So if you're bored with my menu, you'll be happy to note the differences today, even if they're only slight. Breakfast was pintos and rice. Lunch was special: Cooked cabbage spiced with pepper and I don't know what else, and black beans and rice cooked in coconut creme. There was also meatloaf and a dessert of strawberry cobbler with ice cream, but I didn't partake of those. The Jamaican-style feast was provided courtesy of the husband of a co-worker who, for whatever reason—the reports of unmitigated delight and greedy pleas for more, maybe—has decided that he likes to cook for us occasionally. So lost was my palate in delight that not only did I forget that I wasn't supposed to eat white rice, but I forgot times two! It was scrumptious! I know now what my milk replacement will be. Later I had carrots and hummus, and I wrapped it up with a final meal of my own brown rice, raw almonds, and an apple.
I still haven't decided how I ought to feel about my dear Mr. T. For a little while, at least, he's back. I'm happy to see him. For as long as he's around, I mean to enjoy his company, and I pray I can do that without us fighting about things of the Spirit versus things of his spirit, which is part of why he called us quits in the first place. I didn't think we needed to be fighting, and I tried, we both did, to avoid doing it, but given the circumstances, it's quite understandable.
We believe different things about God, for one thing. But that's one very huge thing. For both of us. And for as long as that is so, for the two of us to walk in agreement is a major challenge. "How can two walk together," Paul the Apostle asks, "Except they be in agreement?" Well, they can't. Not easily. I don't really have it in me to write out a Bible study lesson about it, but know that while it's extremely important to be able to love my neighbor as myself as Jesus taught—and, as He taught, my neighbor is the person whose path He causes to cross my own, whoever that is—it is also extremely important that the ones closest to me be on the same wavelength with me Spiritually; the closer we are, the more closely in the Spirit we need to agree and flow. T and I are able to flow together in most things, but in Spiritual matters, we have clashed.
I won't go into details, but just to give one example, although we both believe of ourselves that we are a Christian, T sees God as an elemental force that permeates all things and people that exist, intelligent but non-relational. I serve a God who is Creator of all things and people, evidenced by them but distinct from them and reigning over them, Who has created man as a reflection of Himself and Who desires loving relation with man. T thinks the Bible cannot possibly be the word of God and that it is unreliable. I believe based on the evidence of my own life and the observable and observed evidence I've seen in other lives around me that it is impossible for the Bible to be anything else but the word of God, and it is, evidently speaking, the most reliable set of documents in existence.
I have prayed incessantly that Holy Spirit would capture his heart, open his eyes, and cause him to change his mind. That isn't necessarily one of my prayers for the Daniel Fast, but it is interesting that, in the middle of it, T has returned to prominence in my life, just as I have begun to enter a new season in my Spiritual journey, after accepting his passing out of the mainstream of my life into the periphery, far out on the periphery, perhaps out of it altogether if God willed.
I'm concerned for the both of us, but I'm not afraid for myself. I know that Holy Spirit will guard and guide me. I know that Holy Spirit can convict. I have my Abba's assurance that He has heard my prayers concerning my friend, and I know that He will answer, in authority and power. And I know far, far better than to get cocky just because of how God has impacted my life so richly in the so recent past. I've heard it said, "When God gets to blessin', the devil gets to messin'." Whatever happens with T—and I'm believing for good, especially regarding the outcome of things of the Spirit where T is concerned—"As for me and my house, we shall serve the LORD."
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