Flight Paths

The first time he said it I was confused.  The second time I was a little miffed. 

            “We’re going home,” Keith told someone of our upcoming visit to his parents’ house in Arkansas, early in our marriage.

            Home?  Home was where I was, where we lived together, not someplace 1100 miles away.

            I suppose I didn’t understand because I didn’t have that sense of home.  We moved a few times when I was a child, and then my parents moved more after I married.  I never use that phrase “back home” of any place but where I live at the moment.  But a lot of people do.  I hear them talk about it often, going “back home” to reunions and homecomings, visiting the places they grew up and knew from before they could remember.

            But what was it the American author Thomas Wolfe said?  “You can’t go home again.”  Those words have come to mean that you cannot relive childhood memories.  Things are constantly changing and you will always be disappointed.

            Abraham and Sarah and the other early patriarchs did not believe that. 

            These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. Hebrews 11:13-14.

            That phrase “country of their own” is the Greek word for “Fatherland” or “homeland” or “native country.”  Those people believed they were headed home in the same sense that Keith talked about going back to the Ozarks.  Some question whether the people of the Old Testament believed in life after death.  They not only believed they were going to live in that promised country after death, they believed they had come from there—that it was where they belonged.

            That may be our biggest problem.  We do not understand that we belong in Heaven, that God sent us from there and wants us back, that it is the Home we are longing for, the only place that will satisfy us.  We are too happy here, too prosperous in this life, too secure on this earth. 

            Try asking someone if they want to go to Heaven.  “Of course,” they will say.  Then ask if they would like to go now and see the difference in their response.  It is good that we have attachments here, and a sense of duty to those people.  It is not good when we see those attachments as far better than returning to our homeland and our Father and Brother.  Paul said, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, - if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better: yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. Philippians 1:21-24.   Paul knew the better choice.  Staying here for the Philippians’ sake was a sacrifice to him, a necessary evil.

            Heaven isn’t supposed to be like an all-expenses-paid vacation away from home—it’s supposed to be Home—the only Home that matters.

            How do you view Heaven?  The way you see it may just make the difference in how easy or difficult it is for you to get there.

Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

Buttons! Buttons! Read the buttons!” and so for the fortieth time that week I sit down with my two year old grandson Judah and read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  And every time we reach the page where Pete loses his last button but doesn’t let it get him down because “buttons come and buttons go,” and where Pete looks down at his buttonless shirt hanging open and the author asks, “what does he see?” Judah springs up, holds his little arms high over his head with a big grin on his face and says, “His bel-ly but-ton!” with exactly the same amount of glee and excitement as the first time he ever heard the book read.

            He loves that book and the other two Pete the Cat books he has, as well as the one called Click, Clack, Boo, plus the one based on Ezekiel 37 called Dem Bones.  That week we babysat we learned by the third day to be careful what we said or it would remind him of one of those books and he would toddle off to find it and ask for it to be read not once again, but three, four, five times again.

            Yet here we sit with a shelf full of Bibles, every version you can imagine, amplified and not, written in and bare, paragraphed and versed, and now even some in large print, and do we ever have the same amount of desire to read it as a two year old who can’t even read it to himself yet?  He knows those “Pete” books so well you can leave off a word and he will fill it in.  You can say the wrong word and he will shout, “No! No! It’s ______!”  You can mention one word completely out of context and he will immediately think of that book and go looking for it. 

            Yet we seem loathe to pick up what is supposed to be our spiritual food and drink, the lamp that lights our way in the dark, and the weapon to fight our spiritual battles.  We moan over daily reading programs, especially when we get to Leviticus or the genealogies.  We complain when the scripture reading at church is longer than 5 verses, especially if we are one of those congregations that, like the people in Nehemiah, stand at the reading of God’s Word.  We gripe when the Bible class teacher asks us to read more than one chapter before next week’s class.  What in the world is wrong with us?

            This little two-year-old puts us to shame.  Just from hearing it read, he can quote practically a whole book, several of them, in fact.  His whole face lights up when you read it to him yet again.  I have to admit, Keith and I would occasionally try to hide those books by the end of a day.  We may not do that with God’s Word, at least not literally, but leaving it to sit on the shelf and gather dust isn’t much different.

I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble, Psalms 119:162-165.

Dene Ward

Todays post is a class outline by guest writer Lucas Ward.  Please feel free to use it.

I.  Know Your Scriptures (2 Tim. 2:15; Eph. 3:4)

A.  Know what it says.

1) Examine vocabulary, grammar. Use of good commentaries/concordances. 

2)  Knowing what it says leads naturally to what it means.

B.  Good points based on misused scripture = lost credibility/lost audience.

II.  Inspiration of Scripture/Speaking as the Oracle of God.  (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 4:11)

A.  God's Word!  Preach what it says, not what you wish it said.

B.  You are teaching others what God's Word says.

1)  In effect, you are speaking for God.

2)  All too many won't look up passages, but just accept what you say.

3)  James 3:1.

III.  Three Qualities of a Good Sermon/Talk.

A. Have a clear purpose:  speak with a reason.

B.  Have a central idea:  speak with a point.

C.  Have a well-organized message:  Speak without rambling.

IV.  Two Kinds of Sermons/Talks.

A.  Topical:  You present what the Bible teaches on a particular subject.

1)  Take care not to use passages out of context to support you thesis. 

2)  Don't leave out passages because they disagree with what you want to say. 

3)  Read and examine all the passages in the Bible on a particular subject to learn what the Bible teaches on that subject and then teach that, regardless of your long-held belief or personal feelings.

B.  Expository:  Explaining or analyzing a particular passage and teaching that passage.  

1)  Know the passage backwards and forwards.

2)  Understand how your passage fits in the context of the book it is in, and the Bible as a whole.

V.  Organizing your Message.

A.  Introduction:  Tell the audience what you will be speaking about and engage their interest.  Perhaps utilize humor or an anecdote.

B.  The body of message. Must have a logical structure.

1)  The three point sermon, with supporting subpoints, is common.

2)  Each point and subpoint must support the thesis and lead to a conclusion.

C.  Conclusion:  Bring the plane in for a safe landing.

1)  State your conclusion and reiterate the points that lead to that conclusion.

2)  Have a planned segue into your invitation.

VI. Your Speaking Should Support Your Message, Not Distract From it.

A.  Speak clearly, slowly and enunciate.  Be heard.

B.  Avoid "um" and "like" and other space fillers.  No need to fill every silence.

C.  Use proper grammar.

1)  Bad grammar can be distracting.

2)  Bad grammar can cause doubt as to the validity of your message/conclusions

3)  Good grammar automatically makes you seem professional/credible.

4)  If you choose to use colloquialisms, do so on purpose and with a  reason.

D.  Practice out loud before you speak in front of an audience.  Will help smooth out the space-fillers and poor grammar.

VII.  Be Ready for Criticism.

A.  Most will just say, "Good job."

B.  Some will ask, "Why didn't you use this passage?"

C.  Some (who really care enough to put themselves out) will offer pointers on better speaking and preparation. 

D.  Be prepared to use all of this to grow in confidence, Biblical knowledge, and skill, rather than being hurt that someone said other than "Good job."

Lucas Ward

I’ve known a lot of people who seem to think that true repentance is shown by moping around in a depressed state for weeks on end, as if the longer they beat themselves up the more worthy they are of forgiveness.  If we have learned anything in our Psalms study lately, it’s just the opposite. 

            David shows us in the progression of repentance that occurs between Psalms 51 and 32 that we should “get over it;” that a failure to do so is harmful to our souls.

            In our class we charted the verses in those two psalms.  We found similar things in each:  repentance, the effects of sin, and the effects that God’s forgiveness ought to have in our lives.  Guess what we discovered?  In Psalm 51, obviously written within a short time after Nathan’s visit to David in 2 Sam 12, even though at that time Nathan proclaimed God’s forgiveness, David is fraught with guilt and sorrow, even physically ailing from that burden of regret.  He uses every synonym you can imagine for sin and his plea for mercy.  In our modern divisions, those pleas take up seven verses.  Another three describe his woeful emotional and physical state after finally recognizing the enormity and complexity of what he has done, a total of ten verses.

            Yes, he finally recognizes his forgiveness and spends three verses on his desire to get back to work for the Lord and on his concern for others, a general list of things he plans to carry out as “fruit meet for repentance.” 

            And Psalm 32?  This psalm is much less emotional.  David repents yet again, but in two verses this time instead of ten.  Does that mean it is not as heartfelt?  Of course not, but his focus has changed.  This time he spends most of the psalm recounting what he has learned from his sin and how to avoid it in the future.  Listen to instruction, hear counsel, consider and come to an understanding, learn to control yourself.  He has gone past emotion and is now using the experience to gain wisdom and strength.  Then he spends more time in concern for others, that they learn the same lessons he has. Finally he shouts for joy, the joy found in forgiveness and a renewed fellowship with God.  This section takes up four verses of an eleven verse psalm, where in 51 we are looking at three verses of a nineteen verse psalm.  Those four verses in Psalm 32 are far more practical and helpful to us in terms of overcoming than the ones in 51, where his grief over his sin is the focus. 

            By the time of Psalm 32’s writing, David has learned an invaluable lesson—though indeed his sin was “ever before me,” he understood that allowing one’s grief to paralyze him and pull him down into despondency was as much an aid to Satan as sinning in the first place.  He was no longer serving God; he was no longer serving others.  In fact, he was bringing others down with his depression.  There is a selfishness in this sort of sorrow that is completely inappropriate—a “worldly” sorrow.

            Grief is certainly fitting.  I wonder if we ever experience the kind of grief David did over sin, especially as shown in Psalm 51.  If we did, perhaps we would sin less.  But there comes a time when we must “get over it” and get back to work.  “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation,” David says (51:12).   “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,” and “Shout for joy!” (32:11). Sitting in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your life, David is telling us, is not the way to show gratitude for your forgiveness.   

For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter, 2 Cor 7:8-11.

Dene Ward

Yes, it's another book by those Ward people, our son Nathan, in this case.  This has become one of his most acclaimed books yet.

            So what's it about?  He does the rather remarkable thing, it seems,  of studying prayers by faithful servants of God in order to teach us how better to pray.  Even scholarly people, perhaps especially scholarly people, seem amazed at the concept.  But we who attempt to be First Century Christians in all our words and deeds are used to this.  If you want to know how to pray, look for approved examples in the Scriptures themselves.  If you want to know how to do anything, look in those same Scriptures!

            And what will you find out?  Some pretty comforting things actually.  Things like God will listen to our prayers no matter how poorly worded or awkward they are as long as they are humble, especially, and sincere.  That if we study the prayers of these saints our own prayers will change for the better.  That if we base our prayers upon the promises of God, we needn't worry they will not be heard.  That God expects our complaints and laments because they show our faith in Him to hear, care, and answer.  That if we begin with the physical and superficial in our prayers, it will help us move on to more spiritual concepts in our prayers.  That not all prayers need be all-encompassing; some can be quite specific and even short.  That faith always comes with action.  That what we pray for should first be viewed in how it will affect God's glory.  And on and on and on.

            I have read this book three times now, if you count the editing.  It grows more and more profound as I do.  Do yourself a favor and read it once through, then the second time go through more slowly, one chapter every other day, perhaps, so you have some meditating time in between, writing down notes short enough but specific enough to jog your memory for each chapter.  Then when you have a particular need, you can skim through them and find the chapter you might need to read again at that time.  Your prayers will be glad you did! 

And for those who always ask me, "Is this something I can really understand, or is it very scholarly?" Yes, you can understand it, and it will help you in one of the most important aspects of your life as a servant of God.

            Our Eyes Are on You is published by DeWard Publishing Company.

Dene Ward

I was 18, but I might as well have been 12.  Looking back I can see the warning signs, but as naïve as I was then I was blind to them.

            The summer between my freshman and sophomore college years I had found a job not far from the house at a concrete plant.  I had signed on as a “tile sorter” out in the warehouse on a crew full of women, but the yard boss saw on my application that I knew how to type so the first morning he made me the office secretary. 

            The work was simple and a little scarce—I answered the phone; I made the coffee; I figured payroll from the time cards and passed out paychecks.  I might have typed three letters all summer long.  Finally I found the old directory of suppliers and other concrete plants in the area.  It was scratched out and scribbled over with address and telephone changes so I gave myself the chore of researching and re-typing that whole thing on the days when there was literally nothing else to do for hours.  I think the whole point of me being there was so the yard boss could say he had a secretary like the big guys up in the front office.

            Aside from the pride issue, he was a decent man, a Jehovah’s Witness who actually talked with me about religious things when he was free.  He seemed impressed when I showed him a passage or two he didn’t know was there. 

            But his immediate underling was not as nice a man as he pretended to be when the boss was there.  Not that I knew it at first or none of this would have happened.  I can look back on it now and hear his words and know what he was thinking as surely as if he told me out loud, but not then.  I was too innocent and trusting.

            One day late in the summer I found myself alone in the office with him.  The old clerk was sick and the yard boss had been called up to the front office on the highway, a good quarter mile walk through the hot dusty yard beneath overhead cranes.  I had gone to the front counter to look for some forms and suddenly I found myself hemmed into a corner with this six foot something, 250 lb, fifty year old man coming right at me   Before I knew it, he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me.

            I am not sure what he expected, but somehow I got loose, slipped around him, and ran as fast as I could to the only restroom in the place, a grimy cubbyhole about four foot square.  I locked the wooden door, grabbed a scratchy, brown paper towel and scrubbed my face over and over and over and over.  Then I re-wet the towel, added more soap and went at it again.  I couldn’t stop myself.  It’s a wonder I didn’t draw blood.

            Now look at Psalm 51:2.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  This is the psalm David wrote after Nathan convicted him of the sins of adultery and murder.  I have read that in the Hebrew “wash me thoroughly” is literally “multiply my washings.”  After at least a year, long enough for Bathsheba to bear a child and that child to die, David finally realizes the enormity of his sins and feels the remorse like a knife in his heart.  One little plea for forgiveness won’t do in his mind, not for the terrible things he has done.  He feels the need for ritual cleansing over and over and over and over.  It isn’t a failure to accept God’s forgiveness; it’s an overwhelming sense of absolute filth.  

            When I read the literal meaning of “wash me thoroughly” those feelings I had standing in that grubby little bathroom over forty years ago came flooding back to me.  And now, like never before, I realize exactly how I ought to feel when I ask God’s forgiveness.  What I have done to Him is much worse than that which was done to me by a sordid lecher so many years ago.

            You need to feel it too.  If there is anything that will dowse your temptations like a bucket of water on a fire, that will.  I am not sure now how long I stood there shaking, sick to my stomach, but I did not leave that hideous little room until I heard other voices in the office.  Nothing was going to get me out there until I was sure I was safe.   

            Sin in your life will corrupt you.  Soap won’t get it out, no matter how many times you wash yourself.  Only the blood of the Lamb and the grace of God can cleanse you.  And even then, you should feel the need for more, and more, and more, and more, until finally you can face yourself in the mirror. 

            If you are having trouble with temptations today, remember this little story.  It’s not something I share lightly.

Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD, Jer 2:22.

Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, That the bones which you have broken may rejoice, Psalm 51:7,8.

Dene Ward

The first time I received a bushel of pears from a neighbor out here in the country I was disappointed.  I was used to the pears in the store, especially juicy Bartletts, and creamy, vanilla-scented Boscs.  As with a great many things here in this odd state, only certain types grow well, and they are nothing like the varieties you see in the seed and plant catalogues or on the Food Network shows.  We always called them Florida Pears, but recently learned they are Sand Pears, and in this sandy state that makes good sense.  They are hard and tasteless.  In fact, Keith and I decided you could stone someone to death with them.  We nearly threw them away. 

            Then an older friend told me what to do with them.  They make the best pear preserves you ever dripped over a biscuit—amber colored, clear chunks of fruit swimming in a sea of thick, caramel flavored syrup.  Then she made a cobbler and I thought I was eating apples instead of pears.  No, you don’t want to eat them out of hand unless they are almost overripe, but you most certainly do want to spoon out those preserves and dig into that cinnamon-scented, crunchy topped cobbler.  They aren’t pretty; they are hard to peel and chop; but don’t give up on them if you are ever lucky enough to get some.

            A lot of us give up on people out there.  We see the open sin in their lives and the culture they come from and decide they could never change.  Have you ever studied the Herods in the New Testament?  If ever there was a soap opera family, one that would even make Jerry Springer blush, it’s them.  They were completely devoid of “natural affection,” sons trying to assassinate fathers, and fathers putting sons and wives to death.  Their sex lives were an open sewer—swapping husbands at a whim; a brother and sister living together as a married couple; leaving marriages without even a Roman divorce and solely for the sake of power and influence.

            Yet Paul approaches Herod Agrippa II, the son of Herod Agrippa I who had James killed and Peter imprisoned, the grandnephew of Antipas who had John the Baptist imprisoned and killed after taking his brother’s wife, great-grandson of Herod the Great who had the babies killed at Jesus’ birth, a man who even then was living with his sister, almost as if he expected to convert him.  Listen to this:

            I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently, Acts 26:2,3.

            Yes, I am sure there was some tact involved there, but did you know that Agrippa had been appointed advisor in Jewish social and religious customs?  Somehow the Romans knew that he had spent time becoming familiar with his adopted religion—during the time between the Testaments the Herods were forced to become Jews and then later married into the family of John Hyrcanus, a priest.  No, he didn’t live Judaism very well, but then neither did many of the Pharisees nor half the priesthood at that point.  But Agrippa knew Judaism, and Paul was counting on that.

            Paul then spends verses 9 through 23 telling Agrippa of the monumental change he had made in his own life.  Here was a man educated at the feet of the most famous teacher of his times, the rising star of Judaism, destined to the Sanhedrin at the very least, fame and probably fortune as well.  Look at the list of things he “counts as loss” in Philippians 3.  Yet this man gives it all up and becomes one of the hated group he had formerly imprisoned and persecuted to the death, forced to live on the charity of the very group he had hated along with a pittance from making a tent here and there.  Talk about a turnaround.  Do you think he told Agrippa his story just to entertain him?  Maybe he was making this point—yes, you have a lot to change, but if I could do it, so can you.

            In verse 27, he makes his final plea—King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe!  Paul had not given up on changing this man whom many of us would never have even tried to convert.  And it “almost” worked.

            Who have you given up on?  Who has a hard heart, a lifestyle that would be useless to anyone but God?  Who, like these pears, needs the heat of preaching and the sweet of compassion?  Who could change if someone just believed in them enough?

            Sand pears seem tasteless to people who don’t work with them, who don’t spend the time necessary to treat them in the way they require.  Are we too busy to save a soul that is a little harder than most?  Who took the time to cook you into a malleable heart for God?  It’s time to return the favor.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses... Ezek 36:26-29.

Dene Ward

Let's consider a basic tenet of breaking a bad habit or becoming a better person.  What does it take for me to finally wake up and repent, or just examine myself for faults that need correcting, and then get to work fixing them? Facing the consequences.  No consequences equals no motivation and therefore, no change.  

            Raising children and now, interacting with our grandchildren, reminds us of the same thing.  A child’s attention span is short, and the younger he is, the more important the timing.  Even a child younger than one can quickly learn what “No-no” means when it is accompanied by consistent motivation—by consequences for his action. 

            But are we any better?  Peter tells us that when God delays judgment for sin out of longsuffering and patience but we don’t respond, that we “willfully forget” (2 Pet 3:5-10).  Paul says that when God forbears yet we do not repent, we are “despising his goodness” (Rom 2:4).  It isn’t that we have the attention span of a toddler—we’re just plain stubborn.

            Is that any more mature than a toddler?  We have all seen children who understand the consequences and take them anyway.  We cluck at their lack of common sense, their apparent unwillingness to learn any way but the hard way.  We wonder what sort of adults they will become.

            But you really don’t have to wonder.  You are surrounded by them.  Or, are you one of them, too?

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11.

Dene Ward

     No one had ever seen it, even using a telescope.  And as always in cases like that, everyone was curious, especially once they finally had the opportunity to see.  The USSR launched Luna 3, and on October 7, 1959, we saw in photographs what no one had ever seen before—the dark side of the moon.

   And this is what they found:  the dark side is completely different from the light side.  The near side has dark smooth plains and is covered with the remains of ancient lava flow.  The far side is rugged and rocky, full of craters, and has far fewer volcanic deposits.  The far side has a thicker crust as well.  This leads to all sorts of theories about the moon's history, all of which are treated as facts, just as those kinds of things so often are.

     We learned all of this because wondering about the side we had never seen before made us curious.  We wanted to know all the secrets.  The darkness lured us in.  The same thing can happen with spiritual darkness.  Perhaps that is why God's Word warns us about it so often.

     Those who reject Jesus love the darkness rather than the light, John 3:19.  On the other hand, if you follow Jesus, you are no longer in darkness, John 8:12.  If you believe on him, you are not in the darkness, John 12:46.  He has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, 1 Pet 2:9.  But if we hate our brother, we walk in darkness, 1 John 2:11.  We are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, Eph 5:11.  And what is all this darkness?  The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye is single, your whole body shall be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness Matt 6:22,23.  Darkness is evil.  If you focus [your eye] on evil things—anything that is not good and right—then you are living in darkness.

     I know some young people who were raised to know right from wrong, going to church since they were babes in arms, sitting in Bible classes, and even having been taught at home by good, God-fearing parents and grandparents, yet who had a fascination with what they were "missing."  They wanted to see the dark side.  A few of them managed to come back "home" to the light.  But many were taken prisoner by the world rulers of the darkness, Eph 6:12.  The ones who came back will tell you it isn't worth the risk.  They all have regrets that you never want to feel.  The far side of the moon may not be so, but spiritual darkness is invariably ugly, scary, dangerous, and evil.  You don't need to know what it's like.  You aren't missing a thing.

And this is the message which we have heard from him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin 1 John 1:5-7.

Dene Ward

We have recently discovered phoebes on our property, seven inch gray birds with light olive bellies and a slightly darker head.  Even though we have been birding for several years now, this is the first we have seen of these.  Being insect eaters, seed-filled feeders hold no interest for them, so I have never seen one from my chair by the window.  They are strictly carnivores.

            Their behavior is what gives them away—their “hawking.”  They sit on a bare tree branch and watch the ground below.  When a bug catches their eye, they swoop down for the kill, then fly right back to the same branch, and wait for another.  Sort of bloodthirsty for such a cute little bird.

            They have been using the trees on the edge of the garden, a place where insects abound, and we are happy to have their help ridding the plants of them.  Now we have a much smaller fall garden, a few peppers and tomatoes, and the cooler temperatures mean fewer bugs.  Maybe that is why they have moved in closer, sitting atop tomato posts, waiting for their prey to creep by.

            And last week we saw yet another new bug eater.  Keith planted about 70% of the garden in sorghum.  The huge seed heads on these plants attract both wildlife and birds.  That was his intention—to help feed the seed-eating birds and perhaps attract even more to the feeders closer to the house.  That sorghum patch is where we saw the new bird, a five inch olive green bird, with a yellow throat, a black mask, and a long thin beak.  My bird books tell us he is a yellowthroat, one of the many varieties of warbler.  He, too, practices hawking and being smaller and lighter he can perch on the head of those thin-stemmed sorghum plants without bending them over.  He is not there for the seeds but, like the phoebes, to watch for any bugs that crawl by.  Sometimes he is lucky and one will be deeply embedded in the seed head itself.  All he has to do is lean over and probe with that long thin beak deep between those seeds.  Lunch, without even having to dive for it.

            That is not why we planted sorghum.  It is not why we put posts by the tomatoes.  Yet right now, the phoebes and the yellowthroats are getting more out of the garden than we are.

            Sometimes Satan gets more use out of the good things we try to do than God does.  How many times has a healthy pastime become more important to us than our spiritual health?  I’ve seen women so concerned about their figures that they would no longer offer or accept meal invitations from other Christians, nor cook and take a meal to the needy.  I’ve seen Christian men spend more time toning up their physical muscles than studying to tone up their spiritual ones.  They won’t miss a work-out, but personal Bible study is a sometime thing.

            How many times has the job which was meant to support the family become an all-consuming career that robbed a home of involved parents or a spouse of a supposedly committed and devoted mate?  How many times has the money earned led to greed instead of generosity, and a dependence upon self rather than God?

            Just because something is not inherently sinful, doesn’t mean evil cannot come from it.  Just because you intend good from it, doesn’t mean the Devil can’t find a way to produce the opposite.

            One thing about those phoebes and yellowthroats—they make an excellent example of careful watching; their lives depend upon it.  Take a moment today to sit still and quiet and really look at the things in your life and what they are producing.  Your spiritual life depends upon it.

His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it. Therefore I make it an unclean thing to them Ezekiel 7:20.

Dene Ward