God Meant it for Good

The very day I got my Surface Pro2 back from the shop (who cleanied it of all viruses and assured me now no worries, now it would be all fixed and no more crashes,)  it was crashing, not playing videos, not opening several apps, and sluggish. I called Microsoft on-line help, who were unfailingly polite, but even after taking over my computer remotely, couldn't help me. Then they hung up on me. I don't know if it was on purpose, but they didn't call back. And after 2 hours on the phone, much of it on hold, I was not happy. Grrrrrr.

So, I brought it (back) in to the Microsoft store yesterday.  They listened to the list of issues and said the easiest thing to do would be to switch it out for a new one (again) which is what they had done two weeks ago. 

I explained I am an author, and this would be the second switch to a new one, and for months I had been coming in with issues. Each time they take it from me, I can't work on my books. Furthermore, hours and hours have been spent on the phone trying to solve the ongoing concerns.

The manager was great. She said immediately that she would give me full purchase price of my Pro2 to upgrade to the Pro3. (That's the newest Surface computer model and I so wanted it!) I'd been playing with the Pro3 while waiting for the technician to help me the last time I'd been in. In fact, I had drawn a picture with the new improved pen on the new improved screen, and the store manager had taken my photograph. I lusted after the Pro3, but knew I should not even begin to think of getting it. Too expensive, and my Pro2 was only a year old. I would never have even thought to pray for it. I would not bother God with such a selfish prayer.

And yet...look what God did with the trouble and dismay and lost time over my cantankerous Pro 2! He gave me an (un-needed) desire of my heart, one I hadn't even dared ask for. Of course, if I am going to write, I must have a working, reliable computer, and certainly God knows that. And He knows I want to write messages that draw others to Him. But I could have limped along with what I had. 

To think I'd been groaning and moaning about all the troubles the Pro2 was giving me! Now I praise God for those troubles! I suspect it was no accident that my Bible Study was about Joseph, and how his brothers threw him in the well, leaving him to die. They meant it for harm, but God used it to bring about immense good. In the interim of course, Joseph was thrown into slavery, and then prison, before being finally restored as the Pharoah's right hand man. However, while enslaved and imprisoned, I will bet he wasn't feeling so beloved of God. But He was! Even in the midst of all that trouble, God was working and preparing Him, and ultimately rescued Him for a great purpose.

Take heart! Take heart! What feels like constant struggle and evil may be like Joseph's well. Others may have meant it for harm, but God can use it for good. 

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Genesis 50: 15-21

15And when Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. 16And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, 17So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. 18And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. 19And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? 20But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Nothing is impossible with God

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Say no to Halloween

One of the hardest days of the year approaches. I hate Halloween. I hate the fact that animals are tortured and sacrificed in greater numbers than other nights, that it is the high and holy day of the occultists, and the images of evil sanitized and considered harmless. I hate the origins which are based on fear, as well as misguided beliefs that the dead can be wrenched out of purgatory by the offering of "soul cakes" (precursor to our candy.) I hate the images of death, the devil, witches, graves, and zombies. I hate the vandalism that occurs or even the subtle threat of "trick or treat."  When I became a Christian, I took seriously the admonition to be in the world but not of the world. I believed with all my heart God's warning to flee from evil, and that our adversary was cunning and a master of deception. 

Yet, I had children, and the world took this night of the occult, filled it with candy, and placed it before them. Knowing I would win no popularity contest and they might even hate me for my stance, I just could not in good conscience put any stamp of approval on Halloween. It was always a painful evening, and I went to bed many nights crying over a decision I felt deeply in my spirit I had to make.

We as believers are told in no uncertain terms to have no fellowship with evil, witchcraft, the occult, or glorifying deeds of darkness. In my heart, Halloween fits that description. I have been ridiculed, derided, and despised for this stance. I believe Satan wants us to rationalize why it is not dangerous. However, it is a night of darkness, and I believe my light cannot shine in participation at any level, but only in standing against it. For those involved in the occult, and witchcraft, this is a special night. I don't wish to celebrate what those in opposistion to God celebrate.

As in all decisions, each of us must examine our own conscience. Many people believe they can redeem the night by offering the kids that come to their doors Bible tracts. I read one online "alternative"-- offer the kids a toothbrush. (I hate halloween but that idea sounded fun. Maybe I could write on each toothbrush, "Jesus alone cleanses our moral decay." )  Perhaps some of you  have never wrestled with standing against the "norm" because your heart would not permit you to do otherwise. If not, you may not understand that decisions like this are never taken lightly, and they aren't "silly" as I have heard so many of late describe my view. It is based on a deep conviction of my heart, but that doesn't mean that I am not suffering for what I feel I should not do. 

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Ephesians 5:11  variety of translations:

New International Version

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

New Living Translation

Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.

English Standard Version

Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

New American Standard Bible 

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

King James Bible

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Holman Christian Standard Bible

Don't participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them.

International Standard Version

and have nothing to do with the unfruitful actions that darkness produces. Instead, expose them for what they are. 

NET Bible

Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

Neither should you fellowship with the Servants of darkness, because they have no fruit in them, but you should rebuke them.

GOD'S WORD® Translation

Have nothing to do with the useless works that darkness produces. Instead, expose them for what they are.

Jubilee Bible 2000

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

King James 2000 Bible

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

American King James Version

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

American Standard Version

and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them;

Douay-Rheims Bible

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 

Darby Bible Translation

and do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather also reprove them,

English Revised Version

and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them;

Webster's Bible Translation

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Weymouth New Testament

Have nothing to do with the barren unprofitable deeds of darkness, but, instead of that, set your faces against them;

World English Bible

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them.

Young's Literal Translation

and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of the darkness and rather even convict,

Everything is possible with God

Author page and published works:

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The Furminator

My nightmares have been watching too many movies. The nightmare last night was right out of Hitchcock. It is a troubling one, because it is recurring. And now it has become more and more explicit and worst of all, I remember it. Last night was a variation on the theme, but they all follow the same basic pattern.

 Before I tell you last night's dream, I must preface with my dream from two nights ago. The recurring theme is I descend into a spooky basement. Two nights ago in my dream, my mother in law had cleaned the basement and I could not get over how unspooky it had become. It was no longer the terrifying dark pit filled with unknown horrors. It was neat and scrubbed. She had even put up fake windows with curtains on the concrete walls to give it a homey look. There were soft warm rugs on the concrete floors, and all the spider webs had been dusted away. This is the only time I recall the basement dream being pleasant. All other times it follows the pattern of last night's dream.
But before I tell you last night's dream, I must set the stage with the story of the furminator, which was heavy on my mind before going to bed. Our neighbor had loaned us her furminator to try out on our dogs. The furminator is a dog brush that costs $60, but is supposed to remove every stray dog hair from your dog in one brushing session. This could reduce the need to vacuum in our home by months, so I have been eager to try the furminator, but not eager to pay $60 for it.  I had heard you are not supposed to brush wiry terrier type fur with the furminator, but I wasn't sure if a reputable source told me that or not. So I tried it gently on Lucky. His fur began coming off in huge gobs with absolutely no effort. He loved it and stood happily while I collected a pile of fur ten feet high. When I was done, his undercoat of golden retriever like fur was more evident, and there was clearly less of the wiry wild hair. I wondered if I had ruined him. I was very surprised at how soft and silky and thick the undercoat was that we had never really seen before. You just never know what is under the surface.

Now fast forward to last night's dream. The dogs and I descended into the spooky basement. It was clean, but not nearly as decorated and clean as my mother-in-law had left it two nightmares ago. As always, in my basement dreams, I felt an unsettling sense of foreboding. I looked around and all was silent. There was no apparent cause for alarm. I started back up the stairs, and the dogs suddenly stopped and stared back down into the basement, hackles raised. I turned quickly and saw in the center of the room, a strange globular substance starting to rise out of the drain. As soon as I looked, it instantly disappeared, such that I wasn't even sure I had seen it. I started up the stairs again, and the dogs continued to stare and softly growl. Again, I swung around and this time the ooze was growing and it was clearly malignant. In terror, I tried desperately to say, "Jesus is Lord," which is a strategy I have used many times in overcoming nightmares. I don't know if this is a universal phenomenon, but when I try to say something out loud in the midst of a dream like that, I have to struggle and groan, and force each syllable. I am sure it is terrifying to my husband, who quickly awoke me, though not until I had garbled those victorious words, Jesus is Lord.

I know what the dream means. Evil lurks, and evil desires to overcome. It is usually hidden, biding its time. But it is a real and everpresent danger. It is like Lucky's undercoat- hidden, but always there. We just don't always notice it. What makes this particular nightmare even more unusual is how it came on the tail of the clean basement dream. It is an exact parallel of the story in Matthew 12, where a person cleans house. A demon leaves the person, and seeks other places to inhabit. It decides to return to the original host, and finds the house clean, orderly, and unoccupied. So the demon invites seven of his buddies to now go and take residence, and the poor person is worse off than ever!

To tell you the truth, I am not crazy about this passage. It is spooky, like my basement. It is not enough to just clean the unoccupied house, despite all the external trappings of purity and righteousness. Jesus must occupy the house. One must daily put her trust and reliance on God, or the demons return. Only God can ultimately defeat evil. When I awoke, I found myself praying, "What more can I do, Lord? I believe and I struggle daily to live my life in accordance with that belief. I don't know how to trust more."

And I think perhaps that is key. I, on my own, can't trust more. I can only submit, and watch God work, watch the bubble of evil disappear, and let Him show me His glory, in spite of my meager faith. He is capable of meeting any of us exactly where we are, with how ever little we have to offer. In His hands, little is enough.
He is the ultimate Furminator, sweeping away every thing that hides what we really are underneath, and exposing all weakness, all sources of defilement. We may stand shivering, exposed, and vulnerable before Him, but that is when we recognize most how desperately we need Him. Oh how I pray that I would trust the brush of His presence more!

And by the way, this week I intend to buy a furminator.

Matthew 12:43-45

   ⁴³ “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

The Afflicted

God will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help them. Psalm 72:12

This blog is invaluable because it will teach you exactly what not to read when you cannot sleep because you are worried about the son still trapped at college by impassable roads. Doing the insomnia waltz for a few hours, I turned to my bedside book to help calm my maternal hyperdrive. The cheery little tome I was just starting was Exodus, by Leon Uris. I usually oscillate between books like Uris'- that deal with issues like the Holocaust, and Carol Nelson Douglas with the disturbing issues of talking cats and dogs that solve crimes. This sleepless eve, I began to read a first person account of someone's relatives being made into soap by a country that called itself Christian. It described babies being tossed in the air and used for target practice. I will stop there. Everyone, unless you are an Iranian president, knows about the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust.
I got out of bed and paced a little, thinking that some of those victims were my relatives. It could have been my mother, my brother, my sister being led to the slaughter no one believed could happen. I was trembling with the rage and reawakened realization that even after millions were being herded to gas chambers and gruesome torture, a world still said, "It could not happen. It is only a rumor. Evil that huge cannot exist."
And then Uris describes the period right after the Holocaust, which is another despairing testament to the disgusting levels our species can descend. The skeletal orphans, and barely alive "survivors" of the concentration camps were herded into barbed wire enclosed "refugee camps", with little food and dismal conditions, because no one wanted them. Trickles of Jewish people were allowed to emigrate to Palestine, but the Arab world didn't want them either. So they escaped as best they could to the only potential refuge they knew in Palestine.
I haven't reached the section of Exodus yet where Israel becomes a nation and its doors are opened to this wretched mass of suffering. I just could not read any more.
I know that our nation is negotiating with Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, to coerce her to give up more land of this one place of refuge for her perpetually afflicted people. Arab leaders that surround her call for her utter destruction, and the world stands by as they manufacture the capability to do so.
But we know it could not happen. Evil that huge cannot exist.
I had a screaming nightmare in the middle of the night. What a surprise, huh? In the nightmare, the loved ones around me were all metastisizing into monsters and as I turned to them for help, they became the evil pursuer.
I know one of the hardest questions to try to answer is how could a loving God allow evil to exist, especially evil on the scale of the holocaust? And where was He when those children were being ripped from their mothers by tormentors too hideous for us to even imagine? Corrie Ten Boom, in her book The Hiding Place, answers that, as best as anyone I have ever read. God was in the fleas. The one room where Corrie and her sister and other terrified victims of the concentration camps could gather undisturbed and pray and read of the eternal promise of God was so filled with fleas that the guards would not enter the room.
I cannot answer that question of evil. The best I can do is propose that without the creation of choice, a choice to be evil instead of good, we cannot understand good. If we cannot face the monstrous capacity of our own hearts, we cannot crave or desire its opposite. It is for now, the best I can do with that question. In all the horrors of the Holocaust, God was the only source of comfort and strength for Corrie Ten Boom, and I believe she has the right to preach it.
At least, it made my worry over Matt getting home for Christmas pale in comparison.