The Squirrel Wars

When my beautiful wife and I first got married, we bought a nice three bedroom house in a neighborhood that was built in the 1940's.  We had a nice corner lot with a large backyard and four large oak trees.  We were happy until we found out we weren't the first ones to live there.

We began to come under assault from squirrels.  Often I swore that there were thousands of them.  They would chew or scratch their way through the soffets and make there home in our attic, not just in our attic, in the attic space above our bedroom.

I replaced some of the soffets with new freshly painted boards.  I left for some errands only to come home and find my brand new, freshly painted soffet had a squirrel sized hole.

From that moment, I armed myself with a pellet gun.  I began to take the squirrels out.  My neighbors would see me tromping around the front yard setting traps and holding a pellet gun.  No doubt they were worried about my sanity. 

My obsession to destroy the squirrels was so strong that even my 5 year old daughter when shown a "cute squirrel" in kindergarten remarked that squirrels were "for killing."  Yet my obsession to keep them out of the house did not result in my success.  I could kill a few and chase them from the front yard, but they would come in from the side.  When I chased them from the side, they would come in the back or the front or the other side.  There was only one of me, and I couldn't keep them out from all sides of the house.

The house is the life God gives us, and the squirrels are Satan.  He wants to get inside our lives and nest in our attics.  He is relentless.  He will find the soft boards or weaknesses he can push through, or he will use our arrogance that we fixed the problem to chew right through the patch with which we cover the hole.

It's our Christian community that we should call on.  If I had called on several friends to surround my house and kill all the squirrels that came into the yard.  The squirrels would be running from one corner of the house and right into the waiting sights of another squirrel hunter.  Our church community is the friends we station around our house.  They can help us be ever viligant for the Deceiver.

A strong community that is well relied upon can help keep Satan and his assaults at bay, or they can join together to help clear our lives of Satan and repair the damage he dealt and secure the premises from him.

This community is not concerned with how you paint your house or what flowers adorn the yard.  Instead it loves you no matter what, and its focus is to keep Satan out by standing up in force to prevent him from finding an ingress

Community such as this doesn't judge what you've done.  They will come fast to your rescue when the squirrels are scratching their way into your attic.  When you find that true community in Christ, the comfort of knowing you are a part of it is wonderful.

Community

I was reading through the Gospels during April.  As I neared the end, and Jesus heads into the Garden of Gethsemene, I noticed something.  Jesus takes along his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John.  This was not a learning experience for them, as so many things Jesus did with them was.  This was Jesus having a need that required his closest friends to help him in prayer.  This was Jesus at his most human as he expressed fear before going to the cross.

Often times, I think that I don't require any help from others.  I struggle through difficult times buried within my own soul.  I don't burden others with the troubles I feel.

This is my sin, as well as many others.  The first century church was described in Acts 4:32 as:

 " And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common."

These new Christians were as one.  They had community.  They relied upon community.  

The need for community is often overlooked because so many of us believe we have it.  However, when one finds that true community with others in Christ, he will find a true enlightenment as to what community really is.  The feeling of facing trials and troubles linked arm in arm with other soldiers of Christ.


Jesus needed his three friends (even when they let him down.)  Are we so much stronger than Jesus that we don't need our community when we face trials that are often dismally meager when compared to the cross Jesus faced?

Kneecapped by God: My Journey through God's Providence

             In 2008, I moved my family to Florence, Alabama.  I was dreadfully lost, but I was too stupid to believe it.  In Alabama, I probably hit rock bottom.  Satan had me fully in his grasp.  I was allowing my marriage and my family to crumble.  I wanted nothing to do with God, Jesus or the church.

            God, however, had other plans.  I lost my job in one of the most ridiculous fashions.  I was stuck in Alabama with no job and no prospects.

            I was still turned from God.  He had not done anything for me, I thought.  I even tried to convince myself that He did not matter.

            After a month of searching for a job, I needed to find some work.  I decided to come to Memphis and work for my dad while looking for a job.  He had just contracted a job to renovate a building, and he needed someone to act as a foreman on the job.  This gave me plenty of opportunity to interview other places.

            In June, I almost took a job working at the casinos.  Something (God) seemed to warn me off the job, and I turned it down.  I continued to work construction, when I got an interview at the Marriott hotel doing the same thing I had done at the Peabody Hotel.  I went through three interviews, and I was waiting for an offer.

            God stepped in with an offer.  The owner of the building we were renovating came by while I was working one day, and he offered me a job.  We talked over a few days, and I accepted his offer.  The same day I accepted, the Marriott called and offered me the position for which I had interviewed.  I politely turned them down. 

            During this time, I had still not acknowledged God’s work.  I was not going to church.  I did not want to go to church.  I was still turned from God.

            On December 6, 2010, the two godliest people I ever knew, my grandparents, were killed in a car accident along with my great aunt and great uncle while on the way to Branson, Missouri.  For the first time ever, I felt something tugging me toward God.  I started to realize that I was not where I wanted to be.  Unfortunately I was not moving quickly toward where I should be either.

            I was still associating with influences that were solely from Satan.  God must have seen that, and through his providence, those ties were severed.  I didn’t see the providence in any of this at the time.

            I had begun to drift.  I would go to church, and then it would be weeks before I went again.  I kept saying I wasn’t getting anything out of it.  I also wasn’t putting anything into it.

            In the spring of 2011, I reconnected with an old friend who invited me to join a small group.  My wife and I took the kids, and we began to meet every Sunday.  I was beginning to put a little into the group, and I was beginning to get something out of it.

            By the fall, our small group had decided to become a house church.  We wanted to be a small community of believers.  Now I really desired a relationship with God, but I was still allowing Satan to have a hold on me.  I was still not where I knew I should be.

            In February, I was given the chance to go on the Walk to Emmaus.  It’s a 72 hour spiritual “retreat,” but I would say it was an awakening.  When I left that weekend, I considered myself saved for the first time.  I had my eyes opened to the sin that was causing me to be a bad father and a bad husband.  I saw in myself the self centeredness that was driving me straight to Hell.  I had never loved my wife the way I should, because I had never loved Christ the way I should.  I had never been the father I should have been because I had never let God guide my way.

            I referred to what happened to me that weekend as being “kneecapped by God.”  He broke me down to the sorry, miserable sinner I was.  Yet when I left that Sunday, He had showed me that His grace would restore me to a new glory. 

            In looking back at how God guided me to the place I needed to be, I am in awe.  Two years ago, I would have never gone on the Walk.  I would have never gone to a small group.  I would have never given God a second thought.

            For over a year, I thought about how much I missed my grandparents.  How I would do anything to go back and save them.  They meant so much to everyone in my family.  But I don’t doubt for a second, that either one of them wouldn’t have sacrificed themselves to see my soul saved. 

            If I had been the only soul to save, then Jesus would have still hung on that cross for me.