University Church Park,
Sunday Morning, March 12, 1989
Jerry and Christina strolled through University Church
Park hand-in-hand. The weight of heaviness was gone, and he gazed at the beauty
of their surroundings in wonderment. Although he was holding her hand, his
focus was not on her. Fleshly desire had dissipated, replaced with the purity
of peace that surpassed his understanding. He soaked in the Holy Spirit that
flooded his heart like a fountain from a deep well within him. Periodically,
Christina would make a slight glance to him, but he did not pick up on it. She
experienced the glow that emanated from him. He had what she had—the Holy
Spirit within. When they reached a park bench, he released her hand and sat down.
The mid-morning sun peaked through a gap in the billowy puffs that floated
through the azure sky.
“I had a breakthrough Friday night,” he said.
Christina sat near him, smoothed her white dress, knees closed with her feet
crossed beneath and turned to face him.
“After seeing the vision?”
“Yes.”
“I expected you would.”
“You did?”
“God doesn’t waste a moment. He called you with
His vision and word, and he acted on it. Right?”
“I’m seeing things that aren’t there, and I feel
meaning in simple things that are there.”
“There’s a saying, ‘You’ll know when you know.’
For the first time in your life you are seeing with eyes of understanding,
you’re hearing with ears that hear. Seeing into and hearing from the spiritual
realm.”
“You mean like a fortune teller?”
“Jerry, if you believe in the Holy Spirit, then
you must know there are evil spirits. If you believe that all that God created
is good, then you must know that the devil will slyly deceive us with false
blessings that look good but lead us to perdition. So . . . you’re confession?”
One
slip . . . one slip. The red apple with two bites out of it . . . the
eye within the triangle watching him.
“I woke up this morning feeling remorseful, as
if I had done something terribly wrong. But I hadn’t. I said, ‘No,’ when I
needed to say no. But oh, how I was so close . . . ”
One
slip and down the hole we fall
It
seems to take no time at all
“Last night, I went to the Pink Floyd concert in
Kansas City. Yannie and Freddie showed up at my apartment after work. I had
completely forgotten about it. I was so wrapped up in— ”
“How
God turned your life upside down?” She chuckled to lighten the return of his
heavy mood.
“Christina, I’m serious. I should be dead . . .
lightning . . . It that strangled me
. . . the truck. Then I meet you. I’m thinking, where would I be now if I
hadn’t met you?” He looked at her imploringly and then quickly continued. “You
made sense of it all . . . the Voice . . . the apple . . . The red apple with two bites out of it, the thought broke in. And then
I started seeing things that aren’t there . . . the man writing . . . the
candle in the window— ”
“A candle in the window?”
“Yes. When I stopped fighting it . . . the
frustration of the writing block . . . I saw a candle in the window across the
street. For gosh sakes, Christina, that window has been boarded up for as long
as I know, and it still is.”
“Jerry, all it takes is one flame to penetrate
the darkness, one flame of God’s presence for you to see the light. You stopped
fighting, you surrendered, and God took over. That’s what He was waiting for
you to do.”
He looked at her amazed. “And then I started
writing. I wrote every word that the Voice said to me. But . . . but then it
stopped.”
“And you’re afraid now, that the Voice won’t
come back?”
Lyrics laced through his mind—
That
binds a life to life
You
won’t regret, you will never forget
“That’s
it. I hear a voice, but I don’t know if it’s from God. It sounds ominous. It
makes me feel guilty. The words are Pink Floyd’s. I heard them when I was in the
shower, then at the concert, then when I woke up this morning. They’re from
their latest album, A Momentary Lapse of—
” He stopped short of finishing as the revelation exploded in his mind.
“Reason?” Christina finished for him.
His mind flashed with the pungent smoke
billowing through the door, the surreal feeling as he walked in the room filled
with Pink Floyd memorabilia, as he weaved past the groupies tattooed and
painted as if from another world, the red apple in the bowl that drew his
attention from the topless girls. He felt her supple skin against his and
goosed bumps rise on his arm as he looked into the eye within the triangle. The
crunch of the apple . . .
“Yes, a momentary lapse of reason,” he admitted.
“The words you heard are a warning,” Christina
advised.
Jerry recited the lyrics— “One slip and down the
hole we fall, it seems to take no time at all.”
“But you said, ‘No’.”
“Yes, but I woke up seeing two bites out of the
apple.”
“And that makes you feel remorseful?”
“Yeah.”
“God is working in you a conscience that even
the thought of going against his will feels wrong, being were you shouldn’t be,
so close to temptation that you can feel it brush against you. One slip . . . ”
She turned her head from him and closed her eyes. Her lidded eyeballs twitched
seeming to recall a memory. She whispered with anguish, “One slip . . . ” She took in a deep breath, then opened
here eyes to look into his. “He’s after the little things, Jerry.”
“The little things?”
“The little things that keep you from following
Him lead to bigger things. Think about it. God wants to transform you. If He
told you that you had to give up something that you wouldn’t let go of . . . a
lying vanity . . . something that you want, but for the wrong reasons, you may
say, ‘Na.’ She shook her head looking at him. ‘I couldn’t give that up.’ But if your conscience starts
gnawing at the little things, then you are more likely to see the bigger sins
as truly off limits.”
“Lying vanities? What do you mean?”
“Lying vanities are things that deceive. They
become idols that we trust outside of God—false love. It could be ambition,
pride, wealth, self-will, lust— ”
“So, I woke up feeling guilty about making it
with the topless girl— ”
“Topless girl?”
Jerry looked at her sheepishly. “Look, I’m being
honest with you. What starting out as just going to a concert turned into being
surrounded by Pink Floyd groupies at a private, backstage party. I had no idea
Yannie had passes, and I had no idea how close I was to taking a bite out of
the proverbial apple.”
“And she did and you didn’t.”
“Exactly. Funny thing is, among the booze,
drugs, and topless girls was a bowl of fruit. She took the apple and while
looking at me with an eye within a triangle tattoo, she bit into it and then
handed it to me.”
“The eye within the triangle is a symbol of an
all knowing God. What did you do?”
“I knew what she wanted, and I knew that if I
took a bite, there was no going back.”
“Just like the lyrics that run through your
head, ‘One slip and down the hole we fall.’ She took both his hands and held
them in front of her. Her eyes of remorse mirrored his. “Jerry, I’ve been
there. I didn’t say ‘No’. I bit into
the apple of my own desires. One slip . . . one slip . . . ”
Jerry embraced Christina. He felt the wetness of
a tear sneak between their cheeks.
She
whispered up into his ear as they held each other. “God commands us to love Him
with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind. When we love God with
all our heart, we surrender our will and our motivations become His. When we
love God with all our soul, we worship Him through our will and emotions,
whatever they are. We shouldn’t deny that we have desires and emotions, that’s
just a cover up, and when our guard is down, those hidden desires and emotions
rush upward like a geyser.”
He felt a quiver run through him. With
simultaneous revelation, they relaxed their embrace and parted. He took her
hand and stood, she wrapped her arm around his waist, and he drew her close,
her head resting on his shoulder as they resumed their stroll.
“We can’t hold these emotions back, Jerry. We
must freely give them to God, whatever they are—lust, anger, jealousy. We
surrender them, rather than attempt to hide them. God is all knowing, so there
is no sense in hiding. We must be honest and open with God, just like you are
with me. When we are in our deepest moments of lust, we worship God through our
lust, and he makes good of what is wrong in the flesh and turns it into what is
right in the Spirit. Love God with your entire mind, with every thought. Expose
your impure thoughts. Confess to Him that you wanted to make it with the
topless girl. Confession is surrender and humility, not weakness, but courage
to admit that you need God’s love, True Love that will replace your lying
vanity.”
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Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
Excerpt from
PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff Cambridge, a writer of transformational fiction with
characters that tell life-changing stories.
This is a
pre-published scene.
To read the
scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A
Novel – Prologue”
You will find
the previous episodes in the monthly archives. Click on them and enjoy.
Your comments
are welcomed and appreciated. Simply check one of the reaction boxes below,
write a comment, or email me at bycambridge@gmail.com.
This novel is a
work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and
locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and
authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
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