Flight Paths

Monday morning I was outside for a good while, exercising Chloe, feeding the birds, pruning some dormant perennials in hopes of a good summer’s bloom.  While I puttered around, my mind wandered here and there, but eventually stayed on an idea for a devotional.  By the time I finished I had the thing half-written in my head, a good introduction, a nice outline, and even a punchy ending.  But I came in needing to study for my Tuesday morning class, a study that took nearly three arduous hours and left my brain frazzled, my neck aching from poring over the books and papers, and my eyes needing to do something besides focus so intently.
            The next day I spent in town, our usual one day a week of Bible class and all the stops we need to do at once to save the gas required for more than one sixty mile round trip.  Then Wednesday we left early for a dentist appointment that was one of the worst ever, leaving me fit for nothing but going to bed with a pain pill.  Then Thursday we had more appointments and by the time I sat down on Thursday night to type, my half written devotional was nothing but a vague memory in the back of my mind.  I sat for nearly half an hour trying to grab onto it as it floated just out of reach.  Finally I gave up and here I sit without that wonderful piece I was so excited about.
            I know this forgetting thing happens to you too.  Do you know how frustrating it is to teach something in a class, then six months later when it comes up in a sermon by a visiting preacher you can hardly get your next class started because everyone is so excited about this new truth they "just heard" the past Sunday morning?  I find myself sitting there thinking, “Where was your mind when we did this six months ago?”
            Keith feels the same frustration when he un-teaches a faulty concept that many have grown up with, watching the light bulbs go on one by one, only to have those same people repeat that faulty concept yet again the next time that passage comes up.  Yes, it happens to all of us—we forget what we have learned all too easily.
            Do you know how to avoid that?  I keep a notebook handy to jot down ideas that come up in my head when I don’t have time to sit down then and write.  The problem last Monday was not getting inside as quickly as usual and so forgetting to even put the idea in my notebook. 
            Learning involves some work.  I just sat through a wonderful class on a prophetic book I have never studied before, and never heard taught in any church anywhere.  What amazed me was the fact that only two of us were even bothering to take notes.  How much do you think the others remember now, several months later? 
            Come let us reason together…God says to His people in Isa 1:18.  That Hebrew word also means argue, convince, correct, dispute, judge, and many other words that involve thinking.  God will not listen to anyone try to argue, dispute, or convince Him of anything if that person has no clue what he is talking about.  I will be that clueless one if I do not study the Word of God and meditate (think) on it.  I will be equally clueless six months later if I have done nothing to help myself remember what I have learned.  I certainly won’t get it by osmosis from the pew I am sitting on or by an airborne germ just because I am sitting in the building where it was taught.
            Rene Descartes was the French philosopher who came up with this famous notion:  I think, therefore I am.  The guy did a whole lot of thinking his whole life long, but on February 11, 1650, he stopped thinking.  He died.  At least he had that excuse.  What’s yours?
 
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen, 2 Pet 3:15-18.
 
Dene Ward

Another checkup, another new disorder.  I did not realize there were so many things that could go wrong with an eyeball.  Remember freshman biology in high school?  The model of the eye sat up on its white plastic pedestal stand, and you could lift off the layers and see the various parts of the eye:  the cornea, the pupil, the iris, and the retina.  You might see the optic nerve running off from the back, and if you had a particularly diligent teacher you might hear the words sclera (eyeball skin) and vitreous humor (eyeball fluid), but that was it.  That is what we were all taught an eyeball was made up of.  Let me tell you, that is not even half of it!
              My knowledge has come a long way in the past 17 years, but once again I have learned something new, something else that can go wrong.  I won't trouble you with the four word disorder or describe it.  Here is the frightening thing:  within five years I could need a cornea transplant to save the eye.  HOWEVER, in all caps, italicized, and underlined, the so-called easy cure is not for me.  All these other problems I have make me a horrible candidate for that surgery—unless there is just no other choice.  And should that be the case, the complications may very well cost me the eye.
              My vision may now have a real, concrete time limit.  So what do I do in the meantime?  Of course I pray.  That is obvious.  I have already had one timely "coincidence" save my vision for a while longer.  God can certainly make that happen again.  But in the words of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, "Even if he doesn't…" how shall I prepare myself for the days of darkness ahead of me?
              Instead of making this a totally self-absorbed post, let's consider your days of darkness, too, because it does not have to be blindness we are talking about here.  What is troubling you?  What lies ahead in your life that either might come or definitely will come, all things being equal?  What should any of us do to prepare for those frightening times?
              Let us fill our minds with the good.  Are you reading his Word on a daily basis, not just a minimal chapter a day, but a good hour of real study time?  Are you spending time with brothers and sisters in worship, in study together, in encouragement and exhortation?  Have you ever taken advantage of the extra studies that take place during the week, both at the building and in homes?
              Do you follow the admonition of Paul?  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. The things which ye both learned and received and heard and saw in me, these things do: and the God of peace shall be with you. (Phil 4:8-9)
             Or do you spend more time on Facebook, surfing the web, playing video games, watching mindless or, worse, worldly entertainment, or any number of other time-wasters that are using up the precious time you have left?  How are you preparing for the moment when all you will have due to a disability or an illness or other circumstance is what you have stored in your heart?
              The days of darkness will come, sooner or later, for all of us.  What will see you through it?
 
For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness. (Ps 18:28).
 
Dene Ward

Don't ever think that a seven year old doesn't listen to the conversation around him.
              Judah probably heard it several times, the story of his great-grandfather's death, when his great-grandmother—Gran-gran—sat next to the bed and told her beloved just before he passed to wait for her at the gate.  He heard it again at her funeral just before we sang "When All of God's Singers Get Home," when his uncle said, "I can imagine them walking through that gate hand-in-hand, two of God's singers just got home."
              That was two days before Thanksgiving, and a few days later he told his parents that he wanted to add something to his prayer list:  that Gran-gran could find her husband in Heaven.  He had never known "her husband," who passed almost exactly a year before Judah was born.  Evidently he had imagined the scene and wondered how they could possibly find each other in the crowd and he didn't want Gran-gran to be lonely.  His daddy assured him that they had probably already found each other and were together again. 
              He continued asking questions about the man he never knew, so when he came for Christmas I asked if he would like to see some pictures.  We had just gone through my mother's things and I had several at hand, from the seventeen year old high school graduate to the twenty-five year old Army draftee in Korea to the sixty-five year old gray-headed retiree, many with his sweetheart from high school days, Judah's Gran-gran.  I told him that we all called him Papa because that is what I had called my grandfather too.  By the end of the session, he could point to even a picture from the 1950s and say, "There is Papa."  Gran-gran's husband had become a real person to him, someone he was related to.
              I was thinking about the preciousness of all of this when it suddenly occurred to me that I knew people who would have tsk-tsked me for telling my seven year old grandson that his great-grandparents were back together in Heaven.  They would have pointed to stories in the Bible to prove that is not what life after death actually is—at least not yet.  In fact, I can think of a few who would have accused me of lying to the child.
              I recall at least three Biblical depictions of life after death.  Each is different, and every one of them involve some sort of figurative language.  Who are we to say that one or the other is the true and literal picture?  God gave us those images to comfort us.  Each has a point that makes us less afraid of death and more confident in our own destiny.  As a parent or grandparent, God expects me to give my own children images they can relate to just as He did for His children.  It isn't lying to talk about "waiting at the gate" any more than it is for God to tell us about streets of gold and pearly gates or for Jesus to say, "I am the good shepherd," when he was actually a carpenter.  I am simply following my heavenly Father's example in comforting my children.
              Like the Pharisees, somewhere along the way we have missed the point of it all.  We have, as Jesus cautioned, "strained out the gnats and swallowed the camel," Matt 23:24.  We have forgotten how patient Jesus was with the weak and the babes:  "a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; (Matt 12:20).  Instead we go plowing through the shrubbery heedless of anything but making our point and "being correct," when the whole point of figurative language is not to be literal at all.
              A seven year old child is now comforted.  As he matures in the Word he will come to know that what he was told was an image to help him understand and make him feel better.  He will know that no, it probably was not exactly that way—those gates are figurative after all.  But he will have learned the point in a way he will never forget:  that God loves His children and plans to live with them forever, and that his great-grandparents are among those children.  And, even better, he can be with them again one day.
 
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.  (Matt 18:6).
 
Dene Ward

She took him into her home.  She fed him.  She offered him a place to rest, a place he felt safe.  Then, when he was sound asleep, she knelt next to him and pounded a tent pin through his temple. 
            Many times I have heard Jael, the wife of Heber, described as a sneaky, devious, blood-thirsty woman.  We in our civilized, politically correct, white collar world decry any ancient blood-letting as barbaric, even though people of our own era commit atrocities, from the mega-massacres of Stalin and Hitler to the mob mentality that runs rampant in both the inner cities and suburbia at the lowest flashpoint, be it outrage or fear.  So, in our blindness to our own hidden savagery, we read the account in Judges 4 with a jaundiced and arrogant eye.  If we had spent any time at all on the song of Deborah in Judges 5, we would have avoided contradicting divinely inspired opinion about Jael’s actions.  Blessed above women shall Jael be, v 24.
            Certainly that should settle the matter.  Just for the added emphasis of common sense, though, let’s ponder this question:  What was this nomadic shepherd woman, alone at home, supposed to do?  Should we require that she meet a trained warrior, the captain of a mighty army, in a fair fight?  Indeed, I read that the customs of the day said for a man to force his way into another man’s tent, or to merely enter that same tent when the man was not at home, was an action worthy of death. 
            But how do we reconcile this type of behavior with Jesus’ teaching.  I say unto you, love your enemies, do good to them who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who despitefully use you.  To him who smites you on the one cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your cloak, withhold not your coat also.  Give to everyone who asks and from him who takes away your goods, ask them not again.  And as you would that men should do to you, do also unto them likewise, Luke 6:27-31.  Some would say, “Jael was under the old law. Things are different now.”  While that is so, it only skims the surface of the matter.
            Old Testament Israel was a physical kingdom with a physical king sitting on a physical throne.  They fought physical wars using physical weapons.  Isaiah prophesies a coming kingdom where they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more, 2:4; a kingdom that would have no physical boundaries, but would encompass the whole world, one into which all nations shall flow, 2:2.  Jesus established that kingdom, the church, his throne not on this earth but in Heaven.
            Yet we still fight battles.  Paul spent a good amount of time detailing our armor (Eph 6), our weapons and battle tactics (2 Cor 10), and the characteristics of a faithful soldier (2 Tim 2). 
            Every time we overcome temptation, we win a battle; every time we speak of our faith to others, we take an enemy captive; every time a Christian leaves this world, having been faithful to the end, we pound a tent pin into the temple of Satan.  If we are too politically correct to fight a battle, if we are too finicky for hand-to-hand combat, if we are too “civilized” to pick up a sword and slash our way through the enemy forces, we don’t have what it takes to be a follower of Christ.
            Make no mistake about it.  You are going to war today.  Be prepared to fight in it.
 
Suffer hardship as a good soldier of Christ, for no soldier on service entangles himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier, 2 Tim 2:3,4.
 
Dene Ward

“Do you love me, Peter?”
            “Lord, you know I love you.”
            “Feed my sheep.”
            Most of us are familiar with the scene on the seashore recorded in John 21.  I think we make a lot of fuss over the word “love” in its various permutations because we have read a Greek dictionary and think we have suddenly become scholars with great insight.  In reality there is considerable disagreement about what Jesus and Peter may or may not have intended. 
            However, most people agree that Jesus repeats the question three times because of Peter’s three denials.  Peter had already repented in bitter tears and was surely forgiven, but this gave him the opportunity to make amends in another, more direct way.
            Peter takes a lot of grief for his failings.  I have heard many say, and have more than likely said myself, “Peter gives me hope.  If the Lord will take him, surely he will take me.”   Why do we think we are any better than Peter? 
            Is it any less a denial of the Lord as the master of my life when I fail to act as He would?  Is it any less a denial when I fail to speak His word in an age of political correctness?  Is it any less a denial when I fail to follow His example in forgiving my neighbor, my brother, my spouse, or simply the other driver or shopper or the waitress or store clerk?  Is it any less a denial when my life matches the world instead of my Savior’s?  I may stand up and confess His name on Sunday morning, but it’s how I live my life the rest of the week that truly tells the story, and neither the circumstances nor the provocation matter.  All of my reactions to the circumstances of life and to other people are either a confession or a denial of Jesus as the Lord of my life.
            How many times should the Lord ask me, “Do you love me?”  How many second chances do I need?  How many will I need just today?
 
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isa 53:5,6.
 
Dene Ward

We were standing on the carport one evening when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned just in time to push Keith out of the path of a garter snake determinedly chugging his way up the slope to the concrete slab.  We called the dogs off and allowed him to meander under the mower and off the edge of the pad to the cool darkness under the porch.  A few days later he made another appearance and we discovered his home when he wriggled away—the hollow pipes supporting the metal roofing of the carport.
            I have come a long way in 35 years--from a city girl who screamed and ran from a foot long, pencil-thin, bright green garden snake to a country woman who understands the value of a snake on the property—God’s original mousetrap.  I will never be a snake lover.  I went out one afternoon and found him stretched out at the foot of my lounge chair.  I got the broom and shooed him back into his pipe.  My dogs can sit at my feet and have their heads scratched, but with Mr. Snake it is only a matter of “live and let live.”
            Too many times we take that attitude with Satan.  Yes, he is out there every day.  Sometimes we even bump elbows in passing, but we don’t have to stop and politely say, “Excuse me.”  Don’t give him a cool spot on the carport and an idle belly rub with your bare toes.
            If this garter snake were one of the four poisonous varieties we have in this area—all of which we have seen on our land—he would not be tolerated.  Although my guys may tell funny stories about me and snakes, they cannot deny that I know how to make like Annie Oakley when a bad one comes along.  I have killed them with a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a .22 pistol.  I have killed them with rat shot and buckshot.  When necessary I have used a shovel.  I have lost count of how many poisonous snakes I have killed.  They get fewer every year.
            How are we doing with Satan?  Does he think his presence is tolerated, even welcome?  Or does he know that it’s dangerous to be around us?  He is fighting a losing battle and he knows it, but that won’t keep his poison from killing us if we allow him to get too close.
 
Do not give opportunity to the Devil, Eph 4:27.
 
Dene Ward
 

On our recent camping trip we had a lot of wildlife for company.  Yet it was neither frightening nor bothersome.  The only animal we saw besides the usual birds and squirrels that lived in the campground itself was a young raccoon who moseyed up to the woodpile, so interested in the spot where Keith had slung some cold coffee that he didn’t see us until about the same time we saw him.  All of us were startled and he fled for cover.  Yet I am positive we had much more company out in the woods.
            If I did not see them, how do I know?  Because as we hiked the park’s fifteen miles of trails over the next four days, we saw their tracks: the cloven hoof prints of many deer, the tiny handprints of other raccoons, the small padded paws of bobcats, and the deep, heavy prints of wild boars, along with places they had torn up the ground rooting and wallowing.  There were not just a few of these tracks either.  We saw far more animal tracks than people tracks on our daily hikes.
            I bet you believe me now, don’t you?  Yet God’s fingerprints are all over this world of ours and it seems that every year fewer people believe in Him.  They might as well believe that animals don’t exist in the forest; it would make about as much sense. 
            But people have been behaving this way for thousands of years. I am reminded of Moses performing his signs before Pharaoh.  The Egyptian ruler did not want to believe in Jehovah as the one true God.  He had his many magicians replicate Moses’ signs with their tricks.  Finally though, they reached a point where they could not do so. 
            “This,” they said to Pharaoh, “is the finger of God.”
            Would that men would be so honest today.
 
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity; that they may without excuse, because that knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasonings and their senseless heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.  Wherefore God gave them up…Rom 1:20-24.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels.  Why?  It seems to be among the simplest of the miracles and we all learned it as children.  I have long wondered what I was missing.  Certainly John's gospel adds depth with Jesus' bread of life discourse which is not recorded in Matthew, Mark or Luke.  Is there more?  What about this miracle impacted the four so deeply that they all told it?  More significantly, why did the Holy Spirit deem it so important that he inspired three repetitions?
 
In the night after the miracle, but before the discourse recorded in John six, Jesus came walking on the water to the disciples who were under distress in the storm.  When he got into the boat, the winds ceased and the disciples, "were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened" (Mk 6:52).  What did they fail to understand?  What should they have concluded from having seen the miracle of the loaves?  Mark indicates that they should have known something that would have led them to accept the miracle of calming the sea with a sense of confirmation rather than astonishment.
 
Bread is first mentioned in Jesus' ministry when Satan tempted Jesus to turn the stones to bread.  Jesus replied, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4).  Most of us note that the quotation is from Deut 8:3 but look no further.  In the first of his three farewell sermons to the Israelites, Moses actually said, "And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD" (Deut 8:3).   Jesus' quotation was not a statement revealed by God, but a conclusion that the Israelites should have drawn from the miracle of the manna.  Jesus touched on this when he said, "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life," and, "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world….I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." (John 6:27, 33-35).  After the bread of life discourse, the disciples understood that Jesus had the words of eternal life, but they did not understand that he was the Word.  Just as the Israelites failed to understand the lesson of the manna until instructed by Moses, the apostles failed to understand the message of the feeding of the five thousand. 
 
But, Mark does not mention the disciples' hardness of heart and failure to comprehend the feeding of the five thousand until after Jesus calmed the sea.  Truly, as Matthew says, they worshipped him as the Son of God, and just as truly, Mark says they had already missed something that should have kept them from being shocked by this miracle.
 
In feeding the five thousand, Jesus took the role of God feeding Israel the manna.  The five thousand were in the wilderness just as was Israel.  Jesus replaced God in this event and fed the multitude the bread of heaven that appeared from nothing by the hands of God, just as had the manna.  Even before the calming of the sea, they should have seen that he was proclaiming himself to be God by this miracle.  Had they done so, they would not have been "utterly astounded" at the calming of the sea.  They would have seen it as just another proof of his identity -- certainly wonderful, but not something new.
 
 That Old Testament miracle was designed to teach Israel that man lives by the word of God, not bread.  We can say this.  We can even say, "Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" (Matt 6:25).  But, when we begin to give account in the night watches, we often find that we have spent more time wishing for things than praying to God; we have spent more money on our pleasures than we have given to God and the poor; we have learned new skills to keep our jobs but cannot learn the words of li
 
A prophet would proclaim that we have not learned the lesson of the feeding of the five thousand that Jesus is to be heard as God and he is life, feed on him.  Our church-going souls are starving while the cushioned pews are littered with fish and manna.
 
Keith Ward

I have heard it all my life and never noticed the problem until recently.  “Do one good deed every day.”  How many New Year’s resolutions have you heard that include that phrase?  How many times have you heard people talk about trying to better themselves by doing “one good deed every day?”  How many speak as if they are proud of that very accomplishment?
            Then it struck me.  One good deed a day?  That is supposed to make me a good person?  One?  Hey!  If I get it done by 8 or 9 in the morning, I don’t have to worry about another one, right?  If I do 5 today, I can take the rest of the week off.  I’m not expected to work on the weekends surely. Something is terribly wrong if we think doing one good deed a day is a wonderful accomplishment for a Christian.
            Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it. Psalm 34:14
            Trust in Jehovah, and do good…Depart from evil, and do good; Psalm 37:3,27.
            I know that there is nothing better for them, than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they live. Eccl 3:12.
            But I say unto you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, Luke 6:27.
            But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased, Heb 13:16.   
              And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. So then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith. Gal 6:9,10.
            Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honor preferring one another; communicating to the necessities of the saints; given to hospitality. Bless them that persecute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought for things honorable in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as in you lies, be at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongs unto me; I will recompense, says the Lord. But if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.  Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Rom 12:9-10, 13-21. 
            Do I really think I can overcome evil with one good deed a day?
            Christians don’t work by the quota system.  They know they should be looking for good things to do, as well as reacting in good ways to things done to them, all day long, every day.  Yet even that is not enough to repay the debt we owe for our forgiveness. 
            I think we need to stop counting.
 
Dene Ward

It was late in the day and still the noise surrounded us.  The elevator dinging, the telephones chirping, the call buttons issuing a strident claxon, the IV pole beeping, the whooshes from the suction wand, the roaring wheels of the food carts, even the dimmer wail of the sirens as ambulances rolled in beneath us to the emergency room—and this is where we are supposed to relax and recuperate, I wondered?  Since when is a hospital a place of rest?  At least hospice, where my mother was ultimately moved, was quiet and peaceful.

              Our culture is a noisy one.  I have had people tell me they leave the television on for company, so there is always noise in the background.  Maybe because I live in the country I find that utterly confounding.  Yet this morning as I sat by the fire pit with a final cup of morning coffee I found myself thinking that it certainly isn't as quiet as thirty-five years ago, when cows lowing, donkeys braying, roosters crowing, woodpeckers tapping for food in the live oaks, and wrens singing their little heads off were the loudest things for miles around. 

              Rest.  God promised His people rest—from their enemies, from the toil of slavery, from the worries of life, if they would only keep their covenant with Him.  But what did they prefer?  The hoopla and noise of idolatry and all its attendant debauchery.  A peaceful life with their God was boring, I suppose.  It certainly did not offer the physical thrill of sin and the emotional high of a pagan festival.  What did He have to say about that? 

              Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ​I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!’ But they said, ‘We will not pay attention.’ Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. " (Jer 6:16-19).  Too late they learned the value of a peaceful and quiet life with God, led by His Word and following His Law. 

               The Devil cultivates our desire for excitement and stimulation.  He fills our ears with his noise until we can no longer tolerate the serenity of spiritual satisfaction and peace with God.  Busyness becomes a status symbol.  We fill our children's minds with "cultural enrichment" and run ourselves ragged trying to outdo one another in our bustling around.  We go and go and go and talk and talk and talk until we have no time at all to sit still and simply meditate on God and His place in our lives—which ultimately becomes no place at all.

               Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near… {Zeph 1:7).  That's what happens when we become too busy and too loud to notice God.  It was spoken to a people who would soon be destroyed because they would not be quiet long enough to listen. 

              Far better to learn the lesson the psalmist teaches:  ​“Be still, and know that I am God…”  (Ps 46:10).

              Far better to realize that rest is not a punishment but a reward, a reward for those who have been busy, not with loud self-serving sin, but with the quiet work of the Lord, serving Him by serving others, in a place where we can truly rest and recuperate from all of our trials.
 
​Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  (Matt 11:28-30)
 
Dene Ward