I’m humbled greatly from the huge response concerning Words for the Day yesterday. I have not had time to even get started on replying with individual responses, but please know that I read each and every one of them and am greatly appreciative. As I said yesterday, I had already made up my mind to continue with it for as long as my health permits and right now anyway I am in excellent health.
Yesterday was a weird day in that many things went wrong. My part-time employee had one of the tracks come off my skid steer machine and it took a couple of hours to get it back on even with the guy from Bobcat coming to our aid. Earlier I was using a very wide piece of machinery called a “Do-All” and when I passed a deer feeder a little too close I hit it and overturned it necessitating using the bucket on the tractor and a prayer to stand the 1000 lb. feeder upright complete with bent leg.
I came back to the house to regroup and get some cool water and happened to read of those poor souls being hammered by the hurricane. My minor problems dissolved like sugar in hot tea as I read about this storm. My Floridian brethren are enduring cruel devastation with flooding, power outages, punishing winds, and destruction of property that will take years to replace and repair. I’ve been through several hurricanes but this one is as wicked as they come and is not done yet. My heart and prayers go out to those in its path.
I am reminded that God allows evil in this world to coexist with His goodness. So often people blame God for the evil we endure, but this line of thinking defies logic. God created the Garden of Eden and this planet to be perfect. There was no rain, lightning, tornados, or hurricanes. It did not even rain there and water came from springs and a mist. There was no bloodletting, and the animals were docile. It was peaceful, beautiful, and best of all the Lord physically “walked with Adam” and conversed with him.
It was a wonderful existence until the temptation to sin was proffered up by Satan and Adam and Eve were swayed by his guile. They had been warned not to break God’s command and did so anyway and we have been living under a curse since that day. Unfortunately, this piece of DNA and God’s curse was passed on to all of us. So why God gets the blame and Satan a pass by so many people including Christians is illogical especially because He provided a way for us to reconcile with Him again through Christ crucified.
That reconciliation is highly anticipated by those who love him. Unfortunately, we are not whisked away at the precise time we become believers, but when compared to eternity this life is indeed but a vapor, here for a little while and then gone. I look forward to heaven and I hope God allows me to work in His garden because I’m truly fond of farming.
Until that glorious day, we must fight our way through whatever Satan conjures up with the help of Almighty God. Proverbs 3:33 tells us: The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Like the Apostle Paul, I realize that the ups and downs of my life are ultimately for a good purpose, but just like hitting your thumb with a hammer, you logically know it will stop hurting in a while, but when it happens IT HURTS! The same is true of evil exacting its wrath upon us. Fight through the hurt and evil and enjoy the blessings, my friends. Look towards eternity and don’t focus on the moment.
Genesis 3:14
The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
Cursed are you more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly, you will go,
And dust you will eat
All the days of your life;
Then to Adam, He said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying,
‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil, you will eat of it
All the days of your life.