Shade Tree Wisdom 8/10/09

All he really wanted to do was try to catch a chicken-stealing skunk who had been raiding the hen house. What he got was a pheasant trapped by the neck. A pheasant that had tried to eat the seeds he had dropped on the trigger. And it was illegal to shoot pheasants in Colorado. His first impulse, of course, was to hide it and not tell anyone. But he did admit to his father, and his father said he would have to go tell the Sheriff in town. So next day his father sent him to see the sheriff. The people at the post office would know where to find him. So he went, and found the sheriff was at Jack’s saloon. Now here was a reprieve, for his mother did not want him to go to any saloon. So he started home, but after a while he came back, entered the saloon, and asked the man behind the bar for the sheriff.

“He’s that big man in the back there”, he was told. So he went there and when the sheriff asked what he wanted, he told him he had killed a pheasant and his father said the jails were full of people who had done something wrong and tried to run away. So the sheriff asked what had happened and he told him he set a trap for a skunk and got the pheasant by the neck. People standing around hooted and said “His old man probably shot the bird and sent the boy to try to get away with it.” But the boy said his father would not do such a thing. The sheriff meanwhile checked the bird and said, “The boy is right, he trapped him. There is no law against that, so take this bird to your mother and have her roast it for dinner. Thank you for coming in. You must have a fine father."

So, when the son reported all this at home, his father said that was a good thing to remember. It was good to know that a person always made his troubles less by going to meet them rather than run away from them.

That leads to what I wish to say about this for our life. Here was a temptation, the same sort of thing that happens to us all the time. When we think things are going smoothly, suddenly the Tempter, whom the Scripture describes as “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12.) reminds us of a sin, a failing, and tells us we are unworthy, reminds us of our sinfulness, and maybe rakes up stuff from the distant past, and holds it up. Then he says, “How can God, who is LIGHT, even care when you pray?”

That happens. It comes at us suddenly, strongly. Don’t try to argue. Do not try to ‘explain’ something. Just claim “The breastplate of righteousness” that the Lord has given you. Check that armor again. The armor the Christian has available to him. St. Paul describes it in Ephesians 6, 10-18.

Our answer, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have access by faith into the grace in which we stand” Romans 5,1.2. St. John writes, “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous; and He is the Propitiation for our sins, but not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”. 1 John 2,1.2. John puts this in legal terms. God must forgive, because God is JUST, and He promised “If any man sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

My friend, when that temptation comes, and it will, tears at you and confuses you and seems so bad, then “Put on the breastplate of righteousness.” And may God, the faithful and Just, ever keep you in His care.

GPD 8/10/09