Avoiding the Sting!

The test of manhood!

 

When I was a little pup, we left the beautiful picturesque landscape of the farmland of Marion County to follow the Great American dream.  My Dad went to work with United Parcel Service and we were immediately told to “Go West” young man, so our life then began to morph around the changes of rural to a surburban lifestyle.  Wow, what a shocker. I had a lot trouble making the adjustment.  On the farm, we had so much for a young adventurous kid to do, you could swim  in the irrigation pond, chase geese, ride hogs, and even dig holes to China (if it wasn’t too wet!)  In Suburbia, a land of perfectly manicured tiny yards and no animals, except the occasional cat or dog, you were really limited to the fun and adventure you could find.  I remember catching crayfish in a ditch once and making a little stew, and even building minnow nets and pretending we were commercial fisherman…right down to eating my first sushi…you got it, raw minnows!  (by the way, don’t try this, they are sooooo gross!) 

But that was all in my juvenile years. As I matured I found the most interesting thing in the corner of the front porch of our home, a big blob of paper with these red shiney bugs on it.  Being the intelligent, curious, young, budding Indiana Jones that I was… I did the scholarly research and picked up a nearby rock and “chunked” it as hard as I could.  “Whack!”  A dead bulls eye! I rattled that thing so hard ALL the bugs fell off, as I stood in amazement it was only seconds before they congregated around my body like a school of minnows on a bread ball and proceeded to administer  a lesson in pain that I had never imagined possible!

YEEEEOOOOWWW, I remember running, screaming, and coming out of my clothes right there in the front yard…My older retired military neighbor, who I could only describe as a “Mr. Wilson” type laughed so hard I thought he would soil his way too loose khaki shorts…he was a sight, but I was way too busy trying to outrun these emisarries of torment as they repeatedly penetrated my body with their barbs of death!  It only took seconds but if felt like hours before I ran in the house, whelped up, naked as a skinned rabbit, and crying like a newborn baby.  My loving sisters laughed themselves sick, while in between breaths asking me “what happened to you?”  Needless to say, I cried myself to sleep waiting on mama to come home.  When she finally arrived, I remember the love and care as she gave me benedryl and kisses…wow, that is the stuff man, I was ready for round two.

The next day I gathered my compadres from the neighborhood for testing, I showed them my wounds and bragged on how it didn’t hurt a lick.  As they ooohed and aaaahed I dared them to throw a rock at the home of the shiney red bugs.  They one by one thought like I, that you could outrun or out-manuever these crafty clever top-gun pilots…and one by one they all went down in the agony of defeat.  Ah , but we were the men of the neighborhood.  The Girls stood in admiration of our scars and whelps as we bragged on how brave we were. Then one day while finding new ways to irritate the shiney bugs I found a yard stick from the local furniture store.  I thought, huh, what a great sword!  I’ll stab the little critters!  Much to my amazement when they began their aerial assault, they only attacked the end of the stick, not me!  Wow, this was too good to be true!  I could harass, act like an assassin and pick them off one by one and never one time would they look to see who was at the other end of the stick. 

I know so far you are having trouble finding the spiritual relevance of this little memoir of my childhood, however, bear with me.  In ephesians 6:12 we are told we wrestle not against each other, but against the kingdom of our enemy, Satan himself.  Recently we have been talking about and making discoveries about the heart of God.  Several weeks ago in our staff meeting the Holy Ghost manifested Himself and the message left us was “when we search the heart of God , we would find it beats with two things…love and forgiveness”  This has been reverberating in our body as of late as the Father has allowed each of us to face the ones we have hurt and the ones that have hurt us.  For some, forgiveness is easy, for others it has been a trying and exhausting task, however we are moving through it by God’s grace and mercy.  If you need some help, remember my little memoir, it’s not the stick that gotcha…its’  who’s on the other end. 

You see, my brothers and sisters are not my enemies!  They are either the harvest or they are my companions on this journey and I need to place this deep in my mind.  We all can become a tool in the hands of the enemy , no matter how holy we think we are.  Even Peter, that great apostle, took a rebuke from Christ as he allowed the enemy to use his mouth.  Christ however didn’t hold it against him, he looked to the one who was weilding the stick and corrected his beloved apostle, reminding all of us…keep the handle in the hands of the Father so we are only used for edifiying our brothers and sisters.  Forgiveness is easier if you will just look at the other end of the stick.

God bless and thanks for reading.  Be patient I’m trying to get better.

Pastor Tom