The Shulamite and the Foxes

God’s Thoughts to me

Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming! (Song of Songs 2:15, NLT).

Fox Hunting

Through the years I have been walking with God, I have often been harassed by the little foxes from the Song of Songs. They have been so persistent with their gnawing and pestering of my thoughts.

I realised the time was ripe for me to chase and catch these little rascals. Little did I realise how cunning these creatures could be! I started to plan my battle strategies on how to fight and conquer these hard-to-destroy-grapevine-loving cute little pests by doing some research.

My expert advisors, the Bible scholars, seemed to agree on one thing, at least. These, not so little foxes, represent all the false preachers, prophets and teachers of a different gospel.

Our Lord Jesus warned us, ” On judgement day many will say to me,’ Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply,’I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.” (Matthew 7:22-23, NLT).

My advisors nearly convinced me through the letter Paul wrote to Timothy, ” Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.” (1 Timothy 4:1-2, NLT).

But I knew, although these gentlemen were spot-on with their analysis, this battle, for me, had to be fought on a much deeper level; on the only battleground my enemies were able to destroy; my heart and soul.

So, I fired my clever, highly esteemed advisors and asked our Lord Jesus to be the Commander-in-Chief of my whole life; a position He gladly wanted to fill since forever, and to show me the best plan of action against these potential soul destroyers.

At the time King Solomon wrote this beautiful song, vineyards had protective walls built around them against all the unwelcome visitors. The foxes would dig holes in the vineyard, spoiling the roots of the vines, gnawing and breaking the tender, little branches and leaves.

These gluttonous, little creatures were not interested in the flowers, they wanted the juicy grapes, especially when they were young and tender. Then my ever-so-romantic mind’s eye caught sight of the Shulamite and her King! To be specific, the love relationship between the two.

It is a relationship of love; not a doctrine, teaching, a charismatic speaker nor all the things we associate with the modus operandi of the modern church scene. The foxes are those great and little enemies and adverse circumstances that threaten to gnaw and destroy their blooming, tender love!

I knew it was time for me to take stock to discover how many of these little foxes I allowed to freely roam and destroy the vineyard of my heart. I knew I had no means to fight against these formidable foes.

But I remembered that only our Pappa God is mighty to save, I recalled His words, “Listen all you people … ‘Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.” (2 Chronicles 20:15, NLT).

My heart jumped with joy when I realised our Lord Jesus was my Knight in shining armour and together we made a mean team, just like Lancelot and Lady Guinevere. He was more than able and prepared to destroy this foe that was preventing my heart from producing the delicious fruit of love and trust, He so greatly desired.

Together we first had to identify and destroy this big army of little foxes’ commander-in-chief, Brigadier-General Work-To-Earn-God’s-Love. What a despicable liar this one was! We overcame this fellow easily, once I allowed our Lord Jesus to counteract his lies with truth.

Once he was slain, his whole army of well-trained soldiers started to crumble. Lieutenant Good Works and Sergeant Shame put up a good fight, but quickly raised the white flag when they saw my Commander-in-Chief! Their whole platoon of privates soon followed suit; private Guilt, private Condemnation, private Rejection, Anger, etc., etc.

Of their once mighty army, only a few mercenaries remained, but I knew that as long as I didn’t willingly hire their services, they would leave me well alone. They know the battle belongs to the Lord and that makes them tremble with fear.

Our King of kings destroyed all their shelters of wood, hay and stubble. Now, if I just spy one of them on the horizon, I run to my Strong Tower and Place of Refuge, into our Lord’s loving embrace.

We daily encounter many of these nasty little foxes and foes who want to lock us in shackles of despair. We have to fight many battles and it can be downright horrible, but as we allow the sweet Holy Spirit to teach us how to abide in our Lord Jesus, we only need to submit to our Pappa and resist the evil ones!

As we live in His Love, moment-by-moment, we can confidently say with Paul, “Neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.” (Romans 8:35).

Living life is a fine balancing act in a world lost in chaos and darkness, filled with many foxy foes. Let us therefore fix our eyes on our only Commander-in-Chief, our dearest Lord Jesus.

Hugs and sweet blessings

Mia

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This is an edited repost from the archives.

Tenacious Thankfulness

God’s Thoughts to Me

A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? (Proverbs 18:14, NIV)

The Gracefulness of Grateful Suffering

“What a contradiction of terms! Mia, you surely do not have all your ducks in a row!”, my fleshly self exclaimed through a lot of pouting and complaining.

But a still, small voice beckons me with persistent, patient wooing,”Come to me, my darling, for I will wipe away your tears and transform them into sparkling diamonds of delight!”.

I recall a time when I was lost in Fibroland, wandering through the thick foggy swamps of despair and excruciating pain. In complete dependance my heart reached out to our Pappa who gently hushed me to sleep. My feeble heart was murmering a quiet prayer as I drifted of to dreamland.

A little time later I awoke, cuddled in Hubbyface’s arms. But….. Hubbyface was snoring to his heart’s delight in the Land of ZZZZ’s on his side of the bed. Our Lord softly whispered, telling me that He was nestling me in His Loving Embrace, holding me quietly just as my heart desired.

“Pappa, I want to bring you a thankful, humble gift of heartfelt praises for refining me through the fire of suffering. You have taught me to run to you instead of running away! You have taught me to hide under your wings, allowing you to envelope me in the sweetness of your love.”

Thank you sooo… much.

Your daughter

Mia. XXXXX

I am visiting all the dear ladies again at the Five Minute Friday get-together.
We all write for five minutes (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a little less).
We don’t overthink, don’t overedit or correct spelling mistakes and so on. Hopefully we all laugh at our mistakes. Please join us at Lisa-Jo’s for a wonderful fun time.

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The Emperor’s Image

God’s Thoughts to Me

But Jesus knew their evil motives, “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed Him a Roman coin, He asked,” Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Ceasar’s,” they replied. “Well, then give to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar, and give to God to what belongs to God.”(Matthew 22:18-21, NLT).

So God created human beings in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NLT).

The Hurdles of Discipline

When my oldest son, Simon, was a secondary school learner, he was a provincial 400 meter hurdles athlete. At all the competitions his doting mother caused him endless embarrassment by, to put it mildly, proudly, yet noisily, jumping up and down, cheering him along and helping him to finish the race. Eventually he had to surrender, for he, for some strange reason, seemed unable to get his mother to behave more appropriately.

Then it happened! He stumbled and heartily greeted mother earth during a race he was about to win. My courageous, brave 18-year old baby got up and finished second…and then…collapsed! This mother hen quickly gathered her precious, bleeding chick under her wing, and that in front of an enormous crowd of spectators. So completely not cool at all!!

That was one of my favorite, precious God moments. Our Pappa taught me a most valuable lesson through this incident on His love and care towards us. Like the best parent ever, He lovingly disciplines us by allowing the hurdles of trials and tribulations during our race of life to teach us godliness and complete dependance upon Him. Every hurdle presents another opportunity to stretch those faith muscles to jump clear. When we fall, He lovingly picks us up and gathers us in His arms and wipes away all our tears while encouraging us not to lose heart, for He will always be there, right beside us, jumping up and down with joy as He cheers us on, rejoicing over us with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17).

As I was reading the above Scripture, the Lord opened my eyes to a big, bad insurmountable hurdle of misconception and wrong perception l had allowed to develop in my life, hindering my relationship with my Pappa to grow, to bloom and to blossom. My frame of reference told me that all our Lord Jesus’ anger towards the Pharisees and Scribes was also directed towards me. Our Pappa was, as far as I was concerned, a very angry, abusive God, expecting me to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and polish up my poor excuse of a life.

Our God patiently taught me through one of my favorite Bible teachers, James Fowler, my perception of His character was totally wrong. My frame of reference needed to include some “zits im leben” (setting in life). It needed to be based on the truth of  whom our Lord really was referring to, as well as the culture and traditions of that specific time. When I read the text in that context, scales fell from my eyes and I looked at this Scripture with new understanding.

Allow me to give a little background information. At the time our Lord Jesus walked the earth, the Roman authorities issued a silver coin, the denarius, stamped with the image of the Emperor. It was used as the standard payment for taxes. The Romans were well aware of the Jews’ scruples about “graven images” and out of respect for their religious traditions, they issued a bronze coin without any image for the use of those devout Palestinian Jews, without having to defile themselves when paying their taxes.

I have wondered why politicians and religious leaders often seem to be bosom buddies until I saw the truth of Solomon’s words, there truly is nothing new under the sun! (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The Pharisees and Scribes were hand in glove with the Herodians, inviting them along when they tried to soft-soap our Lord Jesus by commending His integrity. As if they were qualified to be judges of integrity! They tried to force Him into a Catch 22 situation by asking Him the famous question about taxes. These highly religious and righteous Jews, as they considered themselves to be, had no reason to defile themselves by touching a denarius, but when Jesus requested one, they provided the denarius from their own pockets!! I wonder if all the bronze ones went to the poor!

Our Lord saw right through their evil intent into their greed for religous power, position, prestige and money. They were unwilling to give it all up and to give themselves wholeheartedly to our Pappa. We are all familiar with the outcome of this story.

A question started to form in my mind, “As humans, whose image do we bear?” Our Pappa revelaled to my heart the precious truth that we are all created in His image!! He created us as spiritual beings to lavishly love us and enabled us to love Him in return. That privilege was forfeited in Eden and bought back on the cross at Golgotha. If only I could rid myself of that brood of “Pharisees” joyfully lodging in my heart, suffocating the loving relationship between my Pappa and me. Our Lord’s words became crystal clear to me, “You search the Scriptures because you think they give eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this eternal life” (John 5:39-40, NLT).

I rejoiced when we together chased the slave woman and her son from my heart as Paul instructed us to do. (Galatians 4:30). Good riddance indeed! But little did know of  all the son’s siblings, cousins and cousins-twice-removed still stealing and feasting on the delicious fruit our Lord was producing in my heart, keeping me imprisoned and chained to the system of religious performance. I had cordially invited them in when I had gobbled up many false teachings in the past. The stone tablets of my heart had many laws, over and above the Ten Commandments. As the years passed by, I kept adding more and more, as well as erasing a few outdated, old ones.

The slave woman and her son

I never was certain what the current religous modus operandi would be and was horrified of being rejected one more time, so I kept my list up to date, I never knew our Pappa could be so finicky for He seemed to change His mind from day to day, from denomination to denomination and even from congregation to congregation! Just to name a few of the silver denari, stamped with the image of religion, I was carrying in my pocket:

1. Only the Psalms and organ music are suitable for our Lord’s ears.
2. Communion must be served around a big table where everyone drinks from a humongous silver communion cup.
3. Tithe your gross income if you want to ensure God’s gross blessings.
4. As proof of having been baptized in the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues.
5. Serve, serve, serve and then serve some more; give, give, give and then give some more.
6. You have to be under the church’s covering, submitting to their authority. Failing to do that is proof of habouring a Jezebel spirit.
7. Wives submit to your husbands even if it kills you or be warned of the danger that you might turn into Jezebel herself.
8. Never mention someone’s name while praying for them in church for that borders on idolatry.
9. Do not disagree with your pastor, or if you do; zip the lip!
10. Do not always be the one suffering from an illness, for that shows your lack of faith and without faith you are not pleasing God. So rather suffer in silence and pretend to be well.
11. Spread the Gospel. Failure to do so will hinder the growth of your fruit supply and if you are empty handed when you meet the Fruit Inspector one day, you might be in BIG trouble!

And so the list went on and on and on!! Keeping them caused me endless spiritual pride and I could teach the Pharisees and Scribes a lesson or two about hypocrisy. Today I realize that it was all due to my extremely poor and shame-based self-esteem for I always used to measure love, anyone’s love, especially God’s, as something earned through my performance, yet mine always seemed to miss the mark!

Although some of these practices are not wrong in and of themselves, they do become law the moment they become rules and therefore replace grace, bearing the emperor’s image. I realize now that the Great Deceiver, the Father of Religion, played dirty tricks on my mind.  Our Lord Jesus did not mince His words when He told the Pharisees, “For you are the children of your father, the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth.” (John 8:44a, NLT).

Dear Ones, even though Fm/CFS takes us through deep, deep valleys of suffering, I can now see and appreciate our Pappa’s hand of love and wisdom in my life, providing the hurdles of suffering to draw me away from the law-based road to destruction and steering me gently into His kingdom of light of love, of freedom and peace. He will personally carry you over all the many hurdles this illness and life in general bring into your life, looking forward to the beautiful butterfly that will eventually emerge from your cocoon of suffering.

May our Lord bless you and keep you secure this coming week, snuggled warmly in the safety of His Loving Embrace!

Hugs and blessings

Mia

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A Wasteland and a Crooked Highway

God’s Thoughts to me

Listen! It is the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!” (Isaiah 40:3, NLT).

The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, “He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for Him!” (Matthew 3:3, NLT).

DANGER! Roadworks Ahead

I have often allowed my heart and mind to ponder on the character of John the Baptist. As far as I was concerned, this guy was totally way-out. Who in their right mind would willingly stay in a desertlike wilderness, wining and dining daily on a monotonous diet of honey and locusts. Yuk! His camel hair attire would ceraintly not have featured on the cover of a fashion magazine; although with a little imagination and the latest fashion trends, he could just have passed for a Hugo Boss model, modeling their latest outdoor range. To be totally honest; this man had the ability to make me feel extremely guilty about my much nicer and comfortable lifestyle.

Yet, of John, our Lord Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet, the one who is least in the Kingdom of Heaven, is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11, NLT). These words of our Lord intrigued me endlessly! If this was our Lord’s estimation of this peculiar man, there certainly had to be much more about him than met the eye. This guy was a character worth investigating and off this bloodhound went!

It is common knowledge that John was the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah 40:3, but to understand the metaphorical language our God used, we need to compare the two. Allow me:

Isaiah’s Era

A. After King Hezekiah of Judah showed the envoy of the king of Babylon, King Baladan, all his royal treasuries (this is good thought for another post), the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.

B. Our God was about to lead them out of their captivity from Babylon, like He did when He took them by the hand and delivered them from Egypt into the Promised Land.

C. Isaiah was the herald or forerunner, mobilizing the Israelites to clear the immense, desolate desert separating Judah and Babylon.

John’s Era

A. The Jews were under Roman rule with Ceasar Augustus as the reigning monarch.

B. Our Heavenly Father was about to deliver the whole human race from their exile in the kingdom of darkness, back to our home country, which our first grandparents forfeited in Eden, back into our Pappa’s Heavenly Kingdom of Light.

C. John was our Lord Jesus’ herald or forerunner, calling everyone to repentance and to clear the the immense spiritual desert in their hearts.

This tradition of road clearing, repairing and renovation dated back to the time of the monarchs of the Middle East. Whenever they undertook a journey or expedition into the barren, desertlike terrain of their kingdoms, they would send heralds or forerunners ahead of them to spur the inhabitants of these sparsely populated regions into action to repair the roads, fill up the ruts and smooth out the rough places for their king’s visit.

At the time John started preaching repentance, the Jews again were finding themselves in a dry, dreary, mountainous spiritual condition. I think that this might be why John lived and worked in the desertlike wilderness terrain; to sympathise with the Jews’ sorrowful state. They were also under Roman rule and were longing for the promised Messiah to deliver them from this foreign rule. I think their spiritual predicament under the iron rule of the Scribes and Pharisees were just as, if not more, unbearable than the political one. Our Lord Jesus was not at all impressed with this state of affairs and His words to them were quite unsettling, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13, NIV) and, “They crush people with impossible religous demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Matthew 23:4, NLT).

I was one of those crushed ones; therefore my heart rejoiced at hearing those words. The hearts and minds of those poor, deceived people (and mine) must have been overgrown with brambles, thorns and thistles representing all the religious rules and regulations. Their religous diet consisted of the same-old, same-old. Yet, they were looking forward to a savior for their unbearable, difficult physical situation. Could it be that they were totally ignorant of just the possibility of redemption from their spiritual captivity? Were they suffering from the religious business-as-usual syndrome, and therefore preferred the familiar, known streets of the Kingdom of Darkness, instead of a new adventure into the Kingdom of Light, grace, freedom, love, joy and peace? If they were just slightly like me, that could well be!

When our Pappa took me by the hand and led, or to be honest, dragged me, into the mountainous, desertlike wilderness of Fm/CFS, I was totally unprepared for the journey ahead. The mountain of excrutiating pain and debilitating exhaustion seemed like the twin brother of Mount Everest, and just as cold, dark and desolate! The fibrofog caused my mind to get lost in a thick cloud of pollution, despair and despondency. I could hear our Pappa’s gentle voice encouraging me to clear this polluted, desert road in my heart.

One of the biggest boulders He showed me that blocked the way forward and needed to be removed, was the idol I had been paying homage to for such a long a time: the idol of perfect health. I realized that I was no different from the Jews in John’s days! Our Pappa showed me that even if I were to be in perfect health, I would still be imprisoned by my addiction to religion, the world, Satan and self. I was chained to the fetters of all my religious self-effort and ceaseless, futile attempts to impress my Pappa and to make Him take notice of me. He made me aware of the futility of putting my trust in these useless, worldly things and ways.

Patiently, our Lord assisted me in clearing the road of my heart of all the rubble I had accumulated over the years. I gave Him permission to fill all the potholes with His life, His righteousness and purity. I had to destroy all the thorns and thistles of wrong desires and dreams (even those I thought would bring so much glory to our God, were they realized). I had to straighten the spiritual road of my heart and willingly allow the humble and gentle King of the Universe, His Royal Highness, King Jesus, to accompany me on this road of life.

I know, dear ones, that just being human, cause all of us to have our own desert roads, with our own loads of rubble to clear and ruts to fill, to straighten the way for our Lord Jesus to enter our hearts, but I pray that our Pappa God will enable us all to see this illness as a gift to enable us to dig up the fallow ground of our hearts and, with thankfulness, to transform the wasteland of our souls into highways fit for our King to travel on; full of blooming, colorful flowers, green foliage and beauty to bring pleasure to our Lord as we travel together on this road of life into His abundant, eternal Life.

Thanks for your patience, and if my thoughts don’t seem logical, please blame the fibrofog!

Hugs and blessings

Mia