Flight Paths

Poor old Martha.  How many times does she serve as a bad example from the pulpit or in women’s Bible studies?  She’s even had one of those studies named after her--Martha, Martha—and it isn’t a compliment!

Jesus spent many hours, in fact, many days, in the company and home of those three siblings, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  You do realize it was probably Martha’s house:  and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, Luke 10:38, which means the sacred duty of hospitality lay squarely on her shoulders.  No wonder she was so consumed by it.

But consider this wonderful attitude of Martha’s:  Jesus, for whom she has labored so hard, comes into her home and delivers a scolding that is recorded for all posterity simply because she works so long to give him her best (or so it appears), and still she serves him.  How many of my sisters might have thought, “The ungrateful lout!  See if I ever invite him here again.”  I would have been hard-pressed not to think those words myself.  Do you think you wouldn’t have thought them?  How do you feel and react when your husband indicates that he does not like a meal you have worked on for several hours?  Aha!  I thought so.

But Martha did not react that way.  She changed.  I know this because she served him again, shortly before his death (John 12), and though Mary was once again sitting at his feet, Martha never uttered a complaint against her.  And Jesus did not correct Martha, which proves that it was not the serving itself that was the problem, it was the attitude. 

Perhaps it was simply that she had decided what Mary needed to be doing instead of focusing on herself.  Some of us are more suited to being Marys and some to being Marthas.  The Lord had a physical body that needed serving.  It was not wrong for Martha to feed and house him.  It was wrong, though, for her to decide what Mary’s obligations were and then resent her for not fulfilling them.  That was between Mary and the Lord, not between the two sisters.  When we all take care of our own duties to the best of our abilities, the Lord will be served in every area. 

And here is another thing for which to praise Martha.  Imagine the Lord spent as much time in your home as he did with these three beloved friends of his.  Just how many times would he be scolding you?  I would be lucky not to have more than one a day recorded in my case, much less one in about three years’ time.  Yet this poor woman, who served him faithfully, who corrected her attitude when he spoke to her, who had the faith to say, If you had been here my brother would not have died, and even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you, John 11:21,22, this woman we hold up for all generations as a bad example. 

I hope in my lifetime I can do as well as she did.

Jesus said unto [Martha] I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes on me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  She said unto him, Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world.  John 11:25-27.

Dene Ward

We got the call on a Sunday morning at 5:32.  We were on the road as soon as we could be, but Silas’s little brother Judah beat us there by half an hour.  Mommy and Daddy had waited as long as they could, their three year old sitting big-eyed and quiet in the labor room, but ultimately had to call a church couple to take him.

About 1:00 those helpful people brought Silas back to the hospital, where we sat in the room with Brooke and Nathan, new baby Judah lying in a special bed under a warming light.  It took far longer than it should have to get that baby’s body temperature to an appropriate number. 

Silas, still a bit confused, and very tired, ran straight to his parents.  Nathan lifted him into his arms and carried him over to the little bed.  He looked down at his four hour old, wrinkly red baby brother, his tiny head still misshapen from his passage into the world, and said, “What’s that?”

I couldn’t help it.  A bubble of laughter escaped me at his innocent honesty.  When we told him this was his little brother Judah, the one who had been in Mommy’s tummy, his little head swung back and forth between his mommy and the figure in the clear, plastic bed, his eyes full of skepticism.  This was not what he expected.

It took a couple of weeks for him to really come around, but who could blame him?  He was expecting a brother like the brothers and sisters his little friends had, and probably just as big.  He was expecting a playmate, but every time he shared his toys, the little interloper simply lay there and slept.  Where is the fun in that?  But children are nothing if not adaptable, and his little brother is growing on him.

I fear some people look on their lives as Christians with the same skepticism with which Silas first viewed Judah.  Freedom, they were promised, but all they see are rules.  Joy, they were promised, yet they still suffer the same trials, illnesses, and financial problems as everyone else, even the same ones as before they were converted.  They’ve lost friends, and rifts in the family are worse than ever.  They expected people to come running at their every beck and call, yet every Sunday the preacher, an elder, a Bible class teacher—or maybe all three!!—tells them they have to serve others.

Jesus dealt with the same problem among his followers.  Some came expecting to be entertained (Luke 7:32; 23:8).  Some came expecting to be fed (John 6:26).  Some came expecting to be part of a victorious army and a glorious kingdom here on the earth (Luke 19:11).  Very few “came around,” changing their expectations to match his offered reality.  He never changed his offer—if they wouldn’t accept it, he simply sent them away.  He drove off far more than ever accepted him (John 6:43-67).

Sometimes we have to do the same.  We cannot change the church the Lord bought with His own blood to suit the carnal nature of an unspiritual world—we don’t have that right.  Be careful what you offer your friends and neighbors. God didn’t promise lives of ease, health and wealth, or even a church family that always behaves itself.  The test of faith comes when things are difficult, not when they are easy.

The church wasn’t what the Jews expected.  As a result most of them missed out on the promised kingdom.  Examine your own expectations.  Make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Romans 14:17-18

Dene Ward

Most of us know the story of Hannah who asked God for a son and promised to give him back.  She certainly made an amazing vow and an astounding sacrifice I can scarcely understand.  But do we consider her many examples in prayer?

Hannah was the second wife of a man of Ephraim, a Levite (1 Chron 6:33-38) named Elkanah.  The story reminds me a bit of Leah and Rachel, except that Hannah  and Peninnah were not sisters, and Hannah, the favored wife, was far more righteous and God-fearing than Rachel, who stole her father’s household gods (Gen 31:19) and nagged Jacob to death about her inability to conceive as if it were his fault (Gen 30:1,2).  Going to God was Rachel’s last resort, after first badgering Jacob, then offering her handmaid (Gen 30:3) and finally using mandrakes (Gen 30:14), the aphrodisiac of the day.  You should take a few minutes sometime and read the meanings of her children’s names (by her handmaid) if you want a flavor of her mindset, and compare them with the names of Leah’s children.  Then of course, there was Joseph.  When God answered her prayer for her own child, she named him, “Give me another one.”  Look at the marvelous contrast of Hannah, who after asking for a child and receiving him, gave him up to God, with no promise that she would ever have another.

Hannah shows us what prayer is supposed to be—not some halfhearted muttering of ritual phrases, but a “pouring out of the soul” 1 Sam 1:15.  She prayed so fervently that Eli, watching her, thought she was drunk.  As she told Eli, “Out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation have I spoken” v 16.  Her prayer life was such that her relationship with Jehovah gave her the confidence to tell Him exactly how she felt, in the plainest of speech, evidently.  You do not speak to someone that way unless you have spent plenty of time with him and know him intimately.  Are we that close to God?

She also teaches us what prayer should do for us.  Look at the contrast between v 10 and v 18.  Before her prayer “she was in bitterness of soul…and wept sore.”  Afterward, she “went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.” 

Of course, Hannah had the reassurances of a priest and judge that God would give her what she had prayed for, but don’t we have the assurance of the Holy Spirit through the word He gave that God listens and answers our prayers?  Shouldn’t we exhibit some measure of ease after our prayers?          

In whom do we have our faith?  If the doctors say it is hopeless, do we pray anyway?  Do we carry our umbrellas, even though the weatherman says, “No rain in sight?”  Do we pray on and on and on, even when it seems that what we ask will never come to pass?  God does not run by a timetable like we do.  Hannah had the faith that says, “It’s in God’s hands now,” and she was able to get on with her life.  Life does go on, no matter which answer we get, and God expects us to continue to serve Him with a “thy will be done” attitude.

“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” James tells us in 5:16.  Hannah shows us it works for righteous women as well.  Can people tell by our lives that we believe it?

Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.  From the end of the earth will I call unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.  For you have been a refuge to me, a strong tower from the enemy.  I will dwell in your tabernacle forever.  I will take refuge in the covert of your wings.  Psa 61:1-4

Dene Ward

I grew up watching my mother use her cast iron skillet.  She fried chicken, hamburgers, eggs, country fried steak, pork chops, and hash in it.  I suppose I began with grilled cheese sandwiches, something I still love but have to limit now.  Some days, though, a crisp on the outside, gooey on the inside, hot all over, buttered pair of bread slices (usually multi-grain in a nod to health) is the only thing that will satisfy.

When I received my own cast iron skillet as a wedding present I was confused.  My mother’s was deep black, smooth and shiny.  This thing was the same shape, the same heft, but gray, dull, and rough.  “You have to season it,” she told me, and even though I followed the directions exactly, greasing and heating it over and over and over, it was probably ten years before my skillet finally began to look like hers.  Seasoning cannot be done quickly, no matter what they say, and in the early stages can be undone with a moment’s carelessness—like scrubbing it in a sink full of hot soapy water.  A good skillet is never scrubbed, never even wet, but simply wiped out, a thin patina of oil left on the surface.     

Faith is a little like a cast iron skillet—it has to be seasoned.  Let me explain.

In the middle of some study a few weeks ago I made a discovery that made me laugh out loud.  “…the churches were strengthened in the faith,” we are told in Acts 16:5.  I am not a Greek scholar, but sometimes just looking at a word gives you a clue.  The word translated “strengthened” is stereoo.  “Stereo?” I thought, automatically anglicizing it, and a moment later got the point.  Faith may begin as “mono”—undoubtedly the Philippian jailor who believed and was baptized “in the same hour of the night” had a one dimensional faith.  He hadn’t had time to develop beyond the point of “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” but I imagine after awhile he had seasoned his faith with layer after layer of growth.  It had become a “stereo” faith.

Think about it.  The Abraham who left Ur at the word of God, giving up far more than we usually realize in worldly goods and prominence, was not the same Abraham who offered his son over forty years later.  That first Abraham was still so timid he would willingly deceive people about the woman traveling with him.  Yet God did not give up on him, and he did not give up on God.  He grew, adding layer after layer to a faith that eventually made him the father of the faithful.

The Peter who tried to walk on water may have shortly thereafter confessed Christ, but he wasn’t the same Peter who sat in Herod’s prison in Acts 12, and he certainly wasn’t the same Peter who ultimately lost his life for his Lord.  He used all the earlier experiences to season a faith that endured to the end.

It isn’t that God is not satisfied with the faith we have at any given moment, but He does expect us to grow, to season that faith with years of endurance and service.  Seasoning takes heat, and the heat of affliction may be the thing that seasons us.  We never know what may be required, but God expects us to keep adding those layers, to get beyond the “mono” faith to a “stereo” faith, a multifaceted, deeply layered condition, not just a little saying we repeat when we want to prove we are Christians.

How does your skillet look today?  Is it still gray and rough, or have you taken the time to season it with prayer and study, enduring the heat of toil and affliction, and turned it into an indispensable tool, one you use everyday to feed and strengthen your soul?

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! Job 19:25-27

Dene Ward

On a recent camping trip, we had one full day of rain. Twenty-three hours in a tent went faster than we had expected since we had taken books to read, crossword puzzles to do, and a Boggle game. But at supper time we needed more room and a table to cook on, so we carried our food and our propane stove under the shelter of an umbrella through the steady drizzle and down to the pavilion in that State Park to prepare our meal.

A nine year old girl pulled her bike into the shelter as the rain picked up. She talked for a few minutes, and then we asked her name.

“Grace,” she replied.

“”Hmmm,” began Keith, “that means full of mercy and compassion. Is that you?”

She gave a wry grin beyond her years and said, “I don’t think so.”

We talked awhile longer, and then she politely excused herself. Later I thought, “How incredibly honest.” Could I look at myself and give such an assessment without making qualifications and rationalizations? I doubt it. And woe to anyone who tries to do it for me. No grace to him!

But here is the irony—as an innocent child, this little girl Grace is a whole lot closer to the ideal of grace than I am. Yet as a child of the God who gives grace abundantly, I must strive the harder to emulate my Heavenly Father, giving grace to all I meet just as He does for us—even though, as the very definition of the word states, we do not deserve it.

Today let us all remember to be as generous as our Father, giving grace where none is due.

By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Eph 2:8

Above all things be fervent in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins…minister among yourselves as good stewards of the grace of God. I Pet 4:8, 10

Dene Ward

We have a new puppy.  Chloe is an Australian cattle dog, a companion for our 6 year old Australian.  They are great dogs, playful, loyal, and smart—too smart sometimes for their owners’ good! 

Magdalene, our older dog, seems to enjoy the little one, even though she did have to growlingly remind her yesterday that her tail is NOT a chew toy.  They both walk with me now, Chloe struggling with her short legs and puppy-plump tummy to keep up, and we look like a parade as we make our morning laps.  Magdi has developed some arthritis in her hips so they sit out after the first two rounds, but Chloe still had excess energy this morning.  She wanted to be with Magdi, but wanted to run too, so she compromised by running circles around the patient older dog, by turns prancing and ripping back and forth, turning on a dime, as that breed is capable of doing, and yipping playfully.  I thought, as I rounded my last bend and came upon this scene that no matter what the scientists tell me about dogs not having emotions, if she did not have it, Chloe was managing a very good impression of pure, unadulterated joy.

First century Christians had that feeling in spades.  I did a study on joy recently.  Do you know what surprised me?  Not a single time does the New Testament say their joy was caused by the physical things in this life—not their health, their wealth, their careers, their homes, not even the weather—is listed as a cause for their joy at all.  If it’s in there, I missed it.

What caused their joy?  Hearing the gospel, Acts 13:42; being baptized, 8:39; having a hope, Rom 12:12; being counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Christ, Acts 5:41; being afflicted, 2 Cor 7:4; being persecuted and having their possessions confiscated, Heb 10:32-34; being put to grief through trials, 1 Pet 1:6-9; becoming partakers of the suffering of Christ, 1 Pet 4:12-16—whoa, now!  What’s going on here?  Are these a bunch of masochists or what?

The problem is that we confuse joy with happiness.  Hap-piness comes because of things that hap-pen, as does un-hap-piness.  Joy is an overriding foundation for how we live our lives.  I may experience moments of unhappiness, but as long as I do not let them overcome my life of joy, I am able to survive with that joy intact.  I may lose my belongings, lose a loved one, contract a serious illness, even face death, and still not lose my joy. 

All those things that caused joy in the early Christians are based upon having a Savior who has gone through every type of problem I ever will have (Heb 4:15), and more than that, gave up an incomprehensible position (Phil 2:6,7), and separated himself from the Father for the first time in all Eternity (Matt 27:46), all so I could have salvation.  Anything I have to face in this life, no matter how dire, is petty compared to that.  That is why I should only experience moments of grief.  To make a “career” of sadness is to devalue everything He went through for me.  Nothing I have to face is worse than He faced so that I might some day be in a place where joy will reach its full potential.

Maybe, as Thoreau said in Walden, “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” but not Christians.  We lead lives of joyful anticipation.

Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened to you; but insomuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, that at the revelation of his glory also you may rejoice with exceeding joy.   1 Peter 4:12,13

Dene Ward

I am an increasingly rare breed—a native Floridian.  I never saw snow until we lived two years in Illinois.  Talk about culture shock—I won’t soon forget the feeling in the pit of my stomach when one of my worried sisters in the Lord asked if I had a heavy winter coat.  I showed it to her; it looked new because I seldom wore it down here.  She called it a nice “spring coat,” and advised me to go shopping.  I soon learned to appreciate the luxuries I had grown up with in winter:  warmth—up there we often had lows below zero; sun—I had never before lived in a place that went as long as two weeks with sunless skies and dusk arriving about 4:30; and green!  Sure the grass may frost off for a couple of weeks down here, and some of the trees lose their leaves, but we still have plenty of green for a lot of the winter.  I even learned to appreciate humidity after my entire body chapped through my clothes and I started blowing blood out of my nose. 

Of course, I realize that a lot of this depends on what you are used to.  We met a man from Massachusetts last February in one of our state parks who told us, “It was almost uncomfortable today.”  The thermometer might have topped out at 72.  I am sure if I had stayed in Illinois longer than two years, I would have become acclimated to the weather and the things I needed to do to make myself comfortable in a different climate.

Becoming accustomed to things can affect our spiritual lives as well.  Paul reminds us in 1 Cor 5:9,10 that we cannot remove ourselves from the world.  In fact we are encouraged to spread the Truth of the Gospel among those very souls, but we are supposed to keep the influence going one way only.  When I am no longer shocked at the world’s behavior, in fact, when I consider it “normal,” the influence has taken a two-way street.

One of the most scathing indictments in the Bible is Jeremiah’s accusation in 8:12, They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.  Nothing the prophets said could touch these people.  They continued in their own stubborn way and never thought anything about it.  Many years before, had they seen the direction they were headed, they probably would have been horrified; but they changed so gradually—got used to it--that they did not even realize their sin.  Despite that sin, they still stood at God’s Temple and worshipped, sure of their good standing with Jehovah, Jer 7:10. 

How about us?  Have we gotten so used to sin around us that it no longer disturbs us?  For the danger, you see, is that because we no longer consider it so reprehensible, we might be tempted to fall into it ourselves.  We would never do anything bad, and this is no longer all that bad, so why not?

Historians say that the downfall of any society begins with that society’s acceptance of rampant immorality as “the norm.”  The prophets preached the same about Israel and Judah, and Paul warns the church, Christ’s bride, A little leaven leavens the whole lump, 1 Cor 5:6.

Do not forget how to blush! 

Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.  For the time past may suffice to have wrought your desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that you do not run with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you, who shall give an account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead.  1 Peter 4:1-5

Dene Ward

Last year I read a book that proved by extensive research of ancient writings that mainstream Protestant belief is completely different from the beliefs of the apostles and the first century church.  The author wrote page after page quoting men who were companions or students of the apostles, men who knew firsthand what Peter, Paul, John, and the others believed.  You would think that by the end of the book the man would have taught himself straight into restoring the New Testament church.  But no, he stopped short.  In fact, he said it was impossible to restore the real thing, and the doctrines he had chosen to attack were only a few.  He never questioned his own desire to keep a few of those “heretical” -isms for himself. 

I thought about that this morning and went on a rambling train track of other doctrines.  Finally, I hit the premillenial kingdom.  Do you realize that no one even heard of that until the mid-1800s?  How can we possibly believe that the men who stood by the Lord as He proclaimed His kingdom and the others who learned directly from them could have missed it?  How can it be that everyone in the next 1800 years was wrong? 

The problem with that doctrine is the same one the apostles first had.  They thought that the kingdom was a physical one, one that included physical armies that would destroy Rome and install a Jewish Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem.  Even they should have known better.  The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that no descendant of Jeconiah (a Davidic king shortly before the captivity) would ever reign in Jerusalem, Jer 22:28-30.  That includes the Messiah.

Finally those men got it, and they fought that carnal notion of anything physical, or even future, about the kingdom for the rest of their lives.  John made it plain that he was in that kingdom, even while he sat on the isle of Patmos writing the book of Revelation, 1:9.  We are in a spiritual kingdom, one where we win victories by overcoming temptation and defeating our selfish desires, one where two natural enemies, like a lion and a lamb, can sit next to each other in peace because we are all “one in Christ Jesus.”

The belief in a physical kingdom here on this earth?  Isn’t that a bit like an astronaut candidate stepping out of a training simulation and proclaiming, “I just landed on the moon?”  Our inheritance is far better than a physical earth--it is “incorruptible, undefiled, [one] that fades not away, reserved in Heaven,” 1 Pet 1:4.  Why should I want something on this earth when I can have that? 

But it will be newly created, you say?  No, Jesus said my reward is already created, “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.

It will last a thousand years?  Then what?  We cease to exist?  No, no, no.  I was promised “eternal life” Matt 19:29; 25:46; John 3:16; 4:14; 5:24; 6:40; 10:28; Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:23; 1 Tim 6:12, and—well, there are dozens more, but surely that makes the point.  No wonder no one in the first 18 centuries after Christ lived believed such a doctrine.

We are supposed to have matured in Christ, to have gone beyond the belief in a material, physical kingdom, just as those apostles finally did.  Our kingdom is one in transit.  It may not look like much to the unbeliever, but we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18.  We have a kingdom right now far greater than anything a mortal man can dream up.  It’s just that only those with spiritual eyesight can see it. 

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel…At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens…Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:22-29.

Dene Ward

The first time I ever voted we used something called the Meyers Automatic Booth.  I walked in, pulled a lever which simultaneously closed the curtain and enabled the machine, pulled more levers to vote, then pulled a last one to both open the curtain and disable the machine, rotating the voting and recording mechanisms to be ready for the next voter and to keep the previous votes from being tampered with.  I was surprised to discover that the system was first used in Lockport, New York eighty years before.  Then I found out that Thomas Edison’s first patent, registered on June 1, 1869, was for an electric voting machine.  So why wasn’t that being used?  Because no one wanted to.  Perhaps it was mistrust, surely neither the first nor the last time that word has been used with the word “politics.”

As of 1996, 1.6% of the registered voters in the United States were still using something called the Australian ballot, an official uniform printed ballot first used in Australia in 1856.  In our tiny rural county, we have used an Australian ballot for the past thirty years, voting in a three-sided cubical set on four long wobbly aluminum legs, marking the long piece of paper with a black pen.  Yet I think the mistrust is still there for people no matter how simple or how complex the voting method.

Politics, probably because of the mistrust it engenders, has become an excuse for bad behavior, even in Christians.  Because we disagree with a politician’s morals, because we can cite scripture to prove that they are sinful, we think we have the right to revile, vilify, disrespect, and show contempt for the public figure who practices them.  God says those very actions are sin themselves.

Camp awhile in Romans 13:1-7.  We often use that passage to justify capital punishment.  The ruler “bears not the sword in vain” v 4, but the same passage will condemn us if we are not careful.

Romans 13 tells us to “be subject to the governing authorities” v 1.  It tells us to pay our taxes, vv 6,7.  And yes, it tells us that the civil government is “the avenger of God” on the criminal element of society, v 4.  It also tells us that we are to respect and honor that government, v 7.  In fact, it says that to do otherwise is to resist God and to invite his wrath, vv 2,5.  Remember, Paul was writing this to people under the rule of the Caesars, men who actively persecuted them.  If it applied then, it certainly applies in a democracy.

We are blessed to live in a society that allows us to vote our convictions.  But the freedom of speech guaranteed by our constitution does not undo the principles God gave for how to speak about that government, any more than the laws it might pass undo the inherent immorality of abortion.  God still expects us to honor and respect our rulers, even if they won’t put us in jail for doing otherwise.

Why?  Because God is the one who put them in power.  “Whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed, and whoever resists will incur judgment” v2.  God had a reason for putting that particular man in charge at that particular time.  We may not understand that reason, but it is God’s reason, and He expects our submission. 

Jesus said to Pilate, the man who turned him over to a murderous mob, “You would not have power over me except it were given you from above,” John 19:11.  God had a plan for Pilate, and in hindsight we can see that he fulfilled his purpose.  God has plans for every ruler of every physical nation on earth.  Christians accept God’s plan whether it makes sense to them or not.

Habakkuk had a similar problem.  God told him the Babylonians would come to destroy Israel for their wickedness.  “How can you do that?” Habakkuk asked.  “Yes, your people have sinned, but how can you allow a nation even more wicked to destroy them?”  God’s answer seems almost like a non sequitur.  “The righteous shall live by his faith” 2:4.  Trust me, God was saying, I know what I am doing.

Even today, as our country looks like it is falling farther and farther away from God, we have the same answer from God.  “Trust me.  Live a righteous life and let your faith in me and my decisions get you through this.”  The way we treat the rulers God has placed over us shows exactly how much faith we have in God.  It is that simple.

If we lived under the Law of Moses, many churches would find their rolls decimated--many of their members would have been stoned for “reviling” their rulers, Ex 22:28; 1 Kgs 21:13.  I hear it all the time.  We cannot say it was different then because the rulers were righteous.  You can count on your ten fingers the righteous men who ruled God’s people and have digits leftover.  That law applies because of the chain of command.  They only rule at God’s purpose and pleasure.  To revile them is to revile God, just as Paul reminded those Christians who would someday be persecuted to death by the same rulers.

It is an election year and we are blessed to live in a country where we have the right to vote.  Be sure you do that very thing, voting your morality and your righteous beliefs.  Then trust God and don’t speak against Him when the results are announced.  He knows what He is doing.

For God is the King of all the earth: Sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations: God sits upon his holy throne. Psa 47:7-8

Dene Ward

We moved three times when I was growing up.  The last time at the particularly awkward age of 12, from a small town where grades seven through twelve were all housed in a small school labeled “high school” to the biggest city I had ever lived in, a melting pot of cultures and beliefs that made me feel like I had moved to another country altogether.  Schoolyard fights were common and the bathrooms billowed with cigarette and marijuana smoke. 

I hated those first two years of what they called junior high, more than twice the number of students I had been with the year before in one-third the number of grades—8th and 9th.  I had discovered that the school year consisted of 120 days and that first year I kept a small notebook in my desk in which every afternoon I marked off a day, from day one to day 120, four vertical lines and a crossbar every week.

That was also my first experience riding a school bus, and it was not a friendly one.  The government demanded busing in those days to make sure that we were properly desegregated.  Instead of riding safely with a parent to the school near my house, I was hauled off five miles in the opposite direction. 

Most of the upholstery on that old bus was dried out and cracked from the Florida heat, some of the foam padding spilling out, or torn out by bored students, the walls and seatbacks scratched with rusting graffiti, the floors scuffed and covered with gum wads and other sticky things I really didn’t want to contemplate.  The windows stuck either up or down, depending upon who sat there last and how strong he was.  I suppose the engine was in reasonable shape.  It certainly spewed out enough fumes, which then wafted back around the bus and in through the windows.  But that acted as a sort of buffer for the odors of adolescent sweat and far too much Brut and Tabu.

The first morning I stepped on that bus was like something out of a nightmare.  Even though the county had tacked up a list of rules for all to see, rules that included, “No more than two people per seat,” and, “No standing on the bus,” most of the seats were crammed with three people and the unlucky few who had no friends to save them a seat, stood in the middle.  (It was deemed better to break bus safety rules than to break the federal law that required the busing in the first place.)  I was near the end of the pickup route and I knew no one else on board, so I stood.

What a ride that was.  I always carried several thick textbooks stacked on the slanted top of a loose-leaf notebook—no backpacks back then.  It was either hold onto the books or hold myself up as we swung around corners and bounced over railroad tracks.  Somehow I managed to grab the metal back of a seat with my right hand while using my left arm to hold my notebook and books tightly up against me so they wouldn’t slide into the floor on the nearly thirty minute ride across town, made so much longer by the frequent stops for railroad crossings and the multitude of traffic lights and school zones we passed through. 

Before a week was out, though, I had made a friend, another quiet girl as much a fish out of water as I.  She got on the bus three stops before me, when there were still seats available, and she started saving one for me.  That one little thing made the days bearable—I had a place, I belonged.  It meant so much that on the mornings she was absent and I discovered it when I climbed aboard that reeking bus, I nearly cried.

God understands our longing for a place.  He knows we want to belong, we want to matter to someone.  Into a world where the best you could hope for from capricious, petty, spiteful gods was to go unnoticed, the apostles came preaching about a God who actually cared.  Jesus came preaching about a God who knew you so intimately that he could number the hairs on your head, and who willingly provided you the necessities of life.  The disciples spread the word about a God who sacrificed himself to save, who helped bear burdens, and who offered rest and refreshing from a world sometimes too difficult to bear alone.

God is saving you a seat on the bus.  Sometimes the bus hits a bump in the road, just as it did for Job.  Sometimes the driver takes a detour you never planned on, just as happened with Joseph.  Sometimes the route is long and the day hot and stifling as you sit among people who reek of the stench of this world, just as has happened to so many who have taken the ride before you.  But you are not alone.  The Lord got on that bus before you.  He will always be there, and after you count off that last day of “school,” he will give you a place where you can “belong” forever.

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Acts 26:18

Dene Ward