Flight Paths

We just returned from a birthday party—a double birthday party, which meant twice as many guests, twice as many cakes, and twice as many gifts.  It also meant twice as much time unwrapping the gifts. 

That last part did not bother Silas at all, but it seemed to bother Judah a little.  He started playing with one gift and then was handed yet another to unwrap.  So he had to stop playing and unwrap.  Once it was done, he started playing again, sometimes even went back to the first one he had unwrapped, but then he would be handed another.  You could almost see his little brain forming the thought, “There is such a thing as too many gifts.” 

The next morning even Silas had trouble with the number of gifts.  I sat and watched him go from one to the other, back and forth.  I wondered if he wasn’t finally realizing, you can only play with one toy at a time.

Have you ever read Proverbs 31 then slumped your shoulders in defeat and thought, “I can’t possibly be that woman?”  Take heart.  God does not expect you to have every gift this woman has, nor to play with them all at once.  Just think for a minute:  what does he tell those Corinthians in chapter 12?  Some of you have this gift; some of you have that one.  Some of you have yet another.  Don’t try to be what you are not—just use what I give you the best you can (the Ward version).

Cooking I can handle, most of the time.  Bookkeeping I have down pat.  But the only things I can do with a needle and thread are sew on a button, take up a hem, and mend a seam.  I can’t darn, quilt, crochet or knit.  I have made clothes and worn them, but I consigned them to an early death as soon as I had replacements.  I have finally learned to master the pressure canner instead of cringing in fear, but I couldn’t decorate one wall much less a whole house—I have no eye for it.

Do you see the point?  The Proverbs 31 woman is the ideal.  God lists it all, and it gives us some sense of duties in the home.  What it doesn’t do is command us to be some sort of Jill-of-all-Trades Renaissance Woman.  It just says, this is where the center and purpose of your life and everything you accomplish in it must be—your family.  Be the best cook or the best seamstress or the best gardener or the best organizer or the best comforter or the best home businesswoman—or maybe two or three of those--whatever present God has given you to unwrap.  Do that, and you have “done what you could.”
 
For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness, Rom 12:4-8.
 
Dene Ward

Stock markets began after the discovery of the New World, when countries began trading with each other.  In order to expand their businesses, the owners needed to call in investors so that they had a larger amount of money to use for growth.  These investors were given "shares" of the company.  The first company to issue paper shares was the Dutch East India Co in 1602.
              The practice grew and eventually reached England.  In 1773 in a London coffeehouse, a group of stock traders met and changed their name to the "stock exchange," and thus the London Stock Exchange was born.  This spread to the American colonies and the first American stock exchange began in Philadelphia.
              Today, Wall Street is synonymous with the stock exchange.  On May 17, 1792, the market on Wall Street opened with 24 supply brokers.  On March 8, 1817, they changed the name to the New York Stock and Exchange Board and the NYSE we know today began. 
              One of the rules of success in the stock market is patience.  Quick returns are great, but also dangerous.  If you want a stable investment, you plan for the long haul.  Most people with stock portfolios have a good mix of the risky and the safe.  If you want a consistent income, you go with the safe and plan to wait awhile.
              This blog is a long term investment.  It debuted August 2, 2012.  But even before that, I began writing devotionals that I sent to a small email list three times a week.  That first list contained 32 names.  Many times I have thought about quitting, especially when I looked at a blank screen and could not think of a thing to write, but knew I had to if this thing is going to stay alive.  “Why?” I think, especially since I rarely get feedback and sometimes wonder if anyone else cares whether I bruise my brain for a couple dozen hours a week anyway.
              My average pageview day runs 300-400, with an occasional spike of 2000+.  I have now passed over a million pageviews total.  But look back where I started—32 names.  It has taken many years of hard work, truly a long term investment.  I would never have made it this far if I had given up.
              Life is made up of long term investments.  Education, marriage, children, career, mortgages, as well as stock portfolios, and many other things take years to show any profit, any growth, any benefit.  In spite of our instant gratification society, most of us know this about life:  some things are worth the time and trouble and the long, long wait, and many of us manage to avoid quitting.
              Why do we forget that in our spiritual lives?  We become Christians and expect overnight that our problems will disappear, that our temptations will cease, and that our faith will move mountains.  Then reality sets in and instead of working on it, we give up.  We go to an older, knowledgeable Christian and ask for help in learning to study, but after two or maybe three weeks of making the time to meet and finding the time to do the studies he assigns, we quit.  It’s too tedious and we are too busy.  We thought there was some get-wise-quick formula.  It’s just the Bible after all, not rocket science.
              It’s perfectly normal to have bouts of discouragement.  David did:  How long O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?  Psalm 13:1.  Asaph did:  All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.  73:13. I’ve tried and tried and gotten nothing for it!  Why bother?  And then they remind us to look ahead, because it is a long term problem with a long term solution.  In just a little while the wicked will be no more…you guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me into glory.  Psalm 37:10; 73:24.  Sometimes the wait seems long, especially when we are suffering, but faith will be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him 37:7.
              And if you are floundering a little, wondering perhaps if you will ever make it, if your faith will ever be strong, if you will ever be able to overcome temptation on a regular basis, give yourself a break.  This doesn’t happen overnight.  Are you better than you were last year?  Did you overcome TODAY?  That’s progress.  Keep working at it.  No one expects to lose 100 pounds in a week.  Some of us have way more than that to lose spiritually. 
              The reward is worth the waiting.  It is worth the struggle.  It is even worth the tedium of learning those difficult names and the exercise involved in buffeting our bodies.  But you won’t get there if you give up, if you say, “This is boring,” or “I’m too busy,” or “I can’t do it.” 
              I have many new friends because of something I started a long time ago during a difficult time of life.  I cannot imagine being without them now.  I certainly don’t want to be without the Lord.
 
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised, Heb 10:36.
 
Dene Ward
 

Our last two dogs are the only purebreds we have ever had—Australian cattle dogs.  Not Australian shepherds—different breed altogether—but cattle dogs, often called heelers.  As is usually the case with purebreds, they had a few health issues that ordinary dogs (mutts) do not have.  Chloe, for example, has rampant allergies.
              At least twice a year for a good three months at the time, she wakens in the morning with a stuffy, runny nose.  I have already written about how disgusting it can be to see what looks like two strands of spaghetti hanging out of a dog's nose.  She has learned to "wipe" her nose every morning on the grass, but that only gets rid of the worst of it and before long she looks like a toddler with a bad cold—a wet, shiny spot under her nose that she can even blow bubbles in. 
              Because of that, her sense of smell is not so hot.  We throw treats for her in the morning and often have to get up and help her find them.  Even those loud-smelling things that look like bacon strips are difficult for her to sniff up.  I have seen her step right over a snake when all of our other dogs have smelled them a good five feet away and either gone into a point or a crouch, ready to save their masters from the big, bad boogie-creature.  But not Chloe.  Whoever heard of a dog with no sense of smell?
              And whoever heard of a Christian who has no sense of right?  Whoever heard of someone who claims to be a child of God but does not understand purity and holiness in his life?
              As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  (1Pet 1:14-16)  Peter seems to expect that we will want to emulate our Father, just as small children like to wear their daddy's shoes and put on his hats, only in this case we emulate His holiness.
              Paul lists in 2 Corinthians 6 the promises we have as children of God and finishes it up with a great motivational passage:  Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.  "Let's cleanse ourselves," he says, as if it is something we should all want to do.  (2Cor 7:1)  We are ungrateful children when we do not grow in our holiness and purity.
              And then, of course, Peter gives us the ultimate in motivation in these words:  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! (2Pet 3:11-12)  If the positive won't work, the glorious promise of His welcoming us as His children (2 Cor 6:17, 18), perhaps the fear of punishment will do the trick!
              I have heard people say that we need to learn how to be holy and pure and righteous.  Really?  Just ask your neighbors what a Christian should and should not do, how they should talk and dress, what sort of entertainment they ought not to participate in.  Seems that even the godless know more than some of my brothers and sisters.  If nothing else, look at the godly people who sit around you on Sunday morning.  What do those women wear?  How do those men talk?  Do they stop at the bar for a drink after work?  Do they watch smut on TV?  It is not that hard to figure out what is and is not holy and pure behavior.
              Whoever heard of a Christian who doesn't live a life of purity and holiness?  Whoever heard of a child of God with no sense of right?  Chloe can't help having no sense of smell.  We don't have her excuse.
 
For My people are fools; they do not know Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing what is evil, but they do not know how to do what is good. (Jer 4:22)
 
Dene Ward

I have done more traveling than I really care to lately—in less than two years’ time 7000 miles to either family funerals or experimental surgeries, and all in an automobile. I have started noticing place names that are a bit unusual.  Now, Florida does have its own peculiarities.  Have you ever heard of Two Egg, Florida?  As we traveled through Mississippi recently, we came across an exit for Dry Creek Water Park.  I am not sure I would want to go down their water slide.  Then there was Aux Arc, Arkansas.  If you have not had French lessons, or, as in my case, taught French art song, where the judges dock your students severely for mispronunciation, you may not get it.  “Au” in French is pronounced “oh”, and an “x” at the end of a word is not pronounced at all unless it comes before a word beginning with a vowel, in which case it is pronounced as a “z.”  So Aux Arc is pronounced “Ozark.”  Sounds like someone got a little cute.  Then there was Toad Suck Park.  I do not even want to contemplate how that one got its name.
           I am reminded of my readings, in Genesis especially, how various places were named.  Almost always it had to do with something that happened there, and in the case of God’s people, usually included a reference to God in their lives. 
            After Abraham offered Isaac (Gen 22) in all but actual deed, he called the mountain “Jehovah-jirah,” meaning “Jehovah will provide,” for indeed God did provide an offering.  When Jacob fled Esau, he dreamed of angels ascending and descending a ladder, and the next morning set up a pillar, poured oil upon it and called it “Beth-El,” meaning “house of God” (Gen 28).  When he returned to the land 20 years later, he called for all the foreign gods to be disposed of, for his family to purify themselves, and built an altar, calling it “El-beth-El,”  “the God of Bethel” (Gen 35)  In 33:20 he bought a parcel of land and spread his tent there, calling it “El-Elohe-Israel,” “God, the God of Israel.”
            So if we were going to name our homes, whether they be small apartments in the city, homes in the suburbs, or acreage in the country, what would we call them?  Is God a big enough part of our lives to figure in their names as He was to the old patriarchs?  Would “Beth-El” be suitable because God is regularly spoken to and the Lord is spoken of in our homes?  Could we call it Jehovah-jirah because we understand that all we have is provided by God?  Could we call it “El-Elohe-Ward,”  “God the God of the Wards” (or your own particular last name)?   Or would we, as Isaac did when the Philistines feuded with him over the watering holes, have to name our wells “Esek,”  (“Contention”) and “Sitnah,” (“Enmity”) (Gen 26)?  What emotions are our homes filled with? 
            It is an interesting exercise to think about giving our homes a name.  Try it, and see if it doesn’t help you make yours a better home for your family, and a wonderful place for anyone to visit
 
But will God in very deed dwell on the earth?  Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!  Yet have respect unto the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, O Jehovah my God, to listen unto the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day:  that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day …and hear in heaven your dwelling-place, and when you shall hear, forgive.  1 Kgs 8:27-30
 
Dene Ward

On our last camping trip we stayed on the Blackwater River in the Florida panhandle, “the last white sand river in the country,” according to the brochures.  We decided to take advantage of a local outfitter and rented a canoe.  For the price they transport you upriver eleven miles so that when you get to your destination, your vehicle is waiting for you, and you can pull the canoe onshore and leave on your own schedule.
            It was a crisp winter morning, with a sky so clear and blue you wondered if God had simply done away with clouds forever.  We put in on a white sand beach and headed off with our paddles dipping rhythmically at first, but eventually lying across our laps for the bulk of the trip as we drifted along with the current.
            We saw turtles by the dozen, sunning on logs near the shore, ducks splashing ahead of us by the river’s edge, a heron that seemed to taxi across the top of the water before its take-off, and an owl that took flight from a huge cypress branch as we passed him,. We scared up one poor water bird of some sort that would fly on ahead, and then as we came round the next bend, fly again.  I felt sorry for the poor fellow.  If he had only flown inland twenty or thirty feet and waited for us to pass, he could have stayed where he was.  I wondered how far from home he finally ended up.
            We passed small streams emptying noisily into the bigger river, and backwaters that sat still and quiet, forested with cypress knees, and impervious to the river’s current.  I am happy to report that we saw no alligators at all.
            About noon we pulled onto a white sand bar, sat in the shade of a scraggly myrtle, and dug into a backpack for a lunch of biscuits and sausage leftover from breakfast and a canteen of water.  We wandered around and found some deer tracks by the water’s edge, freshly made we knew, because it had rained the night before. 
            Then a half hour or so later, as we drifted on down the river, we suddenly found ourselves tangled among the branches of a cypress that had fallen into the river.  We had not kept a lookout and floated right into it.  Since we were there anyway, and stuck, we had a snack of tangerines, dropping the peels into the water to see if fish enjoyed that sort of thing.  Evidently they don’t, so we extricated ourselves from among the branches and once again caught the current going downriver.
            That stop made a small respite but this morning it makes a big point.  We spent most of the four and a half hours on the water drifting.  We seldom put our oars in unless we saw something ahead that we wanted to avoid, usually fallen trees in the water, some just under the surface scraping the bottom of the canoe.  Sometimes as we came round a bend, the current would send us toward shore and we had to paddle to keep from bottoming out.  Usually it was no problem to stay out of trouble.  That one time was a result of becoming so entranced with our surroundings that we did not notice what lay ahead.
            That is probably the way we wind up getting in trouble in our spiritual lives too.  We get distracted by things, not necessarily sinful things, but things that keep our attention too long from the direction we should be going.  When you are looking around, you can’t paddle straight, so you wind up drifting where the current takes you, and in this world, that may be a dangerous place.  More likely it will be into a bend in the river where the current swirls around in a slow, endless eddy, leading you nowhere.
            So be careful of your surroundings today, be careful that the things of this world do not take too much of your time and energy away from things of the next world.  You need to be involved in this world—how else can your light shine?  But you do not need to wrap yourself up in it to the point that it squeezes out your spirituality and concern for Eternity.  When visiting a lonely widow, cooking for a family burdened by illness, studying the Bible, or assembling with the saints becomes simply one more thing on a “to do” list, on the same plane as the PTA meeting, the piano lesson, and the Little League schedule, the priorities of life need a serious overhaul, even if it means giving up something.
            Don’t drift into the fallen logs and trees that will scrape up your soul.  Don’t let the bottom of your canoe bump against things that could tip you and drown out your spirituality.  Don’t bottom out, mired in the mud of life’s responsibilities.  Don’t spend so much time looking at the world as you pass it by, that it winds up meaning more to you than the one you are supposed to be headed for.
           
And that which fell among the thorns, these are they that have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. Luke 8:14.
 
Dene Ward

Poor old Martha.  How many times does she serve as a bad example from the pulpit or in women’s Bible studies?  She’s even had one of those studies named after her--Martha, Martha—and it isn’t a compliment!
            Jesus spent many hours, in fact, many days, in the company and home of those three siblings, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  You do realize it was probably Martha’s house:  and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, Luke 10:38, which means the sacred duty of hospitality lay squarely on her shoulders.  No wonder she was so consumed by it.
            But consider this wonderful attitude of Martha’s:  Jesus, for whom she has labored so hard, comes into her home and delivers a scolding that is recorded for all posterity simply because she works so long to give him her best (or so it appears), and still she serves him.  How many of my sisters might have thought, “The ungrateful lout!  See if I ever invite him here again.”  I would have been hard-pressed not to think those words myself.  Do you think you wouldn’t have thought them?  How do you feel and react when your husband indicates that he does not like a meal you have worked on for several hours?  Aha!  I thought so.
            But Martha did not react that way.  She changed.  I know this because she served him again, shortly before his death (John 12), and though Mary was once again sitting at his feet, Martha never uttered a complaint against her.  And Jesus did not correct Martha, which proves that it was not the serving itself that was the problem, it was the attitude. 
            Perhaps it was simply that she had decided what Mary needed to be doing instead of focusing on herself.  Some of us are more suited to being Marys and some to being Marthas.  The Lord had a physical body that needed serving.  It was not wrong for Martha to feed and house him.  It was wrong, though, for her to decide what Mary’s obligations were and then resent her for not fulfilling them.  That was between Mary and the Lord, not between the two sisters.  When we all take care of our own duties to the best of our abilities, the Lord will be served in every area. 
            And here is another thing for which to praise Martha.  Imagine the Lord spent as much time in your home as he did with these three beloved friends of his.  Just how many times would he be scolding you?  I would be lucky not to have more than one a day recorded in my case, much less one in about three years’ time.  Yet this poor woman, who served him faithfully, who corrected her attitude when he spoke to her, who had the faith to say, If you had been here my brother would not have died, and even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you, John 11:21,22, this woman we hold up for all generations as a bad example. 
            I hope in my lifetime I can do as well as she did.
 
Jesus said unto [Martha] I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes on me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  She said unto him, Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world.  John 11:25-27.
 
Dene Ward

Our late winter/early spring gardening chores include pruning.  Pruning is serious business.  If you do it at the wrong time and in the wrong way, you can kill a plant.  But correct pruning encourages healthy growth, more flowering, heavier fruit yields, and in general, better looking plants.  Correct pruning can also scare you to death.
              If Keith had not had an experienced friend show him how to prune the grapes, he would never have done it correctly.  Light pruning does not promote fruiting on grape vines.  It takes a heavy-handed pruner, one who knows exactly how far down which vines to cut—and it is much farther than you would ever expect—to make vines that in the late summer provide both greater quantity and quality of grapes. 
              Roses also benefit from good pruning.  Every January or February (remember that we are talking here in Florida before you follow this to the letter) you should cut off 1/3 to ½ of the mature canes, plus all dead or dying branches, as well as those that cross or stray out of the general shape of the bush.  That is how you get more flowers and larger blooms, and healthier, prettier bushes altogether.
              God believes in pruning too.  John 15 is full of the imagery of pruning grape vines, cutting off those that no longer produce and throwing them into the fire, which just happens to be where we throw all our prunings as well.  God has done a lot of pruning throughout history.
              The wilderness wandering was nothing but one big pruning exercise.  All the faithless, those men of war responsible for the decision not to take the land, had to die, and a new generation be prepared.  Do you realize that if you only count those men, on average throughout those forty years, 40 men died every day?  That does not count the people who died of accident, disease and childbirth, and the women and priests who simply died of old age.  Every morning the first thing on one’s mind must have been, “Who died yesterday?”  Those people must have done nothing but bury the dead every single day for forty years.  No wonder they moved so often.
              Then there was the Babylonian captivity.  Ezekiel worked for seventy years preparing the next generation to return to the land as a righteous remnant while the older one died off.  Pruning made them better, stronger, and more able to endure those months of rebuilding, and the years that followed.
              And what else was it but pruning that made God cut off some branches (Jews) and graft in others (Gentiles)?  They were broken off because of their unbelief, Paul says in Rom 11:20, and then goes on to say that if God will prune the natural branches, he will certainly prune those that had been grafted in if their faith fails.
              God still prunes.  We tend to call it by other metaphors these days—refining our faith as gold, Peter says in one of those passages.  “Discipline” the Hebrew writer calls it, adding that the Lord only chastens those he loves.  But all these figures mean the same thing.  Pruning can be painful.  The best pruning shears are the sharp ones, for the wound will heal more quickly the cleaner the cut. 
              We carry a lot of deadwood on us that God has to whittle away through the trials and experiences of life, and with our own growth in the knowledge of the Word as we learn what is and is not acceptable to God.  It is up to us to use that pruning, shedding the dead wood and cultivating new growth, bearing more fruit, higher quality fruit, and more beautiful blooms.  If I am not growing, I can expect nothing more than my whole vine to be cut off and cast into the fire. 
              We want to be that productive grape vine with fruit so heavy and juicy we almost break from the sheer weight of it.  We want to be the rose that brings the oohs and aahs, whose perfume wafts on the breeze to all those around us.  We must submit to the pruning of the Master Gardener, glorying in His work in us, no matter how painful, so that we can “prove to be his disciples,” John 15:8, faithful to the end.
 
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit, John 15:2.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
The year we moved here, 1985, lightning struck a huge oak at the west end of our five acres. Sure that it would die, we planted two pecan trees nearer the house but still far enough away to provide shade late in the day when the sunlight tended to come in under the live oaks in our yard. Florida sun is brutal.
 
The oak tree survived and is now over 13ft around, about 4 ½ ft in diameter. It lost a limb and has a huge dead spot the size of an adult that goes up at least 20ft and which has partially scarred over with thick bark. But, in the right light one can see right through the tree as the opposite side has a smaller damaged area.
 
Most of us have been struck by sin, far more damaging than lightning. We have dead places in our hearts because we have covered the sin with callouses just as the tree grew bark to cover and strengthen the edges of the dead area. We pretend they are not there and if no one knows, well it is not so bad. I just pulled a chunk of dead wood out of the tree with my hand. Sin-dead areas of our hearts that are hidden still rot. Secret sins, acts we deny are sin, actions and thoughts we pretend are "just the way we are" and "I am doing my best" rot and putrefy.
 
God promised through Ezekiel, "“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. " (Ezek 36:26). Anyone who has been through open heart surgery will tell you that it is painful. But those who have received a new heart must also take anti-rejection drugs the remainder of their lives. Spiritually, it is hard to confront the sins we hide from everyone. Some of these have become part of who we are! Repentance involves ripping out who we are and what we do and becoming a new man. Also, we must take anti-rejection doses of scripture, prayer and the exercise of self-control for the remainder of our lives. The body of our flesh tries to reject the new heart.
 
Do not be satisfied with covering over the scars of sin-struck lives. Become a new person.
 
"for he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he lives, he lives unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: " (Rom 6:7-12).
 
Keith Ward
 

A few Sundays ago the chill weather made it possible for me to wear my best suit, one a little heavier than anything else I have, one a little more expensive, but a hand-me-down from a friend.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a couple of limited time specials.  That’s one way we stay financially afloat—picking up specials when we are already the thirty miles into town for assembly.
              So we were loading the trunk and as she passed, a stranger said to me, “That’s a lovely suit.  You’ve been to church, haven’t you?  I apologize for being nosy, but would you mind telling me where you attend?”
              Would I mind?!  Of course I spent the next five or ten minutes telling her where I attend, when we meet, who we are, and what we do.  Then I handed her a blog card and pointed out my contact information in case she had more questions.  “Please email me or just call.  I can give you more detailed directions,” I finished with.
              I know a lot of people who no longer “dress up” for church.  They certainly have that right.  But I know a lot of others who go even further—who tell those of us who grew up doing it that we are wrong, that we are trying to be Christians on the outside instead of the inside.  I have yet to figure out why wearing my good suit on Sunday makes me a hypocrite any more than someone who thinks sitting on the pew in jeans on Sunday then dressing up for the boss all week makes him a Christian. 
              In fact, tell me this.  If you were this woman and you were searching, who would you ask on a Sunday about noon at the grocery store—the guy in shorts, tee shirt and flip-flops or the man with a tie on?  The lady with a dress on or the one with cut-offs and an oversized shirt hanging over her waistline?  Maybe there is something to be said after all for making it obvious on a Sunday that you have been to church. 
              But then we have this point—it isn’t what you wear on Sunday that makes the Christian; it’s what you wear every day. 
              Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do you: and above all these things [put on] love, which is the bond of perfectness, Col 3:12-14.
              My neighbors need to see these spiritual clothes every day.  There can be no “dressing down” spiritually after you have “put on Christ” in baptism, Gal 3:27.  The people I work with, the people I go to school with, the people I come into contact with, especially on a regular basis, should know by my speech and my actions that “I went to church on Sunday.”  God won’t accept a “casual Friday” set of spiritual clothes any day of the week.
              I’ve had a great many things make people ask me questions—maybe that’s a good subject for another day, but it all boils down to this—I have to look different.  Whether it’s how I act, how I speak, how I run my family, or any number of ways, it needs to be obvious.  Let’s stop making judgments about one another’s literal clothes, and just go out there and show people who we are with the spiritual wardrobe of a child of God. 
 
The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof] Romans 13:12-14.
 
Dene Ward

I brought four pencils in here by the desk to sharpen.  I gather them up from here and there, all colors, all brands.  Ticonderoga yellow may be the most famous brand, but I haven't a one of those to my name.  The erasers are all in different levels of use.  A couple already sport one of those separate ones you put on the top because the one they came with is totally flat.
So I will grab my old fashioned school sharpener, the one with the hand crank, and get them all back to their pointy selves and ready for use.  Then I will carry them back to the windowsill next to my chair to use with my crossword puzzles.  No, I do not do my puzzles in ink.  Well, if it's a Los Angeles Times Crossword, even their Sunday crossword, I do.  But a New York Times Crossword—no way.  It will wind up a mess if I try.
              The Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword is so easy I can do it in ink in just about 15 minutes.  Once in a great while it will take 20.  I might have one or two squares where I have had to go over a mistake in darker ink to correct it, but most of the time it is clean and legible without a single blotch.  But the New York Times' puzzle takes me nearly an hour and quite a bit of erasing.  If I tried it in ink, I probably wouldn't be able to read it for the mess I made.  I may love to do those puzzles, but I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.  You know those people who finish the marathon three hours after everyone else, coming in while the banners and signs are being taken down?  That's me doing a crossword puzzle.  All I can say is, I get it done.  And hurray for pencils and erasers.
              Jesus is my pencil and God is my eraser.  The Lord's sacrifice is far larger than we usually give him credit for.  Not to diminish it in the least, but he didn't just die for us and rise from the dead for us, a process that took no more than three days.  He lived a lifetime for us as a human being, experiencing the same trials and sorrows we do.  God, mind you--and he did it without the failings we so often want to excuse because we are "only human."  When we do that, we insult that sacrifice, because he did it to show us how, to show us that we most certainly can do it, especially with his help—or will we insult that too?
              No, life is not a Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle.  God never told us it would be easy, and that's why I need the pencil.  He promised us "thorns and thistles" and "sweat of the brow."  He told we would have to kill our old man (crucified) and become something brand new.  He may have said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," but it's still a yoke and a burden.
              But then he tells me that all is not lost if I do fail.  After all, this life is written in pencil if we just repent, get back on our feet, and try again, determined to go farther than the last time, determined to improve—not to make excuses.  And then God will erase that error like it never happened, clean, white paper without even a smudge, ready for the next attempt.  And with his help, we might even get the right answer this time.
              When we refuse to try, when we make excuses for our failure and refuse to admit our wrong, that's when we are writing in ink.  We can go over it and over it and over it, making it darker and uglier with every try, and everyone will still see the obvious error.  Maybe everyone but the one who need to see the truth the most--me.  And it can never be erased, if that is the attitude we have.
              Far better to follow the Lord's example.  Far better to be tough and work hard and try again and again and again.  Pencil is, after all, easily erased.
 
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  (1John 1:6-7).
 
Dene Ward