Rigid Rules

Growing up in a Christian home was a benefit, despite my not appreciating it at the time. My conservative parents wouldn’t let my siblings and I go to the movies (“an immoral industry”) or use playing cards (“tools of gamblers”) or dance (“worldly nonsense”). Our music choices were closely monitored, and as for no smoking and drinking? They didn’t even rate an explanation.

By today’s standards my brother, sister, and I were forced to live a narrow, regimented lifestyle. Of course we eventually tested what life was like apart from that parental list of no-no’s and in the end landed a bit short of them. But the older I get, the more I see that high standards are better than low ones.

Mom and Dad believed in scriptural principles. Although they understood the Bible’s concept of living under grace rather than law, they also touted the 10 commandments as a wise, healthy way to live. The two generalized “new” commandments given by Jesus in the New Testament were fleshed out, they said, in the Old Testament’s one-through-ten.

Most people balk at that list of laws or, for that matter, at any rules. The minute we’re told what we can’t do, we want to do it. Of course the root problem is that we all want to direct our own destinies, because it goes against us to take orders from anyone else. We say, “It’s my life, and I’ll live it any way I want.”

Sometimes I think God sets forth a list of should’s and shouldn’ts as a test. He says, “I know this makes you bristle, but because it’s Me asking you, will you trust that it’ll turn out best if you just do it?” We suck air between our teeth and wince, wanting to make him happy but hoping we can do it without having to fully comply.

It helps us to know Jesus never told his followers, “You’d better… or else!”

He left it up to them. Sometimes, after he had delivered the goods, people would turn on their heels and walk away. Although Jesus didn’t try to stop them, we can see disappointment tucked between the lines of Scripture. It wasn’t that he needed their loyalty or devotion. Divinity doesn’t need anything. It was that he felt sadness for them. Rejecting his message meant embracing a much less satisfying life, not to mention what might happen in the next world.

I’m fairly sure my parents were motivated by much the same kind of thinking God had as they studied his rules and then came up with their own. They were doing their best to set their children on a path toward wise, fulfilling futures. Though we struggled to break free of their restrictions at the time, we had to admit the intentions behind the rules were laced with love, the rules initiated by Mom and Dad…

…and the ones initiated by God.

“The trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me.” (Romans 7:14)

Yikes!

Over the weekend I was shopping for groceries when a pesky bug began harassing me. While I was doing my best to wave it away, two young boys started whispering to each other and staring at me.

Suddenly the older one said, “Scuse me, ma’m. Scuse me! You have a giant spider in your hair!”

As I began batting at my head, the boys moved closer to their mother. Then the younger one yelled, “Now it’s on your face!”

Apparently the spider had been playing on my neck, head, and face for quite a few store aisles. I slapped at myself like a woman possessed, bending over, shaking my head and squealing, “Yikes!”

Finally the culprit fell to the floor, a giant daddy long legs. Though its body was only the size of a plump pea, his 8 long legs made him seem much bigger. The older boy ran toward me, and with two whacks of his shoe, the spider was dead.

“Wow! Thanks for defending me!” I said. He looked up as if expecting to see other spiders in my hair, and I appreciated the risk he’d taken in coming so close to creepy me. Then I looked down the aisle where something interesting was happening. The boys’ mother was busy ruffling her own hair, bending toward the floor as I had, apparently getting rid of her own spider.

“You too?” I said.

“I don’t know!” she said. “There better not be! I don’t want any of that!” She continued swatting her forehead, flicking the hair around her ears, shaking her head.

After thanking them, I pushed my cart to the next aisle and thought about one of life’s big mysteries: the power of suggestion. All of us are influenced by it every day. The woman saw the spider in my hair and abruptly thought she had one in hers, too.

When I was a school kid, a friend and I got a kick out of standing on a street corner looking up. Passers-by would stop next to us and look up too, a demonstration of how quickly the power of suggestion can influence us.

This same power is what’s behind every print ad, TV commercial, and computer pop-up. If advertisers suggest a certain product can solve my problem, or if it seems I’m the only one who doesn’t have this-or-that, I’ll probably bite.

The power of suggestion is also what’s behind every temptation that comes to us from the devil. He’s a pro at using suggestive powers to custom-make temptations for different people, hoping we won’t use our God-given power to fight back.

We’ve learned to resist the ploys of the advertising world, and we don’t buy everything we see. So we can learn to resist the devil, too. All it takes is practice appropriating the resistance-power God offers. The more we resist, though, the easier it gets.

“Humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Go get ’em!

This morning Nelson and I performed surgery in the dining room. It qualified as an ordeal, and both of us are glad it’s over.

Since we live in the woods, bugs and beetles are a part of everyday life, but normally I don’t think of them as creepy. There is one that does qualify, however: the tick. And our woods are full of them.

Ticks can lie on a bush-branch for months without moving, but just let a warm body brush past, and zip! They hop right on. Since they’re not much bigger than a pinhead when they make the leap, they seem harmless. But once on board, their powerful pincher digs in and holds on, allowing them to suck blood much like a mosquito.

Over a period of days the tick grows and can quickly reach jelly-bean size. Today we thwarted a tick’s plan to stay fat, dumb, and happy on our Jack when we gingerly removed it from from his neck.

As Nelson cautiously grabbed hold of the disgusting bug, he was careful to pull slowly. A quick tug could leave the sucking head behind to do further damage. As he worked to firmly ease it out, Jack tried to get away. “Do you think I’m hurting him?” he said.

“I don’t think so. Just keep going.” But our normally patient dog continued to fidget. The tick held on with strength, and we had to give Jack several breaks during the long process.

When Nelson finally succeeded, he put the extracted tick on a paper towel to check for the head, and we saw that its pincher was tightly closed around a chunk of Jack’s skin. (No wonder he’d been squirming!) Nelson had done a stellar job, though, and the head was still attached.

Our next problem was what to do with it. Ticks are rubbery. If struck with a hammer or ground beneath a rock, they’ll walk away unfazed, and we didn’t want it to have a second chance at Jack.

Suddenly Nelson said, “Boy, ticks are just like sin.”

In a flash we were rabbit-trailing about Satan and his desire to attach sin to our lives much like a tick. Any warm body will do, and once it arrives, immediately it takes hold. It’s influence is tiny and even imperceptible at first but steadily grows until one day it dominates us. If left untended, it can suck the life right out of us, especially our spiritual lives.

Nelson and I agreed the best way to terminate Jack’s tick would be to burn it. He wrapped it in the paper towel, took it outside, and lit the whole thing on fire. Though we heard the tick sizzling, after the paper had burned to ash, there it was, still intact. It took a direct, prolonged flame at close range to do him in.

It’s the same with sin. Once we identify it in our lives, the only way to get rid of it is to take extreme measures, doing whatever’s necessary to kill it. That might mean switching jobs, moving, changing schools, trashing a computer. But if we’re willing to get tough, God is willing to pluck sin from our lives.

“I chased my enemies and caught them; I did not stop until they were conquered.” (Psalm 18:37)