I don't want to post something on here just to be posting. I don't want to use up words and space without meaning. Yet, as I have mentioned in many a post, I often "get" something from Papa when I begin to write. Although, I am beginning to wonder if He has anything to say to or through me right me now.
I have heard it said recently, that the Teacher usually remains silent during a test. What if I have taken the test and failed? It is not the failure of the test that is so disconcerting (although painful); I just know, because God is a good Teacher, that He will "allow" me to take the test again and again until I pass it. He wants me to pass. He produces provisions for me to pass. My spirit says, "Then how can I fail?!" But my soul cries out, "What if it's no longer in me?". What if I just want to lay my head down on the desk and go to sleep? Can I just drop out?
A close friend and I were grappling with this very matter today. Pain can often times be SO deep, SO intense, SO chronic and unrelenting, that many times we are willing to do just about anything to make it stop. We want to believe anything that remotely offers to immobilize it, lessen the frequency of it, or at least provide respite from it.
I think one of the enemy's greatest deceptions is to tempt us into believing, if we throw in the proverbial towel, that things will get easier. If we would just cease from waging war... if we would wave the notorious white flag... if we surrender in defeat...resign; then the pain would no longer overwhelm us. We could get off the tumultuous treadmill of anguish and grief. No longer would perpetual rejection, justifiable anger, or addiction battle against our emotions or actions. It may not be freedom in its truest sense or even how we want to experience it, but it would be relief. So we think.
I am reminded of David's three "mighty men"(2 Samuel 23:8-13). Adino killed 800 men at one time. Eleazer defied the Philistines, after the rest of the men of Israel retreated, by attacking them "until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to his sword." Finally, Shammah, also abandoned by his troops, "stationed himself in the middle of a lentil field, defended it, and killed the Philistines." The scriputure pronounces that God brought about great victories through them... for an entire nation.
I can only surmise that, after oh, let's say a couple/few hundred defeated, Adino would have hoped that his battle was soon over. Certainly he was exhausted. Worn down. Despondent, no less. What if he had stopped there? What if he stopped at 799? I am left to wonder if there would have been victory...
Eleazer? "Determined" is a grotesque understatement. He was indomitable. What kind of man fights until there is such a grip on his sword that it becomes one with his hand? Surely he was in excruiating pain. I reason that it is entirely probable that he lost his hand. I propose that he considered liberating the sword to save his hand. Would he experience a sense of relief each time he looked at his fully intact hand; or would the bitterness of defeat haunt him?
Finally, Shammah. (He's my favorite.) A lentil patch? Really? There he was, in the middle of a field, deserted by his troops, surrounded by Philistines. I can almost hear him. "My family and I tilled this field. I toiled in this field. I planted these lentils. I watched over these lentils. I watered these lentils. I weeded these lentils. I'm going to flippin' eat them!" What audaciouness. Could it be that he reconsidered his stand? Might he, standing alone, surrounded by the enemy, have begun to reach for the white flag? How could he not have weighed out the inevitable fatigue, the foreseeable defeat, the utter hopelessness of a victory, the likelyhood of making his wife a widow? Retreating must have looked like wisdom... His wife may have had a husband, but would their nation prosper?
I don't know what lies ahead... I do not even know what to expect with the sun's rising, except that it will. I do know I want to be "done" in so many areas and in so many ways. My flesh is ready to liberate the sword, retreat in exhaustion, or at least seek a temporary respite. BUT, if I choose to not press on, will the Lord give me a great victory?
I too, wanna eat my flippin' lentils... I pray I have the strength to stand.
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