Ticks and Sin

Our three Grand children from our son is visiting us for a week.  They love coming up to northern Mn. because we live in the country and ride four wheelers, climb trees, walk in the woods, and look for bears and swim in the lakes.  One thing they do not like is the amount of ticks this year Every day, several times a day we find ticks on them and doctor the mosquitos bites nightly. 

  

 We also have four little kittens, about six weeks old and everyday they are chasing them and getting scratched which needs doctoring. 

The thing I hate the most is those ticks, ugly little creatures that brings nothing good to this world, NOTHING.  I wonder what made God create them or did they evolve after the fall?  It's kind of one of those question I can't wait to understand when I get to heaven.  It's hard for me to believe they were in the garden before sin.  

What I know for sure is until sin entered the world God created there was no creatures harming each other or harming humans. The minute sin entered everything changed, God put  Adam and Eve  out of the garden and put the tree of life to guard it.  Even though they had no covering for their bodies they were not ashamed of their nakedness. but the second sin worked its way into their hearts they knew fear and shame for the first time. 

Now back to ticks, here is a few known illnesses ticks carry and can transmit to you, the human.   

• Colorado Tick Fever. This is a disease that may be transmitted by the bite of a hard tick (Dermacentor andersoni). ...
• Lyme Disease. Ticks infected by biting infected rats or deer carry this disease. ...
• Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. It is caused by a bacteria transmitted by ticks. ...
• Tick Paralysis. ...
• Tularemia. ...   

I think Proverbs 6:16-19 say it the best when it comes to what God hates.   

There are six things the Lord hates,
    seven that are detestable to him:
17         haughty eyes,
        a lying tongue,
        hands that shed innocent blood,
18         a heart that devises wicked schemes,
        feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19         a false witness who pours out lies
        and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

No where does it say God hates ticks.  A tick is sneaky bug, embedding itself in us before we are even aware of it.   We check at least three times a day during this heavy tick season.  

I wonder how often we check our hearts for the sins that is sneaky too.  We are quick to find an excuse for our haughty eyes, lying tongue, wicked schemes, our rush to do wrong, lies come easy to us and man oh man do we ever love a good conflict.  We use the blame game for all those sins more than we care to talk about.  One must on purpose take our hearts to the Lord and ask Him to shine His light into the darkness  so we can detect hidden sin before it becomes a habit.  He loves us so much and wants us to walk clean before Him and the world.  No matter how many ticks I find on me I need to hate sin in my heart more than those ticks and check for both.    

Control

 

There is something wonderful in letting go.  A. W. Tozer called it being released from "the fine threads of the self life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit, "self sufficiency, self pity, self absorption and self hatred. Letting go means "freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get our own way." Having to stay in control, to get it own own , is indeed an everlasting burden.  

The above quote is from the book, Strong Women, Soft Hearts by Paula Rinehart. A few ladies and I are going to study through this book that I did about 10 years ago.  It's good to re-read a book that helped me to see how far I have come on this issue of control or trusting God.  

As I look back on my life I can clearly see the lies I so easily believed of how I need control of my life and how that lie caused me to have a hard heart.  First of all, one can never get enough control of life because we do not know what will come next for us.  Life in the world brings so much hardship and pain.  Yet, this is exactly where God wants to work on my heart, right in the middle of a heartache, a worry, an event that takes me out of my comfort zone.  

Re-reading revealed several truths to me, God never stops working on me no matter how many times I fail. It's never a new truth He wants me to learn, He only wants me to go deeper so I can see clearly how me controlling my life will not bring peace to my heart.  Also how deeply the lie has roots in my heart. 

Re-reading reminds me how weak I am and how much God loves me, a truth He wants me to live in daily.  When I rest in His love for me my control loosen it's grip on my heart. My heart becomes more teachable and it's then He is able to show me the goodness of His love.  

I need reminding often that as much as I think I know better for my life, I know nothing but He knows everything, the past, present and future.  The biggest lie we believe is the same one Adam and Eve fell for and the tool satan used is pride to put into action the lie. Pride says I know best what I need.  It shouts my way is more important then God's.  Pride tells us, God if you will just give me what I want I will be happy, I will have peace.  Pride craves all the wrong things, it craves the opposite of what God knows we need to become more like Him. Pride will cause us to blame anything but us for our hard heart.  

At 75 I am still learning this truth to trust God in all things.  Hindsight makes me glad for the hard times,  for it was in those times I went seeking outside myself to His ways for my life. The pain and suffering that has come my way has only driven the truths about control inward and He used it as a tool to soften me.  

Got a good book God brought you way to teach you about Him, its could be calling you for a re-read.