Cooler today, supposed to only
be in the 70’s, a nice reprieve from the 90’s these past couple of days.
Carla is busy playing in the
dirt. She has over 30 tomato plants in
the ground with a couple hundred other given to others in the area – some
eagerly await her plants. While you can
get a couple of her varieties from the local stores, she has a greater variety
and she babies them so they are in good shape.
The offer of ‘paying for them’
often comes up, but she refuses to take anything. It is her way of sharing the wealth, it gives
her great pleasure to work with the plants – growing them from a seed to a full
plant – and it allows her to grow in abundance knowing that it will not be
wasted.
We have already eaten peas and
strawberries from the garden – blackberries are not far behind.
Her potatoes are growing and
flowering, her peppers – about a 50 foot row – are doing well. Not sure what all else we will be harvesting
as the summer goes on, but it is always nice to have garden fresh produce.
We should have enough for her to
give away, can and freeze as the summer goes along.
2 Chronicles 16:7-12 And at that time
Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast
relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy
God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine
hand.
8 Were not the Ethiopians
and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because
thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into
thine hand.
9 For the eyes of the
Lord run to and fro
throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose
heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from
henceforth thou shalt have wars.
10 Then Asa was wroth with
the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because
of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same
time.
11 And, behold, the acts of
Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and
Israel.
12 And Asa in the thirty
and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was
exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians.
For 35 years Asa had trusted in
God. He had torn down the idols, he had
worshipped and caused his people to worship God.
35 years. Why then did he not trust in God when he saw
Israel building its defenses and preparing to invade Judah?
How does a man that so pleased
God, fall from so great a height that he imprisons God’s messenger?
God has given us many examples
of what happens when man turns his face from God and goes against His commands.
Asa is just one of many who were unable
to maintain his faith after years of peace with God.
I believe that sometimes satan
leaves us alone, for a while. He allows
us to live our life in relative calm – it is just another one of his planned
attacks on us, we are still at war, we just forget. We do not face adverse challenges and begin
to think that we are doing well and therefore don’t need to converse with God
quite as often. – To the point that we
even fail to thank God for His blessings toward us.
After all everything is going
well and we don’t feel the need to ask God to help us – forgetting that asking
Him to help us is a very small part of what should be any conversation with
Him.
After a while we get busy and
the time spent with God grows shorter, we just don’t have time to sit
still. Often it isn’t a conscious act on
our part. It is a subtle attack by satan
and results in our moving away from Him and we don’t even notice.
When little things go wrong we
try to fix it ourselves, we don’t even consider asking God for guidance – satan
has slowly moved us from a Christian depending upon God, to a Christian who has
forgotten God’s willingness to help us in all areas of our life.
It is a battle that he knows,
very well, how to play.
Then a major event overtakes us,
one that can be devastating – and we suddenly remember, God is there on the
sidelines and His desire is to lift us up.
In between those times our
relationship with Him had faltered. Our
testimony to others about that relationship, too, has gone amiss. Satan now is going to test whether we are
able to overcome him or are we going to curse God and/or His messenger?
We need to live our life so we
are not faced with that decision.
John
12:46 I am come a light into the world, that
whosoever believeth on me should not abide in
darkness.
A friend of mine once had an
insect get into his ear; it was not a pleasant experience.
Someone recommended shining a
light into the ear – it worked the insect crawled out.
The light of Jesus does the same
thing for us, it shows us the way out of darkness – even if, as ASA, we have
slipped or even crawled back into the darkness.
However, if we wish to avoid the
darkness altogether it is best to bask in His light. Reading His Word, spending time with Him in
reflection, in praise, in telling Him about our desires, needs and asking for
His guidance – daily.
I believe Asa became complacent;
he had not been challenged for a long time.
As he became fearful of falling into the hands of the enemy, he didn’t
even think to talk with God about it. He
just followed his instincts for survival and looked for redemption from another
source – compounding his sin by taking from the treasures of the
house of The Lord (vs 2), to pay the King of Syria to protect him.
It is so easy to fall away from
God. All we have to do is find other
things to clutter our mind.
But it is also easy to grow
closer to Him, by dedicating time, each day, to be in His presence. That is what I need to remind myself as the
challenges and the victories come into my life.
I need to stay in His light,
that I may not see the darkness of satan.
Later, Art :-)
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