The weather is really good 
here. And I know that isn’t true much of everywhere else. So, I’d like to invite all those suffering in insufferable heat to come on over, spend some time on the deck and I’ll put together a pitcher of icy cold margaritas for us.
One of the first lessons in the Bible is powerful: Don’t buy fruit from snakes.
The serpent spun a tale of God holding out on us, being less than everything to us and wanting less than everything for us. The serpent used deception to convince Eve that God was not good. And as the saying goes, it is one of the oldest tricks in the book. And the lies continue anytime someone (including our own inner voice) tries to convince us we are less than God’s beloved. And that God wants anything but good for us.
As reliable as Charlie Brown and Lucy’s football, I fall for this deception all too frequently.
I don’t know if it is so much I fall for it, as I just forget. Or I get distracted by the loud hiss of old tapes telling me I’m worthless, unlucky or stupid.
Sometimes it is my own desire to believe in goodness that forgets the fruit salesman is a snake.
In my desire to be a good, kind and compassionate person, I want to believe the snake. I forget that compassion is to work in concert with (not in place of) intelligence and experience. Maybe the snake has changed.Went to therapy. Found God. Maybe this time the snake will not…well, be a snake.
But you know, I’ll borrow from another animal analogy here: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…