The Apple In Your Eye 10/13/2018

Good Morning,

The old house is pretty cold this morning. So this cup of Door County Maple Coffee is not only tasting good,  it is feeling good also. The fireplace was just lit and it won't be long until this frosty home is warm.

Yesterday I was able to make it home from work before the sun went down. Rene was out in the back of the yard trying to pick the last of our apples before the heavy frost arrived. I changed into some clothes more appropriate for yard work and went out to help her. Rene had picked most all of the apples, but despite all of her efforts about 100 very large apples remained at the top of the tree. These apples had to be picked. They were the ones that received the best sunshine and I knew they would taste good.  Our ladder afforded me a good shot at them and with a hook we have I was able to get all of the apples except for about twenty.

I surveyed the remaining apples and one of them just stood out as "the perfect apple". That apple was going to come down no matter what. We really don't like to apply the hook to the branches and shake the tree but in this situation it was our last resort. I stood firm on the ground, extended the hook to the branch of lusciousness and started to shake the branch vigorously. Several apples came down. Some hit the ground and split. They were later used for apple pie. But that prize apple remained on the tree, defying me to pick it. I wanted that apple. I decided that one more good shake effort was needed. I gave that branch a shake while staring at the apple. It was him or me. That apple launched like a rocket  from a battle ship. It arrived right into the area of my head that my left eye occupies. My glasses were shattered and this old man was knocked silly for a minute or two. I visited the local solar system and saw all the stars it sent that were flying through my head.

Rene came running to my aid. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She took the hook from me and proudly announced  "we are done". She picked up my glasses pulled her red wagon and boxes of apples to the garage. I followed her like a scolded puppy, defeated by the apple of my eye that ended up in my eye. An ice pack later, one trip to the vision care store for new glasses and except for a headache it was all a bad expensive, memory.

The moral of this moron's story is this. Somethings just catch our eye and we want to possess them. We go to great lengths to have it for ourselves. Eventually that apple would have fallen on it's own and the local wildlife would have dined on it. But no, I just had to have it and look at the calamity not sharing brought to me.  There are certain things that are best left on the branches of life. What attracts us might belong to someone else. What attracts us might not be good for us. We go where we shouldn't go and the consequences of our decision have an impact on us. The impact is not pleasant. One lady named Eve learned all too well that the apple of her eye became the apple in her eye. Scripture never tells us really that the fruit on the tree was an apple but for this lesson, let's use the apple as the fruit.

Genesis 3:1-19

The Fall

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
⁴ “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
¹¹ And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring^[i] and hers;
he will crush^[j] your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

What might you be desiring today that makes you crazy enough to get it at all costs including sinning against God? I advise that you just leave it alone.

Marty