The Lord gave me a story The tale of Fear Rabbit ( a child’s tale of the message of 9/8)
many years ago to set me free from addictions and distractions. But now ,He has given me a story to tell that has set me free from a fear filled and cold religion . The devil will always try to use addictions distractions and dry religion to keep us from the freedom and Perfect Love we have in Christ. Certainly we are more than dumb bunnies if we fall for his tactics !instead we must say …
It is written … if the Son set us free, we ARE free indeed.
John 8:31
“Where are your feet?” The sister asked her brother.
“They are … ugh.. stuck ” the boy replied with a grunt. twisting his hips back and forth in the sand. , his feet remained unseen beneath hard packed dirt.the boy pleaded “ Sister help me. .cant you hear the coyotes howling. We gotta get outa here before dark ! before them dogs get us”
“I hear em, I hear em they are just howling “ the sister calmly replied sitting beside her brother in the dirt.” great now what ? you want me to sleep in this cold sand and get eaten by dogs ” the boy asked “we’ve got to do something to get me unstuck! ”
“Chill brother “the girl said laying down beside him on top of the sand “ remember Phobia Phobia who became Faith Rabbit. . .”
“yesssss” the boy replied with another grunt and twist..”so what does that have to do with us now !!!”
“ well once the Immortal Invisible one rescued Faith Rabbit from the Cunning One, he lived with the Freedom Family.
“Great … wish I were there” the boy said sarcastically.
The girl continued ” well the family changed his name from “Faith Rabbit” to “Caleb cottontail. ” They called him “Caleb ” because he became just like Joshua’s two friends “Strong “and “Courageous”. And with these friends, Caleb went many places to tell other bunnies how they were set free.
Whereever the Shadow of the Immortal Invisible One was , they traveled . And ,if the shadow was not there , they would just ask their Father and he would the extend the Shadow to many new fields. The Father only would ask that they show White Pure Light everywhere they went. And that was easy because they were all Cotton tails.
So Everywhere Caleb went you could see the light of his tail. It bounced through the field under the shadow of Perfect Love . It bounced and bounced bright and free though many fields .
Caleb’s paws carried pictures, and flowers, and letters, and poems, and stories to tell about how Jesus, the Immortal Invisible One , sets bunnies free. Everything he made told of the story of the day the Perfect one, Jesus, came to destroy the works of the Cunning One, the Devil. He knew that He was created to do this everywhere!
Caleb would bring these and many other things back into the freedom family where other cottontails were freely singing and waving flags to celebrate what The Immortal Invisible One had done for them. It was a beautiful time in the Freedom Family when they lived freely in the open field.
There was no wall or fence, no varmint or rodent, to constrain them under the Shadow of Perfect Love .
And There was no need for the cottontails to fear anything. Fear had left the field. And while coyotes still howled
“and are still howling sister. .” the boy interrupted still twisting in the sand where he had buried himself
Continuing the girls voice thickened
“AND every fox tried to steal grapes…even then , these snarling critters could not come near the bunnies’s camp. They were always at a distance. In fact, many a supper, the cottontails gathered remembering Perfect Love’s last supper with them….and”
The girl lowered her voice ” right then , at these suppers, you could see the eyes of the canines in the field glaring at them . ”
” and their tongues licking their lips to eat them ” the boy said
” Oh yes . . and hear howling and snarling! ” she intensified and then paused
. . . .but listen ,Boy , it was all put to dead silence as the aroma , that sweet sweet smell of the Last Supper filled the air.”
The girl closed her eyes.
“It’s that it ? “The boy asked
“It should be ” the girl replied but…she continued
BUT …one day a Fox. . a real fox came to dinner dressed as a bunny. And this Fox told the cottontails that they needed to do more to keep The Cunning One , the Devil, away.
The fox said that they were not as free as they thought they were. And that the Cunning one could still get them. He told the cottontails that bad weather was coming and that the Cunning one could raise his head again for a final strike.
Not once did the Fox talk about the foot of Jesus on the Cunning One.The Fox only spoke but only about the frightening dangers ahead.
Though The Cunning one in reality remained far in the field where Caleb last saw him . There, immobile, with the foot of the Immortal Invisible one firmly on him , Fear erupted in the field of the Faith Family . Rumors spread.
Many bunnies soon reported that The head had not yet decayed .” In fact it looked as alive as the first day caleb saw it” they would say. And even though It did not move and it had no teeth , bunnies swore that that its eyes followed all rabbits with hatred and accusation. And in truth ,it did do that very thing for those who drew close to it.
Many bunnies were going back into the woods of Doubt and Fear to see the head of the Cunning Evil One. And as often as they went, they looked at his head and not at the foot of Jesus.
Soon, Every bunny who went to the dark woods to look in the Cunning One’s eyes would get hurt. So hurt were so many bunnies that you could hear their screeches in the night.
And not only their screeches, but the Cunning One’s hisses. He would hiss and hiss as they ran back looking for safety.
He would hiss “scared rabbit. . . ha scarred rabbit. . run” Each hiss they heard invited Fear back in the field. And so it spread from bunny to bunny , fear upon fear.
Now Caleb heard all the fearful things that the bunnies were saying about the snake in the field “His head is rising! He will strike again! He is after you! He can take your freedom away! He smells your coming! He hates those with the whitest tail! And you Caleb your tail is tooo white!”
So Caleb became very ashamed and very afraid. Many friends left Caleb to go back to houses of addiction and distraction . ” I too have got to hide .” Caleb thought. So he buried his white tail in the dirty sand.
Caleb was sure he would blend in with other bunnies who dirtied their tails with distraction or addiction . But, it was not always so.
Because whenever Caleb would talk to the Immortal Invisible one, Jesus , he would get joy and bounce. And when Caleb bounced, all the dirt would fly off his tail. It was very hard to keep his tail buried and dark.
Soon , Only a few of Caleb’s friends remained in the field. But even they were not free.
“We are going to protect ourselves “they would say. “See,you stand out Caleb like us . . but we are building a big house where you can come in and be safe“ his friends said “they will be nice strong houses with plenty of room and you will have everything in them that you need. You wont have to go anywhere else Caleb Cottontail, you will be safe with us. So come stay in the house we will build under the Shadow of the Immortal Invisible one”
It all sounded very good to Caleb Cottontail.
“ I think Im going to live with my friends” Caleb told Joshua one day while they fished by the Main River.
“ Well. . .as for me” Joshua replied
“I know… ” caleb wouldn’t let him finish his scriptured sentence .
“I know your Word….but we too can ‘serve the Lord. ‘We must keep people safe from the Cunning One. He cannot get us if we build the right kind of house” Caleb said to Joshua
“ you make sure you stay free” Joshua warned Caleb .
Hearing a coyote in the distance Caleb bounced away” I’m always FREE . . just be sure to . . . tell Strong and Corageous, I will miss them”
“I will and We will pray for you Caleb. “ Joshua shouted back , wiping a tear with his paw.
“ . . . .beware of the foxes”he weakly cried.
The house Caleb entered was big and had a room for everyone in the family.
An official rabbit from another country set up rules and ways because he had built many houses before. It all seemed comfortable. There was time for speaking, time for singing, time for dancing, time for eating, and all things were done together in order .
But as the days passed, more and more order was given, the bunnies stopped talking and thanking together. And the house became both big silent and cold.
Bunnies began to take their food in their own rooms and sing their own songs in their own rooms and dance their own dance in their own rooms . Soon everyone was in their own room and their only company was the mirror on their wall. The bunnies wrote alone to themselves, . . . . everything to themselves. There was nothing to “one another.”
The roof over their heads blocked them from seeing the Shadow of the Immortal Invisible one and they soon did not talk to him either. If anything broke in the house ,instead of asking one another for help, they would send for someone from another house to fix it.
Little by little , foxes moved into the house all dressed as bunnies. They would come promising to fix things but, instead ,they would steal things.
Though contrary to their instinct , the foxes always left the bunnies alive. It seemed that they had no want or craving of the bunnies because the bunnies no longer had the aroma of a bunny. They did not even sound like bunnies. Fear had made them no longer sound or look like what they were created to be.
In this house, Caleb too forgot who he was. And he became very lonely. Especially when winter came. No one invited him to their room and he was too afraid to invite another bunny to his. He was afraid that they may make fun of his tail. He still knew it was white but, like all the other cottontails, He became very self conscious and embarrassed of his white tail.
It soon became soo very cold in the Big House . Day after day ice would gather another layer of ice on Calebs door . Ice upon Ice until Caleb was in a corner and the door iced shut. He couldn’t even get with other bunnies if he wanted too. A cold wall of ice had grown right there in Calebs room!.
Cornered again , Caleb felt full Fear come over his whole body. He shivered and cried so much that the tears gathered as icicles on his pure white fur , all the way down to his tail.
In a few months …maybe days…possibly years, he found he was frozen against a wall. Time seemed frozen as His cottontail stuck in the ice.
But this was not so for Joshua. Joshua and his house stayed in an open field. They continued to eat together and thank the immortal Invisible one with great fearless joy. No matter what the weather. No matter how many foxes or coyotes gathered. The sound of their joy and the aroma of their faith kept the foxes and coyotes far away.
And , as for the Cunning One , his voice was so distant and small , they would sometimes gather and laugh saying, “is this the one who scared the nations?.” .
But quietly, When they would laugh , Joshua would ponder and sometimes weep . .”is this the one that scared our brethren into that cold dark house? ”
Joshua thought a lot about Caleb. He thought and talked to Jesus, the Immortal Invisible one every day about Caleb. And often times when he was fishing , he thought about the last day that Joshua fished with him . With every thought and prayer , he wept.
Joshua wept many tears into a river. It was the big broad river that flows from the Home of the Immortal Invisible One. Joshua’s Tears gathered everyday until one night.
One night they met up with Caleb.
One night, Caleb was pulling against the icy wall with all his strength. Tearing hair and skin , he pulled and pulled. but the more he pulled , the more ice would fall from the wall crushing his every effort to be free. His feet became raw cold immovable. His lips were raw, his throat parched. He remembered to pray but he could not .
His lips were frozen shut. “now now when I remember to pray, I cannot, I cannot loose my lips to call for help.” he thought then moaned . . .ohhh… a… ba….. a …. Ba.
Two syllables came from his stomach like a belch out his throat. His lips tore apart , blood dripped from his lip onto the ice. .”Abba Abba” he cried patting his lips together to stop the bleeding.
But ,The few drops of warm red blood dripped on the door frame where Caleb stood.
The building slightly shook. A small crack formed. Soon, Water came trickling through the crack . Soon the ice all around the door was melting. Caleb continued crying but his tears were now warm and flowing.
He cried and cried with joy as he could faintly hear birds singing, bunnies bouncing, trains passing and far off….. far off in the distance, his dear friend Joshua praying.
Caleb’s weeping face slipped fully free from the melting ice and bent to the ground of the trickling water.
The small drop of blood disappeared in the flow . Caleb touched his lips with the water . . . “give me drink “ he said . . . . sipping and sipping as the ice fell all around his room . A large chunk fell from the door and the sun came into the dark house.
The warmth began to melt the ice around his cottontail
. No longer afraid of Coyotes, or Foxes or the Cunning one. No longer cold. No longer without speech. Caleb soon bounced Free.
It took a long time for the ice to melt the rest of the house.
Many bunnies thought something was broken and they would call on Foxes to fix it. No matter how many times Caleb sent letters to tell them that Perfect Love would melt the ice in the house so they could be free they would not believe him. And no matter how many times Joshua would tell them that the Cunning one was defeated they still stayed in fear in the cold house.
But Caleb was free. He was free on the day the River of Life came His way. And it just might have been because he had a brother who prayed.
“So give me your hand . Let’s go from here.” The girl reached her hand to her brother and he stood.“How did that happen? . “The boy stood up amazed.
“Because Perfect Love Casts out all Fear and without Fear we are FREE!!”the big sister replied.
“now shake the sand off your feet and lets go” she commanded
“Okie sis and Im shaking a tail all the way “ the boy chuckled.
“That’s right boy and don’t let no foxy bunny tell you it aint white as snow!!!”
Reference:
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Galatians 5:13 ESV
http://bible.com/59/gal.5.13.esv
“And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.”
Luke 13:32 ESV
http://bible.com/59/luk.13.32.esv
“Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.””
The Song of Solomon 2:15 ESV
http://bible.com/59/sng.2.15.esv
“For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”
1 John 5:7-8 ESV