Lisa ‘Gravel’ Reysa, in her American flag one-piece swimsuit, is alone with her thoughts on the shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. She asks God, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ Gravel is lonely and unsatisfied in her life. She is a sheep in search of a Shepherd. Lo, Flanders comes for her. He was once an old crush for her. He is a Christian man now. He might have the answer to her question. He begins to tell her about Christ the Saviour. Lo, along now comes Professor for her. He was her former teacher who had taught her to seek truth by introspective personal analysis. Flanders tells her that only Jesus satisfies. But Professor tells her that analytics satisfies—all she needed do was to study her mind with her mind. Which means to happiness will Lisa choose?
IN SEARCH OF A SHEPHERD
By Mr. Morgan P. McCarthy
The young woman stood barefoot alone on a vast shore of sand in a gray summer day, and she looked out upon the waters. Here was cold Lake Michigan on a July morning in Wisconsin. A chilly wave washed ashore over her feet, and her heels sunk a way into the wet sand. She stepped back out onto the dry sand to feel summer’s comforting warmth back upon her feet. She felt the wind upon her back, and she looked upon her front to admire what she had on today. Covering her female form here at the isolated beach was a one-piece swimsuit—indeed her very familiar red, white, and blue stars and stripes one-piece swimsuit. “What do guys see in us girls in one-piece swimsuits?” she asked herself.
She continued looking upon her torso, then ran her hands down both of her sides, and she answered her question with her own conjectures, “Maybe the way we women curve at our sides.” Then she asked herself, “What do we gals think about our one-piece swimsuits?” She admired her flat belly and her slender build, and she put her hand to her stomach, and answered her own question again, “One-piece swimsuits fit us, and they feel quite comfortable to have on all day long.” The woman saw a stick
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lying around on the sand just up ahead; she would make a writing stick out of it now. Coming up to it, she picked it up, and she wrote in the sand, “Gravel—the Fox.” And she smiled upon her countenance in remembrance. A cute guy named “Flanders Nickels” used to call her that. Her real name was “Lisa.” But “Gravel” was so resonant a nickname that she liked that name better. And what girl would not want to be called “a fox” by a wannabe boyfriend? She put her stick to the sand again, and this time she did write a most coy, “Gravel + Flanders.” And she laughed in flirt. Others might see this message, and that made her feel good. She thought now upon the end of their near-romance, and she wrote now in the sand about this sorrowful parting of ways between them, “Flanders Nickels, born-again Christian.” Her mouth went wry upon reading this message, and she quickly crossed it out with a line right across the middle. She did not like Christ, but Flanders saw Christ as his own Saviour. She never understood that. And she relived in her lonesome heart here now at Lake Michigan his last words to her, “I’m sorry, Gravel. I cannot go out with you. God says in His Word for me not to date an unsaved girl. My Lord knows what’s best for me. Good-bye, fair Lisa.” Lisa hereupon threw her writing stick way out into the Great Lake. And she cursed her lonely life in a way that was not fit for a woman. Pretending that Flanders was here with her on a date, Gravel “asked him,” “Do you want to see what I look like with my maillot nice and wet, boyfriend?” And braving the very cold waters, Gravel waded out into Lake Michigan all the way out to her shoulders, and she waded back to the shore, her female frame shivering in the breezes. But, of course, Flanders was not here to see her. She said half to herself and half “to him,” “I’m sexy in my one-piece swimsuit when it is dry, but I am sexier in my one-piece swimsuit when it is wet.” She then slapped her back end with both hands.
Would that Flanders would do just that to her right now. Alone now, and jealous over Flanders’s Jesus, Lisa again thought upon what the meaning of life could possibly be all about. “Why am I?” she asked herself. Then she looked up and prayed, “Why am I, God?” Why was she here? Why did she live precious life? Why did she have good times? Why did she have bad times? Why did she have
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dreams? Why did she have goals? Why did she as a woman have discouragements and disappointments and depressing circumstances? Why did she as a woman have joys and rejoicings and sometimes joie de vivre? Where did she come from? And where was she going? Who made this vast Lake Michigan and its waters below and its sand about and its skies above? And, as a girl, why did she have so much in her life and yet still felt like she was missing out on life? And she asked God a second spoken prayer-question, “What might be missing in my so-called life, God?” In fact, as she thought upon this in search now, comely Lisa truly understood now how unfulfilled and unsatisfied and discontented her whole life had been; she now discovered that all these young years she was always hungry and thirsty for something more, but never found it. Flanders never thought this way with his life with his Christ. Something washed ashore at her feet here on the sand, and she looked and saw it to be that writing stick that she had thrown out there. She then asked God her third verbal word of prayer,
“What is life supposed to be about, God?” She then wrote it in the sand. And she sighed. For she knew that even if she had Flanders with her now as her own boyfriend, even he could not fill the void in her heart. And Gravel fell upon a slough of despond. And she did now sit down on the sand and took to feeling sorry for herself for a long while.
Soon the bright yellow sun came out from behind the gray clouds, and her swimsuit-covered form began to feel warm again. After a while her maillot was all dry once again—both outside and inside. And Gravel for an inexplicable reason had a strange hope that things were going to get better for her.
Just then a voice called forth in most idyllic tones, “Gravel?”
It was the voice of beloved Flanders! Gravel quickly leaped to her feet and turned to the one who had just spoken. Yes! It was he!
He took one look at her in her maillot, and said in awe and admiration, “Lisa! Lisa Reysa!”
He had never called her “Lisa” before. He was stunned by her pretty swimsuit on her pretty body,
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and he accidentally called her by her real name.
“Lisa ‘Gravel’ Reysa,” she said to him.
“Gravel—my Fox,” he sang out, holding out his arms. And she ran up to him and threw herself into his open arms in a hug. And she hugged him back long and hard. “You have not changed a bit.
Gravel, you are still the most beautiful woman in the world!” he declared in ardor. Her brown hair was still wispy and straight and shoulder-length and enhanced with bangs. Her eyes were still brown with the spirit of life. Her frame was still slender and feminine. And her voice was still her most delightful
gravel voice he had always heard from her tongue—gravelly and femininely husky—like a song to his heart.
“How did you find me way out here, O Flanders?” she asked.
“Your best friend Gretchen told me that you were here today,” he said.
“Good and faithful Gretchen,” sang out Gravel, happy now at this lake’s shore. “You still look awful good to me, too, O Flanders,” she did say back to him. His hair was brown, straight, reaching down to his ears and with men’s bangs. His mustache now was longer than it had been, and it was now fuller. His beard was also longer and fuller now, no longer that goatee, and she could see that he was now growing sideburns as well. And his overbite again beguiled her heart now, even though it had been some years since last she had looked upon it. And as a guy, “her” Flanders was short and skinny—no bigger than herself. And on his head—as always—was his handsome Jiffy hat, this one a different one from the last one. He was attired in blue jeans and a long-sleeved plaid cotton dress shirt untucked and a vest unbuttoned. And his feet, as always in summer times, were quite barefoot outside. He was holding his shoes in his hand—a pair of penny loafers with quarters where the pennies were supposed to go.
He went and told her now, “I have been praying for you, Gravel.” Well did he know how his Christ had been such a stumbling block to this Lisa in the old days. But this time she did not reply with
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offense at his Christian words.
This time, Lisa Reysa said to him, “Thank you, Flanders. I think I need that these days.”
He pulled out that little pocket Bible that she had once hated from his back pants pocket. But this time she chose not to hate it. He asked her, “Would it be okay with you if I read some of This to you, Gravel?”
“I think that it would not bother me this time,” she said, humble and open now.
Young man and young woman sat down together on the warm dry sand side by side. He opened up his little red King James Bible, and he read from it a verse that the woman never knew could be found in the Holy Book: “’I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.’ Song of Solomon 1:9.”
“That’s from the Bible, Flanders?” she asked.
“Uh huh, Gravel,” he said, nodding.
“But it is romantic,” she said.
“You’re romantic,” he said in fun flirt for both of them.
“You mean that you are saying this verse to me and telling me that you feel the same way?” she asked.
“I do, Gravel,” he said, “if it is all right with you yet all these years later.”
“It is very much all right at that, Flanders,” she said. “I like that verse a lot! Is there another verse like that that you want to tell me from the Bible?”
“There is,” he said.
“Tell it to me, Flanders,” said Lisa.
And he turned one page in the Holy Bible, and this time he read in affection for her, “’How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!’ Song of Solomon 7:6.”
“I’m delightful,” she bragged on herself in coquetry.
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“Are you also delighted, Gravel?” he teased her.
“I am…very much,” she said right back.
How quickly did this man of God make her comfortable with God’s Holy Bible this day.
“I’ve missed you, Gravel,” he said.
“I’ve missed you, too, Flanders,” she said in solemness.
“I came to try to tell you about God today,” he said.
She pondered for this moment and ruminated upon those questions she had been asking right here at the lake in her solitude prior.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked her in compassion.
“I was thinking about things about God,” she said.
“Maybe I can tell you some answers to some of your questions with my Bible, Gravel,” he said.
“I am ready,” she said. “Your old-time wannabe girlfriend is searching for something that she cannot find.”
“As a lost sheep?” he asked.
“Yes, as a lost sheep, Flanders,” she said.
“It sounds like you are in search for a Shepherd,” he said.
“I am a sheep in search of a shepherd,” she confessed.
“That Shepherd is the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Gravel,” he boldly told her what she needed to hear.
“All my life, I have been imperfect,” she began her story. “And because I am imperfect, bad things happen to me, and I cannot do anything about that. If I were perfect, on the other hand, nothing bad could happen to me. Because I am imperfect, I am terribly unhappy. If I were perfect, I would be wonderfully happy. So you can see all about what my troubles are, Flanders.”
“Only God can be perfect, Gravel,” he sought to encourage her.
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“Ouch! The perfect God created in me an imperfect woman. If He is so loving, how could he do something so cruel as that to me?” cried out Lisa Reysa. “Maybe if He had made me a spirit being instead of a corporeal being, like maybe making me as an angel instead of as a person, maybe then I could be happy being myself. I bet that Michael never gets sick. I bet that Gabriel never gets hurt.
I bet that Lucifer will never have to die.”
“Do you regret what God has made in you, Gravel?” he asked.
“Yeah. Kind of. I really think so,” she said.
“Gravel, the Bible says that you as a woman are fearfully and wonderfully made,” he told her.
“David said that in Psalm 139:14.”
“Your old flame sometimes has a problem with her typewriter,” she confessed one of her many problems that she had with her mortality. “All of a sudden, all of these blasted typos came upon my typing. Everything had been going along the way it should have with my typing for a while there.
But suddenly, bang, everything went wrong. And I could not get the smooth feel back to my typing hand. Typo after typo. Fixing up after fixing up. I think that that last punch I gave my electronic typewriter may have broken my daisy wheel. Was I mad!”
“Is it mainly at the typewriter where you get so agitated?” he asked.
“Yes, mainly there. And also everything else that goes wrong in my life,” she confessed. “I get mad at God. I get mad at the Devil. And I get mad at myself. And I get mad at inanimate objects.”
“I don’t remember a time where you ever got mad at me, Gravel,” he said.
“Other people than myself I don’t get mad at,” she said in truth. “I never got mad at you, O Flanders.”
“You do not have peace with God, and you seek the peace of God, it sounds like to me,” he said.
“What does that mean?” she asked, curious of his great spiritual utterance.
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He preached to her listening ears the explanation of his utterance: “We born-again believers, because we got right with God and accepted Christ’s free gift of eternal life, are now children of God with a home in Heaven waiting for us. We do not have to worry about going to Hell when we die. We Christians have peace with our souls. This is ‘peace with God.’ Further, because our lives are now
in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father and because we have a Friend in Jesus and because we have
the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we can cast all of our cares upon the Lord, and we know that He will take care of them. We who are saved do not have to bear our burdens alone—we have God Almighty
Who will see us through all of our trials. This is ‘peace of God.’”
In a savvy that surprised the man of God, the lost girlfriend summed up his words, saying, “Because I am unsaved, God cannot help me with my problems.”
“That is true, Gravel,” he said. “You cannot have peace inside without Jesus the Prince of Peace as your Saviour.”
“Professor has a better way for me,” she said.
Flanders did not know at all about this professor. But he wisely asked her, “Is it working out for you—Professor’s way?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I have to give it a little more time yet.”
“What does this professor teach?” asked Flanders.
“Philosophy 501, O Flanders,” she said, “the most difficult class in philosophy at my college.”
“What kind of philosophy is this that it is so hard academically?” he asked.
“Professor made it up all by himself. He’s brilliant! He calls it ‘Analytics—the Study of Formal Powers.’ And I am his favorite student. I am teacher’s pet,” she said. “He is teaching me how I can become perfect.”
Mystified by this most queer sudden turn of events in today’s rendezvous, Flanders went and asked her, “What does this professor teach that can turn you into a perfect person? What are you
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learning that can make you like God? How can you deify yourself by way of philosophy?”
“This ‘analytics’ is exclusively about studying your mind with your own mind,” said Miss Reysa. “As a pioneer, Professor is exploring new frontiers never seen before in the history of mankind.
The human mind is the way to perfection according to him and to myself. We humans only use two percent, or ten percent, of our brain at one time. Professor has learned for himself how to use one hundred percent of his brain at one time. He has power and wisdom not seen in anybody else on all this Earth. He finished studying a three-semester college calculus textbook to completion in only one week. He starts little fires in the classroom just to show off. He told me myself that soon I will be able myself to make great winds with a wave of my arm if I keep making the progress that I am in his course. He even brought a rainstorm down upon campus just the other day. He’s wonderful!”
“It sounds like he makes things happen by thinking them into being with his mind,” said Flanders, wary of this professor.
“He’s a god,” she said.
“He sounds like a wizard,” said the man of God.
“Oh, don’t say such a thing,” she rebuked him. “Analytics is good—not evil.”
“Analytics sounds like introspective reflection run amok, Gravel,” he said. “It is all wrong. It is of the Devil. Flee your professor before it is too late.”
“Flee the only man who can make me perfect and happy and immortal?” she queried him in reprisal.
“There is only one God, Gravel, and it is Jesus,” he said.
“That is God with a capital ‘g,’ Flanders,” she sought to explain to him. “Professor is a god with a little ‘g.’ And I will be a goddess with a little ‘g.’”
“Gravel, Gravel,” he cried out, “it is written, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Exodus 20:3. And again it is written, ‘Thou shalt have none other gods before me.’ Deuteronomy
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5:7. This is the first commandment of the ten commandments. The one true God wrote that on stone tablets for His nation Israel, because He is a jealous God. These Jews in Moses’s days in breaking this first commandment were worshiping false idols carved out of wood and stone and metal. And you in these modern days in breaking this first commandment are worshiping a false idol in loving Professor more than loving your Creator. Gravel, behind every idol is a demon. And all demons serve the Devil, who desires for himself most of all worship suitable only for the Lord God Almighty. I ask you now to repent of Professor and to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ for so great and eternal and true salvation.”
But the woman turned stubborn, and she said, “Professor is not evil.”
“Professor has a demon,” declared Flanders Nickels.
“If he were here to defend himself you would not say that to his face,” she said, angry at Flanders now.
“He is a prideful spirit—like his father the Devil,” Flanders said, angry at her back.
“Then you are saying that I am also proud, Flanders,” she said, “because I want to be just like him someday.”
“Pride is the condemnation of the Devil,” he said. He paused now to regain his composure.
Here he was, trying to share the love of Christ with his beloved, and now they were arguing over another man. He said, “I am sorry for yelling, Gravel. Here I seek to win the argument, only to lose the soul.”
Appeased by his humble apology, Lisa Reysa asked him, “Do you really think that I am proud,
Flanders?”
In Bible knowledge he went on to say, “Pride is someone who says, ‘I do not need God to get to Heaven.’ Pride is someone who says, ‘I can get to Heaven by my works.’ Pride is someone who says ‘I refuse to humble myself before God.’ Pride is someone who says, ‘There is no God.’ Pride is someone who says, ‘I am my own God.’ Most of all, pride is when the Devil rebelled in Heaven with
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one third of the hosts of angels and said, ‘I am God. Worship me. I am Lord of Heaven and Earth.’ This Satan and his follower-angels were cast out of Heaven and became fallen angels, This is the Devil and his demons, Gravel. And they contend against God and us believers and the unbelievers to this day.”
“Pride can only be a bad thing,” she said, understanding her own pride.
“Indeed pride is the main reason that people go to Hell,” he said.
“I do not want to go down there, Flanders,” said Miss Reysa. “That is where the Devil is.”
“That is where the Devil will be,” he said. “He is not down there yet. His time will come.”
“So wicked and bad Lucifer,” she said.
He turned some pages in his little King James Bible, and he read to her: “’Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.’ Ezekiel 28:12-15.”
“He sounds like God’s greatest angel gone bad,” she said. “Is this angel Lucifer then?”
“It is,” he said.
“Why did go bad like he did?” she asked. Then she said, “It was pride, Flanders. Wasn’t it?”
“It was,” he said. And he read on from the Bible, “’Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.’ Ezekiel 28:17.”
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“I am not so sure of Professor now, Flanders,” she said. “When he teaches from his dais he talks kind of how Lucifer talks, it seems to me now.”
“How about you, Gravel?” he asked. “Do you talk like Professor sometimes, also?”
“I really think that I do,” she confessed. “I sometimes think what it would be like to rule over the world as the world’s first real goddess.”
“Satan is also called ‘the god of this world,’” Flanders taught her.
“Really,” she said partly in imperative and partly in interrogative.
“Yes,” he said. “II Corinthians 4:4: ‘In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.’”
“God says in that Bible verse that the Devil does not want me to hear the Gospel. Doesn’t He?” asked Lisa Reysa.
“The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.
“What’s ‘the Gospel,’ Flanders?” she asked.
“That Jesus died for our sins and rose again the third day,” he told her.
“That sounds like something even Professor cannot do,” she said.
“The sacrifice of the cross and the miracle of Easter,” he summed up this Gospel.
“I could never do something like that even if I did make myself perfect,” she confessed.
“Only Jesus is perfect among mankind,” said Flanders. “He is God in the flesh.”
“I believe it,” she said.
“Girl, I hope now for your soul with confidence for my first time,” he said.
“It is the Devil—and not the Lord—who wants me to graduate from Professor’s class,” she confessed.
“Amen! Amen,” said Flanders, giving glory to the Holy Spirit edifying the woman now.
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Just then a voice called out from not far away, “Lisa! Lisa!” It was Professor.
“Master!” she called back, turning away from Flanders for this moment. She waved, and the professor waved back. Flanders did not know who this man was.
As this teacher approached, Flanders asked her, “Is this your professor out here, Gravel?”
“It is, Flanders,” she said in gladness. “It is good Professor Abaddon.”
“Good Professor?” he asked in dismay at how she had suddenly forgotten all about what Flanders had just gotten done telling her about him.
“Uh huh,” she said, nodding her head.
“Professor Abaddon?” he asked, knowing that Abaddon was one of the names for the Devil.
“Yes!” she said, with another happy nod.
“How is my most promising student today?” the professor asked Lisa. And the learned man stood before them.
“I am doing great, Professor,” she said.
“And who is this young man, Lisa?” he asked her in good cheer. “I can see, good Lisa, that you have found your knight in shining armor.”
“Oh, I have, Professor,” she said.
“You never told me that you have a prince in your life,” said the professor in amity.
“He has come back to sweep me off my feet,” she bragged on handsome Flanders.
The professor proffered his hand toward Flanders and said, “I am Professor Abaddon, Lisa’s favorite teacher.”
Flanders proffered his hand to shake hands and said, “I am Flanders Nickels, a born-again Christian.”
Suddenly the professor clenched his teeth, snarled through them, and drew far back away his hand from Flanders’s hand. He then stepped back away from Flanders a good three steps without
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turning his gaze away from him. And the skin of his face turned red with the wrath of Satan.
“Professor, what’s wrong?” cried out Miss Reysa.
“I do not talk with believers, Lisa. Nor should you,” he said very coldly.
“But he is my friend,” she said in dismay.
“He is not my friend. Nor should he be your friend, Lisa,” he told her brusquely.
“But Flanders is kind to me, and he cares about my soul,” she said. “He is telling me all about
Christ the Shepherd.”
“Young lady, leave this man of God at once, or else I will have to give you a grade of ‘F’ in my class.”
“You will give me a failure in Philosophy 501, Professor?” she cried out.
“Foolish girl, you will have earned the failure in Philosophy 501,” admonished her teacher.
Not knowing where to turn with such contention between the two men in her life, Gravel, turning back and forth between the two of them, asked, “What is truth?”
And now Flanders told this professor what he had told Lisa he would tell him, “Professor Abaddon, you have a demon indwelling you.”
“What is falsehood?” asked Gravel, still turning from one to the other.
And Flanders went on to recite most illuminating Scripture, “Professor Abaddon, it is written, ‘And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.’ Revelation 9:11.”
“Professor, you are not the angel of the bottomless pit. Are you?” asked Gravel. “Flanders, is he the angel of the bottomless pit?”
Flanders did not know whether he were so or not. He only knew that he bore the same name as he. Flanders went on to say, though, “Gravel, the name ‘Abaddon’ means ‘destroyer.’”
Then, in a scary voice of stentorian evils, her professor spoke to Flanders and said to him,
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“What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not!”
In her good understanding, Lisa could tell that Professor was not calling her boyfriend ‘Jesus,’
but rather Professor was talking to Jesus Who was within Flanders, because Flanders was born again.
“Professor, your voice. It is different!” cried out Lisa. Why, her best friend sounded like a demon all of a sudden!
“In the name of Jesus, get thee hence!” rebuked Flanders this diabolical-sounding man.
Yet again her professor spoke in the voice of the Devil, but this time as of more than one demon, saying to her Flanders, “What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?”
For a second time, bold Flanders rebuked this scary professor, saying to him, “In the name of Jesus, get thee behind me!”
Behold, a battle between good and evil before Lisa “Gravel” Reysa, and she was the one that good and evil were fighting over.
Not finished yet, Abaddon spoke again, this time with the voices of many demons, saying to Flanders, “Let us alone; what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God.”
And for a third time, Flanders, mighty in the Holy Spirit of God rebuked this demonic teacher, saying to him, “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke Thee!”
Lo, her once-dear Professor collapsed upon the ground in a heap, smitten of the holy God, and he writhed and convulsed and quaked. Lisa Reysa surmised that Jesus was exorcising him. She was right. One by one, demons were being cast out of this professor where he lay sprawled and helpless
and wicked. This went on for over a minute. Gravel held on tightly to Flanders where they stood.
She was afraid. Flanders was calm. Flanders’s Jesus was working on this fellow. And then it was
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all done. And Professor was still and silent and prone.
“Is he dead, Flanders?” asked Lisa Reysa.
The professor stirred where he did lie.
“He’s alive,” said Flanders.
And the professor revived, opened his eyes and sat up. Strange how healthy he now looked to Gravel even now after such an experience. Suddenly she came to see how pale he had been when filled with many demons all of his teaching years. His face now was a better color. “What happened to me?” he asked.
Gravel said, “Your demons are gone, O Professor.”
“I feel so well now with my body,” he said. He looked at Flanders the born-again believer, but this time with a smile. “Did you do that for me, Flanders?” he asked.
“God did that for you, Professor,” said Flanders.
“I thank you very much, good Flanders,” he said. “And I thank your good God, too,” And the professor got back to his feet and began to walk around to get his strength back.
In the meanwhile, Lisa and Flanders had some alone time now to get back to the business over her own lost soul. Flanders said, “Gravel, I have a beautiful young woman I need to lead to the Lord.”
“Do lead her to the Lord, O Flanders,” she did say.
“Jesus saves! Let us pray. Repeat after me,” he did say.
“I am ready to become born-again,” said Gravel.
And he began to lead her to salvation: “Dear God in Heaven:”
“Dear God in Heaven,” she said.
“I am a lost sheep in search of a Shepherd,” he said for her.
“I am a lost sheep in search of a Shepherd,” she said after him.
“I am sorry for my sins of Analytics. Forgive me,” he said.
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“I am sorry for my sins of Analytics. Forgive me,” she said.
“And I repent of my pride of the Devil,” he said.
“And I repent of my pride of the Devil,” she said.
“And I hereby promise to quit murmuring against You, with Your help,” he said.
“And I hereby promise to quit murmuring against You, with Your help,” she said.
“I would rather be Your daughter than the Devil’s goddess,” he said.
“I would rather be Your daughter than the Devil’s goddess,” she said.
“You sacrificed Your only begotten Son for me on Calvary’s cross,” he said.
“You sacrificed Your only begotten Son for me on Calvary’s cross,” she said.
“And yet He rose again from the grave three days later,” he said.
“And yet He rose again from the grave three days later,” she said.
“Please become my very own personal Saviour, O Jesus,” he said.
“Please become my very own personal Saviour, O Jesus,” she said.
“And bless me with eternal life in Heaven,” he said.
“And bless me with eternal life in Heaven,” she said.
“In Jesus’s name I pray,” he said.
“In Jesus’s name I pray,” she said.
“Amen,” he said.
“Amen,” she said.
Man and woman looked up from this sinners’ prayer. “I’m saved now, aren’t I, Flanders?” she asked.
“You are saved now, Gravel,” he said.
Just then Professor Abaddon came walking up to them, and he asked, “Could I do that, too? Can you lead me to salvation as you just did Lisa, Flanders? Can I become a Christian like the both
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of you?”
“But of course!” said Flanders Nickels. And he proceeded to lead the professor through his sinners’ prayer as well unto so great and free salvation in Christ.
“Amen!” said Lisa Reysa after he became a believer like herself and like her boyfriend.
Flanders Nickels then said, “This day the Devil lost two souls who would have been gods.”
Professor added with his new wisdom of the Holy Spirit, “My college course was all a lie from Satan.”
And in her new Holy Ghost understanding, Gravel added, “I could never have become a goddess anyway.”
Flanders and Lisa were alone now, both still here on the warm sandy shores of cold Lake Michigan’s western edges. Professor had left a little earlier. And the sun was drawing nigh to sunset off in the horizon between land and sky. New boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-the-Lord sat down beside each other in the sand and looked out into the opposite horizon between water and sky. “Flanders, could you tell me all about my new Shepherd Jesus Christ?” she asked him.
“I’d be honored, Gravel,” he said. “John chapter ten tells us all about Him.”
“Would you read all about it out loud for me, Flanders?” she asked.
“I would love to read Scripture to my Gravel,” he said. “And he searched the Scriptures and did read John 10:1-18 to his fox Lisa Reysa: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable
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spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth
the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”
“Such words, Flanders. Such good words,” said Lisa Reysa.
“God’s words are good words,” he said.
“I will want to read God’s Word in Heaven when I get There,” said Gravel.
“You will be happy reading the Word of God Up There,” he said.
“And down here, too,” she said.
“Yes, down here on Earth, too,” he said.
“And I will be There with you now,” she said.
“Gravel,” he said.
“Yes, Flanders,” she said.
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“After I had gotten saved, and when you were still unsaved, I had something really near and dear that happened to me which I had since called, ‘the memory I will take with me to Heaven,’” he said.
“Ooo, Flanders. Tell me. What was it?” asked Lisa.
“It happened that day when you were ringing up a customer’s groceries, and I was bagging that customer’s groceries at your side at the cash register till. All of a sudden your beautiful long brown wispy hair along the whole side of your head passed across the back of this hand as I was bagging.”
He held up his right hand in awe and reverie. “I never forgot it. I would remember it forever in Heaven.”
“Flanders, I am flattered!” she said. “What can I say?”
“Tell me that you will do that for me again in Heaven, too,” he said.
“I can do that for you again in this life, Flanders,” she said.
“Would you do that again for me right now, O Gravel?” he asked.
“Hold out your hand, Flanders,” she said.
And he held out his left hand toward her. Behold, the foxy lady Gravel let her utterly beautiful tresses pass across his hand for him as he sat there. “There, Flanders. What do you call that?” she asked.
And he said, “I think that I will call that, ‘Our first flirt as boyfriend-and-girlfriend-in-Christ.’”
“I think that I will call that ‘the second time of many more to come,’” flirted Lisa “Gravel” Reysa.
“I like that better, O woman!” he said.
“So do I, O man!” she said.
It is written about the Saviour Who saves the lost: “’All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’ Isaiah
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53:6.” And it is written about the Saviour of Flanders and Lisa now sharing fellowship and romance at the shores of Lake Michigan here between sunset and dusk, “’My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:’ John 10:27.”
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