Presenting Pretty Poison

Lessons can come from strange places. I attended a going away party recently for someone moving out of town. There was a lesson in all of that, one I have come to call Pretty Poison.

There was a beautiful cake at the party. It was so big, everyone was invited to take some home. Even though I am a diabetic and my husband and I have both decided to forego the sweets, I took some cake home. I proceeded to dish it up on a pretty plate for breakfast this morning and WHAM! I had to take a picture of it. I saw something in my mind's eye that became the graphic for today's blogpost.

And, yes, I ate some of the cake minus the frosting which I threw away, feeling convicted the whole time. This is obviously one of those areas I am struggling to bring into total submission to the Holy Spirit. Some days are better than others...grrrrr. In spite of that little struggle on my part, I did get the lesson combined with an intense punch-in-the-gut feeling, from which I am still smarting a bit.

I usually start my day doing a bible study using Bill Bullock, Sr.'s Torah portion studies. I was about half way through that when I decided to get myself some breakfast and the above incident happened. I've included an excerpt from that teaching below. It all just seemed to combine together with my little mini vision of pretty poison. Hopefully, you will see the connection as well.

And I quote:

"...As a people, at Sinai and beyond, the Creator of Heaven and Earth has drawn near to us. We are conceived and born into that nearness. As Moshe taught us in Deuteronomy 4, the nations are to marvel at this, saying:  What great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Holy One our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?  Deuteronomy 4:7.  The nearness of the Creator is a wonderful thing, of course – if, as, and to the extent we respond accordingly and appropriately. If, as, when, and to the extent we respond to the Bridegroom-King’s nearness by responding to Him in childlike wonder, with humility, gratitude, and graciousness, and lean into Him, sh’ma His Words of Life, and sh’mar His covenant, we get blessed marvelously by reason of His nearness.  He actually wraps cords of lovingkindness around us - and those cords warm and comfort us. They give us shalom rav [i.e. great peace and security].

 Ah Dear Reader, but when we willfully rebel against Him . . . .  When we  trample His Betrothal covenant [i.e. His wonderful Torah] under our feet . . . . When we choose to clothe ourselves in layer after layer of willful sin . . . . And when we refuse loving call after loving call to make t’shuvah . . .  .  Well, when we do things like that the very same nearness of the Holy One which blessed us so wonderfully before actually becomes a threat to us. The same cords of lovingkindness by which we were once so comforted suddenly – by reason of our straining against them - start to burn . . . and chaff . . . and bind. 

Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger?

I am by no means a country music aficionado. Occasionally on my many automobile trips in connection with my business, however, I will flip through the radio stations trying to find something to listen to in an attempt to keep myself awake.  In the rural areas of Arkansas and Texas one normally finds only stations playing country music.  On one such occasion, as I was driving in a late-night daze through the backwoods of Arkansas, the ‘seek’ button on my radio kept returning me to a tune in which a country singer poignantly was asking his wife, in his song, why she did not wear her wedding ring when she went out [to nightclubs?]. I do not remember the melody or any of the words.  I only heard part of the song.  All I really remember is the title. It was “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger”.  That title pretty much describes, in my mind, what the Divine Bridegroom would ask us as we squirm and struggle against His cords of love – i.e. the Shabbat, the mo’edim, and the mitzvot and mishpatim of Torah.

 As we seek to increase the distance between our hearts and His, the cords of lovingkindness with which He bound us to Him in a lover’s embrace begin to chaff against our flesh.  The harder we pull against those cords, the more it hurts.  The longer we strain against those cords, the more likely we are to sustain permanent injury.  If one of us does not ‘give in’, we will die. And so, if we continually refuse to make t’shuvah [repent and return], in order to keep us from fatally injuring ourselves, the Holy One eventually looses the cords of lovingkindness - and lets us go.  It is tough love at its ultimate level.

Willful rebellion against and refusal to hear the voice of the Lord God Almighty carries with it results that we prefer to ignore because our flesh wants something different. In the case of the 'pretty poison' of 'cake love', I wanted, in fact craved, some sugar, which I know is not good for me, yet, the urge to eat it anyway was overwhelming. I saw in that the analogy, a parallel of Israel's (and our) urge to follow after the ways of the worldly, ungodly cultures and religions in which we live by moving away from the Holy One who truly loves us. All these ungodly attractions are just pretty poison. It is no different today than it was back in the days of the Old Testament times.

The only real difference nowadays is man's ability to get the false message out to the masses with an ease that is astonishing. The wrapping on the message appears to be different, but the contents haven't changed a bit. The question still remains:  what wrappings and trappings in today's world lures us into agreeing and joining with the ungodly in our time? What 'god' are we actually closer to? Where and in what ways are we being deceived? What lies have we swallowed so willingly? What lies do we now call truths and what truths do we now call lies? What happened to discernment? Where should we be looking for that discernment?

The answer to all of this hasn't seemed to have changed much either: right where our Bridegroom-King desires us to be, "nearer my YHVH to thee...".