Blistering heat and palpable humidity has settled in to stay in my neck of the woods. Stepping outside is like walking into an oven, no, a sauna. I’m drenched within a minute. I’ll need to join the grandkids in the water sprinklers for the wet to actually be refreshing. The sun is shining fifteen hours a day so we’ve had to be more cautious as we walk Jake, our Great Dane on our wooded trails. Constantly scanning the path ahead of me for snakes means I routinely get a face full of spider webs. I’ll take the spiders over the snakes any day!
On Saturday’s walk, Jake and I were joined by my daughter, her four year old, and my teenaged grandson Nathan. Once we were well off the road, I let Jake off his leash. He romped around like an overgrown puppy, exploring every sprig of grass and clump of brush in sensory overload. We know from our son’s trail cameras that there are deer, coyote, raccoons, turkeys, and groundhogs on the property. We see tracks after every rain. We’ve spooked deer and even turkeys a time or two and once, the dogs treed a groundhog. We heard it hissing before we spotted it up a dead pine.
As I loosed Jake from his walking leash, I reminded everyone to watch the ground for snakes. Nathan ribs my daughter and I about walking fast so when Thomas asked if he could walk with Nathan, Caroline moved ahead with me. We rounded a bend where the path narrows, Jake in the lead. I was either distracted or my ground scanning wasn’t sweeping wide enough. From fifteen or so feet behind me, Nathan half shouted, “There’s a snake!”
I glanced back in time to see Thomas dangling several feet above the ground, held up by Nathan’s strong hands. Caroline had turned back toward where Nathan pointed. I clapped my hands to stop Jake from going ahead without us. Approaching cautiously, I saw the four foot black snake sunning himself along the edge of the path. My husband has carried several black snakes across from our yard into these woods because, as he regularly reminds me, black snakes and king snakes eat the poisonous kind. We kept our distance and the snake never reacted to our presence. Thankfully we finished our walk without incident.
If you’ve followed me for long, you already know where I’m going with this story. Maybe not specifically or else you wouldn’t still be reading but you know I’m about to draw an analogy from Scripture. You can hardly engage regularly with God’s Word and not begin to see His Truth played out in everyday life.
“Study this Book of Instruction continually. (the Lord said to Joshua)
Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it.
Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.”
Joshua 1:8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jos.1.8.NLT
We must read this as “only then will you succeed and prosper in all that I am commanding you to do.” Joshua was given the God-sized command to be strong and courageous on the heels of Moses’s death and just before marching against Jericho. Joshua is not credited with anything more than trusting God to be God.
Modern Christianity in the western world has somehow fostered this notion that God’s Word means what we think it means when it’s convenient to believe it. Grace is preached as all there is to the gospel and subscribing to all of God’s Word is no longer necessary since Jesus’s death and resurrection. We’ve been told we’re New Testament believers so the Old Testament is cast aside by many and surrendered obedience to Jesus as Lord and Master is cast as nothing more than modern day slavery or worse yet, legalism.
The Bible is Truth both eternal and universal. We cannot sift through its pages for truth we can live with while ignoring the rest. Jesus proclaimed Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We want the Life He promised but we want it on our own terms. We’re in danger of believing that He is one way rather than the Way. He is the absolute Truth regardless of who chooses to believe His claim.
“But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.”
Psalms 1:2-3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.1.2-3.NLT
“Oh, how I love your instructions!
I think about them all day long.”
Psalms 119:97 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.119.97.NLT
“I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night.”
Psalms 63:6 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.63.6.NLT
What dominates your thoughts? What keeps you awake at night? I’ve heard worry described as mediating on negative thoughts. What you choose to nurture is what grows. A garden untended will be overgrown by weeds. God gave His Son for you and for me. His Word and His Spirit is an even more precious gift according to Jesus.
“If you love me, obey my commandments.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.
He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.
The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him.
But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say.
My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.
Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.
And remember, my words are not my own.
What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me.
I am telling you these things now while I am still with you.
But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart.
And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
John 14:15-17, 23-27 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.14.15-27.NLT
“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
Psalms 119:105 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.119.105.NLT
That snake on the path on Saturday meant us no harm. He was content to sun himself as long as we walked on by. If we had agitated him, he probably would have retreated. We aren’t part of his diet. There are other snakes like the ones I’ve only seen behind glass in the zoo that look truly sinister. Vipers, cobras, pythons and the like are truly frightening to me. I have no desire to visit any place where I stand even a remote chance of encountering one in the wild.
“Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild.
You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live.
And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.””
Genesis 3:14-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/gen.3.14-15.NLT
Last Saturday, I walked right by that snake without even noticing him. So did my daughter and my Dane. Nathan, who was holding Thomas’s hand as they walked together was watching not just for himself but for his little cousin who adores him. His reaction was immediate. Thomas was held safely out of harms way before the words were out of him mouth.
“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.
They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.
They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”
We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.
All of this is for your benefit.
And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.”
2 Corinthians 4:4, 13-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.4.4-14.NLT
Some people have an unhealthy fascination with snakes in my opinion. My husband enjoys watching National Geographic style videos of predatory animals. I literally wouldn’t sleep ever again if those images were rolling around in my head. I struggle enough with the weight of decisions and relational unrest among friends, relatives, and even complete strangers. As I’ve shared with my grandson, Thomas, who loves to read but especially when it delays bedtime, we will read our Dr. Seuss or Alexander or whatever his current favorite happens to be first but we’ll always end with our Bible stories. I want the last thing in my head before I close my eyes to be Jesus.
When I can’t sleep, scrolling only prolongs my wakefulness and my angst. If praying or quoting familiar scriptures doesn’t do the trick, I listen to the Bible read aloud. I may need to get up and clean or organize something in the process but a mind saturated with God’s Word will eventually find the peace and rest that Jesus promised.
We don’t walk this life of faith alone. Sometimes we’re in the middle, sometimes we bring up the rear, and other times we take the lead. We do need to watch the ground for snakes, but our focal point is Jesus.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.
And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.”
Hebrews 12:1-2a NLT
A Fitting Reply 