Flight Paths

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            We just spent a week with the grandkids.  When it comes to food, they are just like mine were at that age.  They prefer their oranges out of a can, their macaroni and cheese out of the blue box, their chicken cut into processed squares, and their potatoes long and fried.  Forget the complex and strong flavors of Parmagiana Reggiano, feta, and blue—they want American cheese, thank you.  And all their sauces must be sweet—about half corn syrup.  True, these two enjoy olives—but they need to be canned and black.  A strong, briny kalamata is summarily thrown across the table.

            Children have immature palates.  For the most part strong flavors are out and bland ones are in.  Sugar, salt and fat make up their favorite seasonings.  And it must be easy to eat.  When you can barely hold a spoon and get the food on it and into your mouth, you prefer things that are solid without being hard and which fit the hand.  We would never give a child a fresh artichoke to eat, with instructions like “Peel off the leaf, dip it into lemon juice and melted butter, put it between your teeth and pull it out of your mouth, scraping the good part off as you pull, then discard the leaf.” 

            One day they will understand the pleasure of different tastes and textures.  Their palates will become educated to appreciate different foods and even different cuisines.  Even the pickiest of childhood eaters usually learn as adults to eat new things, if for no other reason than to be polite or keep harmony in the home.  When a woman spends hours a day cooking, she wants more than a grunt and food being shoved around the plate in an attempt to disguise the fact that very little of it was eaten. 

            But sometimes people become set in their ways.  They decide they don’t like something, even if they have never tried it.  They won’t entertain the possibility that their palates have changed, and so won’t keep trying things as they become older.  When I was a child I hated every kind of cheese, raw onions, and anything that contained a cooked tomato.  Now I eat them all.  Imagine if I had never found that out.  No pizza!

            What about your spiritual nourishment?  Are you still slurping down canned oranges and packaged mac and cheese?  Do you still think instant mashed potatoes are as good as real ones, and Log Cabin as good as real maple syrup?  What if the Bible class teacher taught a book you had never studied before?  Would you learn with relish or complain because you actually had to read it instead of relying on your old canned knowledge?  What if he showed you a different interpretation of a passage than you usually hear?  Would you chew on it a little and really consider it, or just dismiss it out of hand because it wasn’t what you already thought you knew?

            Keith and I have both experienced complaints from people because our classes were “too deep” or “too hard” or “took too much study time.”  Really?  It’s one thing to have an immature palate because you are still a babe.  It’s another to have one because you haven’t grown up in twenty, thirty, forty years of claiming discipleship. 

            The spiritual palate can tell tales on our spiritual maturity in every other area.  Jesus expected his disciples to mature in just a few short years.  “Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me?” he asked Philip (John 14:9).  If we don’t know his word, we don’t know him.  If we don’t know him, we have no clue how to behave as Christians.

            An educated palate for spiritual food is far more important than whether you have learned to like liver yet.  Become an adventurous spiritual eater.  You will find this paradox: though you become hungrier for more, you are always satisfied with your meal.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:12-14.

Dene Ward

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            “That was your kind of game!” Lucas texted a few weeks ago when the Gator basketball team tromped its opponent by nearly 30 points.  Indeed it was, my favorite kind of game.

            The boys have taught me well, not only strategies and terms, but who to root for in football, basketball, and baseball.  The Gators, the Rays, the USF Bulls, the Miami Dolphins, the Buccaneers, sometimes the Jags if they aren’t thoroughly embarrassing themselves, and any SEC team that is not playing Florida at the moment. 

            But if any of those teams are playing, I do not enjoy what most people call “a good game.”  Why would anyone enjoy something that causes heart-burn, heart palpitations, and heart-ache?  I cringe until the score becomes outrageously unbeatable, and then sit back and enjoy the rest.  That’s my kind of game.

            And though it certainly isn’t a game, that’s the way I like my contests with the Devil too.  It ought to be that lopsided a score.  We have a Savior who has already taken care of the hard part.  We are already so far ahead, even before we start, that a comeback by the opponent should be unthinkable.  We have an example how to overcome.  We have help overcoming.  We have a promise that we CAN overcome if we just try.  We have every possible advantage, including coaches and trainers and all-star teammates, and a playbook that is infallible. 

            We have the motivation too.  As we said, this isn’t a game.  There is no next season, and defeat is an unthinkable consequence that should spur us on to adrenalin-boosted, nearly superhuman feats.  And the trophy is far better than anything offered us in this life.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  Now they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one, 1 Cor 9:25.  That crown is called a “crown of life” in several passages—an eternal life with our Creator. 

            Do not make your game a close one.  Don’t sit back and let the Adversary make a comeback.  Don’t fumble the ball, or commit an error, or make a turnover out of carelessness and apathy.  Victory is not handed to you on a platter.  You still have to want to win, and fight like that every minute.  My kind of game may not appeal to you when you watch your favorite teams play, but it should be the only kind you want when your soul is at stake. 

            We are “more than conquerors” with the help of God (Rom 8:37).  His game plan involves a rout, running up the score, and rubbing the enemy’s nose in defeat.  And it can go exactly that way with just a little effort on your part.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:53-55, 57

Dene Ward

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            Anyone who knows what last summer was like, knows that my usual routine was seriously disrupted.  In three months’ time, I had 28 doctor appointments, a full-blown surgery, and a dozen more procedures.  Getting a haircut was the last thing on my mind.  In fact, most of the time I could not have cared less how my hair looked.  But then it started falling into my face and getting in my eyes, a serious problem for someone with “two very sick eyeballs,” as one doctor put it.

            So about the middle of July, I cut it myself.

            The problem with giving yourself a haircut is you cannot see the back of your head.  No matter how much you twist your neck around, the back of your head just keeps getting away from you.  And holding another mirror only works if you have three hands—one to hold the second mirror, one to hold your hair, and one to hold the scissors.

            So I found myself doing a lot of guesswork.  Having curly hair hid most of the mistakes, but is it any wonder that by the first of September my locks were looking a bit ragged?  I could hardly wait for someone who could see me from their perspective to even things out a little bit—well, a lot, actually.

            Isn’t it funny that the last thing we want spiritually is for someone to help us even out our lives?  For some reason we do not mind going around with ragged lives, and worse, we want to believe they are not ragged at all.  We want to believe that what we see about ourselves is the way things really are.  Please pat down my unruly curl, please tell me to get the green out of my teeth, please unfold my hem, please stuff that facing back into my neckline—you are not a true friend if you let me go out in public this way—but do not under any circumstances tell me my faults, my spiritual imperfections, my sins.  You are not my friend if you do tell me about those.

            Could we be any more illogical?  Why is how my hair looks more important than how my soul looks?  The eternity caused by a spiritual imperfection is a whole lot longer than the embarrassment of half a day in town shopping with a physical imperfection.  We are falling into the sin of the Galatian brethren of whom Paul said, So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? Gal 4:16. 

            James tells us that we should confess our faults one to another, 5:16.  If we were to call an assembly of the church for the express purpose of allowing everyone to confess their faults in turn, I wonder how many would show up.  I wonder how long the service would last.  I wonder how many people would suddenly become good students of the scriptures, researching all the words in that verse so they could find a way out of it.

            Unfortunately, most of us do not have “the gift to see ourselves as others see us,” (apologies to Robert Burns).  We do not have three hands to hold the mirror and the hair, and make the correct cuts.  That is one reason God gave us each other.  Don’t you think it’s about time we started accepting that gift from one another?

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful, Prov 27:6.

Dene Ward

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            One of the most challenging aspects of studio teaching is switching horses midstream.  Every forty-five minutes I not only had to rev up the excitement when greeting a new student, I had to change my perspective.

            I had one voice student who could scarcely carry a tune.   We spent a good deal of the lesson practicing matching pitches.  The next student was singing Italian art song and learning to trill.  One I applauded for simply getting through the song in key, the other I reprimanded for breathing in the middle of a word.  A five year old piano student would walk in with her eight bar tune, followed by a senior in high school working on a concerto.  One I praised for playing the right rhythm while only missing two notes.  The other I castigated for poor phrase shaping and improper execution of an appoggiatura.  It would have been unfair to expect a five year old to understand an appoggiatura when he didn’t even know key signatures yet.  It would have been cruel to try to teach a voice student with a challenged ear to trill.

            So I should not have been surprised at what I found in this study of faith that has consumed the past year of my life, but I was.  I wonder if it will surprise you too.  Every time Jesus said, “O ye of little faith,” he was talking to his disciples.  Sometimes other people heard it too, but if you check every account, he was addressing those who followed him daily—“ye of little faith.”  Yet the only times I could find people praised for their “great faith” they were Gentiles!

            That tells me a lot.  First, faith isn’t just a one-time first principle.  If even those who had enough faith to “leave all and follow” could be told their faith was “little,” then faith is something alive and growing.  Jesus expected it to carry them through their lives and become an asset to them, not a burden that might be “lost.” 

            Perhaps the most important thing we learn is something Jesus said in another context:  To whom much is given, of him much shall be required, Luke 12:48.  Those men had been with Jesus 24/7 for a year or more and he expected them to have matured.  I know a lot of people who like to claim they have “strong faith.”  Be careful when you do that.  God may just test your claim: “and from whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” 

            So examine your faith.  Is it growing?  Can you handle more adversity today than you did a decade ago?  God expects quick growth.  The people in the first century committed their lives to Him, knowing they might be thrown to the lions the next week.  I worry that too many of us commit our lives to Him expecting all of our problems to disappear in a week.  It’s supposed to be an instant fix to all earthly woes, instead of what He promised--an instant fix to our sins. 

            What exactly are you expecting of your relationship with God?  Some of us try to hold God hostage with our expectations.  “I have faith that God will…” and then we sit back confidently waiting for him to do our will, instead of waiting on His will. 

          Which would the Lord say to you:  “O ye of little faith,” or “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel?”

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12.                                            

Dene Ward

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            We too often impose our standards, our culture, our way of life on those people who lived thousands of years ago in a place far removed in both custom and time.  I have often heard that if Bathsheba had only been a modest woman, David would never have fallen, making her the primary offender, an evil seductress who brought down a man of God.  When I did some study, then placed myself in the correct time frame and civilization, I learned a thing or two, and today I am going to be brave enough to share it with you.

            First, there was no running water in those days.  Now that may seem so obvious as to be ridiculous to mention, but it changes the customs.  I discovered in books about social customs in Bible times that it was not at all uncommon for people to bathe outdoors in good weather.  Homes had center courtyards and screens were set up to shield the bathers from the eyes of those in the house and on the street.  The sexes bathed separately, the women at the same time, then the men.  I know that I can still find today people who bathed on the back porch of their homes before they had running water and an indoor bathroom.  They took appropriate precautions for modesty too, and were never censured for their actions.  Likewise, Bathsheba’s actions were socially acceptable and appropriate.  There were probably other homes where the same thing was happening.  David was the only one at fault here.  No one could shield the bathers from someone on a rooftop.  Society expected men to be “on their honor.”  If their actions put them in a place they did not belong, it was up to them to leave, just as it would be today if a man accidentally wandered into a ladies’ room by mistake.

            Here is another thing we always miss.  In those days young women were married off at puberty.  The Law made it extremely difficult for a woman who was at all fertile not to conceive soon and often (Lev 15:19-28).  Uriah and Bathsheba still had no children and we know in hindsight that Bathsheba was able to conceive.  I believe that makes a good case for Bathsheba being very young, probably still a teenager.  So the king calls for you—not just any king, but the country’s hero, a warrior king, and a man over 40 by the way.  Even if she were 18 or 19, even if she were 25, the intimidation factor had to be huge.  Unless you are a woman over 50 who was sexually harassed by a boss back in the days when turning a man in was not common, when it was, in fact, not quite acceptable, don’t even talk to me about how Bathsheba should have had the courage to say no.  You cannot possibly understand how she must have felt.  Yes, I have been there.

            When you really study the situation and think about it in its proper time frame and cultural setting, the higher probability is that Bathsheba was not a temptress.  More likely, she was a scared young woman who probably felt she had no choice.  As it turns out, David was capable of murder, and she was the one looking into his eyes, not us.

            Or perhaps there was some ego involved.  David was the king and he was handsome. Maybe that excited her, but even if that is true, that intimidation factor just will not go away—David was the final authority in the land.  And this was a man who was so cold-blooded about it that he checked to make sure she was “clean” by the Law’s standards before he even touched her. 

            My problems with Bathsheba have more to do with her naiveté.  This was a woman who, though she lived in a political milieu, was totally ignorant of how things worked.  Her affair with David was just the first time we see this trait, and though we might understand it then if she were indeed a very young teenager, it never seemed to get any better, no matter how long she lived in the palace.

            Read the first few chapters of 1 Kings.  David is dying and Adonijah is conniving to take the throne, even though it has been promised to her son Solomon.  It takes Nathan the prophet to wake her up to what is going on right under her nose.  Then a few verses later, after David is dead and Solomon is king, Adonijah asks her for Abishag.  Abishag was probably the last of David’s concubines.  Everyone in the kingdom knew that claiming a king’s wife was a claim to the throne.  That is what Absalom did in the sight of all after he ran David out of the country.  But Bathsheba takes the request to Solomon as if it were a simple matter of a request from brother to brother.  Solomon understands immediately that his kingdom, God’s kingdom, is in danger and has Adonijah killed.  Bathsheba should have known too.

            So we are back once again to Jesus’ command that we are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  This is not just a matter of learning to study better and being careful not to place our own values on a time and place far removed from us, making judgments that may not be valid.  There is something to be learned from Bathsheba’s behavior, though perhaps not the behavior we always condemn.  God is not pleased when we act like simpletons, when we fail to see the obvious.  He will not save us when we fall into traps that should have been avoided. 

            Bathsheba did become a faithful wife to David.  She did see to his wishes when he became old and physically unable to, even if it did take a nudge from Nathan.  Maybe after Adonijah was executed she finally gained a little wisdom in the affairs of her world.  It certainly took her long enough.

Brothers, be not children in your thinking.  Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature, 1 Cor 14:20.

Dene Ward

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            Our bird watching has spilled over into our camping trips.  Somewhere along the way it dawned on us that we could see different birds in different areas of the country.  So we began carrying small bags of birdseed and scattering it around the campsites.  I saw my first savannah sparrow at Blackwater River, my first nuthatch at Cloudland Canyon, and on our latest trip, my first dark-eyed junco at Black Rock Mountain.

            That’s not all we saw.  We had laid the seed along the landscaping timbers that both defined the site and kept our little aerie from washing down the mountainside.  As long as we sat fairly still and talked quietly, the little gray birds with the white vests hopped closer and closer down the long chunk of weathered wood, pecking at the free and easy meal.  Suddenly a loud crunch behind us caused the birds to fly.  We turned and there sat a fat gray squirrel enjoying the free meal himself, and much more of it.

            “Shoo!” we yelled simultaneously.  He reached down and pawed another kernel.

            Keith hopped up and spun around his chair, clapping his hands with every “Git!” and every step.  Finally the squirrel hopped away, not nearly as scared as I wished.

            Since he was up anyway, Keith started the cook fire and I walked around the tent toward the back of the truck where we stowed our food supplies.  There on the other side of the tent sat the squirrel, once again noshing on the birdseed.

            “Scat!” I shouted, running right at him.  Again he turned and leisurely hopped away.

            After that we were up and around a bit and he kept his distance.  But soon Keith had stepped back into the woods to pick up some deadfall for a later fire in the evening while he waited for the flame to die down to coals, and I was in the screen tent setting the table and prepping the chops for grilling.  I looked up just in time to see that little marauder headed straight for the open screen door, gently waving in the breeze.  He had bypassed the birdseed and was aiming to score people food.

            Only my clumsiness and advancing years kept me from vaulting the table.  Instead, I ran around it, knocking both knees on the corner of the bench and nearly laming myself in the process, stomping, yelling, clapping, and every other noise I could manage.  For once he showed a little alarm and scooted through the brush surrounding us.

           Keith returned and we both bustled around the tents, the truck, and the fire, cooking and laying out the meal.  Half an hour later we sat down to inch thick, herb-rubbed, wood-grilled pork chops, Spanish rice, and skillet corn and red peppers.  Meanwhile, the squirrel sat down to more birdseed.  He crept up behind Keith, he crept up behind me.  He hopped along the timber behind the fire, then tried the one behind the tent.  Every time Keith jumped up and scared him off.

            After the sixth or seventh time that I touched Keith’s hand and pointed, he hung his head in defeat.  “Let him eat,” he said, ferociously stabbing a fork into his chop and sawing with far more exertion than necessary, “so I can.”

            That’s exactly the way Satan comes after us.  Do you need a Biblical example to believe this?  How about Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39)?  She appealed to Joseph’s natural appetites first, by far the strongest appeal to a young man.  She made it look rewarding—she was the Master’s wife after all, imagine the extra privileges he might have received.  She spoke to Joseph “day by day,” a constant and growing pressure on him.  Even though he seems to have made it his business to avoid her, finally she managed to catch him alone—now it was even easier to give in.  And boy, did she make him pay when he didn’t.

            Satan is persistent.  He comes from every angle and tries every trick.   Sometimes he comes as often as every few minutes.  He will never give up.  Even just fighting him will cost you—time, comfort, convenience, security, wealth, friends, freedom, maybe even your life.  But if you give up, the cost is even worse.  If you say, “Let him eat,” he will—he will “devour” your eternal soul, every last bite.

Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, prowls about, seeking whom he may devour…Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand…To that end keep alert with all perseverance…1 Peter 5:8; Ephesians 6:11-13, 18.

Dene Ward

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            I still have fond memories of Silas’s first solo visit with us out here in the country.  He was not quite four and stayed three nights alone, no mom and dad to get in the way and spoil the fun!  The first morning we had to assure him that walking outside barefoot was not a capital crime, but once his toes hit the cool green grass, he giggled delightedly.  “I like bare feet!” he instantly proclaimed, and took off running. 

            He was used to being inside all day, playing with his Matchbox cars, putting together puzzles, reading books, and watching his “shows,” educational though they might be.  Yet he found out there were a lot of fun things to do outside, especially when you have five acres to romp around in instead of a postage stamp-sized yard.  That’s all they give you in the city these days. 

            He and Granddad whacked the enemy weeds with green limb “swords.”  They pulled the garden cart up the rise to the carport and rode it down.  They dug roads in the sandy driveway and flew paper airplanes in the yard.  They played in the hose and threw mud balls at one another.  Every night this little guy went to bed far earlier than he usually did at home—it was that or pass out on the couch from exhaustion as we read Bible stories.

            My favorite memory is watching him as we walked Chloe every morning.  He begged for one of my walking sticks and I adjusted it to his height.  Then he ran on ahead, hopping and skipping along, holding granddad’s too-big red baseball cap on his head with one hand so it wouldn’t fall off, the walking stick dangling from the other upraised arm, singing and laughing as he went.  That picture of sheer joy will forever be etched in my memory.  He may have been too little to remember it himself, but someday I will tell him about it, someday when he needs a reminder of joy at a not so joyous time. 

            I remember that time nearly every morning when I walk Chloe, especially when we reach the back fence where Silas’s little feet suddenly took off on the straightaway and his laughter reached its peak.  And I wonder if God has anything etched in His memory, anything from that time in Eden when everything was perfect and his two children felt joy every day in their surroundings, in each other, and in Him.  Surely, the God who knows all has special memories of how it used to be.  Can you read the end of Revelation and not think so? 

            Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever, Revelation 22:1-5.

            Maybe God has recorded that so we, too, can be reminded not of what we have lost, but of what we have waiting for us.  Maybe He put it there for the times when life here is not so joyous, a picture of hope to carry us through.  It may not be etched in our memories—not yet—but the fact that He still remembers it and wants it, means someday we won’t have to count on etchings any longer.  Some day it will all be real once again.

Dene Ward

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            Every time I have had eye surgery, even the laser surgeries, a bright light has shone into my eyes for sometimes as long as 3 hours.  Is it any wonder that I come out of these procedures with an eye that is extremely light sensitive?  I don’t just mean, “Ooh, that’s too bright.”  I mean, “Ow, that really hurts.” 

            On the way home from Cincinnati after the first surgery at the Eye Institute there, the passenger seat had me sitting in the sun as it set to the west of us heading south.  Even with two pairs of sunglasses, a towel, and the sun visor in the car, I could not stand the light.  So Keith pulled over and put me in the back seat, right behind him on the east side of the car, and on we went down I-75, a bearded man in the front seat with his woman in the back, her head covered by a towel.  It’s a wonder Homeland Security didn’t stop us.

            Speaking of those sunglasses, I got to the point where I enjoyed the looks on people’s faces every time I walked into the women’s side of a rest area, whipped off my sunglasses and—voila!—there was another pair underneath them.  It took months before I could go outside without two pairs of sunglasses and a cloth over the eye that had been operated on.  My home was like a cave, with all the blinds drawn, and no lights on anywhere near me.  “Letting my light shine” was not a metaphor I enjoyed at the moment.

            A lot of people, who never had eye surgery, don’t like it when we let our lights shine.  Now why is that?  Jesus says that when we do so God is glorified.  I really don’t think that is the problem, except perhaps for atheists who don’t want anything good to be attributed to a Being they deny so fervently. 

            When I was in high school I was quiet and subdued.  I didn’t “preach on the street corners” so to speak.  But people still noticed what I did and did not do.  One of the shadiest characters in the school sat behind me in Latin class.  I never knew him before that class, but somehow he knew about me.  His language was usually atrocious, but if he ever slipped when I was present, he apologized immediately.  When he had a problem with his girlfriend he came to me to help him write a note of apology to her.  He was a year ahead of me, and I was an usher at his graduation (which I was a bit surprised he managed), but he came to me to help him fix his tie and collar before the seniors marched in.  My “light” did not seem to have any ill effects on him at all.  In fact, while he was around me, he behaved himself, and he relaxed because he had found someone he could trust not to hurt him or betray him.

            But it does not always work that way.  Why?  I think maybe it’s because when your light shines, it lights up the whole area around you, and then everyone can see the faults of the others, even though you never say anything about them.  Just by being good, you make others look bad.  Peter tells us in 1 Pet 3:16 that people will slander you for your good behavior.  No, it does not make any sense, but it’s all they can do to take the focus off their bad behavior when your light shines so brightly on them.

            Don’t become too sensitive to the light.  Keep on shining it.  You may have some good effects, keeping others from sinning, at least while they are in your presence, and possibly down the road of time as well.  Even if it causes you trouble, keep your batteries charged.  If you’re going to suffer anyway, Peter adds, suffer for doing good.  The Light will save you.

Jesus therefore said unto them, Yet a little while is the light among you.  Walk while you have the light, that darkness overtake you not; he who walks in the darkness knows not where he is going.  While you have the light, believe on the light that you may become sons of light…I am come, a light into the world, that whoever believes on me may not abide in the darkness, John 12: 35,36,46.       

Dene Ward

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            Had anyone ever the right to shout, “At last! He got his,” it was David at the death of Saul.  It would seem appropriate for David to dance a jig on Saul’s grave and remove his name from the inscriptions and history books.  Instead, David mourned and fasted the rest of the day and then raised a heartfelt lament for Saul and Jonathan. Jonathan was his friend, but Saul had personally tried to kill him at least twice.  Further he had repeatedly led the armies of Israel after David when those armies were desperately needed to fight the Philistines.  

            To call Saul a brother in error does disservice to the concept of brother on every level except the most remote biological one which cannot be denied.  Saul offered the sacrifice against the commandments of God.  Saul refused to obey God to destroy the Amalekites.  Saul with brute force refused to yield to God’s right to remove him from the kingship.  Saul neglected all the duties of a King to pursue God’s anointed.  When God refused to answer him, he went to a necromancer to summon up the ghost of Samuel in brazen defiance of God.  Surely, here is a man who has yielded every right to treatment as a brother (2Sam 1, 1Sam 15, 28).

            In his first official act as king, David questioned the Amalekite who had completed Saul’s failed suicide attempt, “How is it you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?”  Then, he ordered him executed.   Jehovah’s anointed--REALLY? After all that Saul had done?

            How quickly we cut off a brother in error, declare him to be out of fellowship.  Do we forget that God chose this one and anointed him as His child?  

            David played and sang for Saul to comfort him in the torments that resulted from his sin.  Did we do aught for our brother who has sinned?  David could have rejoiced, “At last! At last, God has given me what He promised and removed this rebellious sinner.”  How many laments and prayers did we offer for the one who erred?  

            David tried again and again to comfort Saul and had to dodge spears for his thanks.  What did we risk for the erring before we wrote him off?

             Some so-called “defenders of the faith” seem to have the mindset to seek erring brethren simply to attack and destroy before they might harm the body of Christ.  Is that the admonition from this thing written aforetime for our learning? (Rom 15:4).

Keith Ward

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            A few Sundays ago I listened to some wonderful prayers in our group worship.  However, something struck me that day and not for the first time.  In our Bible study prayer we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  In our “opening prayer” we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  In our “closing prayer” we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  I suddenly looked around me and thought, “What in the world has everyone been doing in the past two hours?”

            I think in our efforts to avoid any resemblance to the doctrine I grew up calling “the impossibility of apostasy,” we   have done ourselves a grave disservice and a very discouraging one as well.  As a child I saw good men who often prayed, “Lord forgive us, because we know we sin every day.”  Or “all the time.”  Or “so often.”  I used to look at them and wonder what it was they were doing.  I never saw them sin, or heard anyone else say they saw them sin either.  I began to feel like sin must be some sort of miasma that follows you around and then, bang! when you least expect it, it infects you like some kind of airborne germ.

            That is not the Bible definition of sin.  Everyone who does sin, does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness, I John 3:4.  No, I am not gong into some heavy theology.  I don’t think I need to.  John plainly teaches that sin is something you do.  Now sin may involve wrong thinking, too, but still it is a specific thing.  It is not some sort of germ you catch without ever knowing it.  By making it into that sort of thing, we make ourselves miserable, living a life of despair instead of hope.  God said you can control yourself.  He said you can overcome.  He said you can live a godly life.  Give yourself a break!  God does. 

            Does that mean we won’t sin?  Of course not.  But why in the world do we feel so compelled to always add the negative, especially when we are talking to one another, to those of us who know the truth that we can fall from grace?  We should be encouraging one another, not trying to build stumblingblocks of cynicism and pessimism.  Of course, using the correct definition of sin, something we actually do and can quantify verbally, forces us to specifically repent of actual things we have done, instead of being able to say, “Lord, I know I sin a lot, and probably don’t even know it when I do, so please forgive me.”  Maybe that is the real problem—too much pride to admit the wrong we do, and actually try to become better people.  If you never know when the germ is going to get you, it’s not your fault right?  But that’s not the way it works, at least not to someone sincerely trying to grow as a Christian.

            I know that when I sin and realize it, I feel so heartbroken and ashamed that, like David, I ask for forgiveness again and again, but.should someone who has been a Christian for a decade, who is supposed to have grown in strength, need to pray for forgiveness three times for three different sins in two hours’ time?  I hope not.    If we really are “sinning all the time,” we need to take a serious look at our lives.  Theologians have a name for that doctrine too.  It’s called “total depravity.”  When a society became totally depraved, “sinning all the time,” God destroyed it.  Sodom, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, even the whole world in Genesis, except for one man who walked with God, and found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  If Noah could do it, so can we.

Let not sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey the lusts thereof; neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace, Rom 6:12-14.

Dene Ward