Chapter 10: THE DEATH ADDER.

THERE WAS NO time to wait. I checked my sword and armor and then looked at Ruach.

"Where?" I asked.

Ruach silently pointed toward a dim light ahead. Immediately, I moved forward. "Pray for me, Ruach!" I called over my shoulder.

The root system had narrowed, and the earth closed around the one way into the lighted area. My hearing became more acute as I took a cautious step toward the only avenue left for advancing. The hanging roots were now plastered against the narrowing entrance walls due to a suction pulling both them and me nearer the light. The sound of a deep drum kept a constant, dull beat in the background. It was frightening, truly ominous. I did not know where it came from and could not stop it.

Where was I going? The walls narrowed to a crawl space. That too was frightening. What if something began crawling on me or stinging me? I couldn't defend myself. I remembered the taunt that only the meek could find this beneficence. Well, I was certainly down on my knees. The suction became greater. I was getting closer, and my fear was growing right along with the nearness to the opening.

I began to pray out loud-"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."

The drum stopped, and everything was deathly still. I tried to keep my movements as well as my breath from making sounds. I didn't know what was up ahead. I knew my Father would not have given me might if I did not need it. But I didn't feel mighty.

Ruach seemed to have disappeared, and I was nearer and nearer to danger. Through all the trials and the tests, at least someone was with me. Now I seemed to be alone. Was I alone? I couldn't be for I had Jesus, and He said He would never leave me nor forsake me.

I had crawled as far as I could. But now the passageway had become even narrower-so much so that I was knocking dirt down from the sides and the top. Centipedes and nightcrawlers were emerging from the soil. I hoped these insects would not get into my eyes or mouth.

I stopped. I was panting, for there seemed to be less air. Also, it looked like now I would need to lie flat and pull myself along. There did seem to be a number of strong roots that, I felt, I could use as handles to help me drag myself toward the light. I can't tell you how frightening this was.

I thought to myself: "If something enters this tight passageway from the other end, I would be helpless to protect myself." The tightness of the tunnel was terrifying, suffocating. Everything within me was screaming with fear. But there was only one way through-forward.

I arrived at the mouth of a dimly lit, small, cave-like area. Much to my shock and panic, it held some creature's nest. Within the nest was a large egg. It had an enormous Death Adder coiled around it. Where did that egg come from? It looked too large to move through the entryway. How was it to get out? How did something as glorious as a God-infused beneficence get into that leathery snake's egg? Questions assailed me like machine-gun fire.

The Death Adder was sleeping. The suction had increased. I looked to my left to see the origin of the suction, and I saw within the entry two enormous gates opened wide and the tree's bitter taproot plunging through them. "The gates of Hell," I whispered to myself. "No wonder the pull is becoming so great." I could hear cries and sounds of torment coming from the yawn of Hell itself. I certainly did not want to be dragged in that direction. I was going to need to awaken the huge snake if I was to retrieve that egg. That much I did realize.

I became paralyzed with terror. It dawned on me that more than I myself would bear the consequences of my actions here. I was not a Bible hero. I was not even anointed (at least as far as I could tell). What if I failed? I had seen ministers pass their hand in the air across groups of people and those people fall backward under the power. I'd seen mighty acts done by my fellow Christians, but not one of these acts came from me. Who was I kidding? I could fail. In fact, I probably would fail. "O God," I screamed within myself. "I am endangering thousands of my brothers and sisters because I jumped in and said, 'I'll do this.' Have I lost my mind?"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I said to myself. "I'm not going to do this. Jesus is. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me." After all, I have been crucified with Christ. I pulled my focus back to the task. I could see the breathing of the snake. It was huge. I wondered how many people it had sunk its fangs into. Did it eat them or just kill them?

But the Lord would not have sent me into this situation if He did not believe that Jesus-with me tagging along-could handle the challenge.

I was unnerved, however, by the fact that the snake was an extremely large Death Adder. It was dark, dark gray-to some it might have seemed black. There were faint, lighter gray bands spaced intermittently on its heavy, thick, dangerous-looking body. It had a triangular head with ridges above its eyes. I knew it to be part of the cobra family and its bite fatal for anyone far away from an antidote.

I had never seen one so large. What was I saying? I had never seen one at all, only pictures of one. But at this huge size, the egg was still too large to have come from the snake. Also, the egg looked as though it had been glued together from smaller egg fragments to protect something or keep it from escaping. Once again, I heard a child's whimpering. "How?" I wondered. "Was there a child within that egg?"

The snake slowly opened its eyes. I held very still. I reminded myself that any strike would mean a quick and painful death. It took a few seconds for the adder to register that someone was in its den. And then it registered that someone was not only in its den but also eyeing its egg. Even though the snake did not lay this egg, he had guarded it long enough to consider it his own. He began to uncoil and rise up. Up, up it lifted its head, staring at me. I froze under its gaze. Trapped. There was no escape. I had to stand my ground.

Then the snake spoke softly: "Hello, little girl." I was stunned. I expected a fight. "Hello," I answered in as guarded a way as possible.

"Lost?" the adder asked kindly. My breath was coming in short, shallow jerks. I couldn't seem to answer. My hand went to the hilt of my sword, and I turned my face to gaze at the mouth of Hell, which had begun to throb. "Oh dear, don't mind that," the snake said, indicating the gaping hole. "It's Hell," I exclaimed. "No, no, no," the snake chuckled. "You think it's Hell, but, just between you and me, there is no Hell. It's all bells and whistles meant to scare children and the naive."

"But..." I gestured toward the agonized sounds. "Oh." The snake smiled. "Sound effects. It's an elaborate sideshow. You don't actually think a loving God would consign His creation to eternal torment, do you? You are not thinking things through. No-the idea of Hell was from folk tales spun by primitive man to scare people into submission."

"But if it's in the Bible, it's true," I said. "Yes..." the snake singsonged as it rocked its head from side to side, "but not in the way you may be understanding it." The snake smiled. I didn't know what to say. The snake's voice was dripping with honey. "You must think better of your God than to believe stories meant to frighten children." The snake seemed to uncoil itself a little more during this exchange. I crept backward, closer to the mouth of Hell.

"Now, if you are not lost, you must tell me why you have taken all the trouble to come to see me." I couldn't say the truth, that "I've come to kill you"-but I could speak a truth in answer to the question. "I didn't know you were here." And that was true. "So you are a curious little girl that struggled to drag yourself down a dark hole with no one telling you that you were coming to my home?" "No one told me you were here." "Surely you asked the One who requires everyone to call Him God Almighty. Pretty arrogant really. But if the kid from Nazareth did nothing without asking His permission-just think of it, as old as He is, and He still can't make His own decisions." He laughed and shook his head. "Everyone must channel Big Daddy-and they call that maturity."

All the while the adder was carefully moving into striking distance, and I was inching away as carefully as I could without being sucked into Hell. "Come now," the snake said with a smile. "You are a guest in my home. You may speak your mind freely. I won't tell you know Who." A long pause followed as we each calculated the cost of honesty. Finally, I said, "It's true our hope is that we all be one, for our Lord Jesus prayed, 'That they all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may also be in Us.'"

"And that One is the Big Guy?" he hissed acidly. "If by the Big Guy you mean God Almighty, yes." The adder cracked a hard laugh. "Well, He has certainly given Himself an exalted name. So you are willing to give up the control of your own life?" "Yes, to become one with Him." "And only do what He does and speak what He speaks, to actually be a puppet mouthing someone else's ideas?"

"Not a puppet-complete. I love Him, and I want to be as close to Him as I can be. I want union. I want Him to be in me and I in Him. I want Him to speak through me and live through me. I actually want the best for everyone, and the best for them is not me-it's Him."

The snake sneered. "And you think He will give you this? When even the One who called Himself God's Son was begging for it before He died-and He'd known Him a lot longer than either of us?"

As he spoke, the Death Adder had arrived within striking distance. Now I was pressed against one of the open gates to Hell. "Stay back," I warned. I drew my sword. Suddenly the sword flashed with a brilliant light. The Scriptures on the blade jumped off as if protecting me. This happened in a second, for Christ-our Savior, our Champion, our Warrior King-instantly appeared within the dazzling light and removed the snake's head from its body.

He grabbed me with His free hand, sheathed His sword, picked up the egg, and burst through the tunnel, traveling upward.

Bouncing behind us were thousands of silver chains dragging those stuck in the flesh within these roots. Not saved-but it looked as though they were being given another chance on earth to choose Christ. As He exploded from the bowels of the earth, the chains burst into a thousand links of light and then disappeared. Those rescued were scattered across the earth.

"Thank You, Lord," I said.

He smiled down at me. His armor was becoming brighter and brighter as we flew upward. It was as though shards of God's glory were attaching to His armor. Both Jesus' armor and the throne of God began to mirror this incandescent brightness as we drew nearer and nearer to our incomparable and glorious Father.