“Nonnie! You can’t do that! You aren’t following the plan!”
I was visiting with Jayme and Daniel and the girls in New Orleans and found out as Addie Sue gets older, it is harder to figure out her games!
She likes race cars, trains and toys that have her model cars or long trains racing and going along complex tracks.
We were blessed with some cool afternoons and breezes, so she and I were on the back deck playing and talking.
We decided to play a race game with her cars, pushing them across the top that covered the pool table.
We each had a race car with a driver in it. Her driver had on a helmet and mine didn’t. We had to talk about that! Safety in racing and all that!
We would push off our cars and see which got across the table first without falling off. If the car coming toward you was falling off, you had to grab it before it fell!
The faster we could push the cars across to each other, the better — kind of like ping pong.
I messed up! Somehow, I didn’t send her car across to her fast enough, or I sent my car instead of hers — it was kind of confusing with our laughing and shouting!
She loudly corrected me. I found out that to play her game right, I had to follow her plan.
She was kind enough to explain what I should be doing, however!
Plans are important. As the old saying goes, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
God had a plan for His creation. He gave us free will to decide if we would follow His plan or not. Unfortunately, Satan tempted Eve and she tempted Adam, and they decided to disobey God.
Depending on how Adam and Eve reacted to temptation — by choosing to believe Satan and disobey God, or by believing God and obeying what He asked them to do — humankind would live in the consequences.
How do you face temptation today? We have some guidelines to go by. We read in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
James 4:7-8 gives us invaluable truth: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
We have a warning about the devil and a way to fight back when tempted!
I Corinthians 10:13 gives us an assurance: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
A warning, an action to take, and an assurance.
Stand firm.
