Insightful Musings on theScriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Good morning, dear ones.
Becki trooped all the way to the top of the hill again this morning on our walk/jog. Dandy was distracted by some smells along the way and misplaced his ball again. That’s not as irritating now that I have a hundred back-up balls costing only 2 cents each. But then, he found it again. So I didn’t have to bill him for it.
Becki just drove out toward her Bible Study in Woodburn. I’ll be heading to Woodburn too when I get things loaded up…finishing the installation of a park sign. I placed the frame there on Saturday.
Yesterday was a special day for our special Marshall Islands-born son, Andy. He reached the 39 year mark. Oh, the memories. I just sent him an excerpt from my journal for May 18, 1979—his 4th birthday. For whatever it’s worth, maybe I’ll stick it on at the bottom of this page.
Blessings on you and your day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
Why does God tolerate this dirty devil? Why does He allow Satan to run around tempting people to oppose God and His will? Why doesn’t God just snuff him out with one blow of His mighty power and rid the universe of him forever…and return His earthly creation to an Eden-like condition of purity and perfection? While we may never completely comprehend a totally satisfactory answer to these questions while on this side of eternity, we do know that God does indeed tolerate the devil. And we see here that God not only permits Satan to interfere and influence the minds of His human creatures, but He actually allows him to have a go at His own Son. If that is so, you can rest assured that he will not pass you by…especially if you are a serious follower of the Son.
These phrases from verses 1 and 2 are worth pondering: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit,” “led by the Spirit in the desert,” and “tempted by the devil.” You have to agree that we don’t normally associate being full of the Holy Spirit with diabolical temptation. Of course the devil designs these detours for damage toward destruction while Deity determines them for development toward destiny. For emphasis, let me add 3 more “D” words—DON’T DARE DISAGREE!
Be reminded that there is no means of protection against this enemy that can substitute for the power of the Word of God wielded from a HEART AFTER GOD…transformed by His Spirit. You will do well to hide it in your heart and develop competence in its use and application. Take note that in each stage of temptation launched by the devil, Jesus defeated them by His use of the “sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Eph. 6:17).
And be reminded that the devil’s ministry of temptation is not a one-time deal. Verse 13 says, “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” You can bank on it—he’ll be back. So be ready! (1 Pet. 5:8-9; 2 Tim. 2:15; Eph. 6:10-18)
18 May 1979. Andy’s 4th birthday. He woke up an excited boy. Becki took the kids to school. I did some office work, checked on the work at the school, then headed off to town by myself at about 10:45am following Becki’s return. There was much to do. I picked up a number of things, gift for Andy, sugar, flour, a fish, limes, etc. The $50 I withdrew at the bank sure fizzled in a hurry. We’re sure having trouble with holding down our spending to the level of our income. Back at the house at about 12:30pm we had lunch. I helped Becki some at preparations for Andy’s birthday. Our simple plan was to have Lambs over for dinner along with Paul Jameson who was delivered here this evening by Buaruas. We were about ready to eat when Solo finally came by as we had made plans to net fish tonight. I had him take our net along so he could put it out. Then following our little festivities tonight I would help him retrieve the fish and the net. We had a good little party. Andy was happy. Paul Jameson went in the water with us at about 8:45pm. We collected a pretty good bunch of fish. All the kids were with us too. They used my canoe too. At about 9:30 we made another run down the net and collected a few more fish. I reluctantly agreed to leave the net overnight and return in the morning to collect net and fish. It was a fairly late night after cleaning the fish, etc. Paul seemed to enjoy it all. Poor Andy had to be awaken and given a shower to wash off all the sand before dropping him into bed.
19 May 1979. I was up just after 6am to go down and get the fish and net. Sikwauta was not at the school, so Paul Puqara agreed to help me. We used the canoe. I decided I was not much interested in this style of fishing…extremely murky water…several sharks in the net…and several holes where sharks had apparently escaped. The one big shark was still alive. So I climbed into the canoe and we gathered the net up from there. The big shark was so far gone that he was fairly easy to handle. We were much later than hoped…returning to the house close to 9am. Those rotten sand flies were eating me up on the beach there. It took a long time to clean up, clean the fish, straighten the nets. I’m not much interested in doing this again.