LVIII

BUT EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST AND ENTICED.

JAMES 1:14

SEVEN SALLIE (FATHER OF SEVENIA GIRL PROPHETESS)

I was so pleased with my daughter. She was such a natural teacher. Although she does physically look her age, you otherwise never would have guessed she was only seventeen years old as she taught the class. Other than the road bump at the beginning, her first Bible prophecy study/lecture couldn’t have went better.

After my daughter closed the study with prayer, my heart began to slam against my chest as I pondered the level of awkwardness that would ensue between Zella, Salena, and myself. The two women I had been platonic friends with for the last two years. I currently was experiencing a degree of romance with both! Or I was? Regardless, changes would definitely be in the works after the strange happenings of the previous day and night.

Zella is a beautiful, lithe African-American woman. She was the first to rise and go to my daughter. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I read Sevenia’s lips as she thanked her. Then Zella turned, and without giving me a glance, walked briskly out of the door. I was both relieved and disappointed. Yet I desperately needed to talk to her about last night. I rose to go after her, but as I did, I looked at Salena. She was giving me a sad smile. This caused me to sit back down.

Salena was beyond lovely, voluptuous and of Mexican-American decent. She was also my first love. She broke my heart by marrying another man right after we graduated high school. I had harbored hidden jealousy and resentment for years. These jealous feelings surfaced again after she had a brief fling with my twin brother. She became pregnant from this tryst.

At the time of conception, I was in the process of transferring my feelings for Zella from friendship over to romantic. Yet envy ate at me over Salena and my brother. When Salena and I dated, we were saving ourselves for marriage. The deepest intimacy we had ever shared was kissing.

I know what my brother experienced with her was fornication, but it still bothered me that my brother actually enjoyed becoming one with her in the most intimate sense. Even if it was a lapse of temperance and judgement on their part.

However my brother, having recently lost his wife, was not fit for a new relationship. Years of a secret hedonistic lifestyle also played a role in him telling me I should be with Salena. I should play the role of father to his child. In my head it was the biggest “yeah right” of my life. But then something changed in my thinking.

As I prayed earnestly over my love for Zella, I increasingly became convicted that we would not ever be a spiritual match. She did not embrace Christianity. Even after the powerful experience of Lexi Gomez’s deliverance from demon possession. If that wouldn’t change her heart, what would?

Then something happened. Although I had long harbored feelings of jealousy, I also had never stopped loving Salena. It occurred to me that our spiritual beliefs were more in harmony than were Zella and me. Plus, my brother made a couple profound points.

Biology shouldn’t matter, it was pride that made it an issue. Salena made a mistake by becoming drunk and then sinned by having sex with my brother. She in no way had cheated on me because we were not romantically involved. My brother even asked my permission to pursue her affections. At the time, I told him to go for it, never thinking he would succeed. Even though I was wrong, I wasn’t wronged by either party.  

Salena’s baby needed a father. My brother Six pointed out that I would be raising my own nephew. I’m ashamed to say, the thought of raising blood kin was a turning point for me. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. I’m definitely not somebody you would want to pattern you life after. My daughter, maybe, but the only sure bet is Jesus.

Plus I liked feeling needed.  Another thing my brother told me as I balked at pursuing a woman he knew I cared for. He said my German heritage makes me stubborn. I asked him what his German heritage made him. He replied industrious. We both laughed. Yet he was right. I had strong tendencies toward stubbornness. Not only that, but pride and arrogance, among other things. Conversion doesn’t mean you’ve arrived, but you better be growing.

So, I told Salena I was interested in pursuing a deeper relationship than just friends. I asked her if she was interested, and she was. Then yesterday, for the first time in two decades, Salena and I kissed passionately. After a few minutes of this, I told her that I needed to have a talk with Zella. I needed to let Zella know that we weren’t going to be a good fit, and that I was exploring a relationship with Salena. That evening I met Zella at her place.

“I get the feeling this isn’t gonna be good,” she said with a hesitant smirk after we sat down together on her sofa. She crossed one long jean clad leg over the other. She propped an elbow against the back of the couch and leaned her jaw into a closed fist. Would she be punching me with that fist when I told her the truth of my feelings?

I bluntly told her in a nutshell what was what. Rather than burst into tears, she stared blankly at me and lazily said, “okay.”

“Let me explain,” I stammered. “I, um, I, I…”

“Let me get into something more comfortable first,” she said casually and coolly. “Can I get you a raspberry tea?”

“That’d be great,” I said with a nervous smile.

She smirked and disappeared into her kitchen. I frowned. I dreaded the thought of tears, but selfishly, her nonchalance hurt. She returned a couple minutes later with a glass of iced tea. She knew that since I had quit drinking, Lipton raspberry tea was my drink of choice. I know it’s not the healthiest beverage, but better than the whiskey I had been drinking. The fact that she brought it in a glass instead of the plastic bottle it came in, which is how I usually drank it, should have been my first clue I was being set up.

“I know you prefer Lipton,” she said matter of fact. “But this off brand cost more. Trust me, it’s tasty. If you like it, there’s a full pitcher in the fridge.”

This should have been my second clue. She went into her bedroom. I downed the whole glass in about a minute. She was right about it being smooth and tasty. But I frowned and sniffed the glass. This should have been my third clue. Was there alcohol in this? I sniffed again. Keep in mind I was used to straight up whiskey. No, Zella wouldn’t give me anything with alcohol in it because she knew my struggle with addiction.

I retrieved another glass. Halfway through it, I thought, am I getting a buzz? But this is where Jeremiah 17:9 (The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it) kicked into full gear for both Zella and me. I now suspected that the tea was tainted, yet I played Barney Fife and pretended, even to myself, that I was blissfully unaware.

I looked at the time and frowned. Zella had been gone more than ten minutes. How long did it take to change into a pair of sweats? I retrieved a third glass of tea, feeling really good and telling myself, there’s no way Zella would be giving me alcohol.

“It’s about time,” I chuckled when I heard her bedroom door open.

 I turned to look at her and my jaw dropped to the floor. Then I bolted to a standing position. “Zella! What the!”

She was wearing a seductive grin. The smile she wore was more than the negligee that barely reached her thighs. I think it was pink, but it was so sheer, I wasn’t sure.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked as she placed her hands on her hips.

“I thought you were changing into something more comfortable,” I stammered as I fought to keep my eyes on hers. They desperately wanted to roam downward.

“This is more comfortable.”

“Zella, what kind of tea was that?”

“Raspberry.”

“I mean, was there alcohol in it?”

“You talk too much,” she replied and kissed me.

I was done. Not only did I not resist, but she also proceeded to seduce me and I let her. I don’t know how much time elapsed, an hour, more like two. I was dozing when I heard my phone. I scrambled out of Zella’s bed and ran to the living room to retrieve it. It was Salena!

She asked if I had talked to Zella. I told her that I did, and then I began to ramble. I had to have sounded guilty as the sins I had just committed, but she perceived it differently.

“I can tell it was really difficult for you,” she said sympathetically. “I’ll let you go and talk to you tomorrow.”

I stood in Zella’s living room and stared numbly at nothing. I heard her pad up behind me, her arms snaked around me, and she hugged my back side. Her voice was sultry when she spoke. “Salena I presume? Did you tell her you decided on me rather than her? Did you tell her that when we became one, you declared your love for me?”

I honestly couldn’t tell if she was being serious or disingenuous. I gently, yet firmly, released her arms from me and dashed back into her room, dressing hastily. She leaned against the door jam, her arms folded under her bare chest and watched me with a blank expression.

“So you lied then?” she asked blandly.

I didn’t know if she meant when I had just talked to Salena, or when I proclaimed my love for her when I was consumed in lustful passion mere moments ago.

“Let me ask you something,” I said boldly. “Did you spike that tea?”

“No,” she barked.

“So you’re gonna stand there and tell me that there was no alcohol in that tea?”

“No, I said I didn’t spike it.”

“So there was alcohol in it?”

“You tell me. Does Twisted Tea have alcohol in it?”

“You know it does.”

“Then yes it did.”

“How could you do that? You know I’m a recovering alcoholic!”

“Oh, give me a break. A few glasses of tainted tea isn’t gonna make you an out of control drunk again. If it does, this so called faith you want me to share and you dumping me because I don’t have it to your standards, it’s pathetically fragile.”

“Well, addiction is fragile.”

“So is playing with somebodies heart,” she declared with a quivering lip and tears beginning to spill from her lovely almond shaped eyes.

This wasn’t fair, was it? I questioned.

“Come on Zella, you owe me an apology, not drama,” I mistakenly said. Talk about poking a beast. Her lip stopped quivering and her teeth clenched. Her teary, blood shot eyes now glared daggers at me. She took three quick steps toward me and pointed a finger in my face, the tip of her nail grazing my nose.

“I’ll have you know mister that all’s fair in love and war. Until tonight, I haven’t been intimate with a man in nearly half a decade. I spent two years with a growing attraction toward you. Just when I’m convinced we will be nothing more than friends, you insinuate more. We start cautiously talking of a future together. You start holding my hand, and kissing my cheek in greeting and goodbyes. Then shortly after that you move it up to pecks on the lips. Then tonight you come waltzing in here and tell me that you’re better suited for another woman!”

I didn’t know what to say. I ran a hand through my hair and looked at my feet, unable to look Zella in the eyes. Then my brain told my mouth to say something without me really thinking about it. “I can’t believe you gave me alcohol.”

“Get out of here,” she said with menacing calm. “Go back to the woman that more closely shares your beliefs. You know, the woman that left you twenty years ago for a man old enough to be her grandfather. A woman with such strong faith she chose old money over young love. A woman, your apparent spiritual peer, who is such a rock of faith that she got drunk and is now pregnant by your brother.”

I just stood there, my brain in a muddle. I felt so many things. Love for two women. Betrayal by two women. Confused over my affection for two women. Forgiveness for two women. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Thank you for that,” Zella said sarcastically as she nodded her head. “Now, please go.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I barked. “Some friend you are. What kind of friend sneaks alcohol to an alcoholic?”

Even though I felt bad about the look of surprise and regret on Zella’s face, I slammed the door behind me.

(Destiny Knight-Storm’s notes from Sevenia’s 2^nd lesson: Can We Believe the Bible?)

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)

You can remain skeptical about an idea or a philosophy. But God became a person.

No one can understand God completely no matter how much you’ve studied, prayed, or how long you have been a Christian. It will always be a growing, learning process.

‘For now we see through a glass darkly.’ (I Corinthians 13:12)

The story is compelling. God became broken, to heal human brokenness. Even if it wasn’t real, can you think of a more intriguing story than that of Jesus?

What you call defeat I call a miracle: for to make things which are not itself and thus to become, in a sense capable of being resisted by its own handiwork. Is the most astonishing of all the feats we attribute to Deity. (C.S. Lewis).

The story is experientially persuasive

‘And there was a war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. And prevailed not; and neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth. (Revelation 12: 7-9).

Conflict lies at the very heart of reality.

Even with the fascination with superhero’s like Batman, Superman, and Spiderman etc. At the heart of this phenomenon of entertainment is that human beings know we are in trouble and need a deliverer.

We are all going through a war, an internal struggle with self and sin.

‘For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing.’ (Romans 7:18).

It’s as if we are prisoners in our own bodies.

Anger: at injustice and pain

Confusion: over the state of things

Helplessness: to bring about change

Desire/hope: for something better

Frustration: over repeated failings

Shame/guilt: from awareness of our sins

Despair: a sense of resignation

Fear: I’ll never be all that I should or ought to be

Dysfunction: in our relationships

Conflict is at the heart of the way we see ourselves and our world.

‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world give I to you. Let not your heart be troubled; neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27).

Jesus is the most influential person in human history.

The new Republic December 4, 2013 ranked the most influential people in human history along one dimension: Significance. The following is the top ten. 1. Jesus 2. Napoleon 3. Mohammed 4. Shakespeare 5. Abraham Lincoln 6.George Washington 7. Hitler 8. Aristotle 9. Alexander the Great 10. Thomas Jefferson.

Jesus, number one on the list, an obscure carpenter/rabbi who lived 2000 years ago said in John 12:32. “If I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to me.” Jesus is in fact worshipped all over the world to this day.

All of the rulers and kings in history put together have never affected mankind like Jesus has. His is a story and a life worth orbiting your own around.

Bible prophecies are accurate. Historians tell us the past. Journalist are supposed to tell us the present. Only the Bible can tell us the future. It told of Israel’s failures, judgment, and captivity. The destruction of Jerusalem. Messianic/Jesus prophecies. Daniels many prophecies. The end time prophecies of Revelation.  

(FYI: Destiny’s notes are based off of ‘5 reasons’ seminar videos by David Asscherick which can be found on YouTube or The Hope Channel).