Flight Paths

Just Filling the Time

5/8/2015 2 Comments

When I did my internship as a music teacher in the public schools, I looked up one day to find my professor walking into the music room behind the fifth grade class scheduled for that half hour.  My heart sank.  I did have a lesson prepared, but it was not a wow-zer.  It taught a valid musical concept, one I could easily build on in future lessons—the first of what educators called a “unit.”  I had prepared a lesson plan with appropriate behavioral objectives.  It met all expectations and requirements.  But to me, it seemed so—well, ordinary.

    I taught that lesson twice in a row with no problems.  The students caught on quickly and I met the objectives with no difficulty.  After the second group left I approached the tall, slim, dignified looking lady, expecting her to meet me with, at best, a mediocre assessment.

    “Good job,” she said, and when my jaw dropped she added, “Listen:  they can’t all be showstoppers.  You taught an important lesson and you taught it well.  They learned exactly what you set out to teach them and they enjoyed it.”

    I learned something that day, something I keep reminding myself as I approach the computer day after day, struggling sometimes to find something to write.  Just do your best.  Turn in a good effort, be faithful to the Word God has entrusted you with, and let Him take care of the rest.

    Sometimes I hear from people telling me that what I wrote was exactly what they needed that day.  A few times it was a piece I almost deleted because I was so dissatisfied with it.  The same thing has happened to Keith.  When you preach two sermons a week, every week, you occasionally produce one just because you needed one to fill the time one Sunday morning, not because you were particularly enthralled with the subject.  Many times people have complimented those very sermons.  At least one of them led directly to a conversion.

    Many times we feel unnoticed and totally useless to the Lord.  We think we are doing nothing for God because nothing we do matters.  Nonsense.  More people are watching you than you know.  You need to learn the same lesson I did.  Every day can't be a showstopper.  Some days are so ordinary as to make you wonder why you exist.  You get up, you go to work, you come home and spend time with the family.  You pay your bills on time and help the neighbor with his ornery lawn mower, perhaps even mowing his yard for him.  You study your Bible, and then you hit the sack and get up and go again the next morning, an ordinary--you think--honest, hard-working joe.

Or you get up and down all night with the baby and barely know you are sending your older ones off to school because you are so tired.  But then you still do the grocery shopping and prepare the meals and launder the clothes.  You wash dishes and scrub floors and dust the countertops and shelves, change the sheets, then throw together an extra casserole for a sick neighbor, help the kids with their Bible lesson and then their homework, and fall into bed exhausted.

Or you sit at home alone because you are too old and sick and frail to get out any longer, so you watch a little TV, read your Bible, call a few folks on the sick list (besides yourself), write a few get well and sympathy cards, then go to bed and start all over again tomorrow.

And all of you wonder, what good is that to anyone?  Well, you never know, especially when you count God into the mix.  He can work wonders with the weak, the frightened, and the average.  He can take the smallest seed you plant and make a huge tree out of it.  Don’t you remember a parable along those lines?  In God’s hands, nothing you do is just filling up time.

So get up every morning and do what you are supposed to do in the way you are supposed to do it.  Someone out there needs to see you do that, and if you do, God will take care of the rest.

I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that plants anything, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that waters are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow-workers...  1Cor 3:6-9.

Dene Ward

Popcorn

5/7/2015 1 Comments

Popcorn is our snack of choice when watching ball games.  We make it the old fashioned way—bacon grease in a large saucepan, bulk popcorn from a large plastic bag, and salt.  Heat it over high heat, shaking the pan until it stops popping.  The stuff out of the microwave cannot begin to compare.

    We still wind up with what the industry calls “old maids,” kernels that have not popped.  Usually it’s the kernel’s fault, not the popper’s.  

    They tell me that popcorn kernels are the only grain with a hard moisture-proof hull.  That means that not only can moisture not get into the kernel, but the moisture inside the kernel cannot get out either.  As you heat them, the steam inside increases until the pressure reaches 135 psi and the heat 180 degrees Celsius (356 for us non-scientists).  At that point, the starch inside the kernel gelatinizes, becoming soft and pliable.   When the hull explodes the steam expands the starch and proteins into the airy foam we know as popcorn.

    I found two theories about old maids.  One is that there is not enough moisture in the kernel to begin with; the other is that the hull develops a leak, acting as a release valve so that pressure cannot build enough for the “explosion.”  Either way, the kernels just sit there and scorch, becoming harder and drier as they cook.

    Isn’t that what happens when we undergo trials?  Some of us use the experience to flower into a stronger, wiser, more pleasant personality.  Others of us sit there and scorch in the heat until we dry up completely, no use for God or His people, let alone ourselves.  The resulting bitterness is reflected in the cynical way we view the world, the way we continue to wallow in the misery of our losses, and the impenetrable barrier we raise whenever anyone tries to help us.  As Israel said when they had forsaken God for idols and knew they would be punished, Our bones have dried up, our hope is lost, we are clean cut off, Ezek 37:11.  When we refuse to seek God in our day of trouble, when we forget the blessings He has given us even though we deserved none, that is the result.

    But God can help even the hopeless.  He can bring us back from despair. 
He can make our hearts blossom in the heat of trial if we remember the lesson about priorities, about what really counts in the end.  If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable, 1 Cor 15:19, and that is exactly where we find ourselves if we allow anything in this life to steal our faith in God.  

    Trials are not pleasant; they are not meant to be.  They are meant to create something new in us, something stronger and more spiritual.  When, instead, we become hard and bitter, we are like the old maids in a bag of popcorn, and when the popcorn fizzles, it’s the popcorn’s fault.

For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor 4:17,18.

Dene Ward

Pollen

5/6/2015 0 Comments

In February the pine and oak trees suddenly burst out in fuzzy yellow green tufts of pollen that fell like snow on the ground and the sidewalk, covering our car in a thin layer of windblown chartreuse powder and stuffing up Keith’s nose like cotton.  In March the needles and leaves finished falling and the new ones almost instantly budded out in their customary spring green color.  The pollen dried and began falling in earnest, turning the new green grass brown under its carpeting.  Every time I finished working outside, I brushed my shoulders off before heading inside.

    I thought I was in good shape, but in the middle of the night my hand ran over my pillow and I felt it—several large grains of something, and as the sleep fog lifted I realized what it was—tufts of pollen.  On my pillow?  How in the world…?  And then I knew.  It had fallen into my hair, and my hair with all its corkscrews had trapped it like a net.  The only way it was coming out was with a comb—or rubbing it on a pillow, I guess.  The next morning I cleaned out my hair, brushed off the pillow and sheet, and swept the floor.  Then I walked around the house and discovered more on the floors of every room.  So I swept them all.  But that only fixed the problem that morning.  In the afternoon, I had to check my hair all over again.

    It’s easy to think you can be in the world and not be contaminated by it.  Yet every day you bring home those same contaminants if you are not careful to remove them.  They will not easily brush off.  They will not stop falling just because it’s you they might fall on.  And if you leave them, perhaps thinking you will get them out later, or that they will fall out on their own where they won’t hurt anyone, they will affect every part of your life before you know it.  Your language changes, your dress changes, your interests change, and finally, your attitudes change, and suddenly you are not the person you thought you were.

    I have learned to brush myself off every day while the pollen is falling, to run my fingers through my hair and untangle the ones that are trapped.  I check my shoes and the creases in my jeans.  And I do it whether I have been outside all morning or just a few minutes.  Contamination can happen in a flash.

    Be sure to check yourself this evening before you hurt not just yourself, but the ones you love.  

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  Jas 1:27

Dene Ward

What's for Dinner?

5/5/2015 0 Comments

We saw a new bird darting in and out of the azalea limbs on the side of the house away from the feeder, a small black bird with a white belly and orange patches on its wings and tail—an American Redstart, I discovered later, a bug-eater, which explained why he avoided the bird feeder.  I don’t know why it had never crossed my mind before—no wonder I only saw a few birds there, the same varieties over and over.  Birdseed simply does not appeal to all birds.  Now if I could figure out a way to keep live bugs there too and allow the birds to come and go as they please, I would see a big increase in numbers.

    What people see of the gospel in our lives determines who and even if we attract others to it.  I can remember times past when we were so afraid of unscriptural denominational doctrines that we swung the pendulum too hard in the other direction and wound up being miserable.  Since the scriptures plainly teach that it is possible to fall from grace and that humility is necessary for salvation, we never allowed ourselves to say, “I know I am going to Heaven.”  Why, how arrogant could one be?  Don’t you know that you can sin so as to lose your salvation?  So hope, a confident expectation of salvation, disappeared from our lives.

    We treated sin as a constant, a mysterious miasma that afflicted us every day of our lives whether we knew it or not.  “Forgive us, Lord, for we know we sin all the time.”  We thought we could not avoid it no matter how hard we tried, not even with help from the Lord.  So we went around looking over our shoulders, wondering when it would attack us and hoping that when we died we would have seen death coming and had time to shoot off a quick prayer for forgiveness.  

    What did we present to the world?  Fear, frustration, hopelessness, anxiety, bitterness, dread, desperation—and then we looked to our neighbors and said, “Hey!  Don’t you want what I have?”  Why were we so surprised when none did?

    I think we would attract far more to our “feeder” if we showed them the joy, hope, peace, and love that the first century Christians did.  We can because the scriptures plainly teach that we can overcome sin if we will and that God’s grace will help us when we fail; they teach that we can be assured of our salvation. God is not sitting up there watching and waiting for us to slip so He can say, “Aha!  Gotcha!”

    What’s on your bird feeder today?  The seed of the Word of God, or just a bunch of bugs?

My little children, these things write I unto you that you may not sin. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world…These things have I written unto you, that you may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God. 1 John 2:1,2; 5:13.

Dene Ward

Rough Drafts

5/4/2015 3 Comments

I took my first writing course as a junior in high school.  Our first assignment included stapling the rough draft to the final copy.  Imagine my surprise when the teacher handed back my paper with this written across the front of the rough draft:  This is too neat.  You didn’t make enough changes and corrections.  A rough draft should look that way—rough!

    Then I looked at my finished paper.  I saw words marked out, phrases circled and “pointed” by an arrow to another place in the sentence.  I saw other words added, and suggestions made with question marks beside them.  Whole sentences were bracketed and directions written above:  “make these phrases parallel;” “needs a concrete noun;” “get rid of the intensifiers.”  In fact, what I saw before me was a real rough draft, exactly how my own should have looked.  

    As the class continued and I learned better writing techniques, my rough drafts became messier and messier.  Sometimes at the end, it took me a half hour to decipher the code of scribbled notes and write what I wanted to turn in.  But inevitably, the rougher the draft, the better the finished product turned out.  

    I learned not to “fall in love with my own words,” as my teacher called it.  I took a red pen to my own creation and marked out words like a safari guide slashing through brush with a machete.  I kept a thesaurus handy to help with vocabulary choices, making nouns and verbs so concrete that few modifiers were even necessary.  I not only got rid of intensifiers, I deleted delayers too, then I worked on turning 8 word clauses into 4 word phrases, concentrating the effect of the writing, rather than diluting it.  Sometimes I even deleted whole paragraphs.  

    Before long I could write better the first time around, but still see places to improve on the read-through, smaller things that would have gotten lost in the obvious mess beforehand.  Even now, when reading something I wrote years ago, I automatically go into edit mode.  Even after it’s put on the blog, I notice things I wish I had changed.  What I said wasn’t wrong, but I could have made it just a teensy bit better, even after the half a dozen edits I always do.

    Today should be your life’s rough draft for tomorrow.  Every evening you should go over your actions, your words, your attitudes and see where you need to “edit.”  If you don’t see anything, you are obviously new to the idea like I was the first time I tried.  My first paper sounded pretty good to me, so I didn’t see the need to change much, but if you were to find it somewhere after all these years, I bet I could hack it to pieces in ten short minutes now.  That is how we need to get about our lives if we ever expect to improve as children of God and become spiritually mature.  We must learn to see the changes we need to make, the faults we try to hide from others and only wind up hiding from ourselves.  If I make the same mistakes every day, then my rough draft isn’t rough enough.

    Let me quickly say this: God doesn’t want you constantly discouraged, thinking you are never right with Him because there is always something you could have done “better.”  God wants us to know that we have eternal life, according to John (1 John 5:13), and that happens because of grace—not because you are perfect.  But that is a far cry from the complacency that believes it already has things figured out, doesn’t need to learn anything new, and always sees the faults of others without ever considering that it might possibly have one or two itself.

    Today, write your rough draft on the paper of time.  Do the best you can.  Then tonight, see what needs editing.  If you write the same thing tomorrow, you are still just a beginner in this class, no matter how old you are.  It’s time to get to work.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, Eph 4:15.

Dene Ward

The Best Bologna Sandwich Ever

5/1/2015 5 Comments

When I was a very young teenager, we lived next door to a family with five children under the age of ten.  We were new in the area and didn’t know them very well, but we knew those basics.  
 
   One Sunday morning my mother was reading the newspaper over a last cup of coffee when I heard her gasp.  The paper slipped out of her fingers into her lap and onto the floor.  The father of the family next door had been killed in an automobile collision the night before.  

    She immediately dressed and walked over to our neighbors’ home to see what she could do.  About an hour later we left for worship services as usual.  While we were there she organized a food drive, asking individuals in the church to bring whatever shelf stable items they could spare on Wednesday evening.  Afterward we headed back home, but my mother wasn’t finished.

    We walked in to that wonderful Sunday aroma of pot roast.  Even after all these years, I have never been able to replicate my mother’s.  But instead of immediately changing clothes and starting to prepare our dinner, she grabbed an apron and started telling my sister and I what she needed us to do.  She made the gravy, heated the rolls, and then proceeded to pack up the entire meal.  We stowed it all in big cardboard boxes in the trunk and then drove to the home of the man’s parents, where his wife and children had gathered with the rest of the family.  I remember walking up the steps to that frame house, holding that hot gravy in a Tupperware container, careful not to squeeze too tight so the steam wouldn’t cause the lid to pop right off.  We handed our dinner to the stunned people inside, then offered condolences and drove back home.

    We came in, changed clothes and sat down to paper plates, bologna, and bread.  There was nothing else easy to prepare on short notice.  Understand this:  I hated bologna.  But I relished every bite of that sandwich.  Nothing had ever tasted so good.  That’s what giving does to you.  That is precisely why Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

    I have often wondered if I have given my children enough of those kind of memories, lessons learned that you never forget, not even the smallest details.  Are you doing that for your children?  Do they see things that involve them and stay with them, teaching them the joy of giving to those in need, even if it costs you a little something.  

    I learned it the day I ate that sandwich and loved every bite of it and I have never forgotten that lesson.  And in case you wondered, our brothers and sisters in the church came through on that food drive.  We went to Bible study that Wednesday night expecting at most a couple brown grocery bags full to add to the one we brought.  I think we took three empties just in case to store the cans and boxes we expected to be handed.  Almost every member brought their own brown paper bag and nearly every one of them was full to the top.  

    We stopped next door on our way home, and carried those bags in that Wednesday night.  The new young widow watched in amazement as the four of us traipsed back and forth to the car, over and over and over.  We covered her table, her countertops, and half her kitchen floor with grocery bags.  That’s another sight I will never forget—her grabbing my mother around the neck and squeezing tightly as she said, “Thank you, thank you, oh thank you,” again and again and again, tears running down her cheeks.  It’s been over forty years, but it’s like it was yesterday as I sit here remembering.  

    Learn the gift of generous giving, giving even out of want, giving when it costs you something.  And above all, teach your children exactly how amazing a bologna sandwich can taste.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you— see that you excel in this act of grace also. 2Cor 8:1-7.

Dene Ward

No Dictionary Needed

4/30/2015 0 Comments

I came across a passage a few weeks ago that suddenly spoke to me.  I must have read it hundreds of times, but for the first time I really saw it.  
    Lydia, in Acts 16, heard the gospel and was baptized.  Paul and Silas were traveling and obviously had no place to stay so she said, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us, vs 15.   
    Lydia was a new Christian.  She lived away from her hometown Thyatira.  On her own she had discovered a place of prayer by the riverside where she met with other women to worship God.  Now Paul and Silas have come along and taught her about the new way, which she accepted with an open heart.  
    There is a lot there to be admired and spoken about, but consider something with me this morning.  She had many things in her way, including this:  What Paul and Silas were teaching was obviously not popular among the majority of the people who formed her customer base—they wound up in the Philippian prison as a matter of fact.
    But despite her needs as a new Christian, one in less than optimum circumstances, she begged them to let her be the one to serve.  It was not, “Come show me how wonderful this new way really is by doing as much for me as possible.”  Instead it was, “What can I do now that I am a Christian?  If you don’t allow me to serve your needs, you must not think I am really faithful,” and with that reasoning she practically forced Paul and Silas to accept her service.
    Imagine if we all had that attitude.  Imagine if, instead of complaining because “the preacher didn’t come see me in the hospital,” our attitudes were, “I am so glad to be well again so I can help those folks who need me.”  Imagine if, instead of whining that “the sermon is too long and the singing is boring, and the prayers make me fall asleep,” we said, “I wonder if there is any way I can help those men who serve so well and so faithfully.”  Imagine if, instead of griping about the dead church we had the bad luck to be a part of, we spent our time actively searching for those who need help, and wore ourselves out serving them.  Imagine if the church were full of Lydias, instead of people like me (and you?).
    Even a new Christian with very little knowledge can do what she did.  Faithfulness is not a matter of how much you know; it is a matter of trusting God in whatever circumstances you find yourself and joyfully and willingly serving others. If you have judged me faithful, allow me to serve you.  When will we ever get it through our heads that James did not know any denominational theologians when he wrote,

If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled; and yet you give them not the things needful to the body; what does it profit? Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself. Yes, a man will say, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. James 2:15-18.  

No, James was writing to Christians!  
    It doesn’t take a great scholar to figure out the true definition of faithfulness, just a Christian who has truly been converted to the greatest Servant ever known.

Dene Ward

Raise Them

4/29/2015 0 Comments

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

Our elders offer a thought and lead a prayer at the end of services.  Recently, one commended one of the young men (16?) who had led a prayer at the Lord’s Table earlier. He had not mumbled or rushed it, nor did he just repeat phrases he’d heard from others.

I was not surprised at his ability.  I had watched his mother with him during services from when he was a toddler.  He never had cars and cartoon books that I noticed.  She pulled him in her lap and ran her finger under the words of the songs from before he could read; she insisted that he treat worship as worship and not playtime and he grew up listening and singing.

Parents, fear if your child will not sing.

We had Bible story books that the boys got to look at only at services, or, they could draw, but only Bible stories and after services we would say, “Tell me about this one,” Later, they took notes.  When they got to freshman Bible at Florida College, they were amazed at the things that were being  taught “at college” as they’d known them for years. Maybe those students who were struggling to get “B’s” had Disney books and toys in church.  

Is it a wonder that they know a lot of Bible—one is a Bible professor at FC and the other is a Bible class teacher who does not have to take a backseat in discussions with his brother.

So far as I am aware, the mother above never heard us tell how to do it.  It should be obvious to anyone that God and church are special and you cannot teach that to your children with toys and comic books.  I have known some children who turned out just fine, but please think about what you do and what it is teaching them.  Don’t just try to keep them quiet.

Prov 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Keith Ward

Fluff

4/28/2015 3 Comments

I suppose it has not escaped your notice that I do not write what I call, “Feel Good Fluff.”  I do my best writing when I am scolding myself, and unfortunately, that means you get scolded too.

    I am more concerned with becoming a better person than with feeling good.  Maybe that is because I seldom feel good physically any more, so I am not wedded to the idea that I must always be pumped up spiritually in order to become a more spiritual person.  

    I have written a few things that I hope have encouraged you.  I have written a few things that have made some of you cry, good tears, not bad ones.  However, a friend told me once, “I want something that challenges me,” and I found myself agreeing with her, and that is what I have tried to do more than anything else.  If I keep saying that you are just fine the way you are, will you even bother to try to improve yourself?  

    As a result, I have lost readers.  It makes me think of Ahab who described the prophet Micaiah this way, “I hate him because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil,” 1 Kgs 22:8, and who once greeted Elijah, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”  18:17. Too many folks ignore the fact that they are causing their own problems.  Like Israel of old they want preachers who say, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” Jer 6:14.  Like the Galatians’ behavior toward Paul, they make those who simply want to help them wonder, “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Gal 4:16.

    Pats on the back are good.  They serve a purpose.  A sermon that makes you shed a tear for the sacrifice that saved you is a helpful thing.  It might just sustain you through a temptation that comes your way soon after.  I think that is one reason we remember that sacrifice every week.  

    But emotion fades.  That pumped-up feeling can deflate quickly when the realities of life puncture your balloon.  You must often sustain yourself with the knowledge that comes from the hard, and often tedious, work of Bible study.  You must have the word of God saturating your mind so much that it bubbles up and out of you just when you need it most.  You must have prayed often enough that a quick one automatically comes to your lips in difficult circumstances.  You must believe because you know logically and with sound evidence that these things are true, not because someone sent you a piece of feel good fluff that won’t stand up to an argument by a knowledgeable minister of Satan.

    Most of all, you must be willing to listen to those who love you and care about your eternal destiny, whether you want to hear what they say or not—and, in fact, whether they have your good will at heart or not.  God has often used the wicked to send his message.

    Don’t be afraid to be challenged.  Don’t be afraid to examine yourself for your faults.  It will work wonders for your soul.

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Gal 6:1,2.

Dene Ward

Fire Extinguishers

4/27/2015 1 Comments

We have two fire extinguishers in the house, one behind the woodstove at the edge of the kitchen and one in a back bedroom.  They have been there so long that I don’t even notice them any more.  In fact, when I think to look at them at all, it’s to dust them because “suddenly” they look like they have grown white fur.
    Fire extinguishers are great to have around, but let’s face it, they aren’t part of a beautiful decor.  They aren’t a handy item we use everyday like a coffee pot or a can opener.  They aren’t even a once a year need like my pressure canner—at least we hope not.  The only reason we have them is “just in case,” and we want that “just in case” to never happen.  We treat fire extinguishers more like necessary evils than anything else.
    I noticed something when we studied Psalm 99 in Bible class the other day.  [Speaking of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel] In the pillar of the cloud [God] spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings, vv 7-8.
    Those two verses contain everything we need to know about who can pray to God and expect an answer.  First God spoke to them.  They listened by keeping His testimonies and statutes.  Then God answered them.
    Those three righteous men did not treat God like a fire extinguisher.  He wasn’t there just for emergencies.  He was part of their lives on a daily basis as they followed His laws and prayed for help and forgiveness.
    The psalmist is careful to point out that these men were among those “who call upon His name” (v 6).   They were not the only ones chosen to receive this blessing.  Many others “called upon His name.”  That goes for us as well.  We possess His testimonies and statutes in the written form.  All we have to do is keep them, making God a daily part of our lives, and He will hear us just like He heard them.
    The problem comes when we try to make a relationship out of one phone call, so to speak.  If we never talk to God otherwise, or more to the point, listen, He won’t listen either.  If we ignore His law with impunity, going our own headstrong way, He won’t answer—not according to Psalm 99, and several other passages (Prov 15:29; 28:9; Isa 59:2 John 9:31, etc).  We’ve seen too many heart-tugging made-for-TV movies where the old reprobate turns around at a crisis and promises God he will be good if God will just hear him this once.  God does not bargain, unless you think you are a man of the stature of Abraham, who talked with God regularly instead of treating Him like a fire extinguisher.  More often than not, old reprobates stay that way.
    Now is the time to begin that relationship, or deepen it if you already have.  If we keep God behind the woodstove until He grows some dusty fur, we needn’t think He will pay a bit of attention when we holler.

As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts, Zech 7:13.

Dene Ward