I sat in the quiet of a Monday afternoon. The sky a blanket of blue. The wind, a breath of perfection. The birds were singing harmony to the tune of the creek's slow ripple of Spring. And I was alone.
The rarity of beauty and quiet tuned my heart to sing His praise. I tipped my head backward in Thanksgiving and watched the birds circle above. I counted them. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. As they sang and danced, I heard the whisper of the Father- perfection, rest, completion.
I wasn’t sure what that meant at that moment, but life has a way of revealing the truth from a distance.
The moment felt Holy, so I opened the word and turned to I Corinthians. Surely Paul had something to say about perfection and peace and rest and completion. My eyes scanned for connection and landed on the word "sanctified". My mind attached synonyms-- righteous, set apart, holy, consecrated. All the good words that sometimes make us feel the width and depth of our sin.
I glanced to the right and from my left periphery and saw movement. A black and white streak of something long. My head jerked in fear and there it was, slithering right through my sacred little moment.
A snake.
I ran up the stairs, into the house, and then let out a scream of despair that caused my family to come sprinting towards me. They thought someone was dead.
After a good minute of reliving that slithery moment, I sat back down (far away from where I was) and wondered if there was something more to see. Maybe that snake needed to teach me something.
“Father, what do you want me to see?” I asked him.
He shouted, “See the snake, Andrea. See your sin and run from it.”
It’s funny how the Father, constantly brings me back to the mirror. Over and over again, he brings me back to the place where I can see who I am becoming. He brings me back to my heart and reminds me of how much help I need from His spirit.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:10:
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
When I hold up the mirror, I can decide there’s someone else I want to see there.
When I hold up the mirror to my heart and ask him for help, I begin to see more of His Nature.
I see him as Father. As redeemer. I see Him as my eternal gardener-- the one preparing a place for me.
A few weeks ago, I asked my Bible Club students to think about what question they would ask Jesus if he walked through the doors of Catawba Heights Elementary.
One student said, “I would ask Him what I will get to do with Him in Heaven.”
I was stunned at the beauty of this question. An eleven year old pondering the events that may play out with Jesus in glory.
He wants us to see.
First, he wants us to see Him in all things. To see his creation, his story intertwined.
He wants us to see the needs of others. He wants us to see Heaven on Earth, so we can bring His Kingdom into the lives of our neighbors, our family, our coworkers, our community.
Because when we can see, we can respond.
And when we respond to the call of Christ, the enemy flees.
But if we fail to see the snake, we fail to see who he wants us to become. Sanctification can’t do its Holy work if we aren’t willing to watch for the enemy and to listen for the lies he quickly spins into truth.
This is when we pray, “Father, reveal the truth. Give me wisdom to discern truth from lies. “
Everyone has a snake story and most of them involve sheer terror and high pitched screams, followed by a shovel blow to the head. Because the only kind of snake I like, is a dead one. And yes, I know the black snake takes care of things we don’t want in our yards.
But I DON’T CARE!
It’s slithery and sneaky and craftier than any other wild animals the Lord made.
“So stay away from my home.”
In Genesis 3, sin slithers into the garden and whispers the first lie on earth, “Did God really say?”
If only they could have bit back at him and said, “As a matter of fact, yes, God did say, and we are following Him.”
But instead they bit the fruit and welcomed sin into the world.
Christians, the world needs our confidence. We need to declare boldly the truth of the gospel, and look sin square in the face and over and over again, say, “YES, GOD DID SAY!”
The snake’s head will be crushed.
Genesis 3:14-15 is God’s greatest comeback.
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[a] and hers; he will crush[b] your head, and you will strike his heel.”
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