A Moth to A Flame

"Muskrat Suzie, Muskrat Sam
Do the jitterbug out in Muskrat Land..."

These were lyrics in my head when I awoke this morning, and that's when I knew for sure the week had been a little too much for me! My husband's back, my dog's bladder, a massive tree covering half our driveway ( for starters)...all just life circumstances but it's had us discussing how we deal with pain and inconvenience. 
What do we run to when dealing with ongoing challenges?
Our American culture is in this "Opioid Crises" for a reason, 
people are in pain.
Life feels adversarial and
people want relief.
After forty days in the desert, without food, I'm sure Jesus wanted relief.
I want relief when I miss breakfast!
Luke 4 describes the first recorded interaction of Jesus with His adversary Satan:

"4 1-2 Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights, he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.

3 The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”

4 Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to really live.”

5-7 For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, “They’re yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I’m in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they’re yours, the whole works.”

8 Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”

9-11 For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, “If you are God’s Son, jump. It’s written, isn’t it, that ‘he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone’?”

12 “Yes,” said Jesus, “and it’s also written, ‘Don’t you dare tempt the Lord your God.’”

13 That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity."

I never realized that Satan doesn't show himself in Biblical History until this interaction. We have the serpent in Genesis which seems to be a creature embodying Satan...but the account of Jesus' temptation is the first time Satan appears without disguise to tempt Jesus with relief.
"You have the power you need to feed yourself! Do it!
But instead of allowing his appetite to cause Him to act independently of His Father, Jesus depends on God's timing and ability to sustain Him.
"Why go through all this pain to make everything how you want it to be? I'll do that for you right here, right now!"
Jesus was able to discern the shortsightedness of this offer. What Satan offered had no lasting substance. The only way to accomplish all He had come to do, meant His Father's time, His Father's way.
"If you want people to start believing in you, you should make a spectacle of yourself! Get them to pay attention to you...show off!" 
And to this Jesus reminds Satan that God is no one to push around.

Jesus responds to Satan with complete focus on His true hope: relationship with His Father God, His Spirit (clearly revealed in the passage by the words: "Jesus being full of the Spirit") and the Word.
When I think of our temptations in life to appease, escape or avoid pain,
when I think of the adversarial circumstances and people we come up against,
I am reminded of the moth. A moth is driven to a flame by something called transversal orientation.
Equipped with a navigational system to orient itself to a distant, natural light (the moon)
a moth becomes disoriented by artificial light and drawn into heat it cannot survive.

So true for us. In moments of intense need,  the most destructive things can seem like such bright ideas...holding out the promise of relief and blinding us to certain wreckage.
We are made to orient ourselves, understand life and discern our course of action by the light of God the Father, His Spirit and His Word. His timing, His way is THE way through our pain to our future.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Heb.10:23