Jesus' Temptation?

I have always loved that Jesus was fully human while here on earth.  His miracles are amazing too, but I have often reveled and found comfort in the fact that he fully experienced life.  This helps me to be in relationship with him. 

As I was rereading a familiar passage, though, I realized that I haven’t always given him proper credit for TRULY being human and carrying on the ministry God set before him.  You see, while I have read Matthew 3:13-4:11 about Jesus’ temptation in the desert many times, I have never really believed that Jesus was truly tempted—maybe because I know that he was also fully God during that time in the desert or because it’s hard for me to believe someone could forgo food for forty days and so I discount the story a bit, or more likely because the things Satan presents to him just don’t seem that tempting to me.  

Yet Matthew 4:1 clearly says, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted  by the devil.”  So I decided to look at what would be tempting to Jesus about Satan’s offers.  I am not a Bible scholar, but what this questioning led me to really changed how I look at this story. 

I noticed a pattern in Satan’s ploys.  First he targets a weakness that relates to Jesus’ circumstances, and then he targets a weakness that could hinder Jesus’ upcoming ministry. 

First, Satan said, “If you are the Song of God…tell these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:3).  Jesus was hungry!  So the obvious temptation Satan was playing on was that Jesus really really  wanted food.  I get desperate and cranky if I have to wait a few hours for my meal; I cannot imagine forty days!  But I wonder if this was also tapping into a more internal temptation for Jesus; Satan was baiting him to use his powers for his own benefit.  When Jesus resisted this temptation, he set a pattern that would continue through his ministry—he used his gifts and abilities to serve others. Period.  

Second, Satan took him “to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  ‘If you are the Son of God…throw yourself down.  For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’” (Matthew 4:5-6).  Poor Jesus was weary and perhaps daunted by the path before him.  He was physically exhausted after his desert vigil in a way I cannot fathom, and it must have been so tempting to just fall and let the angels carry his burdens.  He was about to begin a ministry that would consume his every waking moment, make him the object of ridicule and dangerous persecution and then lead to the most painful death imaginable.  As he revealed in Gethsemane later in his story, he wanted the cup of death to go away.  The temptation to pass it off must have been there from the beginning.  In resisting this temptation, he chose to bravely move forward as a man who would rely on God and yet not shirk his place in the story of salvation.

Finally, Satan moved them “to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  ‘All this I will give you…if you will bow down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:8-9).  Honestly, this is the one that took me the longest to wrap my head around, because this one seems like such a foolish move on Satan’s part.  Of course Jesus is not going to bow down to you, Satan!  What were you thinking?  And yet, we know that of all the things Satan is, foolish is not one of them.  And also, this temptation was the one that Jesus most strongly reacted to, which suggests it was the one that may have hit home the hardest.  The fact that Satan first showed him all the kingdoms of the world gives me a clue.  Jesus was lonely.  He had been alone for over a month, and when he looked at his future, he saw more loneliness.  As he surveyed those kingdoms, he had to have known that he was going to be a big disappointment to many of the people living there.  They expected a Messiah who would charge in, defeat their enemies, put the Jews in a place of honor and then lead them like a mighty king.  But that was not God’s plan.  Jesus was setting out to preach an unpopular message of humility and service and weakness in order to be strong in the Lord.  While his upcoming Beatitude sermon would be well received by his followers, it was in direct contrast to what the religious people wanted to hear.  Looking forward again in the story to Gethsemane, we see Jesus’ desperation for true companionship and how even his closest friends failed him.  The path before him was one of loneliness, and Satan played on his desire to please the masses. 

Jesus’ ability to resist these temptations in such a weak physical state gives me strength and confidence in my ability to do the same with his guidance and provision. I can resist temptation even when I am hungry, weary and lonely.  I can resist the urge to serve myself with my gifts and abilities and instead serve others with the way God made me; I can resist the urge to flee when things get hard and painful, and instead move forward on the path God has called me to walk no matter how daunting it is; I can resist the urge to please others over pleasing God even when that will lead to loneliness and perhaps ridicule.  I will not always succeed in this, because I am not God, but I can follow Jesus' example, because he was real…he was here…he was fully human.

May you be fueled with the confidence of Jesus’ example today.  May you be filled with comfort, knowing that Jesus truly faced what we face.  For when he was in trouble, he turned to the same God we serve:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with surging…The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalms 46:1-7).

Sawyer's Prayer

I just experienced one of my poorer mama decisions right alongside one of my proudest parenting moments.  I’ll set the stage:

Ryan has been gone for a week, and God has truly provided the boys and me with the patience and grace we’ve all needed to get through this time...mostly (at the beginning of the week, we were rushing into the car to make it to school on time and Liam said sweetly, “Remember, Mama, you are working on not getting so frustrated in the mornings.”)

But today all that patience and love has been wearing a little thin.  For the last two days we have been pretty housebound, because my darling Sawyer boy has strep throat.  Oh boy, has the stir-craziness set in.  This evening I dropped Liam off for a playdate, and the car ride home with my two remaining boys was full of screaming, crying, begging, and whining--mostly coming from the boys, but I may have joined in a time or two.  By the time we got home, I knew we needed a change of scenery. It was only 6:30, so I got into my running clothes, bundled up the boys, strapped them in the stroller, put Harper on the leash and set out for an adventure.  I headed into the neighborhood behind us, because it is mostly uninhabited and feels like you’re deep in a  beautiful forest.  My BRILLIANT plan was that we would explore this wilderness, I would sneak in a little exercise, and we would come back home full of endorphins.  I thought we would for sure be back in 30 minutes before it got too dark.  

At first it was truly blissful.  The boys squealed in delight as we were literally surrounded by prancing deer, and I was running (downhill) with what I imagined to be the ease of a marathon runner. I was teaching Harper how to run alongside the stroller, and she was catching on pretty fast.  I was so pleased with us that I went too far. Then a lot of things went wrong.  First, it got dark almost instantly.  Then, I got a little turned around and couldn’t figure out which road curved back toward our house.  Finally, my phone died.  I pushed on through the dark until I found a road that would lead back to our house, but I realized it was the one that was a steep uphill for over a mile.  By this time, my legs and forearms were shaking from my overzealous running before, and I was feeling very foolish and worried about us being far away from our house...in the dark...in cougar territory...without a cell phone (I’m ashamed as I write this!)  This neighborhood’s all-natural ambiance means no street lamps, so I started pushing my double stroller and dragging my exhausted dog up the hill; I knew I wouldn’t be able to find our way back to the flatter path.  

When I started huffing and puffing right away, Sawyer said confidently, “Mama, God is always by your side.”  I chuckled in between gasps and sputtered, “Thanks, baby.  Just pray that Mama stays strong enough to push us up this hill.”  And even though I had been mostly joking, Sawyer bowed his head and prayed a prayer that blew me away.  He said,

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for giving Mama the strength to get us home.
And thank you for not letting anything eat us...like cheetahs or tigers or pythons or bears.
Amen.

Of course, God did give me the strength I needed to get us home without getting eaten (it helped that Sawyer kept shouting, “GOD IS ALWAYS ON OUR SIDE!”).  And I definitely got some exercise!  But what I’m going to take away from this adventure is what I learned from Sawyer’s prayer.  Sawyer didn’t say, “Please give Mama the strength,” he thanked God for giving me the strength before he actually had.  He prayed with audacious and un-jaded assurance that God would answer his prayer.  How often do I pray with hesitation?  How often do start my prayers with a polite and demure, please-sir-if-you-have-the-time kind of entreaty?  Life has taught me that my prayers do not always get answered the way I want them to, but that does not mean that I should stop praying with the assurance that God will move through my prayer in order to work all things for good for those who love him.  

The other part I LOVE about Sawyer’s prayer is the creativity.  He didn’t know that we were actually in cougar country and not cheetah-tiger-python-bear territory, but in his mind all things are possible.  As I’ve gotten older, I have gotten less creative about what I am praying for and how I believe everything can work out.  I start to think that I'm just praying against sadness or feeling discouraged or people's hurtful actions.  I forget that I am praying against an active enemy who is constantly trying to take me down.  My prayers are too tame in light of the great spiritual battle that is raging all around me.  I also think there are a limited number of solutions to the problems I face. I forget that I serve the same God who had bread rain from the dessert sky when his people were hungry, who crumpled Jericho’s fortress just by having his people do a marching band routine around its walls, who had Jonah learn his lesson in the belly of a giant fish, who had a virgin give birth to our Savior and who raised Jesus from the dead.  I serve a creative God who’s creativity knows no earthly bounds.  

Once again, I have learned something incredible from one of my sons.  I want to pray more like Sawyer--with audacious assurance and creativity.  I want to pray with confidence in my God who is always on my side.

Scarred, yet healed

I have learned a lot about scars in the last year.  I have eleven scars that track the process of my breast cancer journey from my neck down to my hips.  Each one represents a life-saving event and are remnants of a lot of pain.  The two most prominent are the ones running across my chest.  They go from armpit to armpit, jagged and purple.  For the most part, I do not mind how these scars look.  Most of the pain has faded, and they truly do not bother me in my daily activities.  Only Ryan and I ever really see them, and he thinks I’m beautiful no matter what.

But the fascinating thing I’ve learned about scars is this: I cannot leave them alone if I want to prevent them from becoming debilitating.  True, they are a sign of a wound that has been healed, but if I do not work on them, they will heal in a twisted, unhealthy way.  My surgeons and my physical therapist have instructed me to massage them daily.  I put lotion on my hands and forcefully knead the scars until they become malleable.  At first, this was excruciating.  The scar tissue ran deep and was connected inside my body.  They prevented me from raising my arms fully and comfortably picking up my boys.  Massaging them would send jolts of pain that felt like it zapped me all the way to my toes and to the ends of my ever-growing hair. 

But today, my morning massage is no big deal.  As I’ve pushed, pulled and bothered those scars, they have detached from whatever they were clinging to inside my body.  They are not hard, but instead delightfully soft—their pigment lightens every day.  I can raise my arms like a rock star during Zumba and throw Everett high into the air over my head.  They are fading into the background of who I am…all because I did not leave them alone.

This is very much the same to what God and I have been doing to my wounded soul these last five months.  It is the reason I have not blogged in a long time.  It is the reason I’ve stepped back and taken steps to massage the scars on my heart, even though it was truly excruciating at first.  You see, the fascinating thing that I’ve learned about souls is that its scars heal in a twisted, unhealthy way if you don’t work on them.  They become hard and connected to every part of your body, inhibiting your movement and your relationships.  I had started to become quicker to anger, skittish of new situations, fearful of the future. 

And so, I asked God to heal me.  I thanked him for healing me from my cancer, but I could tell that the wounds of this last year went far deeper than the scars on my chest and torso.  The God I serve is good ALL THE TIME, and so he started working with me on my restoration.  I treated my heart-wounds like a physical injury: I rested more, I ate healthier, I exercised, I took time with the people I loved, I slowed down, I expected less of myself, I read inspiring literature and I sought counsel from my loved ones. 

Slowly, these massages have become less painful.  Reminders of my mom don’t send jolts through my body, but instead warmth through my being.  Memories of this past year’s horrors don’t turn me to jelly inside, but instead remind me of God’s power and faithfulness and the people who stood next to me during my storm.  Today’s hurts do not cause me to despair, but instead fill me with the assurance that God has gotten me through much worse. 

So day by day, the massages of my body and soul are stretching me and molding me more into whom God wants me to be.  And one of those things is a writer!  I am filled with new inspiration and energy to write, which means more blogging!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being my faithful readers.  Your encouragement has been an essential balm in my healing process.

May you be brave enough to massage your wounds, even if it is excruciating at first.  And as you do so, may you be reminded daily of what Liam whispered into Sawyer’s ear when we dropped him off in his classroom this morning.  Liam leaned close and told his little brother: “God is ALWAYS on your side.”