Flight Paths

 
Come, we that love the Lord,
and let our joys be known;
join in a song with sweet accord,
join in a song with sweet accord
and thus surround the throne,
and thus surround the throne.
Chorus

We’re marching to Zion,
beautiful, beautiful Zion;
we’re marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God.

Let those refuse to sing
who never knew our God;
but children of the heavenly King,
but children of the heavenly King
may speak their joys abroad,
may speak their joys abroad.

The hill of Zion yields
a thousand sacred sweets
before we reach the heavenly fields,
before we reach the heavenly fields,
or walk the golden streets,
or walk the golden streets.

Then let our songs abound,
and every tear be dry;
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
to fairer worlds on high,
to fairer worlds on high.

            We sang this song not long ago and I paid more attention to the words than ever before.  As a result I found so many new things in it that I sat there stunned and missed the first few minutes of the lesson that followed.  When I got home I did some research and found scripture references on a couple of websites that I might not have found all by myself.  But before we get to that, let’s build a foundation.

            We have been studying the prophets lately and have hung our interpretive hats on Hebrews 12:22-29.  In a day when the Messianic words of the prophets are construed every which way but the correct one, this passage can be a lifesaver.  Just read through it and you find that all of the following phrases are synonymous:  Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the general assembly and church of the firstborn, [those] whose names are written in heaven, the [unshakable] kingdom.  None of these things have to do with a millennium at the end of time—they are all Messianic in the prophets and occur now.  If we are faithful believers, we are these things.
 
           Now look at Psalm 137:  By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
 
           This psalm is written of the exiles in Babylon.  Their despair is palpable.  They no longer have a country, much less a city.  Their temple on Mt Zion is in ruins. They have no king, no worship, no way to sacrifice to God or even try to keep the covenant if they were of a mind to—and many were not.  And so they gave up.  They hung up their lyres on the willow branches and sat down and cried.  They “refused to sing.”

            How many times have we done the same thing?  How many times have looked at the rampant sin around us and, instead of continuing to do our best, we not only quit but wallowed in our misery, complaining loud and long about the hopelessness of our situation?  How many times have we almost gleefully whined to one another—in Facebook posts by the score--about the perfidies that surround us and the moral turpitude of our culture?  Our delight is no longer in the law of the Lord but in recounting the iniquities of others. 
  
          But how can we keep singing?   The psalmist said if those exiles could not remember their own city of God, their own Mt Zion, their own Jerusalem, then let their fingers lose their musical skill and their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths.  Is that what we want to happen to us?  Even your memories are enough to sing about, he told them.

            We still have plenty to sing about too, if “we love the Lord.”  We are “children of the heavenly king.”  We “know God.”  We have been given “a thousand sacred sweets” before we even get to Heaven—prayer, spiritual blessings, physical blessings, a spiritual family, and salvation, a beautiful world to live in and joyful occasions in our lives.  “Every tear” should be dry because we are “marching through Emmanuel’s ground”—“God with us”--a Lord who came and died for us, who acts as our high priest, who intercedes, who takes every care of ours on his shoulders.  And we want to sit by the waters of Babylon and cry?

            Shame on me if I do not “set [the heavenly] Jerusalem above my highest joy.”  Shame on me if I cannot sing this song with the unmitigated joy it deserves.
 
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Ps 84:1-2
 
Dene Ward

Two year old Silas has a funny way of asking us to put him down.  “Oh the down,” he says wistfully with a sigh that communicates far beyond his years.  If we don’t do it fast enough, he squirms to the point that we put him down in self-defense.  At nearly thirty pounds now, he is getting a little too heavy for this grandma to handle without his cooperation.  The eye surgeon probably wouldn’t be too happy either.

            I would hold him longer if he would let me.  I would hold him all day and all night.  I can’t get enough of holding him, in fact, but I don’t want to make him stay in my arms.  Holding a prisoner is not the same as holding a cherished grandchild.

            Too many folks have the wrong idea about the security of the believer.

            My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, John 10:27-29.

            As long as we stay in God’s hand, we are safe.  He will not allow us to be tempted more than we can stand.  He will give grace that not only forgives our sins, but helps us through the storms of life.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God, Paul reminds the Romans in 8:39.  There is your security of the believer.

            But God will hold no prisoners.  As soon as we start squirming, as soon as we wistfully sigh, “Oh the down,” he will let us go.  Unlike aging grandparents, he could hold on to us, but God wants a child who wants to be in his arms, not one who kicks and screams and begs to be let go. We will have no one to blame but ourselves if we lose our souls. 

            For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 2 Pet 2:20.
            You know what?  Many times after I put him down, Silas comes running back.  “Grandma!” he says with arms held up high, and I will pick him up gladly, even if my back does complain a bit.  There is yet another bit of security.  God will pick us up when we come back, eager to be held again in his loving arms.  It is entirely up to us whether we stay there.
 
Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet 1:5.
 
Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
Sometimes we know things for a long time before the significance of placing two events side by side strikes us. (Daddy used to say that something had to strike me pretty hard to penetrate.)  So it was just the other day when for some reason I happened to think of Mt Sinai and Isaiah close enough together to discover a significance.

First, consider the reaction of the children of Israel when they came into the presence of God, “And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before you, that ye sin not.  And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Exod 20:18-21).

Then, note Isaiah’s reaction when God appeared to him, “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven. And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me” (Isa 6:5-8).
 
In both cases they feared God greatly. The Israelites backed away and asked that God speak no more. Isaiah exclaimed, “Woe is me” as his sins became evident in the presence of the holy God. But, contrast in your mind their subsequent actions—Isaiah exclaimed, “Here am I, send me” and entered a lifelong ministry to God.  Israel backed away from God and within months rejected God in faithless disobedience and all died in the wilderness.

It seems that we come into the presence of God blithely. We sing, “Our God is an Awesome God” or “Holy, Holy, Holy” with fervor, but no fear. God hoped that their fear would keep Israel honest, “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!” (Deut 5:29). When even Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake,” it is hard to call this a simple respect (Heb 12:17). Multiplying praise songs is no substitute for meditation with fear. We have buried our fear of God in a sea of redefinition to respect and therefore, many have followed Israel and so few have followed Isaiah.

Certainly we have been adopted as sons and can come with boldness to the throne of grace, but perhaps an unseemly familiarity has overwhelmed our sense, “If you call on him as Father, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.”  (Rom 8:14-15, Heb 4:16, 1 Pet 1:17).

It may be that we have confused our own emotion with coming into the presence of God!  Because we feel warm and “touched,” we construe this as the presence.  Let us consider that even the most righteous fell in the presence of just an angel (Dan 8:17,27; 10:8, 10).  Surely we would do well to be less pushy about our family status and more aware that He is GOD!  Then, perhaps we could walk as Isaiah walked.
 
But ye are come unto….. God the Judge of all, and… to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant…. see that ye refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him that warns from heaven:….let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb 12:22-29)

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12)
 
Keith Ward

We have experienced much in our forty some odd years of married life.  Joy, sorrow, excitement, abject terror, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, violent crime, automobile accidents, trips to the emergency room, frightening health issues, life-changing disabilities, serious economic woes, persecution on several levels—all of these and more have shaped us into who we are today.  I do my best to share with you what we have learned, and though we may have seen a lot, it still isn’t everything.  We can tell you some hair-raising stories, but we still consider ourselves blessed beyond measure.

            That’s one reason God gave us so many narratives in the Bible, so many faithful followers who have lived through practically every experience it is possible to live through. He has also given us people much closer to us, who set examples we can see every day.  Today I want to share with you a couple who went through one of the worst experiences in life—losing a child--and came out gold in God’s eyes. 

            My in-laws lost their little girl to cancer.  She went to the first day of school barely a month after her ninth birthday and had a seizure.  After a year of treatments and surgeries, even thinking for a while that the doctors “got it,” she died at 10.  I am not privy to everything that went on during that time.  But I did notice some things in them that seem to run counter to many of the things I have heard and read about experiences like this.

            First, Keith’s parents did not divorce.  Undoubtedly there were hard times.  I have seen that just in our marriage and the things we have dealt with.  Everyone grieves over losses in a different way and when I decide that my way is the only right way, there will be problems.  When I decide that my grief is worse than his, there will be problems.  When, “You just don’t understand,” becomes a wall instead of a bridge, you just might have reached the end.  However they managed it, the thought of divorce for these two never entered the picture.  This was a couple who understood lifelong commitment as they had vowed before God, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part,” and they were determined to make it through no matter how difficult it became.   

           I wish I could give you specifics, the things they did that helped and the things they did that did not, but that was long before I knew them.  This I know:  They had a strong marriage, and however they managed it, they did it “together.”  The communication seems never to have stopped, even though I am sure it was occasionally painful.  They had each other and they made sure that the hurt drew them together instead of driving them apart.  They were married just a few months months short of 60 years when my father-in-law passed away first. 

            Second, this couple did not lose their faith.  Their commitment to God came even before their commitment to each other.  They did not expect a life of ease and they never had one.  They endured poverty, estrangement from family because of their faith, and many serious illnesses, some near death, besides this horrible illness of their child.  But they believed in the resurrection.  They knew they would see their child again, and that was a primary source of faith and encouragement.  Keith remembers hearing, “This is what we believe” more than once during that period.  And now they are enjoying the results of that faith, together with that lost daughter, and they will never lose her again.
 
           And then there was this:  they did not let this tragedy define them as a couple or a family.  Of course they remembered their little girl and spoke of her often.  I heard many “Remember whens” and other references.  Her name often came up in casual conversations.  They were more than willing to help those who had similar situations and better able than most to offer the needed sympathy, but it never became an entitlement issue.  They did not think they ranked above any other family because of the things they had suffered.  In their minds, we all suffer, just differently.  And they felt their own brand of suffering made them responsible to be examples and sympathizers with others, not worthy of praise and admiration—not “special.”  Pain and death come from Satan and they would never have given him any credit in any way imaginable.  In fact, if anyone had tried to compliment them for how well they had come through the grist mill of life, it just might have made them angry. 

           Of course this experience changes you.  Life changes you, but something like this makes that change happen rapidly.  Keith told me they were different than before, but “different” isn’t always bad.  I could still see all these good things I have shared with you when I came on the scene over ten years later.  Isn’t it funny how it all turns out?  I was the same age as Keith’s baby sister, born the same year, and my birthday was the date of her death.  Nowadays people would have expected traumatic results, and analyzed it to pieces.  But they never even mentioned the coincidences.  If Keith hadn’t told me, I would never have known what they had been through, and the rest of their life story came out slowly over the years, most often from listening to Keith reminisce, not them. 

           Even through all their trials they stayed faithful to God and each other.  In fact, Keith’s father was converted several years into their marriage, when they had already faced some challenges.  None of this “health and wealth” sissy gospel for him.  But then, this was a man who jumped out of an LST and waded through the water to the beaches of Normandy, walking all the way to Berlin.

           I hope that you never experience the horrible tragedy of losing a child, but you will suffer something.  That is the nature of life.  When you do, here is a godly couple whose example might help you through it.  Did they do everything right?  No, and they would never have claimed to.  But they did do this:  They never gave up on their relationship, and they never gave up on God.  That is how they made it through.
 
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falls, and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? Eccl 4:9-11

Dene Ward

Chloe sounded like a puppy was supposed to sound when we first got her, a small high-pitched yap of a bark, rather than the more full-throated deep bark Magdi had.  I assumed her bark would grow up as she did.  I was wrong.  Despite four years of growth into forty pounds of deep-chested dog, she still sounds like someone stepped on her squeak toy.  It’s difficult to take her bark seriously and actually go check it out.  Anything that raises that sort of noise can’t be dangerous, can it?

            Paul says in 1 Cor 14:8, For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? His context is another topic altogether, but he makes the point for me.  God expected his people to sound a trumpet when an enemy approached, Num 10:9.  When you go into battle…against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets, and you shall be remembered before the Lord your God and you shall be saved from your enemy.”  Notice!  He said sound a blast, not a wimpy little “blurp.”  He has always expected his watchmen to sound the alarm so that his people could be protected.

           In our politically correct world, I worry that we have fallen into the habit of giving “an uncertain sound.”  We no longer speak in plain English.  We are too worried about what others might think, so worried in fact, that many people never know they have been rebuked, and fewer hear any sort of warning at all.  Even in the original context of I Corinthians 14, speaking in tongues, Paul worried about people understanding what they were being told.  So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. The same is true when we pussyfoot around with our preaching.  If people don’t get the point, what good did we do?  And no, I am not going to take the time to qualify this with warnings about having the right attitude when we correct others.  For a disciple of Christ that should go without saying.  Attitude is not my point today, and these days, not the one we most need to hear.

            If we fail to adequately warn those who are sinning, if we fail to warn our brethren against false teaching and its consequences, where will we stand before our God?  We might as well be yapping like a dustmop dog, irritating the neighbors and raising up a fuss for nothing.
 
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, and the sword come, and take any person from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. So you, son of man, I have set you a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he turns not from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.  Ezek 33:6-9.
 
Dene Ward

The Erie Canal opened for business on October 26, 1825.  The history of the canal makes interesting reading.  Somewhere I came across the nickname, “the canal that salt built.”  Syracuse, one of its principal ports, shipped most of the salt used in the United States.  The Erie Canal dramatically lowered the shipping costs of that and other commodities, and made those otherwise inland cities more prosperous.  

            Keith and I have differing opinions about salt.  He adds it to everything, copiously.  I add it to some things all the time and others seldom, and usually just a mere sprinkle.  Since his stroke a few years ago, he has become a little more moderate, cutting his amounts by using serious quantities of black pepper instead.                                                                       

            In the summer he must worry less about it.  We live in Florida, which means on a summer afternoon he will come in from the garden soaking wet, with his pant hems literally dripping sweat, and even pouring it out of shoes.  He stays hydrated with a gallon of water sitting in the shade of a nearby oak, usually a gallon before lunch and another afterward.  On those days, he doesn’t worry about how much salt he puts on his platter of sliced garden tomatoes in the evening.

            Just out of curiosity I looked up the dietary salt requirement.  Considering how much you hear about the evils of salt, I was surprised.  Did you know that too little in your diet can affect your moods and even cause depression?  It is also the reason for some falls in the elderly.  They wind up with hyponatremia, which causes dizziness and balance issues.  Low salt diets can lead to Type 2 diabetes by impairing insulin sensitivity.  None of this gives us the green light to consume too much salt, but maybe we should check where we stand with our doctors on these issues before cutting out too much of it.

            In all that study I also found a list of special uses for salt.  We all know that salt is a food preservative.  I also use it as a gargle for sore throats.  I hate doing it, but it works.  These other things I have not tried, so take them with, ahem, a grain of salt.

            Sprinkle salt on the shelves in your pantry to keep away the ants.
            Soak freshly caught fish in salt water to make scaling them easier.
            A pinch of salt in egg whites will make them beat up fluffier.
            A dash of salt in gelatin will cause it to set faster.
            Clean greens in salt water for easier dirt removal.

            Pour salt on an ink-stained carpet and leave overnight.  It will soak up the stain.

            Pour salt on sidewalk cracks to kill weeds and grass.
Then I looked up salt in the scriptures and got another education.

            Ezek 16:4 mentions rubbing a newborn with salt.  For some that symbolized cleansing.  For the Eastern cultures at large, it was thought to make the infant’s skin firm.

            Ex 30:35 and Lev 2:13 tell us that God required salt on his sacrifices.  Salt was considered the opposite of leavening (so much for the notion that no salt should be used in unleavened bread), and it signified both the purity and faithfulness required to worship Jehovah, and Jehovah’s enduring love for his people.

            And that led to the “covenants of salt” mentioned in places like Num 18:19 and 2 Chron 13:5.  God’s covenant with his people was considered perpetual.

            So now you see why I started looking at Col 4:6 a little differently.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer each person.  Usually I hear, “Salt makes things sweeter, so be sweet and kind when you talk with someone.”  That is truly a one-dimensional explanation.  Yes, salt can make a tasteless melon taste sweeter.  Even the ancients knew that (Job 6:6).  One of the classic combinations in Italian cooking is prosciutto, a salty ham, thinly sliced and wrapped around melon wedges.  Yet if there is no sugar in the food, the salt can hardly make it taste sweeter.  The correct statement is that salt brings out whatever flavors are present in the first place.

            And what about the other aspects of salt associated with that culture, purification, preservation, faithfulness, and perpetuality? That verse in Colossians indicates that my answer may change according to circumstance, “that you may know how to answer each person.”  Can the words I choose help purify a sinner?  Can they show my faithfulness to God when I am questioned by an unbeliever?  Can they tell others that I know my God will always be there for me and that is why I will always be there for him, regardless how they treat me?  Absolutely, and some of those words might not be particularly sweet. 

            Salt, on occasion, stings.  So does God’s grace when it offers me things I do not want to hear in my present circumstances, so my “graciousness” to others may well have them smarting when it comes “out of season”—a time they do not want to hear it.  In fact, since salt can only enhance what is already there, perhaps it is the hearer who determines how sweet my words are in the first place.

            God’s Word is simple enough for anyone to understand it on the surface, but remember that if you apply yourself, you can dig deeper into more layers than in any book written by a man.  Salt, for instance, can flavor your studies for a good while. 
           
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet, Matt 5:13.
 
Dene Ward

Pecan pie is a staple at our holiday table.  I found a great (and easy) recipe years ago and have not changed it a bit, which itself is notable.  Yet when I found a recipe recently for “the very best pecan pie,” I decided to give it a try.  Pecans, sugar, syrup, eggs, butter, and vanilla—how can you mess it up?

            I dutifully followed the recipe in every detail.  The only real difference was the syrup.  “Corn syrup is tasteless,” the author said, so she switched to real maple syrup.

            “This had better be good,” I thought as I shelled out seven dollars for one small bottle. It wasn’t.  No, that’s not fair.  It did not taste awful, but it wasn’t pecan pie.

            I reread the article.  I should have known when I saw the line, “All you can taste are the pecans,” referring to the standard recipe using corn syrup.  Well, it is called Pecan Pie.  It is all about the pecans to us Southerners.  This magazine was based in New England.  What the chef had created was a Maple Nut Pie because suddenly it was all about the maple syrup.  You could have added walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds and not have known the difference.  She had completely changed the focus of the pie.

            The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, Mark 2:27.  Over and over during his ministry, the scribes and Pharisees plagued Jesus with accusations of breaking the Sabbath.  Their many rules and regulations, not found in the law, had turned what God designed to be a blessing for man into a burden. 

            The Sabbath was a day of rest for God’s people, while the pagan world worked seven days a week just to survive.  It was a day when they could see to their spiritual needs, and renew their relationship with God.  It was a day of “holy convocation,” Lev 23:3.  The many rigorous—and ridiculous—traditions had made it a day to dread instead. 

            Jesus reminded them many times that man should be blessed by the Sabbath, that his good should come because of and sometimes even at the expense of the Sabbath.  They pulled their oxen out of the ditch.  Why shouldn’t he heal?

            When you change the focus of a law, you often lose the blessing God intended from that law.  Staying with the idea of a special day, what about our Lord’s Day?  Is it necessary to make it inconvenient in order for it to be sincere worship?  Yet, I have heard people argue about changing the times of service in exactly that way.  If we have many who come from a distance, and the price of gas has become prohibitive, why can’t we meet one time for longer instead of two shorter services without being accused of losing our faith? 

            Can’t you hear Jesus’ reaction?  The Lord’s Day is made for man, not man for the Lord’s Day. If inconvenience is what makes it true worship, let’s meet at 3 am. 

            To make another application, each one of us is responsible for how we view our assemblies, for our focus when we meet.  If instead of being a blessing it is nothing more than a rule to follow, then I need to change my focus to God’s intended one.  We are told that our assembling should “provoke one another to love and good works.”  Too many times all we get is provoked, and that is our own fault. Let all be done unto edifying, Paul tells those assembled in 1 Cor 14:26.  You can’t edify a person who sits there like a rock, who listens to find fault, or who wishes he were somewhere else. 

            Don’t change the focus of God’s laws.  He made them to bless us and help us.  When we can’t find the blessing, it’s because we are focused on ourselves, our own bad attitudes and evil motives, instead of on serving a Creator who loves us and blesses us, and on brethren who count on us for encouragement.
 
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous, 1 John 5:3.
 
Dene Ward

Yet another technological advance is making our lives easier—Keith now has a close-captioned phone.  Now he can make his own phone calls.  This has made my life so much easier.  Before, I spent hours on the phone because I had to do all of it.  When you add waiting on hold or for call backs, there were days I felt like a prisoner in my own home.

            However, this voice recognition technology is not the perfect cure.  For one thing, it takes a minute sometimes for the captions to register and print up on the screen.  Recorded menus will not wait a minute for the computer to recognize the words and print them, and then for the caller to read them.  By the time the whole process has occurred, the pleasant little voice will be saying, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t catch that,” and unlike a real person, you can’t interrupt and explain.  I still have to deal with the menus for him.

            Then there is the machine’s inability to recognize every word.  If a speaker is not loud enough, all you get is “Voice unclear.”  If a word or name is odd, it will come up with the closest “normal” name it can find in its vocabulary.  I have been everything from “Jane” to “Jeanie.”  And if the word is something not in a dictionary, like a brand name or company name, the machine goes completely haywire.  Not long ago, Keith had to call a man about our septic tank.  In the course of the call, the man recommended we use Rid-X.  What did the machine print on the screen?

            “You’ll have to put some rednecks down their once a month.”

            Yet another time when I was talking to Lucas, the machine told me something about a “pork picture.”  Lucas had said nothing even remotely close to cameras or ham.  But the computer decided he had, simply because his speech was a little garbled at that point in the conversation.  He was a little excited, talking quickly.

            It doesn’t have to be a closed caption system to show us our words are a little garbled occasionally, especially when we stop and think about what we just said.  Think about prayer for a moment.

            I’ve heard people say, “I don’t want to bother God with my little problems.”  Did you really say that?  You don’t want to “bother” God?  As if you think that God considers hearing from His children a “bother?”  Is that actually how you feel about your children?  Haven’t you read the parable of the unjust judge?

            And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Luke 18:1-8

            If an unjust judge will pay attention to someone who “bothers” him, certainly a loving God will pay attention to someone He does not consider a bother at all.  In fact, he will give justice “speedily.”  Don’t think you are saving God trouble and merely being considerate.  Jesus said that when we won’t lay all our troubles on a Father who loves us, that the problem is a lack of faith, not an abundance of courtesy.

            And sometimes I hear, “God has too much to worry about without me unloading all my problems too.”  Once again, a lack of faith cloaked in consideration.  If you believe God is who He says He is, you cannot give Him too much to do.  In fact, the very wonder of it is that He pays attention to us at all!  What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psa 8:4.  But pay attention He does, and He has the power to take my problems and your problems and everyone else’s problems and fix them in the blink of an eye.

            And I could go on with some of the thoughtless things I have heard—and said.  Sometimes our words are garbled.  They simply don’t make sense.  It would behoove us to listen to ourselves once in a while and straighten them out, because they certainly don’t give a pretty picture of our hearts.
 
​The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Luke 6:45
 
Dene Ward
 

I had finished my shopping in the small town grocery store and approached the check-out line with my wobbly shopping cart—somehow I had managed yet again to get the one with the wheel that won’t turn. 

           The lady in front of me was much older than I, probably in her mid-sixties, wearing pink pancake makeup that showed a definite line along her jaw, and sporting a headful of gray curls.  She had on a blue flower-print house dress with a white Peter Pan collar and a hand-knitted cardigan a shade darker than the dress.  Her stockings sagged just a bit above her black shoes, the narrow black laces looped through a three-pair eyelet across the tongue.  She must have noticed me out of the corner of her eye when I pushed my cart into line behind her, because she suddenly stood straight up and looked around. 

            Her gasp was audible from several feet away and a dozen people looked at me as she asked, “What are YOU doing here?” 

            She was a member of the church we had moved to work with just a couple of weeks before.  Lucky for me I recognized her and could actually say her name when I greeted her.  Before I could add anything about needing a few groceries she must have realized how she had sounded and, trying to undo any harm said, “Well, I guess you DO have to eat like the rest of us.”

            I thought of that incident when I saw a commercial the other day which stated at the bottom, “Real people, not actors.”

            Ah!  So actors are not real people.  Yes, I imagine they too have been accosted in grocery stores the same way I was.  What are you doing here?  You don’t need to eat—you aren’t a real person.  Evidently, neither are preachers and their families.

            But don’t we do that to so many others too?  How about the waitress at your favorite café?  Do you even talk to her or do you treat her like furniture?  How about the cashier at the grocery store?  The bagboy?  The deli guy who slices your meat?  Have you ever thought to ask them how they are?  What would you do if you saw your doctor or your child’s teacher at a restaurant?  Would it be the same reaction I got so many years ago?

            Do you know the problem with this sort of behavior?  If they aren’t “real people,” then I don’t have to treat them like people.  Do you know why road rage occurs?  Because it isn’t a real person you are angry with, it’s a car. 
            When Desert Storm began and the news shows showed the airstrikes and dogfights on television, I was appalled.  One night at a church gathering, I came upon two of our teenagers watching two fighter planes on the host’s television.  When the enemy plane exploded, they cheered just like they would have for a touchdown.  I looked at them and said, “You do realize you just saw someone die, don’t you?”  They calmed right down and looked ashamed.  I hope it was real shame.

            As long as we view anyone as something other than a “person,” it becomes much easier to treat them badly.  I did some research and found that every time Jesus tells us how to behave toward our enemies he uses the pronouns “he” or “those.”  Never does he call them anything dehumanizing—like jerk, scum of the earth, dirtbag, or (insert your own personal favorite).  And when we resort to that name-calling we will never be able to treat our enemy—or just our inconsiderate neighbor—the way Jesus tells us to.  And how does he tells us to treat him?  Love him, pray for him, do good to him, bless him, lend to him, feed him, forgive him, give him whatever he asks for—your time, your place in line, your pew, even your driving lane.

            You can only do those things for Real People.
 
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Rom 12:16-21
 
Dene Ward

The first thing we had to do in my freshman music theory class was to memorize the types of melodic curves and find examples of each.  Talk about 101—if you used the note heads in the music as a connect-the-dot drawing, you had the shape right there in front of you.  You want a “falling line?”  The first line of the Habanera from Carmen is a perfect example.  You want a “bowl?”  Sing “Joy to the World.”  How about a “rising wave?”  Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat fills the bill.  All the other curves are just as easy to identify.  Even if you cannot read the music, you can do it.

            I have been thinking about melodic line a lot lately.  I think it has something do with some of those modern hymns we sing.  You know the ones.  You rumble down in the bottom of your range where you have absolutely no power at all for the whole verse, then immediately jump to the top of your range for the chorus, where the only way you can sing it (if, like me, you are getting long in the tooth and your range is the only part of your body that is shrinking) is to screech.  I have developed my own term for those songs—it’s a “grovel then soar” melodic curve.

            As a general rule, I am not crazy about those songs because they are so difficult to sing safely, but in a never ending search for ways to get the most out of them, I have decided that at least they remind me of my life before and after Christ.  You wallow around in the pit of sin until you finally reach the point that you know you need help.  So you fall prostrate before a Lord who offers you mercy and yes, you grovel before him because you have finally lost all that pride.  Then, because of his grace and your gratitude, you soar.  You soar over the sins that used to mire you down, you soar over the god of self that kept you pinned to this physical life, and eventually you soar with your Savior to a better place forever.  No more wallowing, no more groveling, no more weights to tie you down; you are free to skyrocket as high as you let your Lord take you.

            In music, this works best when the distinction is greatest.  The lower the “groveling” notes, the more the “soaring” notes affect the listener.  I am afraid it works best that way in your heart as well.  If you don’t realize how low your sins have sunk you and how much you need the Lord, you will never soar as high as you should.  That Pharisee who stood in the synagogue thanking God for how righteous he was never really understood how much he needed mercy.  So, Jesus sadly says, he went home unforgiven.  We, also, are prone to think we deserve salvation, especially when we have been Christians for awhile, especially when we have “grown up in the church.”  It shows when we question God for the pain in our lives, when we fail to preach to any but those we think “deserve” our attention, and when we refuse to forgive others for the wrongs they have done us.

            So use those difficult songs as I do.  The next time you sing them, remember:  You aren’t forgiven until you repent.  You cannot soar until you grovel.  And you won’t do that until you recognize your own need for mercy. 
 
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved--and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, Eph 2:4-7.      

 Dene Ward