Chapter 6: THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

PART 2

WE ENTERED THE hedged-in Garden of Worldly Delights. It was lush, with a riot of flowers-all heights and types. Also, it was an absolute panic of colors. The Spirit of Counsel, Chastity, and I stood amazed at the beauty and heavy fragrances of this country garden. With our eyes closed, we breathed in its intoxicating aromas.

When we opened our eyes, we continued to feast-but now, with our eyes. How so many varieties and colors could blend to display God's beauty was an unexpected delight. I did not just experience the joy of the garden at that moment-it made me want to live in such beauty. It created a hunger. I shook my head to clear it from being seduced by the beauty before me.

It was then that I realized that the flowers had faces. They were talking to one another. Indeed, flower petals did encircle their faces; however, the rest of them-that is to say, their bodies-looked human. They were standing in a flowerbed together, as if they were growing in that bed. "The way lies before you, Anna," the Spirit of Counsel said. "Do not be seduced by what you see or what you hear," Chastity said. Just then, a bouquet of wonderful aromas greeted us. "Or what you smell," Chastity added with a laugh. We joined her. "Thank you," I said to them sincerely-for it is not always the bad that seduces us; it is often the good (but not God's "good"). With that, they disappeared. Squaring my shoulders, I approached the group of flowers.

As I walked up to them, an iris lifted her head and looked at me. "How did you get in here?" "Now, Iris," said a petunia, "she probably has relatives here." "Yes, Iris," joined in a yellow crocus, "you know no one gets through the gate unless they know someone important-well, I did not mean important..." The crocus stumbled over her words. "I mean a member." "I'm sure she's fine," said a large pink tea rose sweetly. "Oh, Rose," said the iris, "you are overblown with your own scent." The iris turned to me. "Who are you, girl?" "I'm Anna." "Well?" asked the iris, as if expecting more. "Don't crowd the child," said the petunia. "Give her time to catch her breath." "I, I was brought here," I said, almost as a question.

"You see?" The petunia raised her head to better give the iris an I-told-you-so look. "She has possibilities," chimed in a clump of daisies. "Yes," agreed the petunia firmly. "Oh, all this chitchat; let's just ask her," the hollyhock blossoms grumped. "Have you come for your petals?" "I don't know," I stammered. "Well, you cannot go further without your petals," the iris said firmly. All the flowers nodded in agreement. "No one told me I needed petals to go further," I said. "Typical!" barked the iris with a jerk of her head.

The tea rose whispered sympathetically, "It could be that she does not know because she is not advanced enough to receive the hidden teachings." "Hidden teachings?" I asked out loud. "You see," interjected a tulip, "she doesn't even know what we mean. If you had asked me before this situation occurred..." "What situation?" I asked. "Miss Tulip, everything does not need to be OK'd by you. Your time of wrecking the economy of a country has passed," snapped a snapdragon.

"I'm just saying that she could be a weed," the tulip said haughtily. "Oh no!" All the flowers cringed and shuddered. "I'm not a weed," I said over the turmoil. The iris retook charge: "Tulip is right. Pedigree matters." "After all," the tulip said loftily, "we are in a bed with a Rothschild orchid." "And the Queen of the Night," sighed the tea rose worshipfully. "What does she matter?" snapped the snapdragon. "She only blooms for a couple of hours once a year." "She needs her beauty sleep," soothed the rose. "Nonsense," barked the snapdragon. "She's lazy." The flowers seemed to have forgotten that a human was in their midst.

"Excuse me," I said, "I believe I need to continue my journey-so..." "Not without your petals," the iris said firmly. The petunia tried to explain: "The path is long and sometimes tangled. With designer petals, you will always be treated as-well, you know-special." "They see the petals and know that you are one of us," the crocus purred with pride. "Worthy of the light," the iris said imperiously. The always soothing tea rose interjected to help the explanation: "With designer petals, you can always turn your face to the sun."

"I don't mean to be disrespectful," I said, "but I can do that now." "What are you saying?" all asked in shocked chorus. "That I can turn to Jesus at any time," I answered. "Oh." They nodded to one another. "Foundational teaching. We have gone beyond that." The tulip continued: "With designer petals, you receive greater light-you are worthy of the secrets of the universe that have been reserved for a special, advanced few."

"But there is nothing in the Word that says God gives special knowledge to only a few," I said. "Ah," chuckled the iris, "now I see your difficulty." She nodded knowingly to the tulip. "The exclusive, and I must say, more advanced petals are found in other books-books that should have been part of the Bible, but politics kept them out. These other books have hidden secret knowledge." "You can climb higher," trumpeted a trumpet vine. "You have a spiritual pedigree with the right flowers. Your bulbs are able to get into the most prestigious beds from preschool through college," the tea rose cooed as if seeking to convince another flower. "You are much more powerful." The tulip lifted her head proudly. "Secret knowledge makes you powerful."

"But is power our purpose?" I asked. "Certainly helps," the iris said, dismissing the question as unworthy of discussion. "Only those without power question power. When you have money, power, and even fame, you can"-it was as though she was trying to rethink the talking points that were mainly for flowers and reconstitute them for humans-"you can do so much more for people." The tulip, seeing the iris struggling, joined in: "You can give others a hand up because you are traveling in the right circles. Your influence, of course, would be for good-always." All the flowers in the group smiled and nodded to one another. "Like here," the iris continued. "We are bedded with some very famous flowers, and everyone wants to be us. The soil is enriched, and we are fertilized regularly. Therefore, all of us look wonderful." They all giggled like starlets that had received figure-enhancing surgery.

I smiled. "But ladies, looking wonderful is not the same as being wonderful," I said. "Oh, don't be a nene," the snapdragon said sharply. "You know what we mean. If you have nothing and are no one, what good can you do?" I paused a moment to contemplate what I had heard.

I looked at these beautiful flowers and thought back to my twenty-year-old self when first I went to New York. I was dazzled by all the lights, activities, art galleries, famous and glamorous people. I would go to a bookstore and stand for long periods, looking at the pictures of famous actors and actresses-long dead. I began to think, even then, that all they had achieved and lived for was like vapor. No one remembered, and if anyone did remember, soon no one would be alive that admired their skill. It wasn't lasting. Even a brick in the bookstore wall lasted longer than their accomplishments. Even then, unsaved and dedicated to embracing the world and all the pretty little lies of the world, a doubt was growing in me. "Why work to create something that will not last-like the work of the famous people in the photography books?" I felt that I wanted to do something that would last. I wanted all the hard work to produce lasting rewards. But what?

Even though I was not a Christian at this time, I realized that everything in the world was passing away. One glance at the ruins of ancient civilizations told me that. But what would last? People would say, "Oh, you live in their memories." But I did not want to live in order to be a memory for a few years in someone's psyche before that generation died. That was not enough. I never found the answer until I came to Christ, and only then, after I had been a Christian for about twenty years. When you are a new-a baby-Christian, you can be very fleshly. One must grow and mature in the spiritual life as one does in a regular human life on earth. When the Lord first rescues us out of this world, we still see and do things as before; we still carry on trying to build in the world. Gradually we see this is also foolish. We get to the point where we only want to do and be and build what Jesus needs-and only if He asks us to accomplish that for Him on earth. Otherwise, we are living for the applause of humans, and applause dies fast. But Jesus does tell us to store up treasures in Heaven; well, that certainly is not gold, silver, or jewels. The streets in Heaven are gold. It cannot be the glorious gifts the Lord has bestowed upon us. Well, no, these are His already. You might say He lends these to us to show forth His glory and to benefit the body of Christ. What then? What lasts? What can be stored and remain and even be used later? The character of Christ.

His character is gained through our flesh being consigned to the cross on earth. As we pick up our cross and move forward to serve Him, only the part of our soul that has been transformed into the likeness of Christ will carry over and remain. It took me years to not only understand that, but then to embrace and begin to live this truth, but always, always, only with Christ overcoming through me. For while I am in this mortal body, I will always need to take every thought captive to Christ.

As I looked at the flowers, I realized that I pitied them. Therefore, I spoke gently to these beautiful, deluded blossoms rooted so firmly in the earth: "Jesus tells us, 'Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever."

Before they could answer, my breastplate tightened and I was sucked backward out of the garden, passing a sign that read: "Wind Tree." I could hear the clamor of "the ladies" arguing about my visit. The only expletive that rose above the others was, "A weed, if ever I saw one." "No petals for her," I heard as I blew further and further away, tumbling toward the branches of the Wind Tree.

The wind blew me through narrower and narrower passageways or branches. These were lined with some sort of mucus membranes and minute, tickling hairs that trapped dust and other harmful particles. I went tumbling and laughing through more constrictive branches until I came smashing into the thin walls of a tiny room.

I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland when she ate a good deal of the "Eat Me" cake and grew too large to get from the anteroom into the garden. But I was also suspended, by the force of the wind, to the walls of the small chamber-like an amusement park ride at the fair. However, I was laughing so hard from the tumbling and tickling and being suspended in midair to the wall that I hardly felt the removal of all that was deleterious to me from the chambers of the corrupted heart. All passed right through the thin walls of that tiny room, and I felt clean and fresh amid this extraordinary experience. My heavenly Father's voice rattled the room's thin walls: "You have been given multiplied grace."

Instantly, the Holy Spirit filled me anew, and I was sucked out of the labyrinth of passageways into the chambers of the renewed heart and shot like a bottle rocket into the hallway. It seemed like an inglorious arrival, for my expulsion was rather like being spit out. I ended on my bottom with my legs out in front of me on the hallway's dirt floor.

Ruach, Chastity, and the Spirit of Counsel clapped as I arrived. "Well done," they said. Ruach gave me a hand up. The Spirit of Counsel said, "The breastplate has been tested. But remember, 'Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.'" "We must go, our friend," said the Spirit of Counsel. "But be strong and courageous," said Chastity, smiling. I hugged them both, and they bowed from the waist to Ruach and were gone. Almost immediately, I heard the child cry again. "Help me. Please, help me!" I turned to Ruach. "There it is again," I said. "Do you hear it?" We both listened but heard no more. "Come on," I said to Ruach. "Let's see if we can find the one crying."