Wine at the Wedding

This is a short post today, but it is a good illustration of the sequence for acting in faith, the Four Steps to Receiving from God. The story is of Jesus' first miracle, water turning into wine. You can find the full account in the second chapter of the Gospel of John. If you are not familiar with it, I will post from the King James below, but I still urge you to check out a more modern translation.  While this story can be analyzed from multiple perspectives, each revealing a different gem of truth, I am sticking with the order of events that resulted in the need being met.

1.    They heard from the Lord. Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots." (John 2:7)
2.    They chose to pay attention to Him. Just before that, Jesus' mother had said, "Whatever He says to you, do it." (John 2:5) We get a glimpse of how Mary's words had prepared the hearts of the servants so that they'd be predisposed to listen.
3.    They believed and trusted that filling the jars with water was the thing to do. They could have scoffed or doubted at this point, but instead they received Jesus' word with enough faith to move to step four.
4.    They acted on what they knew to do: “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." (John 2:8)

The water had now become wine.
Applying the sequence of Steps to Receiving from God, KatieLyn passed Step 1 with flying colors; she heard from the Lord. She did well on Step 2; she paid attention. It was at Step 3 that she stumbled; she did not receive it as a reality, with full believing faith. She never even attempted the Fourth Step that would have brought God's will into manifestation.

♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦   

The Wedding at Cana, Gospel of John, Chapter 2

1And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 9When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 10And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. 11This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.

 

The Dream Destroyer

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  John 10:10

Jesus is speaking here. He is the I in I came. He contrasts the reason He came with the reason that the thief comes: abundant life vs. theft, death, and destruction.

It is pretty easy for nice, well-intentioned people to be totally blind to their thievery and to the destruction they cause. In context, Jesus was speaking to a group of Pharisees who had just heard the testimony of a formerly blind man whom Jesus had healed. The Pharisees were touchy because Jesus was using figure-of-speech parables to talk to them. They did not understand what he was saying to them, but they knew he was making a judgment about their moral condition that made them tetchy.

They did not think of themselves as thieves, but they were robbers, murderers, and pilferers of spiritual things. They were killing the light in men's eyes and destroying the dreams that the Lord had placed in men's hearts. 

      Where there is no vision, the people run amok and perish.   Proverbs 29:18

A more literal translation is, "Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint." Destroying a person's revelation from God will lead to destruction of that person's life. Stealing his prophetic oracle, taking away his dream, is one of the most dastardly crimes you can commit against another person.

Without a prophetic revelation from God, the people get off course spiritually. This worked three different ways in the case of the runaway bride.
1.     The Bride. The bride did have a God-given vision. Her dream began as a child, and she knew her destiny was to be a wife. . But Satan wanted to jettison her destiny and destroy her life. He got her to begin to doubt her dream, and eventually she ripped it up herself.  Score a big one for the devil.
2.     The Groom. The groom had a revelation from the Lord. The timing was right for him to become a husband. Isaiah 42:9, "Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you." Notice the order: the revelation was given first, then it was to come forth. The groom was out of debt, had a savings, lost weight, went to the gym, studied the Bible on the role of a husband, and was prepared to stand in faith.  He willingly, diligently, and lovingly tried to make life for KatieLyn as wonderful as he could. He stayed true to the vision and never wandered off-course.
3.     The Mother of the Bride. It is unlikely that she ever caught the vision because she has been so two-faced. Early on, she said the couple's meeting and engagement was "a God-thing." But after she saw where Joe lived, she was making judgments and spewing out opinions without a shred of faith. I don't think Romans 4:21 is in her Bible: that whatsoever he has promised, he is able also to perform.  It was only after KatieLyn ran home in the middle of the night that she ever claimed to "know the right thing," and then she said she had concerns "from the beginning." Not only did she run amok herself, she also helped destroy KatieLyn's dream.

You don't have to take the life of a human to be a murderer. Destroying God's call on a person's life is still a murderous foul spirit, just slid down the scale a bit. And, yes, God can and sometimes does restore the person whom you stole from, and even bless them beyond what you took, but they won't be the same after you did your damage, and of course, you are in a far, far worse position than before you helped destroy God's dream.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer (of revelation), or as a thief (of dreams) or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. 1Peter 4:15
But when KatieLyn saw the risks at stake and the strength of faith needed to complete the preparation for her dream, she ran off into the night and then decided it wasn't really God's will after all.

I dearly wish that she had stuck it out during the hard part because chances are that she will never be completely satisfied. There will be a part of her that cannot feel settled or fulfilled until she repents and comes to terms with the fact that she screwed up. She aborted her dream. She turned her back on the Lord's provision. 

The devil is a thief that almost daily tries to kill, steal and destroy the plans God has for us. In Psalm 27:13, David wrote, "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living." KatieLyn stopped believing that she would see God's goodness. It took an effort of faith for the psalmist to save himself from the despair which threatened to smother him.  Notice that God had already promised the good stuff. It was up to David to believe that he would see it. God wasn't going to force David to believe He'd told him the truth. That is the action of faith—making the choice to believe he would see it before he actually saw it.

KatieLyn's mother could not believe in the dream before she saw it, in part because she never listened long enough to hear God say it, in part because she didn't trust that her daughter had heard God, and also because her background has left her with very shallow knowledge of God's process.

Isaiah describes the *process* several times. It is a good book for starting a study on this. We already mentioned the example from 42:9, "Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you." Isaiah 48:3 describes the same process of (a) declaring it first, then (b) bringing it to pass: I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. Amos 3:7 gives the promise, "For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets." Again, the revealing precedes the action. Since Pentecost in the Book of Acts, when the Spirit was given, believers don't have to go seek a prophet. They can train their own spirits to hear the Holy Spirit. Hear first, later receive.

Apparently KatieLyn, and especially her mom, really stink at hearing the Spirit of God. Gwen in particular insisted on seeing how everything would all fit together first, then she would believe. But faith does not work that way. Faith is active believing, it's trust before you see the details. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6 If you insist on seeing the proof first, you do not possess a trusting love for the Lord. 

The Lesson
Without faith to believe in your dream, it will never become a reality.  Do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. Hebrews 10:35.  Don't let the devil steal God's promise to you, and don't let other people talk you into giving up your God-inspired dream. God did not call off this wedding. That was the enemy's doing.

2 Kings 3:17

2 Kings 3:17
For thus says the LORD, You shall not see wind nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, both you and your cattle and your beasts.


This is one of the Bible stories that is easy to miss because it is tucked away in the Old Testament's history section. But it demonstrates a critical lesson about trusting the leading of the Lord.

During the days of Ahab and Jezebel,  Mesha, the king of Moab, had paid Ahab, king of Israel, 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams to, shall we say, "maintain good international relations." When Ahab died, Mesha saw this as an opportunity to rebel against Jehoram, Ahab's son who was also the new king of Israel. Jehoram mustered his troops, and then sent word to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, asking for help and reinforcements.  Jehoshaphat sent back his reply, "I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses." So, that was a "Yes!"  The king of Edom joined as well, so the armies of Israel, Judah, and Edom made a week-long circuitous march through the wilderness to get in position to attack Moab. But they found themselves without water for the troops and the cattle that followed them.

Cattle followed armies in those days because you don't have to refrigerate a live cow. You do, however, have to water it; and cows take a lot more water than a person. The situation was such that, without water, the king of Moab would win even without fighting. They desperately needed a lot of water for their mission against Moab to succeed.

2 Kings 3:11, 12 -  "And Jehoshaphat said, 'Is there not a prophet of the LORD here, through whom we may inquire of the LORD?' Then one of the king of Israel’s servants answered, 'Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who used to pour water on the hands of Elijah, (meaning that Elisha used to be Elijah's servant).' Jehoshaphat said, 'The word of the LORD is with him.' So Jehoram, the king of Israel; and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah; and the unnamed king of Edom went down to him."

Elisha was less than thrilled about helping Jehoram because, even though he was a little better than his parents had been and removed the stone pillar of Baal, he was still an unsavory fellow. But out of respect for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, Elisha agreed to seek the Lord. He called for a minstrel, and while the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha and he said, "Thus says the LORD, 'Make this valley full of trenches.' For the LORD says, 'You will not see wind or rain, but the wadi (a gully-size valley that typically has a stream that flows only during the rainy season) will be filled with water, and you will drink—you and your cattle and your animals.'"

I suppose you are beginning to think, 'What does this have to do with a runaway bride?' It is all about hearing and acting on the Word of the Lord.

The three armies were dehydrated, there was no sign of rain, and they were told to dig trenches in a dry gully. KatieLyn was anxious, she saw no sign of assurance, and God had told her Joe was to be her husband.

The armies dug the trenches, and in the morning, water filled the trenches. Out of sight, somewhere in the mountains of Edom, there had been a flash flood and the water had drained into the wilderness valley. The early morning sun lit the water, and to the enemy Moabites standing opposite, it looked like blood. They assumed, wrongly, that the alliance between the kings of Israel, Judah, and Edom had fallen apart and they'd all killed each other during the night.

You can read the full ending, if you wish, in 2 Kings 3. But the short story is that the Moabites made a really, really big miscalculation when they believed the blood was water, and it ended in tragedy for many.

KatieLyn was getting bad field intel from the enemy. The devil did not want her marriage to proceed. She based her decision on what things looked like at the moment, and not on the word that she had received from the Lord. It was a really, really big miscalculation.

Out of KatieLyn's sight, the Lord had a mountain-sized provision of refreshing water for her. If she had held on until the morning, she would have seen it and rejoiced. The devil had people telling her that she HAD to be 100% sure, which would not have been wrong if they had also said, "God does not lie, and He does not fail to fulfill His promise."  But that isn't how the enemy works. He had people telling her that she HAD to be 100% sure that the water would be there, and then they said, "Where is the wind? Where is the rain?"

For thus says the LORD, You shall not see wind nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, both you and your cattle and your beasts.

The Lesson
God normally tells people only what they need to know, especially if they have not previously cultivated a relationship with Him. All Jehoram was told was that he was to dig a lot of ditches and somehow, some way, they would be filled with drinking water. He did not know how the water would get there. He certainly had no clue that the enemy would look at the water and think it was evidence of bloodshed! God requires us to act on only the word that He has told us. We have to trust Him to take care of the details for us.

Smothering Mothering

In recent years, the term "helicopter parenting" has popped up to refer to parents who hover over everything their child does. In reality, it's more likely to be the mother than the dad that does this. A counter-term, "free-range kids," has been coined to refer to the philosophy of giving kids some space to figure things out on their own. Common sense indicates that there is a need for a happy balance, but judging by the runaway bride outcome, KatieLyn suffered from the former.

I looked for a study on how helicopter parenting might affect the adult child. The closest one that I found was done on undergrad college students. KatieLyn is five years older than the subjects who answered questionnaires in the study, which was conducted at the University of Mary Washington and published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies. The findings showed that children of helicopter parents felt less autonomy and were more likely to feel incompetent. The researchers then tested for levels of anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with life. They concluded that the findings of "not feeling autonomous" and "not feeling competent" in the first phase of the study were associated with increased levels of depression and lower life satisfaction found in the second phase.

That fits with what Joe's family and friends saw in KatieLyn. Her mom, Gwen, was projecting a message that said she didn't have very much faith in KatieLyn's ability to make good decisions. Gwen stuck her opinion into places where it didn't belong because she wanted to help. However, her so-called help ended up making KatieLyn so anxious that she lost all confidence in her life-long dream and answer to fifteen years of prayer.

This got me to wondering what the Bible might say about overprotective parenting. I found—

Exodus 30:14 Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the Lord's offering.  By twenty years of age, the Lord is treating persons as adults who are responsible for giving the Lord's offering, a duty of citizenship. While this offering did not apply to women, it does make a statement about the age at which full adult social responsibility is recognized. During the one day that I saw KatieLyn interact with her mother, Gwen was treating her like she was about 14, half her biological age. 

Luke 2:42, 43  And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast (of the Passover); and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it… This is an interesting insight in that as we read further, we find that when Jesus was 12, his parents went a full day's journey without worrying over his whereabouts. Sure, you can make excuses: times were different, he was a boy, etc., but the point is that his parents had begun loosening the reins and were giving him a fair amount of autonomy by this age.


2 Chronicles 22:3 He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor to do wickedly. This verse refers to Ahaziah, who was twenty-two years old when he became king. He reigned only one year in Jerusalem, and probably would have done better on his own.

Genesis 25 Rebekah, the mother of Isaac's twins, seemed to be fine with allowing Esau his space to go out on hunting trips, but it was a different story with his barely-younger brother Jacob. Her name means a 'tether for animals' or a 'noose.' The noosed cord of Rebekah had its loop firmly around Jacob as she manipulated his future and helped him deceive his father to secure the family blessing. Although she got what she wanted in the short term, family tensions got so hot that Jacob had to leave home.

Because Rebekah is not mentioned again, many Bible scholars presume that she died some time during the 14 years before Jacob could return, in which case, she never saw him again. It begs the question: Was it really worth it to interfere with the Lord's plan through such trickery? It had been prophesied even before birth that "the older shall serve the younger," so she needn't have gotten in God's way to try to force it. It would have happened anyway, and probably in a better way, without losing him and with a chance to enjoy some grandkids.

All the Women of the Bible (Zondervan, 1988) summarizes Rebekah's mothering: "Covetous of the sacred, patriarchal blessing for her favorite son, Rebekah felt she had to resort to duplicity to gain her ends, and in doing so she prostituted parental authority."  That is a good way to put it; she debased her parental authority for the money.

There is a place for parental oversight, but Rebekah was an over-the-top manipulator. Gwen may not have been quite as duplicitous as Rebekah, but she has been two-faced in her dealings with our family, and there is no doubt that she butted in on the life of her "of age" daughter, a daughter who was not being reckless, but who had been prayerfully seeking the Lord's will for years and had gotten her prayer answered.

The Lesson
This lesson from the runaway bride has been a sad one.  Jacob could have stood up to his mother. That was an option. But instead, his only real concern seemed to be that he might get caught, and he went along with her counsel. KatieLyn could have stood up to her mother. That was an option.  But instead she went along with her mom's fears until they became bigger than the Lord was in her life.

Hebrews Ten

Hebrews Chapter 10 begins with a 'refresher course' on Jesus' sacrifice that defeated the enemy. In regard to this blog, the enemy was attacking KatieLyn's answer to prayer for a husband; Jesus had defeated this enemy roughly 2000 years ago. The middle portion of the chapter speaks of having confidence and drawing near "with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith." Ideally, KatieLyn would have been exercising her faith in full assurance. Verse 23 encourages us to "hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." 

Hold Fast ≠ Run Away

 
Verse 26 of Hebrews 10 has a caution about sinning willfully after you have a knowledge of the truth, and the rest of the chapter paints a black or white picture of the need for endurance, contrasting it with shrinking back. I will copy selected verses from the English Standard Version here so that you don't have to go look it up:

32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, (…) 34 since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Now we will apply this passage to KatieLyn:

We recall the former days when, after KarieLyn had been enlightened about God's design for her marriage, she endured a hard struggle because her mother was finding fault and making demands about minutiae in God's plan. KarieLyn was suffering since this resulted in repeated fighting. And she hates fighting. And she loves her mother. So if the enemy could get her fighting with her mother, the enemy could win. But she knew that God had given her a better plan for her life, and she endured for a while, until she threw away her confidence in what she had heard from God. When she dropped her confidence, she also lost her reward and she is not happily married today. She had need of endurance to walk out the will of God in faith so that she could have received the promise of her answered prayers. God expected her to live by faith. But she shrank back, and He had no pleasure in that. God was not glorified by her running off in the middle of the night. Those who shrink back are destroyed. Those who have faith preserve their souls.

Notice that the outcome was dependent on her acting in faith. "Que Sera, Sera" is not God's theme song. When God gave man free choice, it eliminated the possibility that "Whatever Will Be, Will Be" is sound doctrine. We have a role in what will be. Acting in faith results in a positive outcome. Acting in fear, as well as prolonged failure to act, result in negative outcomes. Shrinking back and running away in the middle of the night were actions rooted in fear, not in faith.

A runaway bride is not being brave, she is being rash. A runaway bride who is running from the Lord's revealed will is not courageous, she is faint-hearted at best, and quite likely defiant in her rebellion. God has no pleasure in her behavior.

v38 but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
Synonyms for shrinks back are: give up, draws back, pull out, withdraw, forsake, quit.  Not one of those means the resolute endurance characteristic of faith.   

Six verses into the next chapter reads, "without faith, it is impossible to please Him." If KarieLyn had been acting in faith and diligently seeking the Lord, He would not have told her to run away in the middle of the night. He would have said, "Hold fast. Trust Me. I know what I am doing."

The Empowerment of KatieLyn

KatieLyn has some personality traits that are typical of her second-child birth order. I don't put a lot of stock in the pop-psychology birth-order articles that are found on many parenting websites, principally because, (a) too many take the 'horoscope approach' and try to use birth order as a way to predict future behaviors, (can we say self-fulfilling prophecy?) and (b) once past the broad generalizations, many articles make claims that simply do not match my experiences. Nevertheless, every child must find his or her own place in the family structure, and the order of his/her arrival does influence what he/she will have to deal with. Contingent upon the #1 child's personality, the #2 is often the opposite, a terror or a peacemaker. KatieLyn is a peacemaker. The No. 2 spot is also often the opposite of the firstborn socially; if the first has a lot of friends, the second child may have trouble latching on to a person in a relationship, and she may be content being a bit of a loner. Second-born children typically just go with the flow, but when the second-born is the same sex as the first, the competition may be rougher. Those generalities do seem to apply to KatieLyn.

For whatever reason— birth order, nurture, nature, or simple serendipity, KatieLyn doesn't like conflict and is self-sacrificing to avoid it. In other words, she gives in a lot. From time to time, she would tell Joe about things where she gave in, things her parents talked her out of— some were major, like sharing an apartment with other girls and the model of car she considered, and others were mundane, like lunch menu choices. The thing is, when you are 28 years old, paying rent to share a bedroom with your kid sister who is still in high school, and are doing more than your fair share of the housekeeping chores to keep your mother happy, your empowerment meter is probably going to hover in the single digits, if it bumps above zero at all. True to the paradigm, KatieLyn had low self-esteem.

For Joe, her self-image was one of the "complications" in the relationship. He never saw it as a problem that the Lord could not handle, but her wobbly self-confidence was sometimes a challenge to navigate. It was a tightrope walk for him, actually. On one side was the ditch of becoming a chronic proper-upper and cheerleader (and he certainly did not want a wife who needed babying like that), and on the other side was the ditch of taking over too much (and he certainly did not want to smother her the way that her mom was used to doing).

Joe's family and friends sensed KatieLyn's less-than-optimal level of self-esteem, but she would put on a cheery face and joke about herself, so we all thought and believed that marriage was part of the Lord's plan to remedy this. Marriage would give her space to blossom into a confident, more poised woman. It would unquestionably provide a better balanced environment for seeking the Lord. And even though marriage could never cure the codependency with her mother, marriage could at least give KatieLyn enough distance that her mother would lose the home court advantage.

Taking all that into consideration, I have often wondered if KatieLyn's grandstand move in calling off the wedding wasn't based in her just being totally fed up with trying to please everyone. I know it is pretty much a one-shot deal, but wow! Look at all the power she wielded in that one decision! She would have experienced a power that she had never felt in such magnitude before. She had hundreds of people talking about her action as they changed their weekend plans. She had dozens of people offering her comfort, telling her how brave she was and reciting mindless platitudes about "doing the right thing." Of course, the people who told her that probably did not know that she was running wildly outside the will of God for her life. But still, it would have felt really empowering; at least for a little while. The demons of doubt would stop bothering her now that she'd chucked God's plan for her. With them standing down, she would get, not a true peace, but at least a tremendous release from stress—that makes a pretty good substitute as long as she kept busy.

But becoming a runaway bride wasn't an empowerment that came from the Lord. It did not produce good fruit of love, joy, real peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And it did not move her ahead in the way that the Lord moves people. She regressed backward; backward is the direction that the enemy moves people. She went back to a place that had stifled her spiritual and emotional growth throughout most of her adult life. She returned to a place where she was being suffocated in the sweet molasses of codependency.

KatieLyn's godly place of power and authority is that of wife. In KatieLyn's makom (her right place) of influence and self-actualization, she would live as a spiritual co-equal with her husband. Marriage is the place where God would empower her to fulfill His call on her life. She has known this since she was little. If she has not hardened her heart to it, she knows it still.

I began this post by looking at how KatieLyn's second daughter birth order may have contributed to her lack of confidence. While decision-making is problematic for most people, especially when the decision is as big as one regarding marriage, second-born children often have more trouble making decisions than first- or last-born persons. The Bible offers some practical advice for this. In his commentary for Psalm 77:11, where Asaph writes of remembering the deeds of the Lord as a means of overcoming distressful events. Matthew Henry commented, "The remembrance of the works of God, will be a powerful remedy against distrust of his promise and goodness; for he is God, and changes not." The answer is faith, and when more faith is needed, it helps to remember what God has done in the past.

But she was in a bad place where she was not being coached to look at how the Lord had answered her prayer. She was not being instructed to go back to the last time that she was really sure that she had heard God and consider what He had said then.  She had never been trained to "destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5  Nor was she being encouraged to step out in the faith that pleases God.

Yet these are the very actions that do empower a believer: remembering the answered prayer, recalling His voice, considering His ways, standing against those that oppose, and obediently walking in faith of that knowledge.  This is what every child of God should do, no matter his birth-order.

The Lesson
God desired to empower KatieLyn by giving her a place of strength, the role of wife and mistress of her own household. Birth-order would lose significance as she could potentially be the one who gives birth. This is a place of virtuous power.  Instead, she chose the short-lived thrill of destructive power and ended back worse than where she began because now she has a failed relationship that she created at her own hand. 

Back to the Trailhead

Back to the Trailhead

If you haven't read "The demon at the trailhead" on the 9/11 blog post yet, please do that now. It tells the story of when I was warned that a demon was going to try to mess up the approaching marriage.

It is not surprising that the devil would attempt to thwart a Christian marriage before it could take place. I had been trying to stay sensitive to that within my own sphere of authority for weeks, and I am content that I had not given the devil a foothold. (cf "Giving the Devil a Foothold" 08/13/15). I say 'my own sphere of authority' because my son Joe, the run-from groom, has been self-supporting for over a decade and I'm not trying to run his, or anyone else's lives. But that afternoon, when I was meeting KatieLyn's parents for the first time, I became aware that a foul spirit was lurking at the edge of the woods. Its mission was to create jealousy that would give it access to KatieLyn's mother, Gwen. If it could do that, it could later use subterfuge to put thoughts in her mind that could destroy the engagement. All it had to do was persuade Gwen that there were "legitimate concerns."

I put the term "legitimate concerns" in quotation marks because from my perspective, they were spurious concerns. I think Gwen would sincerely disagree; she thinks that she is truly protecting KatieLyn. I am also pretty sure that Gwen's knowledge of what was going on in the spirit realm was nominal at best (based on what she was saying). Also, (guessing here, but) if she followed the training of he husband, many Catholics believe that they received the Holy Spirit once at Confirmation, and that act protects them from future demonic influence. If that is what Gwen believed, it would explain her curtness.  But 1 Peter 5:8 teaches that 'the adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.' This is ongoing and requires constant vigilance. And that afternoon, he was looking for a way to devour the nuptials.

Remember that the warning I had received the top of the trail was about a spirit of envy. I perceived that if I looked too chummy with KatieLyn at this point, the demon could succeed in causing Gwen to feel anxiety over losing her daughter. The demon was attempting to make Gwen jealous that KatieLyn would be moving out of her house, across state lines, and become my neighbor. And perhaps at a darker level, (no solid proof, but by innuendo,) I think Gwen's feelings went beyond those of the average empty-nester because her actions were overly possessive. For example, some of her comments about Joe's house sounded as if she would be the one living there.

James 3:16 ~ For where jealousy and self-interest exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

James 3:16 is a spot-on description of the destruction of Joe's and KatieLyn's engagement. Let's do some word studies so you can see how this works out:

Young's, one of the literal translations, translates the 'self-interest' part as rivalry, the King James uses strife, the Douay-Rheims says contention, and the New English Bible goes with ambition.

Synonyms for the word 'disorder,' above, are confusion in the King James, inconstancy in Douay-Rheims, unrest in Weymouth, insurrection in Young's, and chaos in the Aramaic Bible in Plain English.


It certainly seemed that Gwen's jealousy and self-interest followed the road map for that verse. Most of what I know I found out later, unfortunately. I wasn't thinking much about the spiritual warfare that was being conducted against Gwen. In looking back, it seems that Gwen was envious of her daughter in other regards too. Gwen was pregnant when she got married and reportedly experienced substantial financial struggle during that time. One would think that a mother would be happy that her daughter had avoided starting a marriage with that lifestyle, but it seemed to make Gwen over protective and possessive instead.

If there is one thing you can say about demons, they are persistent. The strife and contention in the arguments KatieLyn was having with her mother began in earnest at that point. This propelled them straight into the "disorder and every evil thing" part of the verse.

Understand that demonic spirits like to travel in packs. Jesus taught this in Matthew 12:45, and Luke 11:26, when he told how an evil spirit goes out and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself whenever it finds a suitable place. More evidence that unclean spirits congregate together is found in the case where Jesus cast them out of the man who roamed the tombs of Gadara. There were so many that they went by the group name of Legion. I want to be very clear at this point that, although I am talking about evil spirits, I am not saying that this was a case of demonic possession like the Demoniac of Gadara experienced. That example was used solely to show that evil spirits gather together.

What had begun with a spirit of envy had now expanded into additional demonic influence. Gwen was having "misgivings." A spirit of confusion had joined up with envy. And Gwen was pushing her confusion, inconstancy, and unrest onto KatieLyn.  The feelings and the emotions she was experiencing as a result of dwelling on these demonic suggestions became much stronger and gained the appearance of being more real than what the Lord had said.

The Lord had set up this union and had made it clear to both KatieLyn and Joe that this was His will. God expects His children to respond in faith, "fully assured that what He had promised, He is also able to do." Romans 4:21  That didn't happen. The fights that Gwen had provoked with her daughter had caused KatieLyn to have serious doubts that God was able. 
 
An evil spirit does not have to possess a person to cause destruction; it only has to deceive him/her into believing a lie. Demons have the power to pop an idea into a person's head. At that point, the person can reject it as a lie, ignore it until later, or entertain the thought until it moves from the head, through the emotions, and into the heart. If a person accepts one lie this way, he becomes more susceptible to the next one. Demons get people to accept the false perceptions and apparent realities as true, and the person is often bolstered by another false belief—that it was his own insight and intellect that enabled him to "see the truth."

In addition to James 3:16 explaining what happened, it also provides a timeline sequence. I want my readers to understand this pattern because it will help them understand why it is so important to resist jealousy in its earliest stages. Jealousy was the thing that did Cain in, and you will recall that resulted in the first human murder when he killed his own brother! On the day that Cain and Able brought their sacrifices to the Lord, Cain became jealous that Able had a good heart toward the Lord. Don't get distracted by tradition-based teaching about the physical shedding of blood being the difference between the offerings; no, the difference that really mattered to God was the condition of the heart of the giver, and Cain's heart was into his own self-interest.

For where jealousy and self-interest exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

There is no doubt that Gwen loves her daughter, KatieLyn, deeply. She does. But it is also clear that the normal season during which a parent would release her child into God's hands and into the adult world had passed. It was to Gwen's own self-interest that KatieLyn remain in her home. But, unlike the elder sister who took charge of her own life, KatieLyn allowed her mother to define her reality.

That Saturday in March was to have been a joyful day, a day when the two families met to celebrate a union that the Lord was in the midst of putting together.  I traced the timeline and looked at things Gwen said before that day, comparing them to the arguments with her daughter that began in earnest at that point, and then to the nonsensical things Gwen said after KatieLyn ran back home. Instead of a day that strengthened Gwen's faith, it was a day that the bride's family chose to doubt God.

This is so typical of how the Enemy of Faith works! If the devil could not get to KatieLyn directly, then he was going to go through a person she loves and respects: her mother. The devil could get her to yield to fear through her mother. Their codependency was the ideal weakness to exploit. She would have felt guilty and ashamed if she did not respect the words of her mother; she reasoned that if her mother was scared, then shouldn't she be scared too? So KatieLyn yielded to thoughts and fears that were not from God. She gave in to arguments instead of trusting in the Lord. KatieLyn allowed herself to dwell on ungodly ideas until they grew larger than her faith.

It would have required an incredible amount of strength for KatieLyn to stand up to her mother, more than she had ever been "allowed" to exercise on her own. She needed to have her anchor in God, and she did to an extent, but that anchor wasn't as heavy as her mother's pull on her.  In the end, there was something KatieLyn loved more than God, but it wasn't Joe like she claimed and blamed; it was her mother.

And that is the reason that the demon at the trailhead was lying in wait for KatieLyn's mother. That is the reason that it did not try to work through one of KatieLyn's friends, as might have happened if the codependency did not exist.  The demon at the trailhead chose to go for the person who was most likely to walk by sight and by circumstances. The demon at the trailhead chose to work on the person most likely to give in to doubt and misgivings.

The Lesson
Most of the time, the loss of faith is progressive.  When Solomon said that the little foxes spoil the vine while the vineyards are in blossom (Song of Solomon 2:15), he was speaking a wise truth. The pattern of progression in this instance is clear. It began with a small thought of envy. It progressed to discomfort, and then proceeded to doubt. The blossoms were so beautiful and fragrant that the fox was never seen as a predator. Each step gave more place to the devil until he was able to trample the God-given dream.

More about the Place

In the last post, I used the example of Elijah being in "the place" by the brook Cherith where the Lord hid him and had ravens provide an odd sort of room-service. But this was not the only "place." Elijah had a series of "the places" to be. His next makom was with a widow in Zarephath, and after that he was sent to Mount Carmel where his epic showdown with the priests of Baal took place and his prayer broke the drought. But "the place" where the Lord sent him next just might have been the most interesting of all, and he wasn't the first person to meet with Jehovah there. What made this "place" special was that it was a place where the Glory passed by.  

And the LORD said, “Behold, a place (makom) by me where you shall stand on the rock.

Exodus 33:21

This verse refers to the place where God would meet Moses. God put him in the cleft of a rock and when God's Glory passed by, Moses saw a vision of the hereafter.¹ The scripture is not super-specific at this point, but this crevice in the rock was in the area of Mount Horeb.

Fast-forward to 1 Kings 19: 8, 9a

And he (Elijah) arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. There he came to a cave and lodged in it.

Same mountain range. Same fissure in the rock. Same place that God's Glory had been shown to Moses about six centuries earlier.

And God asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Elijah comes up with a fear-filled answer about how all the prophets are getting killed off and that people are seeking his life too. God, who is a God of Faith, considers this to be a rather lame answer and decides that Elijah needs to see the bigger picture. He tells Elijah to go to the mouth of the cave.
Read about it in verses 11 and 13.  

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, (…) And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

It was in this place, while literally and spiritually standing on solid rock, that Elijah heard the voice of the Lord as a thin whisper. There had been a tempest of wind, the boulder-splitting noise of a quaking earth, and the roar of a raging fire. Each and every one of these would drown out a still small voice.

Elijah did not know what God's next assignment was when he first went into the rock cavity on Mount Horeb, but there he learned that there was more for him to do before God would send the chariot of fire to take him to the next makom in the heavens. It was only when he came to the right "place" that he learned that he still had to anoint the next kings of Syria and Israel and anoint Elisha to be a prophet after him.

KatieLyn, like all of us, needs to be in a place by God where she will stand on solid rock and hear the Lord. Living in a house where she is/was hearing the doubts and concerns of her mother is/was not that place. Her mother was speaking a windstorm, voicing an earthquake, and talking up a firestorm. For someone like KatieLyn who was already struggling with issues of codependency, it would be doubly difficult to ignore the voice of her mother and listen to the gentle whispering of the Spirit.

The Lesson
The lesson from the runaway bride is that it is imperative that you get yourself to the place where you can hear the Lord. Don't shrug it off and think that God can talk to you anywhere. Yes, He can talk to you anywhere, but you have to be in position to hear Him when he isn't talking in thunderclaps. 


¹ hereafter - אָחוֹר  'achowr in the Hebrew, and translated as "back parts" in the KJV, can also mean hereafter and afterwards.  In Isaiah 42:23 it is translated as time to come.

Rationalizations of the Adversary

Today I am going to do something a little different, sort of play a devil's advocate in reverse.  The bullet points list common ways that the Adversary of Holy Matrimony dupes some women into rationalizing their singlehood.  My answers are geared toward the wedding that KatieLyn ran away from. Every couple is different, so don't get touchy when I'm not talking about you!
The devil hates a godly marriage and he has a lot of phony excuses to keep women from fulfilling their roles as wives.

  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦

• If God wanted a man in my life at this time, he'd be here now.
    No, not if God already sent you one and you ran away from him.  Not if you won't talk to the man but set up this crazy dysfunctional "filter all communication through my mommy" manipulation. God does not do everything He wants.  There are blessings that God wants to give his children, but it could be that God cannot trust you to care for them properly.

• God has something else for me now.
    Maybe. But if so, it is not because God changed His mind; it would be because you ran off in rebellion and your heart is now too hardened to return. God had planned for the Israelites to enter the promised land the same year they left Egypt, but they got "something else." Their "something else" of forty years wandering in the desert resulted from their actions, not God's. I would not consider their "something else" to be an upgrade.

• When God wants me to have a husband, He'll send one.
     Not necessarily... Again, God does not do everything He wants. You have a role too. God won't give a husband to someone who is unprepared to receive one, and if you are not seeking, you might fail to recognize who God sent you! The promise of finding was made to the seeker, not to the sit-by-and-waiter. God responds to faith; the faith is our part of the equation. God will fill in the grace side of the equation when we are doing our faith part.  2 Peter 1:10 says, "Therefore, brothers, make every effort to confirm your calling and election, because if you do these things you will never stumble." If you haven't made the effort, or if you give up half-way through, don't expect a reward.  God rewards those who earnestly seek Him in faith. cf Hebrews 11:6

• The only opinion that truly matters is God's.
     That sounds all nice and pious. But you have to trust His "opinion" when you hear it. The Pharisees invalidated God's "opinion." cf Mark 7:13  Remember, you started doubting God's "opinion." God's "opinion" is this: 'I did not give you the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love.'  So why did you react in fear and not walk in the power of love? God's command in Mathew 24:6 is this: 'See to it that you are not troubled.' But did you obey that command? No. If God's "opinion" really mattered to KatieLyn, then she would have respected it.  (And 'opinion' is a poor word choice when referring to an omniscient God.)

• If I am focused only on God, nothing else matters.
     No, that is just close enough to truth to be dangerous. Where is the Bible verse that supports that? Faith matters. Obedience matters too. Try this verse: Matthew 6:33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." See? That is different. First, you are supposed to seek the kingdom, i.e. God's active rule over His creation. So, when God told KatieLyn to marry Joe as part of God's hands-on reigning… just sayin' … Yeah, well, her journey into unrighteous doubting wasn't exactly "focusing only on what He'd already told her." The claim that when she focused on God, that is when doubts came is nonsensical. God does not lead by doubts. The enemy leads by doubts. When you focus on doubt, you're not focused on God.

• Everything happens according to His will.
     Girl, what planet are you living on? Not Earth! Where is your Bible verse that supports that? Try this one: Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Do you want to say that happens according to His will? Maybe you are confusing this "everything" circumstance with the verses about the Spirit interceding for us. "He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God, and we know that God works together all things for good to those who love God." Romans 8:27, 28. When they added the verse numbers to scripture, they split this verse in the middle. In the original Greek, it is easier to see that the "all things" that "work together" are all the things that the Spirit is interceding for. You will not find a Bible verse that says "everything happens" according to the will of God.  All things in the Spirit's intercession work together according to the will of God. If you think everything happens according to His will, you don't know God's will at all. IT WAS NOT GOD'S WILL FOR JOE TO BE ABANDONED BY A FEARFUL AND FAITHLESS BRIDE, BUT IT HAPPENED.  Stop telling faerie fables!

• Having a husband won't matter if I'm finding my worth in Jesus. 
     Maybe. But that makes it pretty tough to follow the command to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it," Genesis 1:28  Most people who say that "it doesn't matter" do so with a false bravado. There is a good reason that the Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone," Genesis 3:18 and, "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor." Ecclesiastes 4:9  The fact is, most people are not called to be single. And any honest evaluation of KatieLyn's history points to God having spent years preparing her to be a good wife. Having a husband does matter when she is casting aside her faith and running away from God's will for her to have one.  
(As an aside, it would be good if KatieLyn seeks her worth in Jesus; she does need to learn a bit more fully that she is complete in Him and does not need a husband to make her whole.  Self-worth is something that, ideally, a parent would have begun to teach his child before the age of puberty and for which "advanced learning" is revealed by the Spirit of God.) The point here is that BOTH CAN MATTER; the one does not exclude the other. It would be wrong to use one's worth in Jesus as an excuse to ignore His will.)

• I'm happy being single.
     Of course, I will not argue that. Hebrews 11:25 readily agrees that there is a fleeting enjoyment of sin, but this issue is more than being "happy" with a sin like getting high on drugs. At stake is more than even settling for being "happy" with coffee creamer in the powdered packets when the Lord has provided fresh heavy whipping cream only one step of faith further on.  Happiness is a poor unit of measure when counted against the cost of following the Lord. Do you think Jesus was "happy" sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane? When you are out of God's will, any happiness is short-lived, and it is never a substitute for joy.

• I need to shop around.
     The devil is really good at dressing up this excuse to sound like wisdom. It is a devilish deception. For someone who has been standing with patience for years, and for whom the Lord has answered her prayer point by point by bringing her a husband, to then turn on God's answer and scoff, "Well, I shouldn't just accept the first guy who asked! I need to shop around a bit," is not only foolish, but is incredibly insulting to the God Who Answers Prayer! Say that at your own peril! The devil will be gleeful indeed if he can use this excuse to lure you into experimenting with a series of men who God never intended to be yours.  God does not answer prayer with a couple of false starts so that you can shop around a bit! 

• I am at peace with being single.
     Peace is not the same as being stress-free. It is fairly easy to be a stress-free single person when you are accountable to no one but yourself. If you have true peace, then you will not be restless. There is a story about an artist who was commissioned to paint a picture of peace. His masterpiece showed a rocky cliff on a stormy night. Tempestuous winds were raging. The sea was roiling. Waves were crashing. But in the rock face, just above the sea spray, a bird sat on her nest, head tucked under her wing, at complete peace in the midst of turmoil. The bird knew its place, its purpose, and its mission. That is what it takes to have peace. You have to be in the place where you can fulfill your purpose.  You do not have to, (and it is impossible to) talk yourself into a Godly peace.
      

The Place

You've probably heard the expression about being in the right place at the right time—it is possible to limit God when you are not in the right place. That sounds strange to some people because it is pretty common to be told as kids that God can do anything. Nevertheless, when God brought the Israelites into the land, he designated Mount Gerizim as the place of the blessings, and Mount Ebal as the place of the curses. Moses had given God's law to the people by this time, and they were given a choice: a blessing would come if they obey the call, the curse would fall for disobedience.

The Hebrew word for "The Place" is transliterated into English as either "maqowm" or "makom." It is a place, a locality, a spot. The word occurs over 400 times in scripture, creating dozens of examples where it was critical that someone be in the right place to hear or to receive from God. Sometimes it was a place of provision, sometimes a place of protection; always, it was the place where God would meet them.

A few examples:

Abraham Genesis 12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; Compared with Hebrews 11:8  By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. He would not have received if he had stayed.

Elijah 1 Kings 17:2-4 The word of the LORD came to Elijah, saying, "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. It shall be that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there." He would not have been protected if he did not go.

Jacob Genesis 28:11, 12 He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. His revelation would not have occurred elsewhere.

Jesus' family Matthew 2:13, 14 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him. So Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son." We see the importance of immediate obedience.

Abraham had to be in place to receive his inheritance, Elijah would have either starved or been hunted down and murdered in another spot, Jacob dreamed of the inter-dimensional portal on location, and Jesus' family had to be in the right place, not only for safety, but to fulfill prophecy.

I am pretty well convinced that KatieLyn, our runaway bride, ran not only away from her wedding, but more tragically, away from her makom, away from the place where her life really could have made a difference, the place where she could have blossomed, the place where God planned for her to reach her full potential. A home with Joe would have been a place with a balance of freedom and support to reach personal fulfillment, to mature from daughterhood into becoming a wife.

Remember that KatieLyn is a 29 year-old woman who is living with her parents, younger sisters, and brother. It is not like her parents are invalids and need her there to nurse them or see to their affairs. In my view, the four-hour distance from her parents that she would have had in married life was also part of God's provision for her. Close enough that it was still drivable, she would not have to miss any truly important family occasions; yet it was a safe distance from being chronically burdened with her mother's controlling comments, meddling opinions and judgmental attitude.

I don't see KatieLyn freely thriving as long as she is living with her parents. The family dynamic, the codependency is too strong. There have been too many indications that her mom does not fully trust her to make the big decisions, and that is unlikely to change.

There is "The Place" to connect with God, a place to hear Him without distraction, a place of blessing, of comfort, of protection. For young children, the place is almost always the family. But as we mature spiritually, the Lord will lead us to a new place. He refreshes our soul as He leads us in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. cf Psalm 23:3

For His name's sake… His name does not get its proper glory when we refuse to travel the path of righteousness to our Mount Gerizim, our place of blessing. We don't want to flee from the place the Lord would meet us, only to find ourselves outside of God's will on Mount Ebal.

All the characters in these examples, along with practically every other champion in the Bible, acted in faith to be in the right place at the right time. Each one had to trust the leading of the Spirit of God. If they had reacted in fear, they'd have missed God. Their acts of faith opened the door for God to meet the need. 

Psalm Seventy-Eight

Four months before Joe met KatieLyn, it had become apparent that the timing was ripe to step up in prayer for his future. God was ready to move Joe into a new season of life: finding a wife. So when he did meet her, it was natural to look for confirmation, to look for what was right. And over the next six months, there was plenty to find that was right, far too many thing to list here. I doubt that I could even remember them all. Almost daily there was another new delight. But the Biggie, and the one that Joe tends to return to is "The List."

"The List" is a list, written by KatieLyn before she met Joe, of things that she was looking and praying for in a husband. There were 15 specific items on her "must have in a husband list", and another 10 that were on a "nice to have" list.
I realize that a few free-spirited readers will see this and think, 'now that's a bit obsessive/compulsive,' but I understand her list-making tendency, and more importantly, Joe was able to appreciate the forethought that went into it. Being overly impulsive in love is not his nature either. Joe met all 25 points on KatieLyn's list.

Since we'd spent months looking for confirmation of God's will and were repeatedly seeing how things were going right, we were stunned when KatieLyn ran off in the middle of the night. From my perspective, I knew her mother had claimed to be for the marriage originally, then seemed to get fretful when she'd realized that, in her words, she was "losing" KatieLyn, but she had appeared to come back around in the past few days. I did not know the extent to which the mother's fears had undermined KatieLyn's faith. I did not know that KatieLyn had started focusing on what might, perhaps, maybe, possibly go wrong.

But when KatieLyn turned into a faithless runaway bride, I certainly asked God, "What Went Wrong?" He eventually led me to Psalm 78.

Mark my teaching, Oh my people,
Listen to the words I am to speak.
I will tell you a story with meaning,
I will expound the riddle of things past,
Things that we have heard and know… (v 1-3)

Psalm 78 turns out to be an in-depth explanation of how God's people ran amuck, got out of His will, and rebelled against His plan for their lives. Even though it tells the story through events that happened in the ancient past, the underlying principles are applicable and explain where KatieLyn went wrong. Big Hint: She did NOT go wrong by loving the idea of marriage more than she loved Joe. As you will see, she went wrong by not trusting God.

He charged them to put their trust in God
to hold His great acts ever in mind,
and to keep all His commandments; not to do as their fathers did,
a disobedient and rebellious race,
a generation with no firm purpose,
with hearts not fixed steadfastly on God.  (v. 7, 8)

God expected KatieLyn to trust Him. He had answered all 25 points in her prayers, and she ought to have kept that in her mind. I don't know about KatieLyn's father, but her mother's heart was not "fixed steadfastly." Her mother's heart was wandering here and there with misgivings from worldly thoughts. She was fretting over dog hair, for crying out loud!  When you are more concerned about your child coming in contact with dog fur than you are about whether or not she is obeying God's call on her life, then you have a problem. 

They forgot all that He had done
And the wonderful acts which He had shown them. (v. 11)

This concept is repeated over and over in Psalm 78. I would encourage my readers to go look it up and read the psalm in its entirety in the version of your choice. Whether you use a literal translation or a contemporary language paraphrase, they all make the point that God's people forgot what He had already shown them.

But they sinned against Him yet again,
in the desert they defied the Most High
they tried God's patience willfully,
demanding food to satisfy their hunger.
They vented their grievance against God and said,
"Can God spread a table in the wilderness?"  (v. 17-19)

Joe never thought of the engagement as a desert, (me neither!) but I will concede that this was foreign territory for KatieLyn's family. I will grant them a bit of grace on that point, nevertheless, they actively and willfully chose to keep questioning God even after He had told them what His plan was. Metaphorically, KatieLyn and her mother were demanding to see that food on the table. The mother first, and then eventually KatieLyn herself, had complaints about God's faithfulness to satisfy them. 

When He heard this, the Lord was filled with fury,
fire raged against Jacob,
anger blazed up against Israel,
because they put no trust in God
and had no faith in His power to save.  (v. 21, 22)

God was furious at this lack of trust. The next stanza in this psalm tells of how, even though they were faithless, God was faithful. They'd been fussing in fear over not having their needs met, but God gave them "the grain of heaven" and "the bread of angels." (v. 24) He sent them food to their heart's desire. But…

Yet they did not abandon their complaints
even while the food was in their mouths.
Then the anger of God blazed up against them… (v. 30, 31)
In spite of all, they persisted in their sin
And had not faith in His wonderful acts. (v. 32)

The "sin" was being faithless. The faithlessness manifest as complaining. At this point, God begins allowing some of the men to die. The next run of verses in this psalm tell how when they were being struck, they began to seek God. In verse 36 they are making all sorts of promises in impressive language, but verse 37 reveals that they did not keep them, "they were not loyal to Him in their hearts."

How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness
and grieved Him in the desert! (v. 40)

Two things need pointed out here.  First, only those who truly love can truly grieve. It is a proportional thing. If you don't love, then you won't care. But, there can be a fake grief too. That happens when there is a fake love. The person will start out "feeling bad," but over time can rationalize it by saying, "It was all for the best." They have no lasting remorse that they feel a need to repent for.
God really loved His people. They really hurt Him. He was really grieved. God never went on to say, "This was all for the best. Their faithlessness was My plan after all so that I could teach them!" He never said, "They only thought they knew My plan, but actually I wanted to show them that they didn't really hear me after all."

Secondly, even though God continued to send "food" and bless them, they were running out of reset buttons. There is a limit on how much grief God will take, and there is a time limit that will someday run out. People began dying. God's master plan had to be transferred to the next generation. The pattern continued, and it was still going on sixteen verses later.

Yet they tried God's patience and rebelled against Him;
they did not keep the commands of the Most High;
they were renegades like their fathers;
they changed, went slack like a bow. ( v. 56, 57)

KatieLyn told Joe that one of her big fears was that she would become like her parents. Joe was seeing her fear play out up close and personal.  KatieLyn had become like her mother, full of doubt, questioning what God had told her to do. She went slack like a bow, not able to to release her faith.

The psalm continues for another fifteen verses. God rejects the people because of their faithlessness, and it gets really rough. On through the generations the pattern is repeated. Eventually, we see that God so despised the clan of Joseph for their chronic lack of trust that He did not choose to go through his descendant Ephraim, but would choose the tribe of Judah to bring forth the Messiah instead.

Anyone who says, "Well, see there! It all worked out in the end. That is how we got King David from the tribe of Judah!" is woefully missing the point. Yes, it will "work out in the end" because this is God watching over His plan. But the players are interchangeable if and when they refuse to walk in faith. We see this in the life of Esther too, when Mordecai warns he that if she does not step up and act in faith now, "relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish." Esther 4:14

Psalm 78 does end on an upbeat note. God did find someone who had "singleness of heart," who would not wibble-wobble with misgivings and no faith. But failure to trust God resulted in a tremendous amount of loss, in battlefield defeats, and in forfeiture of blessings before that happened.

My next post will look further into how acting in faith can put one in the right place at the right time, but for now, let's review —  

The Lesson
God will bring His master Plan to pass one way or another. However, the players are interchangeable. If they refuse to trust, if they cannot walk by faith, then God will go and look for someone who can. The victory is not yours to earn; for the victory is won by the Lord. But the victory is yours to lose if you choose not to hang on to God in faith. 

The demon at the trailhead

I have been reluctant to tell this story because, quite frankly, many church-goers have been conditioned to pooh-poo the realm of the adversarial supernatural. Such persons are quick to take on a dismissive attitude. That does not keep demons from being real, however.  There are dimensions beyond the space-mass-time physicality of Planet Earth, and they are inhabited. Jesus never wasted time trying to prove the existence of demons; He told them to shut up and He cast them out.

The Apostle Paul warned Timothy (1 Tim 4:1) that some would give heed to foul spirits and the teachings of devils.  Whether you call them spirits of error, seducing spirits, deceiving spirits, or use the generic term demons, the specific classification does not matter too much to my objective here; only realize they are real and operate with the purpose of opposing God. 

On the day that KatieLyn's parents came to meet us and "tour" Joe's house, the Holy Spirit warned me of a demonic presence that wanted to use jealousy as a means of attacking Gwen. Here is how it happened:

We own several acres, over half of which is wooded. I've made a trail that rises, falls, and curves around enough that it is roughly a third of a mile long. It is great for low-impact exercise, walking the dog, and just stepping out to take a nature break. KatieLyn's family was interested in seeing where Joe had grown up, so he took them for a walk there. As they were returning, I waited for them at the top of the trail, and because I had not had an opportunity to talk to KatieLyn one-on-one yet, I went over to her to begin a conversation.

Immediately, the Holy Spirit cautioned me to back off. I perceived that there was a malevolent spirit around that was attempting to plant a jealous thought in Gwen's mind. The best that I can describe it in the world's terms would be that I could 'feel Gwen's eyes on the back of my head.' The demon was whispering to her, attempting to plant a jealous thought that after the marriage, I would still have my son nearby, while she'd be four hours away from her daughter. So I backed off. It sort of surprised me at the time that the Holy Spirit's impression that I should to stop talking to KatieLyn was so strong. There had been no talk or body language cue from Gwen, anyone who was not "tuned in" to what the Spirit of God was telling me would never have noticed a thing. Perhaps God's speech to Cain in Genesis 4:7 makes the more accurate description of what happened at the trailhead—a demon was "crouching at the door," and its desire was for Gwen to turn jealous.

When I look back at how things changed after that, I think when I backed off, Gwen was able to master it for the moment. But like all demons, after a while it came back and tried again.

The foul spirit certainly had a lot to work with. For several reasons, most related to logistics and costs, KatieLyn and Joe had decided to have the wedding here, in his hometown, instead of the town where her family had lived for the past two years. I'm sure that Gwen could see the logic of having twice the wedding at half the expense by planning it for the groom's location, but I don't think the "good reasoning" ever meshed with her "emotional loss," and the demon succeeded in exploiting her feelings of being deprived of overseeing every detail of the wedding. Putting the facts on the table here, the bride's family had said they could budget $1,000 for their daughter's wedding, and they had already spent $100 of that on the luncheon that day. 

And it wasn't only the wedding. The church here threw KatieLyn a well-attended bridal shower with a darling country garden theme. Her mother was invited, but did not attend. I am not aware of any shower being held in the town where KatieLyn lives with her parents. It would be not great stretch for a demon to suggest to Gwen that she is being left out of Joe's world. Of course, if that happened, it would be a twist of the truth; no one was slighting her on purpose. But once she was intentionally looking for trouble, the demons were there to accommodate her hunt. Maybe we should have asked KatieLyn to take one of the centerpieces back to her mom as a consolation prize; that would have been a nice gesture, but I didn't think of it until just now.  And if KatieLyn had thought of it, she never asked.

Satan is a destroyer. He wanted to destroy this engagement before it could become a strong Christian marriage. And he did.

At least we did not hand it over to him in one easy step, but it is clear to me how he worked his way in. He got Gwen to look for problems, deceiving her into believing that she was being wise and perceptive. Then, as the controller in a codependent relationship, she systematically destroyed KatieLyn's faith that the marriage could be successful.

What is doubly tragic from Joe's and my perspective, is that it now appears that what had been a borderline-serious codependency had now plunged into a full fledged mental health problem with the addition of the devilish triangulation of communication. Once the business issues of cancelling the wedding were completed, we could not be a part of of that diabolical control scheme. (Triangulation was covered more fully in earlier posts.)  Not only could Joe not hear from KatieLyn, she would not be able to know that he still wanted to fight for her because he so strongly believed that this marriage was the will of God. So deep was Gwen's control over all contact with KatieLyn that Gwen was even flaunting the fact that she'd read all the emails between KatieLyn and me.  (I'm not sure what she hoped to accomplish by revealing that—I'm not good with mind games.)

This video link to Joyce Meyer's Enjoying Everyday Life is a teaching about how the devil makes a battlefield of your mind so that you will destroy your own life. A lot of this relates to what KatieLyn was experiencing. The video talks about the dangers of being led by emotions instead of being led by the Word of the Lord.  Ironically, my chief confirmation that this message was right on target came as a result of Gwen reading my email to KatieLyn!  Gwen shot back, "Katie isn't listening to devils!"  Oh, the terrible deception... KatieLyn wasn't listening directly to the demon because her mother was triangulating for it.

UPDATE: I have heard some jealous-sounding feedback on my choice to link to Joyce Meyer. My response is this:  When God uses you to help and heal as many women as He has used her to help, then and only then will I listen to your whining about how she spends her money. If she had written romance novels, no one would be carping about it. It is a good, biblically sound message that I linked.

Silly Excuse #3

 Don't waste your time looking for posts titled "Silly Excuse #1" or "Silly Excuse #2." They do not exist. That is, those titles do not exist here at Lessons from a Runaway Bride; the excuses, unfortunately, do exist. They were covered in earlier posts, but I never used a numbering system until now. Allow me to rectify that:
 

Silly excuse #1 - Said by KatieLyn, "I was putting Joe ahead of Jesus." To which I pointed out that the appropriate solution is to re-sort one's priorities so that Jesus comes first. Cancelling a wedding does not necessarily solve this problem, it just makes a new and bigger mess.
 

Silly excuse #2 - Said by Gwen, "She was in love with the idea of marriage, not with Joe." To which I pointed out that when marriage is God's plan for one's life, being in love with that plan is a good thing. And because KatieLyn said many times that she was in love with Joe; we are puzzled as to why her mom thinks KatieLyn is an idiot who did not know that she wasn't in love.
 

Silly excuse #3 - Also given by Gwen, this excuse is such a doozy that it fully deserved its own title and discussion. This is the excuse where KatieLyn's mother, full out, point blank, claims that the Lord gave her a false sense of peace in order to manipulate her daughter. Here is the exact quote, copied and pasted straight from the email with no editing:  

We believe that the Lord finally gave me the peace I received so Katie could come to the conclusion on her own.

I know. It was hard for me to know whether to laugh or gasp horror-struck. It's tough because the most honest response—a chortle with an undertone of aghast—cannot be in compliance with good manners and etiquette.

Let's review the timeline, and as we do, take note how the part of Gwen's excuse that "the Lord finally gave me the peace" about the marriage does not line up with what she said during the first two months of the courtship. Here is the timeline—
• January 1st - Joe met KatieLyn's family and within a week he had officially asked her father and received permission to court KatieLyn, which means they began actively exploring the possibility of marriage.  On January 14th, Gwen wrote, "Meeting Joe over the holidays helped to put our concerns to rest. Seeing how quickly Katie bonded with him, made it seem, for us, a God thing."

• February - Joe tells KatieLyn's parents that he would like to propose on Valentine's Day. They agree. He does. KatieLyn says "Yes!" One week later, February 21st, Gwen emails me this: "Both (my husband) and I "knew" after our first date.  So we know it is possible to know that fast.  We feel at peace as well."
• March 14th - KarieLyn and her parents visit Joe's house. Gwen's meltdown begins. (At some point in the near future, I will be posting "Demon at the Trailhead," which also happened on this date.)
• Mid-March to mid-May - After two solid months of attempting to stop the wedding by grinding KarieLyn down, by strategically inserting her 'concerns,' by idle-word mouthing-off about her misgivings, by indulging in a pattern of continual bickering, by scaring KarieLyn with the enormity of the decision (It's for life!), and by provoking fights about KarieLyn's plans for marriage; after all these strikes at KarieLyn's faith, Gwen had an epiphany! She said, "the Lord finally gave me the peace I received so Katie could come to the conclusion on her own."
 

No. No. No. NO! Not my God. My God does not lie. He would not give Gwen a false peace about a marriage that was not His will. He would not tell KatieLyn one thing in January and February and then capriciously change His mind a couple of months later! And He most certainly would not give Gwen peace so that KatieLyn could be tricked into a new truth via reverse psychology!  

The coup de grâce, Gwen's deathblow was this: She credits the Lord with using deception to bring about KatieLyn's "right choice"in the end, which (Gwen believes) was to tear asunder the relationship that the Lord had put together.
 

No ma'am. No. That is heresy. That is entirely contrary to the nature of God. God did not cause Gwen to believe a lie so that KatieLyn could arrive at "the truth" on her own. Who is the "we" that believes this?
 

I could characterize Excuse #1 and Excuse #2 as using Malibu Barbie© Logic. They are shallow and trite excuses. Excuse #3 is full-bore devilish. Gwen's notion that God would give her peace in order to destroy love is heretical. It pales at "silly" and goes straight to "foolish."

During the engagement period—during the time that I knew KatieLyn was getting some flak from her mom, but didn't know the magnitude of the fighting—I had wondered why Gwen wasn't seeking the Lord instead of fussing with her daughter. If she had simply asked God, He would have told her the plan that He'd already revealed to KatieLyn and Joe. In hindsight, I think Gwen resisted that, didn't like it, and wouldn't accept it.  

Gwen has some serious issues when it comes down to not allowing her adult children to transition into the place where God has called them in life.  Bible teacher Kay Arthur writes, "We give birth, then pour out our lives, nurturing, feeding, clothing, disciplining, and educating our children. Somewhere along the line, we forget that it was God who gave them to us ... He created them for His pleasure primarily, not ours."  Arthur examines how Mary had to release Jesus into His own ministry, yet as his mother, was still able to maintain a close relationship with Him. You can read what she wrote about this on her own blog by clicking here.

Jesus knew the importance of being about His Father's affairs. Mary, His mother, came to terms with it. It could not have been easy.  Each of us is put on earth to walk out God's plan. Parents must not discourage or impede their children from fulfilling their God-given assignment. Parents should be checking their own assignment to see when it is time to release their children back to the Lord.

The Lesson
Today's lesson shows how a parent's failure to obey God can result in a runaway bride. Gwen's "final peace" did not come from the Lord. The devil pulled back and left Gwen alone, knowing that the destruction had already been done in KatieLyn. And that's a fact.
Gwen had a false peace because the devil had stopped agitating her misgivings. We can know this was a false peace because Gwen did not repent. Psalm 119:130 says, "The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding," but Gwen did not gain understanding; she did not experience the regret that leads to repentance. She did not acknowledge KatieLyn's having heard God, nor did Gwen ever have a godly peace of having heard for herself. 
 
  

Idle Words

Matthew 12:36 in the King James Bible says, "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."
Several modern translations use "every careless word" instead of idle. In checking the lexicon against the original Greek, argós, we find that it can mean, inactive, barren, non-productive, lazy, and useless.
The Berean Literal Bible, the New American Standard, and the English Standard versions all translate the next verse, Matthew 12:37, as, "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

I am going to ask you, dear reader, to do something that is a bit difficult to do; please lay aside the threatening aspects of judgment and condemnation as we consider the "idle" part a little more deeply. Commentators and Bible scholars have further described 'idle words' as unproductive words, light conversation, suppositions, vain discourse, venting, frothy language, unprofitable talk, and words that are morally useless. They are words that men view as throwaways; such words meant little-to-nothing to the person who voiced them.

But the danger is not so much in how the words were thrown out there, but rather in how they are received. If the words destroy another person's faith, if they cause someone to leave the Lord's pathway, then they are a big deal. Jesus says the speaker will be held accountable for the destruction that his/her words have caused.

The lesson is that when one vocalizes his doubt and misgivings and it causes other people to miss God, Jesus is not going to agree that "I just needed to get it off my chest" is a satisfactory excuse.

All that is bad enough, but there is a second level of this that is even more serious when it causes your own family members to miss God's will.

Colossians 3:21 says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they might become discouraged."  The King James says, "provoke to anger," but the "to anger" part is not in the original. A literal translation is, "do not vex your children, lest they be disheartened." The child's response might not be anger; it might be depression, confusion, distress, reticence to move ahead, or even sorrow, depending upon the weight that he/she puts on the parent's words. Even if the parent didn't really mean it, even if the parent was having an emotional moment and spouting off in anger or fear, the scripture indicates that the destruction caused by the vexing words will be taken into account.
The point is, when a child becomes discouraged, or disheartened, or dispirited in following the will of God because of what the parent has said, the parent has a share in the blame for the child's disobedience.

In the case of the Matthew 12:36 warning, Jesus was speaking about a horizontal relationship between the brethren. In Colossians 3:21, there is a hierarchy where the parent is in authority over the child. This is why it is more serious when a father provokes his child.

In the case of the runaway bride, there was an adult child with emancipation issues. KatieLyn had come very, very close to overcoming these issues; and from everything that I saw, she would have succeeded if her parents had not disheartened her.

(After the initial provocation, there were two more steps, but I am only going to list them here because I want to stay on the 'idle words' topic: Once KatieLyn was dispirited, (a) Gwen impressed upon her the enormity of the decision to marry in a way that overwhelmed and caused fear in KatieLyn, and (b) then Gwen pulled back and put the decision entirely upon KatieLyn again, ramping up her fear even further.)

The Lesson
Today's lesson is personal. The antidote for dissuasion would have been for KatieLyn to hear encouraging words. She needed her family to support her decision to follow God's plan for her marriage. She did not get it from them. After she bolted in the middle of the night, I continued to pray for her. It was not so much a prayer that she would get back together with Joe, but mainly that she would come to see the truth and that God would be glorified in the end. After a couple weeks of prayer, the Lord impressed me to offer her a 'lifeline.' She will never be a strong woman of God in her own right until she resolves and overcomes the issues with her mother. It was clumsily done and she took it the wrong way, but I was obedient to the Lord: I sent words of encouragement that if she ever wanted help with this, I would help her in any way I could. With or without Joe as part of the picture, that offer will always stand. Until she resolves that, she is not a good candidate for marriage to anyone. I hope KatieLyn finds the courage to break free.