Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” – Genesis 3:1
One of the main tools the devil uses against Christians—misinformation. He gets us to believe half-truths. Then when he has us, we fall into his trap and find ourselves back where we were before we began, or worse off. It was true Adam and Eve were not to eat of one tree in the garden. But the serpent got his foot in the door when he first said ‘all,’ a half-truth. It opened the door to their discussion where he could get Eve to begin doubting what God had said. And through this dialogue, the devil succeeded.
Hath God Said?
This is how he continues today. The devil is still hard at work, using the same schemes he used six thousand years ago. “Has God indeed said?” In other words, “Did God really say that?” He causes us to question God’s intentions in our life. The Word of God, His direction in our life, our calling, our decisions, whatever it may be that draws us closer to Him and takes us toward the world. The great deceiver gets us to question the good and take a step back and second guess ourselves. Even to the point where we take a break from it all to ‘find ourselves.’ Or that’s what we tell ourselves is happening to justify what is really going on.
Heaven Help Me
All of this made me think of a scene (heaven help me) in a movie called The Craft. Yes, a movie about witchcraft. It is not so much about the film itself, but a line said in it. To summarize, the movie is about a coven of ‘good’ witches that accept one into their group who wants to experiment with dark crafts. She convinces a couple in their group, and they eventually turn on the one who is basically the leader. In one scene, the evil detractor traps the leader while chasing her, but she vanishes. She believes she is there, but just can’t see her and utters the phrase, “Tricky, tricky, tricky.” Well, this is kind of how I feel when I picture something or if I see anything that remotely looks like the devil is behind it….”Tricky, tricky, tricky.”
Ready to Jump Ship
While we can now read about Adam and Eve’s ‘tricky’ moment and shake our heads wondering how they could’ve been so easily deceived, even we today can quickly fall into the same traps. We see the grass greener on the other side of the fence, or at the moment the ocean is getting choppy wherever we are, be it our job, our church, or our marriage, and we are ready to jump ship and find a place where the seas are calm, and where we can cast our line out and rest in our chair. Even in the bad, wanting the good can be the tricky. Sometimes being in the bad, in the storm, is right where we need to be.
Walking on Water
If you are unaware of this story, there is only one person who can calm the storm, but it’s only when you are in your boat and on a choppy sea. Then He comes to you in the middle of your storm. But you have to be looking for Him. If you aren’t looking for Him on the water, you may miss Him. In Luke’s account of Jesus walking on water, Luke mentions that Jesus was walking past them; it wasn’t until the disciples noticed Him that He called to them. But this was no tricky; Jesus was the real thing. Once he got in the boat, the seas calmed. Then they knew He was Emmanuel, God with Us.
The Old and the New
We can read about it in the Bible, from Adam and Eve to Jesus. Adam and Eve are why Jesus came. After Jesus, we were no longer under the curse of the decision they made. Jesus gives us freedom. Now we have a choice. He came to die. And better yet, to rise again, overcoming death. AND that was most certainly no tricky. He is the real thing and He is reaching out for you. Another thing that often goes without notice. In Matthew’s account of Jesus’s walk on water, He calls Peter out of the boat and by faith, Peter walked on the water, until he doubted, then he began to sink. Jesus reached out and saved him. He asked him, “Why did you doubt?” Jesus had proven himself over and over. Yet they still doubted; we still doubt who He is.
I pray for you who are reading this that God reveals Himself to you in a miraculous way. That you can find Him and see there are no tricks involved. He is real. He loves you and wants a relationship with you. All it takes is faith. Just as it did with Peter. He trusted Jesus enough to get out of the boat and walk to him in the storm. So, that tells us that sometimes we need to act for our storms to calm. But even when we sink as we see them and become overwhelmed by them, God is there to pick us up from out of them. We just need to trust that He will do just that.
Moments for the Heart 