Fanz's Take: Use The Directions

Over the past weekend, the wife and I attended our first marriage retreat in the Palm Desert area with our church called "The Rock Church" pastored by Miles McPherson. The resort we stayed in, the Las Palmas Resort was a nice place which had a lazy river, and an adult only pool if you wanted to get away from a bunch of screaming, whining and sniveling kids. Oh! it had a 50 inch flat screen telly, which won me over, but! the telly and a nice weekend with the wife was not the mission at hand. We were there to make new friends in the San Diego area, since one, I'm new to San Diego and two, we like to fellowship with other Christian couples/families. I'm going to throw three in there as well, to strengthen our marriage. As a good majority of you know, my wife and I were skyrocketing toward divorce and was separated before I had an epiphany and realized that I was a genuine a-hola and had to make this right. We missed a marriage retreat before due to finances so we made it a point to go to one and this past weekend presented us that opportunity.

We left a little late on Friday, after planning to be on the road by 3 p.m., we left close to 45 after 3 and ran into a little traffic on the 15 heading towards the resort. Friday was a little hot and as we got further inland, it got hotter and we automatically went into Moreno Valley mode, because of the heat in that area and around it.

We finally arrived 30 minutes before the first session, which was hosted by Pastor McPherson and the first lady, they basically set the mode that in marriages, there are going to issues, but no so big that they can't work them out. After their session, we were treated to a comedian who was pretty good, I wish folks who left would've stayed, my man had us laughing with his Jerry Seinfeld humor.

The next morning, I thought I would be brave to get up and go work out with the pastor at 7:30 in the morning and folks it was about 90, 95 degrees in the morning, but to make a long story short, I thought I knew how to workout, but after 20 minutes, the workouts I was doing, wasn't jack in comparison to the workout on Saturday, I got tore back to the white meat! overall it was a good workout.

Our first session is where I'll be coming from because it stuck out the most, the speaker was Rev. Jim McCleatchen and he said something that stuck with me and gave me another "aha" moment. The speaker kept it real simple by presenting Genesis 1, 2 and 3. As you know those chapters deal with the creation of man and woman and their innocence, their openness and their face to face relationship with God, their creator. It also dealt with the disobedience, guilt, shame and blame of Adam and Eve after they disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden tree.

Essentially Adam and Eve were given simple instructions, don't eat from this tree or die. In the vastness of Eden, Adam and Eve had it all. And we know what happened.

Simple instructions...Follow the directions...Go by the game plan...

They failed.

And almost instantly, I thought of our relationship with God, we have simple instructions, directions and a game plan in which to maintain a healthy relationship with our heavenly father and I thought of the grill we purchased on the 4th of July weekend. Like our marriage, GaNeane and I agreed to vows to ourselves and God and when we opened the box to get the direction to assemble the grill, we agreed to follow the directions of the manufacturer or risk not putting the grill together correctly. As we started assembling the grill, we noticed that a few parts didn't match what was called for and like our walk with God, we decided to do it on our own and hope that it comes together...

Well it didn't and what we ended up with, was a grill that not put together. But we followed the directions, went by the game plan! How many times in your walk with God did Satan inject himself and throw tribulations at you? Some of us, like Adam and Eve fall prey to his whims and take your eyes off God and that's when he gets you..You're no longer pure, you're no longer innocent and you're no longer shameless, what you become is what Adam and Eve did, shameful, embarrassed and the bible tells us that they started to blame one another including the serpent.

Now we didn't start bicker and argue at each other over the parts or who could've done what wrong, no! what we did was called the manufacturer, told them the problem and they sent us the correct parts. I don't think it takes a genius to see where this is going..After being tripped up by Satan, instead of hiding, instead of finding someone to blame. God simply wants you to call him and come out with the truth. And like the manufacturer sending us the parts for the grill...God sent us, his only son to die for OUR sins. Now after we got the correct parts, we got the grill together and reaping the rewards of cooking healthy meals off it.

And after sending his only son to die for our sins, we should be reaping the rewards of God's grace.

Use the directions.