dar334

Last night after supper I sat down for some much-needed time to glean. These past few days have been a whirlwind of things and I’ve been left teetering on the edge. I needed down time, with the Instruction Book, specifically the section under “Troubleshooting”. Equipped with books, paper and pencil, my Kindle, and “Instrumentals for Studying” playing through ear pods ….. I began to glean.

When I opened the Easter Earthquake book by James A. Harnish, I found the bookmark size strip of white cardstock that I have a short prayer printed on asking God to help me keep mentally alert and spiritually sensitive, and to open my mind so I notice what it is He wants me to see. Also on the bookmark are these four instructions: Stop. Quiet your mind. Enter silence. Just listen.

I started the Fourth Week in Lent and when I arrived on the Monday lesson I was directed to read Numbers 21:4-9. In order to bring you up to speed, the book of Numbers was written by Moses. Moses was a pretty special guy, God was very fond of him. Moses had led Israel out of their four-hundred-year bondage in Egypt to take them to the Promised Land. On their way, they disobeyed Him so He was leaving them to wander in the wilderness for forty years. At which time all those that had sinned (disobeyed) Him would be dead and a new generation of Israelites would enter the land He had promised to Abraham.

The scripture in Numbers tells us that the people got whinny. They complained that God and Moses had taken them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. They complained because there was no bread, no water, and they hated the food. As any parent would, God got angry because they didn’t trust Him to provide and keep His promise, so he punished them. With VENOMOUS SNAKES! (It was at this point that I started to ponder the ways God may be punishing us today for disobedience, and I thought about those on my cancer list that seems to grow daily) After many Israelites were bitten by the snakes and died, they got their heads on straight and went to Moses to pray to the Lord to take the snakes away, they knew they had sinned and were being punished. God instructed Moses to make a snake and put it up on a pole and anyone who was bitten could look up at it and live.

Now this is where the light went on. Not literally, but the one that you see in cartoons that shows up as a lightbulb above someone’s head. My AH-HAH moment. My “why did you never get this before you fool?!” moment. (It is at this moment that I found myself wondering why Pandora would play the Linus and Lucy instrumental when I’m supposed to be studying. Because now all I can see is Linus and Lucy playing football, or trick-or-treating, or decorating a sad little tree, at which point I had to open the app and give it a thumbs down)

I don’t know how many times I’ve read about that bronze snake on a pole. I do remember in the first Disciple study one of the girls saying she writes on the inside cover of her Bible the studies she does. That way she has easy access to them when reminded of something. I thought that was a pretty good idea at the time, so I grabbed a sticky note and wrote 2013 – 2014 Disciple 1 and stuck it in the front cover of my Bible. Little did I know that at the end of Disciple 1 my daughter would inform me there were 3 more and she had committed to doing the Disciple Study so that meant 3 more books, 3 more years. I decided it wouldn’t hurt, and for whatever reason, the Holy Spirit compelled me to not only do the remaining 3 Disciple studies, but several other studies along the way, causing me to add 2 more sticky notes to my list, which drove me crazy because it wasn’t “pretty”, so I sat yesterday and typed them all out in an Excel Spreadsheet and printed them on yet another bookmark sized piece of cardstock.  There.  Nice.

And now ……… back to the snake. In the 15 studies I’ve done since 2013, I’ve read that piece of scripture several times. I had learned early on that the snake on the pole represented Christ on the Cross. I knew that if the people were bit by the snake all they had to do was look up at the snake on the pole and they would live. I knew that Christ died on the Cross as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. I knew that if we believed Christ died for our sins we would have eternal life. What my pea-brain failed to absorb before was we would be bitten by a serpent at some point in our lives and the significance I had failed to see in this scripture was the BITE and the NEED TO LOOK UP!  That’s why this scripture is so important.  Satan bit me last week, he was trying to drive a wedge between me and God.  I was ready to throw in the towel, ready to jump.  I was just plain tired.  T I R E D.  Tired.

As I sat there smiling and shaking my head, I was looking up. I suddenly felt a sense of relief. Of comfort. When I looked up, Christ crushed the head of that serpent.  Yes, cancer has hit and continues to hit several people I care(d) deeply about. My husband, who I imagined growing old with, my dear dear sister-in-law, my mother-in-law, a co-worker, two neighbors, two cousins, a friend, two nieces, and another I can’t mention here. And throw in to the mix my children that have been knocked down. One with Multiple Sclerosis, the other with divorce. All of this since 2006 ………… yet I felt comfort. We are not alone. And when those times come when we feel like we are, when we want to holler “MISDEAL!”, we need to look up. Just. Look. Up. Take a deep breath, enter silence, and listen. Open that door, let Him in.  He will crush the head of that serpent.

My closing prayer is that just one person sees in me what the Lord can do when you open the door. And then opens their door.

-dar