THE BIG BAD WOLF

It was the nursery rhyme The Big Bad Wolf that I thought of this morning as the wind was whipping between the two buildings behind my office window.  It has been 40 plus years since I heard this nursery rhyme, and now there are several versions of this story, but the part I remember is I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house down!   

Job 1:19 tells us that a "wind" (not a wolf) blew down the house of  Job's children - Suddenly a great wind came from the desert, hitting all four corners of the house at  once, the house fell in on the young people, and they are all dead..."

With a risk of sounding negative for just a moment, every day of our lives there is one that would like to "blow our house down" (or destroy you).  Jesus said it well when he said, "A thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I came to give life-life in all its fullness"(John 10:10).  But the focus is not on the "thief" trying to destroy us but Jesus giving us fullness of life.

There are days that we will feel the wind from the storm.  There are days we will feel like that Satan is outside our door huffing and puffing and threatening to blow our house down. There are days that we do feel the pressures of life.  But when we walk in the fullness of life, the abundant life that Christ speaks of, we can weather any storm.

The Apostle Paul gave us some inside information on how to build our house that will stand against these storms (I Corinthians 3):

1. Laying a good foundation
2. Being careful how we build 
3. Using the right materials to build with

With these principles in place Satan can huff and puff and threaten all he wants, but "me and my house will serve the Lord!"  (Joshua 24:15).

...There is another character that I learned about 40 plus years ago.  In Sunday School we sung about "the sly old fox."  (The fox and the wolf are both from the same family, the Canidae family.)  "The devil he is a sly old fox, if I could catch him I put him in a box.  Lock that box and throw away the key for the many old tricks he's played on me..."