We have arrived at the time of year that is known as the end of the growing season. However, it came as a surprise to me! Because I have considerable trouble going out to our car and getting into the car, recently I have been staying indoors and not leaving our home unless absolutely necessary. My view of the world out of our windows is somewhat limited. But this week I had to keep an appointment with a dentist, so out I went. It was almost shocking to me to see how much of summer had disappeared since I was last out! The green bean fields are now turning gold, and the corn has definitely stopped growing. I had not noticed the changes before, so it was a rather dramatic change for me. But then I got to thinking about this current end to the growing season. If you are aware of world events, perhaps you, like me, are aware that there have been dramatic changes in our world that point to the coming nearness of last day events. That is my perspective at least. It appears that our Master Farmer is about to be nearly ready to harvest His crops. Have I matured enough spiritually to be part of His harvest? I need to look at this period of time as nearing the end of my Spiritual growing season. I want to be ready for the Master's Harvest. I do not want to be part of the harvest that gets left out in the field and garden to be eaten by birds and animals or to rot—worth nothing of value enough to be picked up—to the Harvester.
This week was another time of reflection on various things that caught my attention or caused me to chain think! Have you ever been thinking about one thing and then moving on to another thought and then another and then another. Suddenly you are far away from your original thought—chain thinking! At some point I heard the word artificial! AI is a popular new thing right now. When it first started showing up in what I was paying attention to, I did not realize that AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, and I got caught in thinking how beautiful those birds were that I did not know even existed. The beautiful flowers must be something exotic from a foreign country. I have traveled to many places and found beauty everywhere. But when I started seeing pictures of places that I had been that looked so perfect and not what they really looked like when I was there, I began to realize that AI was being used to fake God's Wonderful Creation! Now AI makes me angry! I do not like being purposefully deceived and do not like falling into the deceiver’s trap of trying to improve on what God has done!
I have some things I used for children's Sabbath School teaching. I have toys that when they are swung, sound exactly like buzzing bees. I have some plastic birds that when they are filled with water and blown into, sound like songbirds and there are stuffed little birds that if you squeeze them, they sing almost like a real counterpart—but they are far from real. The word is fake little cheap imitations of the real God created creatures. When I was growing up, my mother thought she would have a little girl that would like playing with dolls. She did her best to instill that love into me. She gave me dolls, she even made me a giant doll, and she even made a doll house for me, but I am sure I greatly disappointed her. They were "not real" to me. Instead, I turned my attention to the farm kitties and made them submit to things that might normally be done with a doll. As I grew older, I preferred to play with stuffed animals rather than a doll. As an adult, I have always been attracted to real looking stuffed animals. Today, these artificial fake animals are being made very real looking! And I love to collect them. Still, they are and will never be as good as what God created. Man cannot create life even though AI can do much that appears to be real with "improvement" on the real. It seldom satisfies. A very real mockingbird likes to imitate the songs and calls of other birds. It is so good at it that you often look for what you think you are hearing only to find that the imitator is the mockingbird—seeming to mock you in your search. Starlings are bird imitators also. We enjoy fresh mushrooms and used to enjoy searching for them growing in the wild. So much fun to find the hidden treasures. But in our home, you can find some very real looking mushrooms that seem real enough to eat—they are not! I have seen some huge morel mushrooms "growing" in yards. They look quite real, but God did not design a real morel mushroom that grows 2-4 feet tall! More fake! A fake ID will generally get the presenter in trouble. You might say the fake ID is more trouble than it is worth! Then there is the problem of fake counterfeit money. The techniques used to print and make the fake/counterfeit money are so well done that many get taken in by the fake. It looks so real that only an expert trained to spot the counterfeit can tell the difference. But if you get taken in by the counterfeit, it is your problem for not knowing that you have tried to use the fake $20 bill. You end up being the loser. You have been deceived. Today there is another popular topic that can often stir up an argument. That is the topic of fake imitation, not real, meat. There are often real angry opinions about whether it should be or not be! I have in my keepsakes a wedding bouquet that looks like my real one! But my real one was made of flowers that soon wilted and died. My fake one is almost better than my real one. It will last forever. Rarely though is artificial desirable. In this case the fake bouquet is good—fakes are better, sometimes! But not often! It is better to be not deceived. Galatians 6:7 says, "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap".
This world has produced some master artists. Famous artists like Rembrandt and Renoir and Da Vinci and Van Gogh and others. Their works are admired and are often copied. Sometimes the copies are so good that no one notices until much later. The artificial ones are even sold for a great amount of money. But the truth often comes to light. We have an original painting of a Navajo grandmother. It is very special to us as it reminds of our stay and serving as pastor in a district in SW Colorado and La Vida Mission in New Mexico. But in one of our many moves, this painting received a tear in the canvass. And we were pretty unhappy about that! We took the painting to a professor of art and painting at our local university. This professor eventually returned our painting. We almost did not believe that it was our original painting with the tear! He had repaired it so well we couldn't tell where the damage had been. He counterfeited the original! And we were so happy. Counterfeiting used for good! But rarely does this happen! Most counterfeiting is used to hide the truth and the real. God is real, his counterfeit is evil. And I do not want the counterfeit him anywhere around me!
Do you know someone with a fake personality? Someone, maybe you, who is trying to show what you think others want you to be. You might try to present a character that you want to have but truly is not you. You may or may not get found out that you are nothing but a fake. You can pull the "wool" over someone’s eyes for quite a while. But there is one who you will never be able to confuse. That person knows you from the inside out and from the outside in. He knows the deep darkest secrets you have. He knows that you are pretending to be what you are not! He knows who you really are. He is your Creator. As Adam found out, you cannot hide from God. We don't have to hide if we are asking for His help in transforming into one who truly wants to never have to hide our true self! We are ready to be His true witness of His love. The daily news often brings news of guns being used for killing. This is always a tragic event. However, sometimes the killing happens because a fake gun was mistaken for a real one. And then an arrest was made or something tragic happened because of this fake that looked too real. The person with the fake gun should have thought of the consequences before using the fake.
God is not fake. His consequences for what we try to present to Him as our fakeness will be real consequences—nothing fake about them. It will be God's form of us being arrested or sentenced to death. Often, I hear the word "claimed" concerning some news item. I have grown to be very distrustful of anything that is reported as "claimed". If something cannot be discussed without the use of that word, to me it feels like the reporting is trying to hide or cover up the truth. I want to trust and not wonder what the real story is. I cannot safely trust AI pictures, the news, the birds, flowers that seem so real, etc. When trust dies, it is sad. Trusting in truth is made difficult. Trusting God and His promises even becomes hard. God warns against those who dishonor His Sabbath. The Bible warns against a counterfeit Sabbath, which is defended by human tradition and church laws. The Bible says that the seal of God is a gift given to those who honor the seventh-day Sabbath, and that the mark of the beast is a counterfeit seal of God that signals loyalty to human laws and traditions. I choose to honor God and keep the true Sabbath and keep it as a special day to commune with Him.
Recently we had a world event that was for the para-olympians. Many of the athletes were able to win medals even with their individual problems. They performed without limbs, in wheelchairs, with balls that made sounds, and with prosthetic limbs. I truly admired them for even trying to do something that I cannot do even if I don’t need artificial help. I found it hard to believe that teams could play soccer with artificial legs!
To me, I was led immediately to think about my upcoming surgery for my painful hip. If all goes as planned, I will come home with an artificial hip! I have been assured that an artificial hip will be 100% better than what I have now. But if an artificial hip will be better, then why did God allow me to have a hip that has deteriorated so much? Then I need to remember that this pain isn't God's plan. It is the result of sin entering our world and that someday soon, the pain and sin will be done away with, and my artificial hip replacement will be replaced! Our bodies will be made new again!
In the meantime, God, can you make time go faster so that can Harvest Time can happen sooner? And the fake, artificial ruler of this earth can end his rule, finally?
No more artificial—only truth and the real thing! The real Harvest of God’s Crops!