![]()
Temptation
•April 3, 2013 • Comments OffIt all begins in this place of beauty, in Eden.
I can only wonder at such beauty – God speaks, creation flourishing at His Word.
Perhaps its truest beauty though, is not what Eden reveals of God’s hand, but what it reveals of intimacy with Him. What would it have been to walk in the cool of the day, at His side? Union with Him, that is still untainted and unbroken. Union with Him, that is our source, and our wellspring, and our deepest satisfaction.
But we know how the story goes. The enemy of our souls enters in, serpentine. Bent as he is on destroying all that is good and beautiful and life-giving, he comes, with his cunning, and his questions, and his casting of doubt on the nature of the only One who is truly good.
And doesn’t he come in the same way to us? His question as old as Eve: did God really say?
The real temptation was never ultimately about the fruit of the tree. It was after all, fruit that was good for food.
The real temptation is always one of trust. Who is this God of ours? Is He truly good? Is He truly able? Is my hope, my life, surer in His hands, or in my own?
It was doubt the serpent brought first, and later, a playing on the delights of the apple.
Once doubt in God has taken hold, it takes very little to sell the delights of the apple.
And so with doubt, came defiance, and with defiance, death. It was as God had said it would be. And why does this so often escape me? – in everything, it is always as God says it will be.
It was the severing of Eden intimacy with God that I think about. To have known Him, enjoyed Him, and flourished in His presence, and then for all that to be torn apart, in the moment of a choice.
But what grace we know in Jesus. The Second Adam, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Who sympathises with our weakness. Who has taken our broken choices, our sin, upon Himself, and made a way back for us, to this Eden intimacy with the Father. That we might know Him, enjoy Him, and flourish in His presence again, through Christ.
Where we have fallen, there is mercy, and grace, and a God who will bring beauty from ashes.
And where temptation is before us, may we choose to trust God. It is always as He says it will be.
‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ ~ John 10:10.
Writing and Photo by Birgit Whelan © Copyright 2013.
Oceans
•March 18, 2013 • Comments Off
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me…
I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine
Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) ~ Hillsong United.
His Love
•January 24, 2013 • 4 CommentsRecently I directed a three-day silent retreat for six women in Virginia Beach. As the retreat opened, I met briefly with each woman and asked her to write on a sheet of paper the one grace that she would most like to receive from the Lord. [One …] told me she wanted more than anything to actually experience just one time the love of God. I assured her that I would join her in that prayer.
The following morning this woman (whom I’ll call Winky) arose before dawn and went for a walk on the beach … Walking along the seashore barefoot with the chilly waters of the Atlantic Ocean lapping against her feet and ankles, she noticed some hundred yards away a teenage boy and a woman fifteen yards behind walking in her direction. In less than a minute the boy had passed … but the woman made an abrupt ninety-degree turn, walked straight toward Winky, embraced her deeply and kissed her on the cheek. She whispered, “I love you,” and continued on her way. Winky had never seen the woman before. Winky wandered along the beach for another hour before returning to the house. She knocked on my door. When I opened it, she was smiling. “Our prayer has been answered,” she said simply.
~ The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning (Colorado: Multnomah, 1990) 95.
This is one of the many beautiful stories in Brennan Manning’s, The Ragamuffin Gospel. What I love in it is seeing the lengths that God will go to, not only to answer our prayer, but to reveal just how much we are loved by Him. That in the spontaneity and warmth of a stranger at the seashore, God would answer this woman’s need to know in a felt way something of His great love for her.
Though we see in His Word and in His cross His immense love, what about in the small, and the day to day? Those Spirit-soaked grace-filled moments when the tenderness of God’s hand is unmistakable?
And though it may be different from the kindness of a stranger on a beach, God is endlessly creative and perfectly particular in His love. A moment from Him, just for you.
He has not left us alone. He is nearer than we might sometimes realise, seeking out the ways this very day that we might be reminded of Him, and His tender love. Let’s ask Him again for eyes that might see, and moments, like the woman in this story, where we are arrested by grace.
The Christmas Story
•December 23, 2012 • Comments Off
So lovely :) The Christmas Story as told by little ones back home! :)


