"Get away from that wheelbarrow, James Louis! You know you don't know nothin' 'bout ma-CHIN-ery!" -- Brother Dave Gardner
The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with all kinds of false miracles, signs, and wonders, and with every unrighteous deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of truth in order to be saved. For this reason, God sends a strong delusion so that they will believe what is false, so that all will be condemned – those who did not believe the truth but enjoyed unrighteousness. – 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
I think I can handle too much. My most common error in life is the failure to see every battle as a spiritual battle, from the most trivial to the most profound. Let me see if I explain well enough not to sound like a complete flake.
The other day my straight-shaft Stihl Pro trimmer didn’t want to run. This thing is the Mercedes-Benz of trimmers. It has run for years. I was in a hurry and trying to get stuff cleaned up (when am I not in a hurry?), and it just quit. My very first inclination was to grab the end and smash it against a corner post. I do not like things that thwart my will, especially inanimate objects that are supposed to make my life easier.
For once, perhaps because of the influence of the coonosphere: QP, Ben, Julie, Robin, Rick, River, Walt, et al, it dawned on me that this was a spiritual battle. I wasn’t dealing with a demon-possessed trimmer, but a demon-oppressed thought process. I put the machine aside and picked up the pathetic little Ryobi to get as much done as I could. Of course, it picked just that moment for the throttle cable to stick. With no third string trimmer (forgive me, for I have punned), I took a deep breath and, through gritted teeth, explained to my wife that I had no choice except to fix the Ryobi. I sat down and opened the housing, got things loosened up, then correctly reattached and re-assembled. An hour or so later, I had it going again.
When I had time, I went back to the Stihl and pondered its behavior for a few minutes. I decided it was the plug and started looking for a socket to fit it. All the ones I have are either the wrong size or not deep enough. I could feel the frustration rising so I set it down and stepped back again. It actually made me smile because I realized that I was hunting for something I didn’t need. Like chainsaws, the Stihl come with its own specialty combination tool. It changes the plug as well as fitting the nut for the brush-cutter head, and had a star-driver head at the other end – everything you need in one place. I got the plug out. There was a tiny round bit of something closing the gap – no possibility of a good spark. Once I cleared that out, the Stihl started up with a couple of pulls and has been running just fine.
Were it not for Christ, I would be a sucker for the lawless one. He isn’t (necessarily) a politician. I know the lawless one very well. He will tell me that every minor inconvenience is a catastrophe. He insists that a mechanical failure is a malicious act. He doesn’t even mind if I think it is a demon that’s taken over the device. He might go so far as to encourage such thinking. He lives by the false and the deceptive. He enjoys bouts of foolish, pointless rage and acts of destruction. I am ashamed to admit some of the things he has told me that I have accepted and acted upon.
I’m not worried too much about the antichrists on the outside. The one that troubles me is the one that doesn’t even have to whisper in my ear to make his subtle voice heard.
8 comments:
Amen to that.
I use to play Brother Dave LPs for hours. I've now turned my grandson onto Brian Regan....the kid thinks I'm cool. I think you're cool too.
Well, thank you. Your running back is certainly right about his grandma.
Brian Regan is very funny.
Be Stihl, and know that I AM.
God.
Hi-yo! Wish I'd thought of that one.
Mushroom,
Fun with tools. I’m not surprised we have this in common. Like you I’m still working on this one. You see, old Rick, which is to say the old me, had a chainsaw like that once. I think it started the day I bought it. After that a mere 100 pulls to get her going...if I was lucky. Too bad I was too tired to use it by then. Three funny things about the longer version of my favorite chain saw story:
1. Sears called it their “Eager Beaver”.
2. After 100 pulls I still managed enough strength to bounce it off a stone wall at 15 paces.
3. It always started for my Dad. Easily.
Not related to the chainsaw incident except by your post, I threw a hammer once I believe for whacking my own thumb. “You threw a hammer?!” No worries. There was no one in the basement but me. Hence, the moral of your story I believe.
“…in a hurry.” I fall for it still, as I said. Here’s an example, I’m sure it’s happened to you: something as simple as changing a light bulb may take 2 hours. You can’t find your ladder. Your neighbor has it. You go see him and he asks you to help him move his refrigerator. His wife’s been asking him to do that for forever. Someone used all the light bulbs (you). Blah blah blah. Tick tick tick. Light bulb project completed = 2 hours. That was how I used to look at it. Like I had only accomplished one tiny thing in 2 hours, forgetting about all those other things I couldn’t see that were requirements of the original project. Parts maybe even more important than the light bulb. Just ask my neighbor’s wife. Then have her explain it to mine.
So very true in my case, too.
From Plato's Gorgias:
"This appears to me to be the aim which a man ought to have, and toward which he ought to direct all the energies both of himself and of the state, acting so that he may have temperance and justice present with him and be happy, not suffering his lusts to be unrestrained, and in the never-ending desire to satisfy them lead a robber's life. Such a one is a friend neither of God nor man, for he is incapable of communion, and he who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos or order, not disorder or misrule, my friend."
Nice of Plato to acknowledge both Gagdad Bob and John McCain in that last sentence!
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