Tag Archives: Musings

To Get and Acquire

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I woke up this morning reflecting on Sunday’s post, specifically Genesis 4:1 where it says, “Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.””

Two things struck me. The first was that “Cain” means “to get or acquire”  or “gotten one”.  Eve had gotten this manchild with the help of the Lord. Why would she say such a thing if she’d “gotten” children before? And why would the Holy Spirit have Moses record it? 

Secondly, the significance of the idea of getting or acquiring. It occurred to me that the very first act Adam and the woman performed after the fall was one of human good: seeing they were naked, they tried to make things right between themselves by covering themselves with fig leaves. By this act they sought to get or acquire reconciliation. Peace. Normality.

Then, after the fall and leaving the garden, the action first noted by the Holy Spirit as being displeasing to God is also an act of  human good performed by the one whose name means “to get or acquire”.  Cain offered the work of his hands, the fruits and vegetables, products of the earth instead of the blood of the slain lamb he was supposed to have offered.

 (This is indicated by God’s rebuke in vs 6,7; and by the precedent set by God’s provision of the animal skins for Adam and the woman in Gen 3:21 — skins mean an animal had to die for them to be covered, a perfect metaphor for the work of Christ on the cross).

Trying to substitute his own works and efforts for what God had already provided not only showed Cain’s unbelieving state, but also something that I think is the underpinning of human depravity: human good. The desire to get or acquire God’s favor by one’s own effort or merits or righteousness.

Cain’s sins of jealousy, anger and murder came afterward in reaction to the failure of his plan and the thwarting of his desire. (Though technically I suppose that the arrogance underpinning the very idea of human good is the real depravity. It just doesn’t look depraved.)

So many make such a big deal out of sin, but it’s really human good and independence from God that’s the problem. Jesus already paid for everyone’s sins and no one will be judged for them in the end. Instead, they’ll be judged by their deeds. Were they righteous deeds, performed in the power of the Spirit by a perfect individual, or where they human good?

That tree of the knowledge of good and evil… that wasn’t  the knowledge of divine good. They already knew about divine good, because they’d been walking with God every day in the cool of the evening. No, that good was human good, which is a part of evil.

And yet, it looks so good. It feels so good. It feels so right. It is so darned hard to see someone who is sweet and nice and “loving” and doing all these nice things as being a wicked sinner. Human good does not seem gross to us, but in God’s eyes it is as filthy menstrual rags. (Is 64:6 )

I think human good is one of the biggest obstacles not just to admitting you need a savior and believing in Christ, but to really living the Christian way of life.

“Woe to those who call evil good…who substitute darkness for light…” Is 5:20

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Pro 14:12; 16:25

“Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts.” Pro 21:2

“For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.”  I Cor 3:11-13 

The problem of human good doesn’t get near enough the attention that it should. And that suits the enemy just fine…

Storms and Pressure Cookers

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I was in the process of replying to Gayle’s comment on my last post Flestered, when I realized not only was I going on a bit too long in a comment, but that what I was saying would make a good regular post. So I decided to put it here.

Gayle had made mention of God’s plan not being for us to be diving into a pressure cooker of our own making. At least I think that’s what she meant.  If not, oh well, at the least my misunderstanding has prompted a new post…

I am well aware of the phenomenon of creating pressure cookers for ourselves and then diving into them… Martha, all worried and bothered about so many things comes to mind. And I’ve certainly dived into my share of pressure cookers of my own making.

However, I don’t feel like I’ve done that this time, but rather the pressure cooker has just come up around me. Rather like that storm that came up around the disciples in John 6 in our Basics Class lesson Tuesday night. I LOVED that lesson. It was so perfect for where I am.

I’m just looking at it all whirling about, all these things, all these people and animals and voices telling me to do this and that, asking for this and that… demanding I make up scenarios regarding the future, which I am not able to see, lacking omniscience, and then, having made them, put everything into place to deal with them, only to have others come in and change it all, or demand somethiing different…

The storm imagery from John 6: 15-21 was fantastic, and I loved that Jesus knew exactly what He was sending the disciples into when He told them to get into the boats without Him and cross to the other side, that He knew exactly how much they could handle and that He came to them at just the right time. I loved that they were struggling with the oars, rowing and rowing and not really getting anywhere and as soon as they welcomed Him into the boat… poof. The boat was at their destination.

They’d just heard the great dissertation on how He was God in chapter 5, just seen Him feed the five thousand in the beginning of Ch 6, probably still had those twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish… It was all a test and even though it was dark and cold and scary and probably VERY uncomfortable, they had only to look into those baskets and recall what they knew… Who He was, what He could do and the fact that He’d sent them out there Himself. The storm was no accident and nothing of their making…

So, this lesson has just affirmed more and more what God seems to be showing me lately and that’s that my situation is exactly the way He wants it to be and that He will guide me on a moment by moment basis through it. He will show me, at the moment needed, which, if any, of the many activities facing me is the one I’m to do next. If the other things don’t get done. Oh well. It may not be time yet. It may be I won’t have to do them at all.

Because there’s always time to do the Will of God, but it’s not always the will of God to do all the things we have opportunity or pressure to do!

Flestered

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We started watching the first season of NCIS last Saturday and in the first episode, Gibbs is in the corridor of Air Force One with his gun aimed at the back of a terrorist whom he has told to freeze. Instead, the terrorist turns slowly toward him maintaining his pretense that he’s here to help as he asks what is going on and didn’t someone call for a doctor?  Except that as he comes around he raises the automatic weapon he’s just pilfered from the plane’s armory and begins to fire, spraying bullets up the corridor Gibbs’ way. Gibbs doesn’t blink, doesn’t falter, doesn’t waver. He fires two quick rounds and the guy drops. He never loses his focus.

I loved that scene so much I had to watch it again.  What a wonderful illustration of poise in time of pressure.

Today it has become especially useful. My life has devolved once more into chaos. There are all these things I “should” do, and all these things I want to do, as well, but seemingly have no time for.

The things I “should” do?  Finish getting the new website set up, get the blog address corrected on the old one, contribute to the Amazon Author site that’s been set up… I was advised by the BHP marketing department to make a video trailer. I have a blog post to do, since I missed doing one yesterday. My office is a cluttered mess and I want to get a special picture I bought for my birthday hung up before the rapture comes. I need to start the next book, declutter my files, and do some research reading. I have miscellaneous requests from friends, to talk, go to lunch, etc. I have doctor appointments to set up for myself and to take my mother to.

Then there’s the regular stuff around the house, which I’ve not been doing, because events have impacted my sleep – late hours combined with sunrise at 5am… Yesterday after driving half an hour across town to see the rheumatologist about my hand, and back again, I was exhausted. Without motivation. Yet those “should,” and “need to” and “must” voices in my head continued to hammer me.

Plus it turns out I have an ailment – a “syndrome” – once known by the acronym CREST, now just referred to as “limited cutaneous scleroderma.” They don’t understand the cause, except that it seems to be auto-immune generated, and they don’t have treatments. This is an annoyance but nothing life threatening. You have it if you have three of the five symptoms laid out in the acronym. I have Raynaud’s syndrome, which is the R: when it’s cold, your extremities turn white or blue and get very Cold. My left big toe turns white and gets numb. And in the winter, as I work at the computer, my left hand has oddly become very cold whereas my right remains normal. Now I realize it’s part of Raynaud’s.

E is esophageal dysfunction.  “Do you have trouble swallowing?” he asked. I laughed because my husband and I joke that I’m probably going to die from choking on my food. Yes, I have trouble swallowing. A few years ago I could no longer swallow the calcium caplets I was taking and had to go to chewables. I cannot choke down a Nyquil to save my life. I thought it was just getting old, but no. Part of the syndrome.

The last symptom I have is Sclerodactyly, which means the skin on my fingers has tightened and stiffened. How weird is that? It’s worse on my right hand than on my left and I’m not sure how the trigger finger is related, if it is. It might be something that began on its own, or something caused by this other thing. Anyway, there’s nothing I can do but live with it. And since there can be other more serious elements to this condition (pulmonary hypertension) I will have to go get a couple of tests. Which means more doctor’s appointments.

So there’s all that.  And the rheumatologist thinks my toe is broken because of how swollen it still is two weeks after injuring it. Not that there’s anything I can do about that, either, but it does make wearing shoes painful and walking Quigley a new challenge.

So when I take Quigley and he pulls and jerks and I have to resist or deal with it, my toe is not happy. Nor is my back. So I think, what I really need to do is just commit to several hours a day for the next five weeks and work with him… He’s never officially been trained to heel…

In addition to all that, which is nowhere near my complete list, when I do start tackling things, they always seem to snarl into complications. I try to answer reader mail, but run out of labels to autograph and can’t print new ones until I go to the store for ink…

I go out to Office Max to buy ink and a new fluorescent bulb for my desk light and they don’t sell the bulbs (even though that’s where I bought the desk and the light). So I have to go online and the bulb only costs $6. The postage would be more. What to do? Get two bulbs? Will it still work by the time I need a new one? Will I even remember where I put it?

I start to work at the computer, but my carpal tunnel flares up.  Or I bang my poor swollen toe into a chair and have to go sit down with the ice bag again. These are small things, but when you have entire days of them, it gets old. And frustrating.

Then of course there is the next book that I had – ahem — planned to start yesterday, except I lay around and dozed instead.

What does all this have to do with that NCIS scene I mentioned earlier? All these things are like bullets spraying around me. They demand my attention and if I try to give it to them I just get flestered (yes, flestered. It was a typo, but I like it.  It not only melds flesh and flustered, it looks like festered… the perfect word for the state I’m trying to describe!) These are little things, but it’s a constant stream. You can’t deal with them in any kind of logical way, because there’s too many of them and they’re coming too fast and each is hitting on an almost subconscious level. Or at least, a peripheral level, where you’re aware of them, but not how they’re fragementing your thinking and emotions.

Instead, my thoughts should be focused on only one thing: the target. The goal:

“The self-motivated believer has identified his primary objective in life: spiritual maturity, which glorifies Christ. This objective becomes the criterion for interpreting any situation that may arise. Every decision and every course of action supports this chosen objective. [The application of] Bible doctrine takes first priority… you build your life on [it].” ~ From Christian Integrity by Col R. B. Thieme, Jr.

Living in a state of being flestered is not part of spiritual maturity, nor will it lead to that. Neither are guilt, condemnation and anxiety. Moreover, if I write down all the things I “have” to do or want to do in an attempt to sort through them all (focusing on the problem, trying to take control and figure out the solution for myself) I only increase my flestered state and move into paralysis. So I have to step back and recall: there’s a reason things are the way they are. God’s ordained every detail in my life for my highest and best and most of them, I’m learning, are forms of affliction. Light affliction – maybe even VERY light affliction – but affliction nonetheless. Here for my blessing. To root out false thinking and make me stronger.

Okay, Lord, I’m letting go of my lists and my flestered state. Again. What do you want me to do?

Hmm. Well, for one, it appears He wanted me to write this blog post because… ta da! … Here it is. When I had no intention of writing it. When I only sat down to work through my flestered state.