I am always amazed at people who can learn a language. Our Sunday school teacher, learned Russian and Greek. He was called as a missionary to go to Russia, and teach Russian students Greek. So he was speaking in Russian, teaching the Russian students, Greek. Seriously, how do you do that?

In college, I saved my Spanish classes for the very last minute. Meaning, I had to take three semesters of Spanish, and didn’t start taking those classes until my spring semester of my junior year. Yeah, I know, brilliant planning on my part. I didn’t leave any room for failure. If I wasn’t doing well in the class, I couldn’t drop the class and take it another time. And I certainly didn’t want to stay past my four years in college. I just couldn’t afford it. Well I took my first semester in Spanish and did okay. Okay, meaning, I didn’t flunk the class.

I enrolled in my second semester Spanish class in the fall semester of my junior year. Apparently I wasn’t alone in my difficulty in learning a new language. Shortly after our class started, our Spanish teacher confronted the whole class. She said we were all flunking the class. (At least I wasn’t alone in this). She said there was one week left to legally drop a class without it affecting our grade point average. She had a plan for us. She was going to give us a test. If we passed the test, we’d probably pass the class. If we didn’t pass the test, then we should seriously consider dropping the class and taking it another time. She would administer the test to us and then meet with each of us individually, to make a decision about the class. Ack. This wasn’t part of my plan. I couldn’t afford to take the class at a later time. I needed to graduate that spring. Okay, I needed to buckle down and try really hard with this test she was going to give us.

Well I did buckle down and studied really hard for that Spanish test. That’s all I did for two days. I really couldn’t afford to drop the class. I studied and prayed. And then I prayed and studied. And then I studied and prayed again. The test came around. We all took the test. Then each of us had a meeting time, to meet with our professor and go over the results of the test. My meeting with the professor was 11:00am. I wasn’t quite confident in my Spanish test taking abilities, so I decided to head over to the Administration building to get an Add/Drop form. I figured I could have it handy and save myself a trip by producing it for my teacher, in case I did badly on the test. As I was walking to the Administration building and praying, a thought entered my mind. “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I literally stopped in my tracks. “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I didn’t have any faith at that moment. I was going to get the Add/Drop form because I didn’t think I did well on the test. I didn’t think all my prayers and studying really did it. I wasn’t believing that I could have passed the test. There was serious doubt in my mind. But “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I needed to believe. Right at that moment, I made an abrupt turn and walked towards my Spanish professor’s office. I wasn’t going to to get an Add/Drop form. I didn’t need it. I had prayed about it. I had studied for the test. “Faith is believing in things unseen.”

I showed up to my appointment on time. My professor greeted me and had me sit down. She asked me how I thought I did on the test. I said I think I did okay. I was believing in things unseen. I didn’t have an Add/Drop form on me as a testament to my lack of faith. She smiled at me. Well Wendy… I waited. “You got the highest grade in the class! You got a 96% on the test!” I wanted to cry at that moment. I wanted to scream and raise my hands up in the V formation of victory. “You got the highest grade in the class!” kept singing in my head. I couldn’t stop smiling. I got the highest grade in the class! Wow! I thanked the Lord in my head. The professor said I could stay in the class and I would most likely pass it. Alrighty then. I thanked the Lord again in my head. I kept thanking the Lord in my head. I still wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

God is good ALL THE TIME. Not some of the time. Not every once in awhile. God is good ALL THE TIME. That moment when He reminded me that “Faith is believing in things unseen,” He was asking me, “Do you believe? If you believe, show Me.” I simply obeyed, and made an abrupt change and turned around and headed in the other direction without the Add/Drop form. I was making a declaration that yes I believed after all my prayers and studying that I could pass that Spanish class. I’ll have you know, I did pass that class, took the third class, passed that class too and graduated in four years. God is good…All THE TIME.

Iam from Alaska. I’m from a small town in the Bristol Bay area, which is also the number one sockeye salmon industry. Growing up I spent my summers: catching salmon, picking the salmon (out of the net), gutting salmon, smoking salmon, canning salmon, eating salmon…catching more salmon. My hands smelled like fish ALL the time. I like salmon. I like what they are about. I like eating them too.

Salmon are fiercely single minded. They do one thing in life, spawn in the exact spot they hatched in. They swim back up to Alaska. They swim fast and defensively. They have to avoid: sharks, killer whales, seals, bears, and fishermen. They swim and they swim with the one purpose in mind, THEY MUST RETURN to where they were hatched.

Wild salmon (notice I made a distinction there) is an excellent source of protein. Wild salmon (those fish that would clear mountain tops to get back home) have no time to catch nasty things like: mercury or bacteria. It’s like the story, “You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread man!” Well you can’t catch the salmon because they are on a mission. Unlike, their farmed counterparts that sit in stewed puddles, festering in filth, these guys are strong swimmers. They aren’t pausing to take a break. Picture this fish, swimming with all of it’s might and fast as they can: through the ocean, rivers, and streams. In all the hundreds of salmon I gutted, there were no worms in any of them. Nothing bad sticks to them; they swim too fast. I’m telling you, these guys push themselves as hard as they can to go back and spawn where they were hatched. They are clean and mean. They don’t dillydally along. They are single minded creatures. They are like the marathon athletes of the ocean. They aren’t messing around.

Did you know there was a difference between eating wild salmon and farmed salmon? When the “experts” tell us that salmon is a super food, they’re talking about the wild salmon. They are NOT talking about the farmed salmon. Farmed salmon haven’t had to dodge bigger animals looking at them as a meal. Those salmon are not getting leaner or stronger, they are just sitting. That really isn’t good. I can tell the difference between the meat of a farmed salmon and wild salmon. The wild salmon meat is really red, not pale like the farmed. Wild salmon have so much flavor. Farmed salmon are pale and flavorless. You see the wild salmon is out doing what he was created to do – swim fast and furious back to his birthplace. In contrast, the farmed salmon is just sitting in ponds, getting no exercise and absorbing anything floating in it’s icky water. Salmon aren’t meant to be caged like that. It does something terrible to the fish. It changes it, so it’s not the super food people think it is.

We can learn a lot from the salmon. God asks us to be single minded in our walk with Him. God says it’s good for us to be single minded. Like the salmon (who are so singular minded), we will get stronger and leaner. Or, we can live like the farmed salmon. Those filthy fish stewing in their own juices. In our Christian walk, we would do well to follow the wild salmon. If we were singular in our thoughts of God, singular in our following Him, and singular in getting to where we need to be as Christians, wow-what a world this would be. The singular minded Christian would become strong and lean. There would be power in what we did.

It’s better than the other option – the farmed salmon. If we just sit as Christians and don’t do anything like read our Bibles and pray we’ll become bad like the farmed salmon. We won’t be as good as we can be. We just can’t. Like the farmed salmon, we are just sitting, going nowhere. And like the farmed salmon we become weak, prone to illness (sin).

God asks us not to be double minded.

James 1:7-8 “For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

God wants us to think like the salmon. He wants us to be THAT single minded. He wants our concentration to be only on one thing-Him. My old pastor used to say this all the time, “The main thing is to keep the Main Thing, the main thing.” Meaning, we have to keep God as our main focus. He is the Main Thing. Be like the wild salmon in their singular quest to return to where they were hatched, to spawn and die. They let nothing stop them until they are killed or they reach their birth place. I’m not saying go spawn and die. I am saying, be single minded, focusing only on God and become a clean, lean, Christian fighting machine.

This past Thursday I opened my Facebook to face the top post on my feed: a suicide note written by a Christian guy I follow – Molotov Mitchell. It was a long note. He started it with the words, “Slow Death.” Then he goes on to say that his marriage has ended and lists out reasons it happened. His number one reason was that he had an extramarital affair. I kept reading the long note, not knowing where it was going. I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of sick joke or for real. In his last paragraph he talks about choosing a method of dying, so that he could die slowly while praying. He supported his choice to kill himself because Sampson and Saul both killed themselves. He also rationalized it by saying he couldn’t support his daughter as well as he thought he should, therefore, it was better if he was gone, then to stick around.

I was dumbstruck when I read this. I couldn’t believe that it was really real. I scrolled down, after the note, to see people talking about someone saving him. Apparently, this was all real. He did try and kill himself. He slit his wrists. By the time, people got to him, he’d lost 50% of his blood. They did catch him in time, rushed him into surgery and sewed him back up. He is expected to make a full recovery.

A Christian trying to commit suicide? That doesn’t jive. He claims to be a Christian. Only God knows if he truly is. But if he’s a Christian, how did he get to this point? How did he get so low, that now he felt his only solution to his problems was to off himself? As a Christian, we know we are only on this planet for a really short time. We also know that WE WILL FACE PROBLEMS on this planet. WE WILL HURT. WE WILL CRY. GOD IS THE ROCK WE LEAN ON during these times.

Last week I discussed the enemy. The enemy is on the prowl. If we as Christians, let our guard down at any point, the enemy WILL pounce. The Apostle Paul talks over and over in the New Testament about keeping our guard up

1 Peter 5:8 “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6 “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”

Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.”

I could fill this whole post with verses warning us about the devil. CHRISTIAN, if you didn’t realize it now, WE HAVE AN ENEMY. Don’t think for a second that we don’t. And if we start drifting away from the Bible and prayer, you’ve just made yourself weaker. You have now become the wounded animal in the herd. The enemy sees you and he’s not going to resist pouncing on you.

The enemy is brutal. The enemy doesn’t play fair. When you’re down, he’ll kick you. When you are up, he’ll push you down and then kick you. He throws punches at you with brass knuckles. He’s underhanded and sneaky. He’ll razzle dazzle you and while you are watching the show, he’s pulling something that will bite you in the end. He is our dark enemy who has a maniacal urge to wipe you off the face of the earth.

I’m not trying to be sensational here. IT IS A FACT. The enemy is out there. And if you are a Christian, he is out to get you. When we became Christians, we didn’t join a lovely picnic. We signed up for war. We were issued a sword – the Bible, armor – Ephesians 6:11, and a guide – the Holy Spirit. Through the Bible, we are given directions on what to do to fight the enemy, how to protect ourselves, and what to do to keep from getting wounded. There’s not time to lollygag around. There’s not time to drink tea and take a breather. We can’t afford to. We can’t sit on the sidelines and watch. This is war. The enemy is prowling like a roaring lion.

How did this Christian man get so low as to attempt suicide? I think he drifted. He drifted away from the Bible and prayer, which is ultimately your relationship with Jesus Christ. Like I said before, when you drift, you become the weak animal in the herd. We are in the last days. It feels like the enemy has turned up the volume, raised the ante. He’s going for his last hurrah. WE AS CHRISTIANS HAVE TO BE AWARE OF THE ENEMY AND BE ON GUARD. We can’t let pride, laziness, or sin of any kind to take over our lives. We can’t drift away from the ROCK. We can’t afford to. Jesus Christ is our rock and salvation. Stay close to Him or you WILL get hurt.

I taught a writing class to some homeschool high school students last year. One week, I had a particularly bad week. It seemed that everything that could go wrong did. When I got to my class I told my students, “If you think someone is out to get you, they are. We have an enemy, who wants to destroy us. You are not paranoid, someone IS out to get you.” One of my students didn’t like what I had to say. She sarcastically thanked me for my positive comments and for scaring her.

My student is not alone in that thinking. We don’t want to think about an enemy that is out to get us. We don’t want to think about Satan and his minions at all. That’s probably one of his best lies – that he doesn’t exist. Even to an extent, in the Christian’s mind. We want to look at the world with rose colored glasses, that don’t acknowledge an enemy. But when we do, things make so much more sense. We shouldn’t dwell on him, but certainly, we shouldn’t bury our heads in the sand as if he isn’t really a problem. He’s a huge problem in the Christian’s life. God warned His disciples about him.

John 10:30 “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me.”

Ephesians 2:2 “in which you formerly walked according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

God even warned us to prepare as if fighting in a battle.

Ephesians 6:12-17 “for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, after having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, AND HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

It is a biblical fact – we have an enemy who is out to get us. We are not paranoid. We don’t need to be hospitalized or be taking medication. If you are truly a believer, you inherited an enemy that wants to take you down. Be aware of this and fight the good fight.

Be aware, he doesn’t come dressed in red, with a pitchfork and devil’s tail. He doesn’t look like the devil. He comes as an angel of light. He masquerades as something else, to fool you, trip you up. He’s a counterfeit bill. Like a counterfeit bill, he looks so much like the real thing, you CAN get fooled.

You may or may not have heard the story of the FBI. In order to fight against counterfeit money, they spend hours and hours, studying the real thing. They don’t study fake bills, they only study the real bills. So when a counterfeit comes their way, they immediately know it’s phony.

We protect ourselves from the enemy by studying the real thing. We need to spend hours studying the Bible and praying. God is in the Bible. I know when I spend time in the word, I look up from the Bible, and look at the world around me, things are different. If I look at the world without Bible colored glasses, I start to panic. Things are really bad out there. But when I look at the world through the lens of the Bible, it changes my perspective. God promises peace, I feel peace. God says He loves us, I feel loved. God says He will protect us, I feel protected. God says He is good, I feel His goodness.

Be mindful, as a Christian, that you have an enemy. When those bad days come and everything seems to go wrong, you are probably dealing with a spiritual element to it all. Your enemy is doing what he does best, messing with you. Think about it, he’s had 6000 years to perfect his craft. But don’t lose heart. God warned us of this enemy, and He gives tools in His word to combat him. Stay in the Word. Stay in prayer. These will give you the proper tools for fighting your foe. Just don’t forget, the enemy is out there.

If you have ever been a housewife for any stretch of time, you would realize EVOLUTION IS JUST NOT TRUE. Seriously, people. Has anyone cleaned a toilet? We tentatively approach that great white throne with fear and trepidation . We know what’s in there. We know what’s been going in there on a regular basis. And when we approach that toilet, there it is, just as we knew. It hasn’t cleaned itself. It’s not all bright and shiny and white. An angelic choir is not standing over it while beams of light shine gloriously from it. It’s just plain icky. We have to get on our knees and scrub away the ick, germs, and crud. Bleh. I would love for evolution to be true when it comes to housecleaning. I want to walk up to my toilets and hear the angels singing. But that never happens.

Dust bunnies never turn into real bunnies. Toilets don’t get whiter and cleaner as time goes by. My windows don’t get clearer and shinier. Evolution is the theory that life was spawned out of chaos. Out of disorder, came order. But that’s backwards, as any good housewife would know. We don’t approach our houses, thinking a dust bunny has spontaneously become a real life bunny.

As we approach our work day in and day out, week after week, month after month, NOTHING IS GETTING BETTER. And if we don’t intervene, the dust bunnies multiply, the toilets get worse and worse, and the windows get more and more difficult to see out of. So how is this idea of evolution true? In real life, everyday situations, everything is going from order to disorder. That is called thermodynamics. How’s that for a good fifty cent word? Work that into your next conversation and impress your friends with it. Thermodynamics is the theory that order becomes disorder.

I first heard the word, thermodynamics, in my 8th grade Life Science class by the same teacher who wrote, “God is dead,” on the chalkboard on my first day of school. I was a Christian at this time. I caught my breath when he wrote it on the board. I stared. Nobody in our class said anything. He didn’t say anything. I’m not sure why he wrote it on the chalkboard. But it’s one of those memories that are so clear and burned in your brain. Maybe he wanted to cause a reaction in the class and see what he was dealing with. Well now, I knew WHAT I was dealing with. Me and the teacher WERE NOT going to be friends. He wasn’t going to be my mentor.

Besides writing, “God is dead,” on the chalkboard, he taught us evolution AND the theory of thermodynamics. I remember liking that word. I remember having conversations in my head about how that word seemed to contradict the theory of evolution. Here evolution is saying out of chaos came life – ordered. But thermodynamics said everything ordered becomes disordered. My teacher didn’t seem to catch on that he was talking out of two sides of his mouth. How could evolution work, when the theory of thermodynamics says everything ordered becomes disordered and not the other way around?

The theory of thermodynamics matched what I already knew to be true about this old earth. I knew God created the world and everything in it, in six days. How did I know that? Well the Bible said He did. I also knew the theory of thermodynamics was totally true. How did I know that? Well I had already cleaned a few toilets by this time and I hadn’t found one that cleaned itself yet. I had also swept a few rooms and cleaned a few windows and washed a few dishes. Nothing was getting any better. I also had to clean a few school buses.

My grandpa owned the school buses for the schools in my town. He paid me and my sister to clean those buses every once in awhile. I hated that job. Imagine cleaning a school bus in the middle of winter. Everything froze to the floor. There would be partial black bananas frozen to the floor of the bus. I would have to take the handle of the broom and chip away at the banana to free it. Apple cores froze to the floor. Brown paper sacks all over the place. I remember entering the bus and looking down the long aisle. If only the theory of thermodynamics wasn’t true. If only things went from disorder to order. If that were only true, I wouldn’t have to spend my Saturday chipping black bananas and apple cores off the floor of a bus.