easy to sin and too hard to obey?) I too often hit the easy button. There, the temptation to please myself physically, emotionally or intellectually override the truth I know of God and His Word. That is sacrifice, too, but one to no good end. Eve chose sin. She could have escaped her temptation just like we can, every single time. God was with her. And He is with us, too.

God is With Us

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Temptation is tempting

Duh. It goes without saying, or it should, if there was no second glance temptation wouldn’t be a problem. Where we are weak, we are tempted. THAT is why it’s importation to ask God to take inventory of our heart. I guess for ratings it’s good to take a 350 lb diabetic woman who is trying to be the next Biggest Loser and seat her in the middle of a sugar banquet, but it’s not wise to place ourself where we know we struggle with weakness. When we need forgiveness, and each of us have, will, do, there is Jesus. Where we succumb to self, temptation and sin, we have forgiveness in Christ as we repent and continue to follow Him. The Psalmist gives great advice here:

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;  test me and know my concerns. 24See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.…

Go Boldly

When we realize where we are weak and allow the strength of God to help us in our weakness, we have God’s promises. In every way, Jesus knows temptation and He as already paved the escape route. He invites us to draw near to Him.

My teenager and I have been employed in some puppy training. With the newest puppy, our invitation (with expectation of obedience) “come here” is a bit more quiet and tempered with gentleness than for that of her older roommate, but God paints a different word picture for us. He says we are to come to Him with great confidence. Friends, we can go boldly to Christ; He promises to meet us there with the mercy and grace and promise of escaping every temptation as we do. That is the truth of temptation’s deliverance: Mercy and Grace.

Mercy & Grace

I invite you to turn your struggles and temptations into exactly what the Lord has for you. Instead of balling up in fear and weakening at the subtle whispers of easy or enticing (by they way, exhaustion & stress are dangerous counterparts linking ever so effortlessly to easy and enticing, aren’t they? I need to guard my own heart in this very way so intentionally!), we can go boldly in the direction that has already been mapped out as our personal escape and fall into the luxury of God’s amazing mercy and grace instead.

Temptation is universal, God’s way of escape is personal. Go with confidence, Sister, to your God.

Click HERE to listen (coming tomorrow!)

First comes love.

If you’ve been around lately you know I just watched my son’s love story unfold. Truly, the Lord was ordering his step in my young man’s life. A quick background; just about 2 1/2 years ago the Lord directed us, out of nowhere, really, to move from the area we’d spent the largest majority of our 30 years of marriage. Leave. We’d done this once before, and we could clearly see God’s hand in what we didn’t understand then, and we had faith this would be no different. Yet, learning our young adult son almost 1000 miles away knowing he was at the time of life where he’d likely find a wife and settle down resulted in a heartache and many tears as I packed boxes up one by one and the memories of his growing up in that home overtook me. It was very hard for me.

God’s timing

Everything worked perfectly though painstakingly (sometimes following God’s clear direction comes with great effort and hard work on our end). In a very short time our house was revamped top to bottom and nearly 20 years of life was purged and packed. We were under contract in 9 days and heading south in less than a month.

First one out

We waited for the moving truck, oh so late in arriving, and we watched our oldest drive off with his brother and their dog, leaving the only place each of the had ever called home, and again my heart broke for them knowing the loss each of them had to process. Did you see what happened, though? God changed my son’s heart and at the last minute he decided to move with us! This was a blessing and it was God’s timing.

First comes love

We weren’t here in our new home for long before son #1 was spending a lot of his time “fishing” after work. Not really surprising being surrounded by the beautiful Gulf of Mexico and lakes at every corner. Yet, my heart knew something more was happening.

Waiting

I told my husband that I believed our big guy wasn’t always fishing but that we’d be hearing of a young lady who’d stolen his affections soon. I was waiting. Soon enough, Mr. never able to keep something from Mom came clean.

Mom

Mom, I have met this girl and… the rest of the story culminated just a month ago as my husband stood together with our son and his bride and united them in the Lord through marriage. First comes love.

First Comes Love

Have you ever considered the Lord in this way? We are the bride of Christ, those of us who He calls His own, who have been saved through faith in Jesus. Way back in the beginning, before the first two people decided to serve self and turn away from God’s ways, the Lord loved us. So much so, His plan was the only one that could be; the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, perfect and pure, holy and without blemish, to bring us back to the relationship with Him he so desires. He loves you. He loves me. He first loved.

He loved us first

I John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.

Grace

I think especially women in Christendom have been well versed in grace. Where there is an issue or even a perceived issue we read, we hear, we see the advice, “Give her grace.” “Offer them grace.” “Give yourself grace.” Is there anything wrong with giving grace?

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Without Grace

If there was no grace, we would have no hope. Jesus embodied grace and truth. Our hope is in Christ; we are hopeless without His grace.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Ephesians 5: 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 

With Grace

With grace we have hope. We have the hope of salvation and the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ. With grace we have…more grace, and mercy, and love, and patience. With grace we have forgiveness.

John 1: 15 John testified concerning Him. He cried out, saying, “This is He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’ ” 16 From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

Much more but first comes Love

There are 66 books in the Bible. There is so much the Lord gives us, teaches us, shows us, commands us and there’s no way for me to even scratch the surface in one blog post or podcast, but hear this, Friends, before it all comes love. In the beginning of time, when God began creation, when His the best of His best of man and beast chose sin, He first loved. From that love we have ever attribute of our Heavenly Father. Whatever we have from the Lord, we have because of His great love for us. Can you take a second to try and comprehend a love so great that you’re willing to give your own flesh and blood? A love so great that another person was worth the greatest part of your own life? That to the nth degree wouldn’t even begin to come close to what God’s love for us must really be.

The NTH degree

The nth degree: the highest power. Let’s remember when we see God’s beautiful creation, when we receive forgiveness, mercy and grace from His hand. When we choose to be kind, to forgive, to show God’s grace to another person in our lives, let us remember it’s all because of God’s love. I couldn’t live without God’s grace in my life, but I need never to forget it comes from His love for me; I want to love Him because He first loved me. I want to serve Him, because of His love for me. I want to follow His ways, because He loves me. I want to be forgiving to others in my life, no matter, because that’s the love He shows to me every time I sin. What then, can I not do…what then can you not do? Could He ever ask too much of us, because I don’t see how. When we pause to ponder the Lord will never leave us alone and what great love He has for us, what is too hard, what is too scary to face in our lives? I can’t think of one thing, and when my head tries to crowd in something along these lines, I remind myself again of God’s truth, His promise and His love:

 Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”  6So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

First comes love