But God…
Back in the 70s, a band called Blue Mink had a slew of hits with some very catchy tunes and lyrics. Not that I really understood them all, but they were sweet to sing along to.
Round about then I don't recall exactly what it was, but I know I did something I wasn't supposed to and my father asked me to explain why. This last constantly perplexed my mother who favoured corporal punishment. Just because.
Though her husband occasionally did also, he usually tried to reason with us first. Sometimes it worked - as in, we'd see/say where we went wrong along with profuse apologies; at other times, not so much.
"Can you tell me why you did it?", he asked.
I thought long and hard, and then simply blurted out a half-question/half-statement that sounded as if it might be acceptable:
"By the devil I was tempted?!"
Which of course produced extremely different reactions from the parent figures.
"You could at least be more creative", sighed my father, immediately cottoning on to the fact that I was actually singing a Blue Mink song in my head.
"What do you know about the devil?" my incensed mother demanded, before swinging round to the new culprit to berate him for encouraging me.
Long-story-short, I skated!
Anyways, 2021. Having decided last week that I should forswear chocolate for a while, I wasn't in the least bit surprised that all my favourite bars kept on greeting me in the supermarket yesterday. With loving arms. And poetry.
Sea salt, vanilla bean pod, butterscotch... It was pure wickedness! More so when passing by - for the third time 🤦🏿♀️ - I distinctly heard them channelling Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Yup, they knew how I loved them.
It was a hard one, and I was definitely ready to succumb when I suddenly rallied, jaunting down the aisle with my head held high. Still jonesing badly, mind you, but with renewed hope for my bulging belly.
Nevertheless, as I made my way home, I got to thinking of minor infractions and major lapses, and how the Enemy lives for both. Because either way, big or small, we still end up doing something we don't want to do. Quite often shouldn't.
Precedence? Oh, there’s plenty.
Both Job and Joseph valiantly survived the fray.*
Others such as Adam, Ananias & Sapphira, dropped like cypresses in a forest fire.**
C'est la vie, I guess.
It's a battle I'm in constant danger of losing in a war I may never fully grasp the ins and outs of.
Especially since get-out-of-jail diversions and bouts of self-control are few and far in-between.
Yet, there's a reason I wasn't named Eve.
Plus, this being a new dispensation, I know there's no room for excuses.
Therefore, I try to stay frosty, keeping my eyes on the Prize.
It may be largely hit and miss...however, if I do go down, it's fighting-tooth-and-nail in true Kill-Bill-style.
Besides, that positive "but..." is always a whisper away.
Yeshua is His name.
😎
📖 (YouVersion)
And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.
There isn’t any temptation that you have experienced which is unusual for humans. God, who faithfully keeps his promises, will not allow you to be tempted beyond your power to resist. But when you are tempted, he will also give you the ability to endure the temptation as your way of escape.
Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit as he left the Jordan River. The Spirit led him while he was in the desert, where he was tempted by the devil for 40 days.
After the devil had finished tempting Jesus in every possible way, the devil left him until another time.
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* Job 2:1-10 & Genesis 39:6-12
** Genesis 3:1-7 & Acts 4:32-37 to 5:1-11
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