Apples

I don't know about you, but I can usually get along with anyone if I try hard enough. The key, of course, is my willingness to try. The guy who darts into line before me in McDonald's might be a challenge, but hey, we'll only be together for the next three minutes anyway. I can grin and bear this. That fabulous PTA mom with a rabid need to one-up me on her child's upbringing versus mine might prove more difficult. If I get along with her I'm really just chosing to face her over and over again. We all have our little system of weights and measures, designed to give us the answer on a piece of tape that snakes out of the machine. To get along or not to get along? It just depends.

Loving people is harder, it takes more effort, but you can do it if you really, really want to. I know this because I've been there, too. Real love involves surrender to Christ, when thankfully He sort of takes over and does the hard part through you. It's surprising to find yourself in the midst of mounting frustration with an individual, wondering when your patience is going to run dry, and then to see that first bloom in your heart, out of the blue. To realize, "Hey, I really do love this person." It's a relief, another way that God proves His strength in uncertain times, and I'm always grateful for it.

But trusting a person. Now, that's hard.

Trust is a uniquely integral part of any relationship, isn't it? In fact, I think we could measure any relationship we have in direct proportion to the trust that is or isn't involved. I don't know about you, but the minute my trust is sapped, I'm on my guard with a person. After all, if you don't trust someone, you can't ever get past the doubts that tint everything they say, everything they do -- everything. Sometimes those doubts even burrow through to their very core, their very identity, making you wonder if you even know this person. And most of the time, that lack behaves like a sand pile: the higher you try to mound some semblance of trust upon it, the more it seems it will collapse when you put any real weight on it. You're just not sure the footing is safe.

Our enemy knows this. In fact, his first attack on mankind began as an undermining in the relationship of trust between Eve and her Creator. The tree and the garden surrounding it may have been the setting for his first attempt at sabotage, but Eve's heart was where the battle really raged. Satan went for the throat on his first strike, leaving her wounded and fearful, wondering if she had lived a life of naivete in regards to the God she had never doubted before. "What if" plagued her mind until she felt she had no course but to test those waters...and murky depths they proved to be. It was only later, as she hid in the trees that were invented just for her that she must have realized the trick on her psyche.

And the game hasn't changed, has it? I believe that our personal doubts and dilemmas, our weak places in the realm of trust are the prime ground for our enemy to mount his offensive towards us. We may not have our hearts set on an apple, but we have it set on something we feel is our right, our future, our destiny. The plans we weave in the stillness of night hours are precious to us. The secret hopes and ambitions we only admit to ourselves are carefully guarded. After all, we don't want to subject them to any danger -- anything that might dash them to pieces. We preserve them with an almost maternal nature, our claws flashing at any sign of compromise. Our enemy watches all the while, noting these things, plotting his best strategy. And in that opportune moment, when we are finally upon our knees before our God, His hand outstretched towards that very dream of ours, our enemy shouts, "Aha! You see? He only meant to take it all. You can't trust Him."

And so the choice lies before us, even as it lay before Eve as she gazed at the new object of her affection. The thing that drew her, that haunted her thoughts. The thing she kept on reserve. Her "just in case it all goes to pot"....

Will we give it over? Will we step onto that new plane of trust with our God? Will we put Him to the test...in even this?

Believe me, my friend. He is up for the task. He does not cower under the weight of that moment. He isn't thinking up a back exit in case of failure. "Is that your dream?" He says, raising a brow. "Really? Is that your ultimate? The best hope your imagination can muster?" He waits for our nod and then, with hand outstretched and smiling broadly, says, "Hand it over. Trust me."

"I can do much better than that."