SCRIP-BITS

Proverbs 29:25.    The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.
 
Oh Friends, every day the Lord shows me some new working of His mysterious ways. Today it was discovering some copies of a story in my study. I believe I made them some time ago to give to my children, but never did. Sorry children. (smile) However, when I read the story, entitled ‘The Seed,’ I was blown away, since it dealt with the very topic we’re currently talking about; not trusting or being afraid of man, which leads us to deceptive practices, but instead, wisely putting our trust and faith in the Lord God Almighty. Anyway, the gist of ‘The Seed,’ is that a Christian businessman wants to retire and decides to appoint a new C.E.O in an abnormal manner. Consequently, one day he calls all the young executives into the board room and gives them each a seed, telling them to plant and nourish it and return in a year with what they had grown. As luck would have it, this guy named Jim, just can’t get his seed to grow despite serious efforts of watering and fertilizing. Then the big day comes and all the young execs file into the boardroom with their lush plants. Jim is the only one with an empty pot. He has thought of going awol, but his sensible wife encourages him to go and tell the truth of his situation. But now, seeing all the lush flora on the floor beside his empty pot, and with his coworkers either laughing at or pitying him, he seriously regrets coming. Then the boss comes in and admires all the beautiful plants, but he also sees Jim cowering at the back of the group and orders him brought to the front. Imagine poor Jim’s consternation nuh? He feels like a failure, and figures the boss senses it too. The boss asks him what happened, why the empty pot, and Jim truthfully explains his tragic luck. But then, as in all God’s works, a strange thing occurs. The boss tells the other execs to sit down, then proudly announces Jim as the company’s next C.E.O. Wow! Why, you ask? Because he had given them all boiled, dead seeds, which couldn’t grow, but when they realized that, all of them, except Jim, went out and bought good seeds. And the moral of the story? Courage, truth and honesty will get you places that deception and dishonesty never will! Oh Friends, how I wish that even a small portion of our world would act that way these days, for greed corruption and dishonesty is so rampant that courage, truth and honesty are now more the exception than the rule. And the sad part is that many of us don’t learn from our negative experiences. Ah Lord eh! How many times must we declare that: ‘The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe (secure, set on high).’ And would you believe that our spiritual father Abraham was one of those who didn’t learn from the error of his ways? Yes Friends, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham went to live in Gerar, an ancient trading post halfway between Beer-Sheba and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, and he again claimed that Sarah was merely his sister. (Gen.20:2) The king, Abimelech, thus seeing a beautiful single woman took her into his house. But again, the great God we worship, intervenes on Abraham’s behalf. He appears to Abimelech in a dream at night: ‘Behold thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife. But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity (innocence) of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou and all that are thine.’ (Gen.20:3-7) Ah mih people, yuh see the sticky situations we put God in, forcing Him to bail us out so that we don’t bring embarrassment and disrepute to His cause. Now a scared Abimelech gets up early in the morning and tells his servants the bad news and they too become quite afraid. Then he calls the scallywag Abraham and asks: ‘What hast thou done unto us? and what have I offended thee (how have I sinned against you), that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done…What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife’s sake (on account of my wife).’ (Gen:20:9-11) Oh Friends, that’s our problem in a nutshell; we simply think too much! Instead of leaving the thinking to Almighty God and following His lead and direction as believers ought to, we get the fear of man into us and end up doing foolish things. And one would think that after the fiasco his deception caused in Egypt, Abraham would smarten up and not do it again. That just goes to show the weakness of our flesh and our sub-par intelligence when fear of mortal man takes hold of us. Oh my people, let’s not only talk about trusting God nuh, let’s actually show and practice that trust. It’s wise and normal to consider the possibility of being harmed by man, but our faith dictates that we should first query the Lord and ask for His wise guidance before setting out on a fearful path of our own. If we don’t do that, then our faith is worthless. More tomorrow on this topic, God willing. Till then let’s place our absolute trust in Him and allow Him to safely guide us. Much LOVE!…if you plant honesty…you will reap trust…