Disguised as a Stick

Last week I shared some lessons from cleaning up the brush pile behind my shed. This week I would like to share another. One of the reasons I wanted to clean the pile up was that I was concerned it might house snakes or fire ants. Well, my suspicions came true as I was raking up a pile of sticks. One of the sticks bent funny and then came by my leg. I hollered at Noah, “Snake!”, and we proceeded to take a break from clean up. I had not seen a snake until that point, and I was close to the end of the pile and was ready to be done. Maybe I had let my guard down, but I put it back up when the “stick” moved. That is all I thought it was until it came by my leg. Guard back up.

As Noah and I were talking about it later on, we were trying to figure out a spiritual application for this incident. When you have to write an article for the bulletin every week, you are always looking for an idea for an article. I remembered 2 Corinthians 11:14 which says, “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” What I thought was just a stick, like all the other sticks, was not, in fact, a stick. Have you ever been there, when what you thought you saw, heard, or believed in reality was not. Have you had that happen spiritually?

Maybe it is a movie, show, or song, and everybody is raving about it. So you watch or listen, and they take the Lord’s name in vain or there is an inappropriate sexual situation or they are glamorizing some sin. What do you do? Everybody says it is a great show, and you were really excited about it. Maybe it is a relationship that starts out as just some common interests, but the friendship grows until you really like the other person. Then you find out they are not a very Godly influence on you. What do you do? Be careful! Something that looks good may be a snake hiding in a bunch of sticks.

A Big Pile of Sticks

For a while now, before we mow the yard, we have picked up the sticks so we do not tear up the mower. Sometimes there will be a few sticks, sometimes many. Sometimes we might even pick up a limb that has fallen out of a tree. It is never enough to do anything major with, but they need to be picked up and gotten out of the way. We started making a pile behind the shed. It was small at first, but every time we mowed or a wind came through, the pile would grow. Every time I would mow back there this summer, I would think that I need to do something with that pile of sticks; it is becoming an eye sore. Last Saturday, Noah and I tackled the task.

Some observations from this experience: great good and great bad can start small. We started out with a few sticks here and a few sticks there, and it turned into what you see at the road in my front yard: a big pile of sticks. It was a pretty big job to clean that pile of sticks up. I think about evil things in our lives. They usually start small. One transgression leads to another and another, etc. An example of this might be watching or listening to things that take the Lord’s name in vain. At first it bothers you, but then you get used to it. Before long, you are using the letters O, M, and G inappropriately. Possibly it leads to wondering if God really is holy if I use His name so flippantly. Before long, you have a big mess on your hands. As Deputy Fife might say, “Nip it in the bud.”

The same principle could be used for good things as well. Make it a goal to read a chapter a day from the Bible this week, and do that again next week, etc. Before long, you have read a whole book, then two, then the whole Bible. So many good and bad things in our lives start small. What sticks are you piling up in your life?

The Syrophoenician Woman

In Matthew 15:21-28 we read about Jesus and a Syrophoenician woman (Gentile). When you read the account, you might wonder if this is really the Jesus we know. Why? Let us study together. We begin with Jesus in the district of Tyre and Sidon, and this Syrophoenician woman comes asking for her daughter to be healed of demon possession. You get it if you have kids. I can only imagine what those parents of sick kids in the hospital would do to help their children. She had evidently heard about Jesus, and here she is asking. But he does not answer. Is He busy, is He healing someone else, did He hear her? We think the Jesus we know would have dropped everything to answer her, but He does not. She is not just asking, she seems to be making a scene to the point that the disciples ask Jesus to send her away. Then He says He was only sent to the Jews (house of Israel). What? Is Jesus prejudiced? She comes bowing down before Him and He responds with, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” What? Jesus has just doubled down on His first statement. This is not the Jesus we think we know. Our culture would have cancelled Jesus for this interaction.

I might have left. She came desperate, even bowing down and was ignored, rejected, and, in some people’s view, belittled. Would your pride trump your faith, your child’s need? She makes a statement of such courage, humility, and faith. “Even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Jesus rewards her great faith by complimenting her and healing her daughter. Why did Jesus act so un-Jesus? Did he? I believe Jesus gave this woman an opportunity to shine. What a great example to all those who were there that she did not let anything stop her faith in Jesus, and what a great example for us to not let anything stop our faith in Jesus. How faithful would you have been if you were in her shoes?