A Quick Escape

    Summer has arrived in central Texas! It is hot and really dry!  I was out early this morning at the break of dawn, for my morning walk in the woods, trying to stay ahead of the heat. It was to no avail; within ten minutes I was wet with sweat. I don’t mind the sweat too much but I do not like the biting horse flies that are attracted to my sweat in this very dry weather. I usually walk with a walking stick in one hand and a fly swatter limb in the other hand! Thankfully I usually hear their buzzing and scare them off before they start biting on me. At one point on the trail today, I heard a lot of buzzing and started looking around for the horse flies.  I then decided that it must be flies swarming around something dead on the ground. I started looking around to find the source of the buzzing. As I was walking the sound was getting louder and louder. I finally detected the source of the noise, after looking up in a large oak tree. There was a big hole about ten feet up the side of the tree. There must have been a hundred bees surrounding the hole and they seemed to be very agitated.

  By then I was only a couple of feet away from the tree and they appeared ready to attack!  I quickly took a couple of steps backwards and then turned and took off running, not stopping until I was a long ways away! Having already had several run-ins with bees, I was not going to give them a chance to attack first. A couple of years ago I was clearing out a new trail in the woods when I noticed something buzzing around me. No realizing the danger I kept on hacking at the brush with my machete. Too late, I saw the swarm of bees roaring out of a hole in the ground and swarming around me.  I took off running at full speed and ran for at least a hundred yards, until the buzzing stopped! Then I started pulling the bees off my body. I had been stung multiple times. It was an experience that I did not want to repeat. I found a new route for the trail, giving the bees plenty of space. 

     The Bible contains many scripture where we are instructed to turn away from various situations or temptations; and then there are scriptures that instruct us to flee, or run away quickly, from something of danger or evil! As Christians, we need to pay special attention to the things that the Bible tells us to flee from! These are things that can overwhelm us as quickly as a swarm of bees, if we are not alert!

    In I Corinthians 6:18, Paul tells us to flee fornication or sexual impurity. In I Corinthians 10:14, Paul instructs us to flee from idolatry, or as the Amplified Bible translation put it: flee from “loving or venerating anything more than God”. In I Timothy 6, Paul talks of the “love of money” and tells us again to flee from these things. It’s ok to want to be successful, but some people have such a strong craving for riches that it causes them to lose their Christian faith. So the next time you are faced with one of these temptations, just remember, don’t walk but run in the opposite direction until the “buzzing” stops!

The Spider’s Strength

     I was eating breakfast a couple of mornings ago, when I noticed something crawling on the table, or so I thought. I was sitting at a glass table so I wasn’t exactly sure where the “crawling creature” was. I first thought that the creature was under the table, but finally discovered that I was seeing the reflection of a spider who was building a web just a couple of inches outside the nearby window. Realizing that this was the perfect situation for photographing the spider up close, I got my camera and started snapping pictures. It was fascinating to watch the tiny spider engineer its web. It has already setup the “spokes” for its web and was now laying down the circular spirals. Looking through my zoom lens I could actually see the spider using one of its eight legs to attach the silk thread to each spoke, as it circled the web in smaller and smaller circles. The spider seemed to be working at a feverish pace, and within a couple of minutes had completed the web. The spider was quickly rewarded for its effort when a small bug flew into the web. The spider quickly ran over to the bug, encircled it with more of its silk, and started to feast!

     This morning I went outside to get some birdseed out of a container. I noticed another spider that had build a web connected to the birdseed container. As I walked up the scared spider abandoned his web and made an almost immediate decent to the ground, three foot below. I moved my foot close to where it landed and it made an unbelievable rapid climb, back up its silk thread to its web! With a little prodding, the spider made the descent and ascent trip, several more times. I was amazed at the strength of this little creature!

      I found it really fascinating watching these two spiders perform their awesome feats. The spiders were only about a half inch across, but were very strong for their size. The first spider’s web was almost two foot across, or 50 times bigger than the spider. It is surprising that the spider could contain enough silk thread material in its body to build a complete web that is much larger that its body. Who teaches the spider how to build a web? How can they build such a perfect circular web, in a flat plane, without anyone else helping them? The second spider climbed to a level that was over 150 times it own height in just a second or two! That is equivalent to a man climbing an 80 story building, in a couple of seconds!

     Spiders have amazing mental and physical abilities for their small size. The Bible contains only a couple of references to spiders, but says that they are little but are exceeding wise (Proverbs 30). Sometimes we as humans think that we are so weak and unimportant that we will never accomplish anything. Those that think that way need to take a lesson from the small spider. Despite its small size it is able to accomplish remarkable feats. Proverbs 30 also says that the spider inhabits the kings’ palaces. So, learn a lesson from the small spider and realize that, no mater how small or insignificant you may be, you can still achieve great and awesome feats for God!

Responding to a Crisis

    A couple of years ago, my son and I decided to expand our horizons to the underwater world and we signed up for scuba diving lessons. We took the classes and did our initial dives in near by Lake Travis. I was a bit apprehensive, depending on all this new “gear” for survival, but I made it through the class. For our first real dive, we scheduled a trip to Belize, to visit the world’s second largest barrier reef. Our first dive had an exciting start; with ten foot swells at our launch site. It was a bit difficult, putting on our diving gear, but it was peaceful, once we entered the water. We went down 70-80 feet to an area with beautiful coral formations and large groups of fish.  The underwater videos that people take are great, but they are nothing compared to actually experiencing the underwater in person! My son’s weight belt came loose, but fortunately he was able to quickly retrieve it before it sunk to the bottom.  I think my nervousness combined with my heavy breathing resulted in me being the first to run low on air. I signaled to the dive master that I was down to the 600 pounds of air limit and he instructed me to go back to the surface. I slowly made my way back to the surface, to insure that I didn’t get the “bends”. Once at the surface I was again met by the ten foot swells. Our dive boat was nowhere to be seen!  I could only get a view across the water, once every 8-10 seconds, when I was at the top of a swell. I finally was able to locate our boat which had drifted some distance away. I started a futile effort to swim to the boat. Thankfully the boat spotted me and motored over and picked me up. The others started coming up after a few more minutes, although the rocking boat combined with our exhaustion from the dive resulted in most of us getting sea sick.

     Our dive the next day was to a much calmer area with very small swells, although we were warned that the currents were very strong. The area was beautiful with new fish and coral formations that were totally different from our first dive. We started the dive, swimming with the current and then later turned around and started swimming back, against the strong current. Towards the end the current seemed to get stronger, although it was probably me just getting tired. At times it seemed that I was not making any progress against the strong current!  Once again I was the first to start running out of air. I signaled my dive master that I was down to the 600 pounds of air limit and he motioned me to just continue with the group. After getting down to 400 pounds I was starting to get a bit nervous and again signaled the dive master. He again motioned me to continue with the group.  I was starting to wonder if he was just going to let me run out of air! With the combination of my exhaustion and my fear, I was quickly down to 200 pounds of air! I was really starting to worry now! I again signaled the dive master and was greatly relieved when he motioned to me to take his spare regulator and breathe from his tank, ending my crisis. After getting back on the dive boat I was relating the difficulty of swimming against the current and my son started laughing. When I asked him why he was laughing, he told me that he had gotten tired of swimming against the current and held on to my air tank and let me pull him along! Then I understood why I was having such a difficult time swimming against the current! We later took a night dive and were again met by a totally different collection of fish, including lobsters and squid. The under water beauty of the ocean far outweighed my apprehension and fears. I hope to return their some day.

     God’s timing is rarely aligned with our personal sense of timing. God speaks to us and tells us that he will take care of a crisis situation, but often we get tired of waiting on him, or we think that he is not going to answer our prayers, and we decide to take things into our own hands.

      I Samuel 13 tells the story of Saul getting ready to go to war with the Philistines. The prophet Samuel had told Saul that he would come in seven day to make a sacrifice before they went to war. Saul started doubting that Samuel would show up and finally caved in to the demands of his solders.  He decided to make the sacrifice himself (even though he was forbidden to make a sacrifice). Just as Saul finished the sacrifice, Samuel arrived and reprimanded Saul for taking matters into his own hands and told him that the kingdom would be taken from him, because of his disobedience.  

     Genesis 17 tells the story of Abraham and Sarah, who God promised a son in their old age. They believed in God but decided that God needed a little help and Abraham had a son by Sarah’s handmaid. Only when the hundred year old Sarah had their son Isaac did they realize their mistake. The children of Israel suffered many hardships at the hands of Ishmael’s descendants. Just as Saul and Abraham suffered great loss, after taking things into their own hands, I would have probable suffered also, had I not waited on my dive master or followed his instructions. Remember, when you are faced with a crisis situation, just stay on the course that you know is right, wait on God, and He will help you through the difficult situation!

Enduring the Training!

   There are furry little masked animals in the woods behind my house. These animals are rarely seen during the daytime. I didn’t even know that they inhabited the woods behind my house until I set up a game camera that detects motion and take pictures in the dark. After retrieving the pictures from the camera a couple of times, I was surprised to see several raccoons eating the corn that I put out for the deer. I was even more surprised to see the deer and raccoons eating at the same time! The raccoons are smart animals. When the corn on the ground was all gone they would climb up a tree and lean over and touch the deer feeder mechanism to get it to drop a few more kernels of corn on the ground (see picture below). After discovering how my deer feeder was going empty so quickly, I moved the feeder to a more open area, away from any trees.

   Raccoons typically weigh from 15 to 20 pounds. They are most well known for their habit of washing their food before eating it. Scientists still disagree on why they do this. Raccoons eat a variety of foods including: fish, insects, worms, plants, fruits, and nuts. They are nocturnal, eating mostly at night, and rarely venture out during daylight hours.

   I was out in the woods early one morning, just after daylight, and saw a mother raccoon with a very young raccoon stumbling along trying to keep up with her. I’m sure that they were just ending a long night of hunting and foraging for food, and were really tired and ready to go to sleep. It may have even been the youngster’s first time to go out foraging with its mom! The mom then must have decided that it was time for a climbing lesson. The mom scampered up a slender tree and gave out some grunting sounds; evidently telling its youngster to follow her. The young raccoon was giving out some twittering, bird like, sounds, probably telling its mother that it was ready for bed and didn’t want to go through a climbing lesson. It took a couple of minutes for the young raccoon to laboriously climb up to where it mother was, only to see its mom scamper over to another tree. The youngster wouldn’t move for a few minutes, but finally heeded its mom’s calls and again followed her path, at times slipping and almost falling several times before catching up with her. After ten minutes of this activity they finally ended up high in an oak tree where they curled up together on a limb and went to sleep.

   As I was walking through the woods this morning, I passed by the area where I observed the raccoon climbing lesson. I started thinking about the lesson. The mother could have taken a very easy ground path and then climbed straight up the oak tree to their sleeping place, however she chose to take a very difficult and challenging path for the young raccoon. She was persistent, and patient, in getting her young one through the challenging path, knowing that the training it was receiving was beneficial. In our spiritual life we often go through situations that are uncomfortable and sometimes painful, but Paul tells us in Hebrews 12 that: “you must submit to and endure correction for discipline, God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not train and correct and discipline… for the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful, but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it”.

So the next time God takes you through one of life’s difficult training exercises, just remember, keep following God and you will end up resting securely in his arms!

Note: Scripture reference is from the Amplified Bible

Equipped for Work

    One day I walked out on my backyard deck and was surprised to see a large vulture perched on my deck railing. It quickly flew off when it saw me.  I was curious as to why the vulture was in my backyard! After some investigation, I discovered a small dead rat on the ground, evidently killed by the rat bait that I put out. I was surprised that the vulture could locate something as small as the dead rat! I got rid of the dead rat quickly so as to not attract any more vultures.  

 

   Having taken some close-up pictures of the American Black Vulture and the Turkey Vulture, I have always been fascinated by the vulture family. They perform the important task of scavenging the carcasses of dead animals and they are uniquely equipped for the work they do.  The vultures can weigh over five pounds, but with their large wings, they are the best adapted land birds for soaring. Thankfully they do not have vocal cords; I could only imagine how loud a five pound bird could be! They have a keen sense of smell that allows them to pick up the scent of a dead animal from over a mile away. They roost in community groups of over a hundred vultures but go off alone for foraging. The vultures have some strange habits. I have observed the vultures, still at their morning roost, standing with their wings spread out for several minutes at a time. Scientists think that maybe they are allowing the sun to burn off the bacteria from their feathers. I think they are just trying to warm up after a cold night!  Can you imagine what Texas countryside would be like without the vultures eating our “road kill”? Thankfully the vulture has few natural predators and is in no danger of extinction. 

    God went to great lengths to equip the vulture for their life of scavenging. God went to even greater lengths to equip the Christian for living, working, and surviving life on planet Earth!  In Psalms 139, David says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”. The apostle Paul gives us instructions on how to equip ourselves for the Christian life.

In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us that we are given grace and then he tells us that God gave us: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip us to do God’s work. You need to make sure that you are attending a church and receiving the teachings and exhortations from these people.  

In II Timothy 3, Paul tells us that:”All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”  Many people read the Bible every day. Make sure that you read the Bible on a regular basis and God will speak to you through his Word!

In Ephesians 6, Paul tells us to put on God’s armor of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God; so that we may be able to resist evil.

Make sure that you are “fully equipped” by God and you will have a great time living on planet Earth!

Scripture references are from the “New Living Translation” of the Bible

Are You Ready for Change?

    As I was taking my daily walk in the woods this morning I came across numerous fallen trees. Evidently the strong wind of the past few days had taken its toll on the trees. I came across a large limb, over 12 inches in diameter that had fallen on my trail. When falling, it also took down multiple other trees in the area, completely blocking my trail. I would have preferred to remove the trees and kept to my original trail but was forced to change the trail’s original path and go around the massive blockage.

   Having to change the path because of the fallen trees started me thinking about changes in our lives. There is an old saying that “change is inevitable”, or in plain English, it is impossible to avoid change. How we deal with these changes is a reflection of our character. Many people do not like change. Some people fight strongly against the changes that come to their lives. Sometimes these changes are for good and at other times the changes are not good.

   In the Bible, Genesis 12 tells us about a man who went through a lot of changes. After living around family and friends in the same area for 75 years, God told Abram to pack up everything and start moving to a location that God would reveal later. Can you imagine the response from Abram’s family, friends, and his wife, when he announced his plans to move? And if that wasn’t enough change, a few years later God told the 100 year old Abram that his 90 year old wife, Sarah, was going to have a child! The Bible says that Sarah laughed at the unbelievable statement! I’m sure that she has a lot of additional comments that the Bible didn’t record!

   I Samuel 16 records the accounts of another person who experienced a lot of changes in their life. David was just a simple sheep herder until the prophet appeared and anointed him to be king over all of Israel. David was not actually crowned to be king until some time later. Can you imagine David going back to sheep herding, knowing that someday he was going to be king over all of Israel? It must have seemed like a dream. More changes came to David’s life a short time later. David slew the giant, Goliath, and was put over all of Israel’s men of war. David went through a lot more changes, even running for his life, before finally being crowned king of Israel.

    The Bible is full of stories of God’s mighty anointed men and the radical changes they experience in their lives. If you are praying for God’s anointing or a great move of God in your life, then be prepare for change. It will come!

Thorns and Briars

     I love walking in the outdoors, enjoying the natural creations of God. There are so many beautiful plants to behold. Every where I travel around the world, I discover new plants that I have never seen before. One of my favorite places to visit is the Wilhelma Botanical Gardens in Germany, which contain over 6000 species and varieties of plants! I love most of the plant species, however, there is one group that I do not like to run into; it’s the thorns and briers.

     Thorns and briars have been around since the time of Genesis. Because of Adam’s sin, God said that Adam would have to eat of the ground. Genesis 3 also tells us that God cursed the ground and said that it would bring forth “thorns and thistles”. Adam had to deal with them in his time and we are still fighting against them today!

     I recall my dad telling me a story about the briers. He had just received a brand new hunting jacket and was out in the woods deer hunting. He was walking through a really thick area and had snagged his new jacket on a brier. He was carefully working to free his jacket, without damaging it, when he heard a grunt behind him. He turned around just in time to see mother hog charging at him. Knowing the ferocity of a mother hog with little ones, he quickly found a tree to climb, leaving portions of his new jacket on the briar!

     It is almost impossible to get rid of the briars. They spring up all over my backyard. I cut them back to the ground and they keep coming back. I have noticed something unique about the briars. They go through a change sometimes during their early life. When the briars first start growing, they appear to be like many other types of “friendly” vines. The young briars are soft and pliable. Their “stickers” are soft and bend easily. If one didn’t know better they might be tempted to just let the briar vine grow. The young briar is not a threat to anyone, but sometimes during its life it goes through a transformation. The briars stem and stickers become very hard and will snag any clothes that come close to them or scratch any bare skin that touches it, and dead briers becomes even more brittle and painful!

     There are things that Satan brings into our spiritual lives that are similar to the thorns and briars. At first these things seem innocuous and insignificant. We usually notice them in our lives but don’t bother to address them, because they are so small; but as time goes on they can transform into something very dangerous to our spiritual lives. Sometimes these are temptations that we think we can control, but they grow until they are controlling us and cause us to sin. Other times they are just small deceptive things we say, that over time cause us to tell multiple lies.

     In my early career I had a friend at work that started to get involved with a girl, just to “help her out”. I warned him that he should only help from a distance, but he would not listen to me. In the end she became an enormous problem that he could not get rid of. When he finally forced her to move out of his apartment, she returned to throw rocks through his windows and almost got him fired from him job by her hundreds of phone calls to his company. He thought that he could keep the situation under control, but it ended up controlling him!

     So the next time you hear that inner voice telling you that you should not do something, obey God’s voice, do what is right, and you will not be entangled by the thorns and briars of Satan!