Flight Paths

I had a beautiful flower garden this year—brick red gaillardia, their blooms lined with yellow-gold trumpet-shaped petals; pink, magenta, white, and burgundy cosmos fluttering on feathery spring green plumes: hardy, yellow gloriosa daisies shining like beacons among the leaves; yellow, orange, and rust colored marigolds perched on the bushiest plants I had ever seen in that flower; bright purple Mexican petunias who, though they shed their blooms every night, never failed to greet me with another show of dozens every morning; and zinnias sporting every color imaginable--white, yellow, salmon, cherry red, fire engine red, bright orange (Gator orange NOT Volunteer orange), purple, pink, lime green, and even variegated colors, growing as tall as five feet before the summer was out.

Unfortunately, those zinnias began growing something besides blooms. It started at the bottom, with black-rimmed white spots on just a few lower leaves.  It spread from one plant to several in an area until finally it had touched every single plant.  Then it began its inexorable climb up until only the top few leaves remained green, and only the newest blossoms, barely opened from the bud, were clean.  It took me awhile to realize what was happening, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late.

Still, I didn’t want to pull the plants.  They did have a little green left at the top, and where there is life there is hope, right?  Finally after several mornings of looking out on what had once brought joy to my mornings and seeing instead a mass of black leaves and stems, I made a decision.  Why did I have these flowers anyway?   Because they were beautiful, and even I could see all that color from a distance.  Were they beautiful any longer?  No, they were about as ugly as they could be.  And the longer I waited, the further that fungus spread.  The gaillardia were already infected, and a few of the marigolds.

So the next day I went out and began pulling.  It wasn’t even laborious.  Those plants were so sick that they came right up out of the ground, and do you know what I found underneath?  New seedlings growing from the deadheads I had been cutting all summer.  If I had left those ugly things much longer, the baby plants would have been choked out by the much larger roots and then infected as well.  Now they can breath and grow, and the sunlight reaches their tiny leaves. I have already gotten out the copper spray, a fungicide that is even considered “organic,” not that I would care since my goal is to save those new flowers no matter what it takes, and they aren’t on the menu anyway.

Still, it was hard to make that decision.  I have trouble even thinning the rows in the vegetable garden.  It goes against my nature to pull up a plant that is still alive, even if it does mean better production from the ones you leave, and far more food on my shelves to last the winter.

Sometimes we have to make decisions like that with souls.  Give not that which is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, Matt 7:6.  Who wants to make that judgment call?  And whosover shall not receive you nor hear your words…shake the dust off your feet, 10:14.  It is difficult to give up on someone you have invested a lot of time in, someone you have come to care about.  But sometimes our refusal to do so is costing many more souls out there the chance to hear and accept the word while we waste time on the stubborn and rebellious.

Sometimes that decision must be made among ourselves too.  A little leaven leavens the whole lump, Paul warned about immorality in 1 Cor 5:7, and then used exactly the same warning about false doctrine in Gal 5:9.  If you know anything about cooking, you know that leaven is alive.  It may not be a fungus, but it creeps in exactly the same way and spreads.  No matter how small a chunk of it you use, that dough will suddenly react, and there is no going back when it does.  Speaking of false teachers in 2 Tim 2:17, Paul says, “Their word eats as does a gangrene.”  When gangrene eats away the flesh, it’s gone.

Yes, we have to make these tough decisions, but I have seen some people make it with a little too much zest.  God never enjoyed it.  I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, He said, Ezek 33:11.  God would have all men to be saved, Paul says, 1 Tim 2:4, and Peter reminds us that God is not willing that any should perish, 2 Pet 3:9.  He waited a long time before He finally punished His people, and even then it was with anguish:  How shall I give you up…how shall I cast you off…my heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender, Hos 11:8. 

God never meant for this decision to be easy, but sometimes it has to be made.  It isn’t compassion not to make it—it’s cowardice.  My medical book says that fungus spreads worst among very young children and those who are already ill.  We must look underneath those infected branches to see the reason for our decision—to save many more before they too are infected with a fatal disease.  The souls who were sacrificed in the arenas by the Roman persecution are depicted as asking God, How long until you will judge and avenge our blood? Rev 6:10.  Desperate souls may be out there asking us, "How long are you going to waste time on the unwilling, when we want it so badly?”

"Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries. He repays those who hate him and cleanses his people's land." Deuteronomy 32:43

Dene Ward

In the last few years, my life has really slowed down.  I am no longer able to teach piano and voice lessons because I cannot read the students’ music well enough, especially when it comes to sightreading aria and concerto accompaniments.  This means fewer teachers’ meetings, and no more competitions to prepare for, sweat over, and pray about--I had the usual bunch of cardiac kids who waited till the last minute to pull it off.

My jog has also become a walk, at times with a big sturdy walking stick to steady myself when I stumble over something I did not see.  Even something as harmless as a pine cone has taken me unawares at times, rolling beneath my feet.

It isn’t true that your other senses become better when one fails.  Your hearing doesn’t improve, nor do your taste buds suddenly wake up.  But you do learn to use them more, and that makes them seem like they have improved.  So I am suddenly paying more attention to the birds on our property when I am outside. 

Though I cannot always see them, I have learned many of their calls, and can now identify quail, doves, owls, whippoorwills, hawks, blue jays, crows, titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, and hummingbirds—and I don’t mean the pecking and humming of the last two, but their actual vocal sounds.  And now that I recognize all of those, the ones I have not yet identified are more distinct when I hear them.  There is one out there that sounds like a bad flutist.

My son thinks it is pretty amazing when I say things like, “There’s a wren in the live oak outside your old bedroom window.”  But would I know where it was if I could not hear it?  What is the most amazing thing of all is that my Heavenly Father knows where each and every bird is whether it sings or not.  And that means He knows where I am, both physically and spiritually.  He knows, not just because He is able to know, but because He cares to know.  And that is the greatest security a child of God can have.  “Yes for me, for me He careth.”

Are not five sparrows sold for two pence?  And not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God  But the very hairs of your head are numbered.  Fear not.  You are of more value than many sparrows.  Luke 12:6,7

Dene Ward

This business of treating small dogs as fashion accessories strikes me as a little barbaric.  I’m surprised PETA hasn’t stepped in and complained.  Of all people, they should take offense at an animal being treated as an inanimate object.

I understand loving an animal.  I have cried at the loss of every dog and cat we ever had.  I planted flowers on Magdi’s grave, one that blooms all summer and one that blooms spring and fall.  The only time I can’t look out the window and know at a glance where she lies is the middle of winter.  But she had her place and it wasn’t in my purse.

Some people treat pet peeves as if they were real pets, live creatures that must be fed and cared for.  In fact, feeding is a good word for the way they nurture those peeves at every opportunity.  Understand, I am not talking about matters of sin and morality, but things we like or don’t like, opinions we hold about certain behaviors, and even matters of courtesy.  Courtesy is usually a cultural notion, not one of moral right and wrong.  It may bug me to death to be in an elevator with someone yelling into a cell phone, but I doubt it will send him to hell.

If it is possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all, Rom 12:18.  Nowadays, when our culture is calling on us to take a stand on things we used to take for granted, it is even more important that we not raise a fuss over the inconsequential.  “Choose your battles,” we often say, something parents must learn so their children won’t view them as prison guards but as wise guides instead.  We need to learn that in regard to pet peeves too.

When you take that unpopular moral stand, no one will listen if all you have done before is rant about minor things at every opportunity.  No one will care what your opinion is or how well you back it with facts when they are used to tuning you out.  If, on the other hand, you have always been fair-minded, cool-tempered, and tolerant of others’ social gaffes, making allowances for them without even being asked, when something comes along that actually causes you to stand up and speak, they are far more likely to pay attention—and consider.

It is also important to stifle those pet peeves with your brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Be at peace among yourselves…seek peace and pursue it…suffer wrong [for the sake of peace]…be one…so that the world may know you have sent me, 1 Thes 5:13; 1 Pet 3:11; 1 Cor 6:7; John 17:22,23.  God could not have made it plainer that how we get along with one another affects far more important things than our own personal agendas.  Today we must be as tightly bound as the threefold cord spoken of in Eccl 4:12.  We need one another when the world turns against us and labels us “hateful” simply because we exercise our American right to disagree and, much more important, our Christian obligation to speak out.  If my reputation precedes me as an irrational ranter who isn’t worth listening to, it isn’t just myself I am hurting, but the Lord and His cause.

I must stop tending those pet peeves as if they were pedigreed pooches, when all they are is a crack in my armor.  Who do you imagine rejoices the most when I lose it over a trifling matter of preferences?  The Lord or Satan? 

We are all sojourners on the same trip, stopping for a night at a second rate motel.  No pets allowed.

A fool’s wrath is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult…a fool utters all his anger, but a wise man keeps it back and stills it…love covers a multitude of sins, Prov 12:16; 29:11; 1 Pet 4:8.

Dene Ward

I find Job to be one of the most perplexing books in the Bible.  After trying many years to understand it, I have come up with this:  the book of Job does not answer the question of why bad things happen to good people; it is merely God saying, “You do not need to know why.  You just need to trust me no matter what.”

We all know the story.  In an attempt to make Job renounce God, Satan took away every good thing in his life.  What did he lose?  Seven sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys (remember, wealth was measured mainly by livestock in the patriarchal times), many servants, standing in the community, and even his health.  About the only things he didn’t lose were his house (42:11), his wife, and his closest friends--if you can call them that.  In fact, when you think about it, Satan probably knew those people would be a help in his own cause, and that is why he left them.  He certainly would not have left Job with a support system if he could have helped it.

And that brings us to Mrs. Job.  Now let’s be fair.  When Job lost everything, so did she.  And as I have grown older I have learned to be very careful about judging people who are going through any sort of traumatic experience. 

Keith and I have been through a lot together.  I have had to take food off my plate and put it on my children’s plates because they were still hungry and there was no more.  We have dug ditches next to each other in a driving rainstorm to keep our house from washing away.  I have held a convulsing child as he drove 90 mph to the emergency room thirty miles away.  We have carried all the water we used in the house back and forth for a month because the well collapsed and we could not afford to repair it.  I have bandaged the bullet wounds he sustained as a law enforcement officer.  But all that happened over a period of thirty years, not in one day.  And never have I lost a child, much less all of them.  What I would do if I were Mrs. Job, I do not know.  What I should do is easy to say, but however glibly it rolls off my tongue, that does not mean I would have the strength to do it. 

She was suffering just as much as her husband.  But somehow, Job hung on, while his wife let her grief consume her.  Job actually lost his wife in an even more painful way than death because she failed the test of faith.

So what happened to her afterward?  Job did have a wife or he would not have had more children (42:13).  Without further evidence to the contrary, the logical assumption is that it was the same wife.  Since they had a continuing relationship perhaps he is the one who helped her, and she repented both of her failure to be a “helper suitable” and of her faithlessness.

So what should we learn about sharing grief as a couple?  What I hope we would all do when grief and suffering assail our homes is support one another.  The thing that Job did not have from anyone is the thing that should make all single people desire a good marriage:  support and help.  Troubles should pull us together, not tear us apart.  What I cannot lift by myself, I can with help. Sometimes he is the reason she makes it over a personal hill and other times she is his light to make it through the dark places, and that is how God intended it.

Now here is the question for each of us.  If Satan were going to test my spouse, would he take me, or leave me?

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.  Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth, but how can one be warm alone?  Eccl 4:9-11

Dene Ward

The day of our 20th anniversary marked the day I had lived with my husband as long as I had lived without him.  Well, not exactly, since I did not marry on my birthday, but you understand my point.  Every year after that meant I was further and further removed from my “first life” as a dependent of my parents.

As the years went by I saw even more “lives.”  I spent several years as a preacher’s wife and homemaker who taught a few piano lessons here and there among the many moves we made.  Then I went through a life when my husband worked the regular hours of any provider and my in-home music studio became nearly a full time job.  Now I am in another life, one of increasing disability.  Yet in many ways it is the best “life” yet since I am finally able to spend hours in Bible study and writing, and have come to know the joys of being a grandparent.  I suspect there will be yet another life sooner or later.  All things being equal, as they say, I will probably be a widow someday, and due to this eye disease will be blind and once again living as a dependent.

When I was young, I remember people speaking about a TV show called “I Led Three Lives.”  I never saw it.  It first aired on Oct 1, 1953, before I was even born, and its last episode was broadcast May 1, 1957.  It was a product of the Cold War, loosely based on the life of Herbert Philbrick, an advertising executive in Boston who infiltrated the American Communist Party for the FBI.  His three lives were as advertising man, “Communist,” and counter spy.  A little mulling it over and I realized Christians all lead three lives—first sinner, then believer, and finally immortal.

The New Testament even speaks of it as “lives.”  In Col 3:9,10 the old self and its practices are put away for a new self, “renewed by knowledge.”  The old self was corrupt through “deceitful desires,” and the new self was “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” Eph 4:22,24.  The old life was lived for ourselves, the new life is lived for Christ, 2 Cor 5:15.  We crucified the old man, one enslaved to sin, and the new man was set free from that sin.  We were once slaves of righteousness and are now slaves of God, Rom 6:6,7,19,20.  We used to live for human passions; now we live for the will of God, 1 Pet 4:2.  At one time we lived in darkness and now we live as children of Light, Eph 5:8.  Once it was I who lived, but now it is Christ living in me, Gal 2:19,20.

And that leaves only the eternal life to come, 1 Tim 4:8, the one Paul says is “truly” life, 6:19.  That one depends upon how we live this second life.  We must feed on the bread of life, John 6:51.  We must sow to the Spirit, Gal 6:8.  We must have patience in well-doing, Rom 2:7.  We must do good and believe, John 5:29; 6:40.  We must be righteous which, in the context of the verse, Matt 25:46, means we must serve, and we must love our brethren in order to experience that eternal life, 1 John 3:15. 

But simply making a list and following it won’t suffice.  The life must be such an integral part of you that the “list” takes care of itself.  Philbrick lived his three lives simultaneously; ours are supposed to be consecutive, one completely giving way to the other.  Anything else is a sham that will keep you from that third life.

Paul never speaks of eternal life as anything but a certainty.  As surely as you are living a life now, that final one will come too, the life that is “truly” life.  It will make these other two seem like nothing in its length, in its glory, in its joy.  “I led three lives,” we will say.  No, we only led (past tense) two.  We will lead the last one forever.

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, Titus 1:1-2.

Dene Ward

Now that I have become ninety percent deaf, few would be likely to guess that I was once a fair song leader.  From the teenage years when I first learned how,, a favorite was, “Sunshine in My Soul.”  These days, a favorite line from it is, “Jesus listening can hear the songs I cannot sing.”  When one cannot hear what note he is singing or hear well enough to stay in the same key three phrases in a row, the result is seldom melodious, but Jesus can hear what I cannot any longer sing.

Life throws us many curves.  Our plans seldom work and when they do, we are often forcefully reminded, “Beware what you wish for, you might get it.”  Health declines, for many it was not great to begin with.  I am going deaf, my wife is going blind.  We live in a “manufactured home” and our insurance company of 20+ years just dropped us. Yet, recently a young person (most of them nowadays) described me as a happy person to someone she did not know was my son.

I must admit, that made my day. “Happy” derives from things that happen.  I could make a long list of reasons I am not happy.  My deafness, my wife’s impending blindness are just the first items on each of our lists.  (She is so tired of repeating herself that she says if she had wishes she’d fix me first).  Everyone has a list, some longer or containing more serious matters than others.  Even healthy and relatively wealthy people are often not happy.  The basis for our JOY lies in a line of the title song: “For Jesus is my light.”  We are not the only ones with problems, in fact, I see JOY on the faces of those whose list makes mine seem like a wish list.  Jesus lights up your life when you live as he would have in your shoes.

Jesus emptied himself to accomplish things for others (Phil 2:5-8).  If self is the center of our ambitions, there will be no room for his light.  Jesus served others.  He gave up his time and place that he might save people who did not even like him.  If we will focus on doing kindness to others, there will be sunshine in our souls that can be seen.  The sunshine comes despite the things that happen, and because God knows what will fill us with joy and peace.  He sent his Son to show us.

Life is full of trouble and heartache and pain.  It often seems that good happens only so it will hurt when it is taken away, or to make the bitter worse by contrast….then you die.

But, then you will be raised--raised as certainly as God raised Jesus.  Raised to a heavenly body in a sinless world where everything always goes right. The sunshine in my soul shines from the hope Jesus gave of being in that place.

And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof.  And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  And there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads.  And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. Rev 22:1-5

Keith Ward

Now that I have your attention with that title, you can take the jaw out of your lap.  On second thought, save yourself some trouble and leave it there, because I am about to shock you again:  we all need to be more like Jezebel. 

Jezebel was smart.  She knew Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard, but she knew better than to just have him killed.  Someone might have rebelled at the murder of an innocent man.  So she took care to have “witnesses,” even though they were false witnesses, so everything would look “right.”  We should not be deceitful in order to get what we want, but we are commanded to be “wise as serpents” when the good of the Lord’s work requires it.  Jesus did not thumb his nose at all the traditions of his time, just those that were diametrically opposed to the intent of God’s Law.  And he was the master at answering a question with a question, putting the questioner on the spot.  Paul learned well from his Master.  Remember those speeches that always seemed to be just right for the person and the cause?  Sometimes we “cut off our noses to spite our face,” bragging about our zeal in doing so, when the Lord’s work suffers for it.

Jezebel was loyal to her husband.  She even went as far as murder for him.  How loyal are we?  Will we go out of our way to do even innocuous things for our spouses?  Or is it just too much trouble and s/he ought not to be so picky in the first place?  Do we never even allow thoughts of infidelity to enter our minds, or do we consider those harmless as long as we do not act on them?  What kinds of things do we say about them in the break room at work or the neighborhood coffee party?  What do our children hear us say?  Disloyalty can be shown in many ways.

Jezebel was loyal to her god.  She converted an entire nation to Baal.  How concerned are we about our neighbors’ souls?  Do we even mention the True God to them?  Are we careful to keep our relationships with them in such a state that they will come to us when a spiritual need arises?  Jezebel was ready to avenge her god by killing Elijah (1 Kgs 19:1) for his having killed the prophets of Baal.  Both her and Elijah’s loyalty was measured by their willingness to fight for God (or a god).  Do we stand up to oppose false teachings and immorality in our society, or are we afraid to stir things up?

She implanted her values into her children--so well that they followed in her footsteps all their lives.  The problem, of course, was her values.  How much effort do we put into teaching our children God’s Law, even when we know it could cost them their souls if we do not?  Or are we too busy supplying physical needs, and cultural “enrichment?”

Of course, none of us want to be like Jezebel in her wickedness, but remember Jesus’ parable about the unrighteous steward, “…the sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of light,” Luke 16:8.  Learn your lessons from whomever you can.  Just make sure your application is righteous.

My son, if you will receive my words and lay up my commandments with you, so as to incline your ear unto wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes if you will cry after discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasure, then you shall understand the fear of Jehovah, and find the knowledge of God.  For Jehovah gives wisdom.  Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Prov 2:1-6

Dene Ward

I have never been artistic.  The best portrait I ever drew was a stick man.  I could never decorate a house.  I have friends who can walk into a store, look at a picture or wall hanging and say, “That would look great over the table in the foyer.”  Would it?  I have no idea.  Good thing we never had a foyer.

The same is true for my cooking.  I could never make anything look like the picture.  In fact, my boys learned to judge the taste of things by how ugly they were.  If it fell apart on the plate when I served it, they shouted, “Oh boy!  This is going to be good!”  Food stylists?  People who actually make a living making food look artistic?  The mere thought of it just confuses me.

I am just as happy to have naturally curly hair.  It will only do what it wants to.  Saves me a lot of trouble trying to figure out what sort of hairdo would “enhance” my features.  Which brings me to the point of all this—true beauty.  When a people become so wealthy they can spend thousands on plastic surgery, worry about whether their teeth are white enough, and spend so much time making a plate look “pretty” that the food gets cold, we have become just a little too worried about how things look instead of how things are.

I came across the passage, One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of Jehovah, And to inquire in his temple. (Psa 27:4)  So I wondered, what is “the beauty of Jehovah?”  It obviously has nothing to do with white teeth, high cheekbones, and hour glass figures.  (Hurray!)

It only took a little cross-referencing to find Psalm 63:2-5.  Jehovah’s power, his glory, and his lovingkindness make him beautiful.  Surely there are many other traits, but those certainly stand out from the various “gods” of the people around the Israelites.  Petty, spiteful, and cruel well describe the idols the Gentiles worshiped, then and even into the first century.  Read the mythology of the Greek gods and you will find the most loathsome characteristics ever attributed to a deity.  How could anyone even think of worshiping such things?  Yet they did, and actively resisted Jehovah, a God of beautiful character who was not unknown to them.

It makes sense then that his people would be judged by similar things.  Deut 4:6-8 tells us that Israel would be judged as a wise and understanding people, whose God was near them and whose laws were righteous.  Are we “beautiful,” a people whom God would be pleased to call his own?  Are we wise and understanding?  Are we righteous?  Is God near us, or do we keep him as far away as possible except when we need him?  Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they were worried more about the outside than the inside—they made pretty plates, but had ugly insides (Matt 23:25,26). 

In general the world is blind to true beauty, whether in a picture, on a plate, or in a person.  It makes sense that they would not consider the gospel beautiful either.  “Foolishness” Paul says they call it.  Just as it takes a hungry man to see the true beauty of a plate of good food, it takes a hungry soul to see the beauty of the gospel.  As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Paul quotes Isaiah in Rom 10:15.  Is that what appeals to you?  Or does it have to be some feel good piece of fluff that makes you laugh a lot before it’s worth listening to?

One of these days we will see the beauty of Jehovah, His glory and power.  I wonder how many will think it isn’t beautiful, but horrifying instead, and only because they never desired to see it in the first place.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4:3-4.

Dene Ward

Sometimes I think in our efforts to be so careful about doing exactly what God has said to do, we ruin perfectly simple commands with all sorts of convoluted logic.  I recently heard one of those old notions again:  since we cannot pray 24 hours a day, “Pray without ceasing,” must mean to be in a prayerful attitude all the time.  When I was a child I never did understand that, but I assumed I would when I grew up.  I still don’t.  It says “pray,” not be in a prayerful attitude, and exactly what is a prayerful attitude anyway?  I know for a fact that you cannot be in a prayerful attitude 24 hours a day any more than you can pray like that.

Have you ever tried to play a 40 page Beethoven sonata from memory?  Believe me; trying to remember the fingering and the notes, not to mention getting the nuances just right, takes all the concentration you can muster.  How about singing German lieder?  As an American who does not speak the language, trying not only to remember words that sound like gibberish to me, but knowing when the “ch” sound is a frontward cat hiss and when it is a backward throat scrape, takes all the brain power I have.  I am sure that some of the things you do take equal concentration—one cannot do them and pray at the same time, nor even have a prayerful attitude.  And I defy anyone to have a prayerful attitude while they are asleep!

One of the works of the Holy Spirit was to take God’s words and put them into words we humans could understand, 1 Cor 2:6-13. The way to understand 1Thes 5:17 is simply to use words and phrases the way they are ordinarily used.

Suppose you have a checkup with your doctor.  He says your cholesterol and blood pressure are both up, and asks, “Have you stopped taking your medicine?  Have you stopped exercising?”  No, you tell him, but instead of believing you he says, “How can you lie to me like that?  I am standing right here in front of you and you are neither exercising nor taking your medicine at this very moment!”  I hope you would get a new doctor immediately because you certainly cannot communicate with this one.  You have not stopped taking your medicine because you still take every dose on schedule.  You have not stopped exercising because you walk every morning.  Nothing has caused you to change those habits.  Just because you are not doing it at that particular moment does not mean you have “ceased,” and anyone with common sense would know that.

How about a Biblical example?  Daniel prayed three times a day, Dan 6:10.  When his enemies tricked the king into making the law that anyone caught praying to anyone besides him would be cast into a den of lions, did Daniel cease to pray?  We all know he did not. He still prayed three times a day.

So the passage means “Don’t stop praying.”  If you begin to have one problem after another, don’t blame it on God and stop praying.  If unbelievers make fun of you, calling you a superstitious fool for believing in a higher power, don’t be embarrassed and stop praying.   If you have great successes, don’t start relying on yourself, forgetting that God can take it away in a flash--remember the great privilege you have, and don’t stop praying.  Pray without ceasing.

Bow down your ear, Oh Jehovah, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.  Preserve my soul, for I am godly. Oh my God, save your servant, who trusts in you.  Be merciful unto me, O God, for I cry unto you all day long, Psalm 86:1-3.

Dene Ward

 I was humming that old tune a few weeks ago when I suddenly thought of that phrase in a slightly different light.  “Tell me about it!” we sometimes say to people who are complaining about something, not realizing that we have had the same or worse experience.  Or sometimes people say it to us, and if we are as mature as we like to believe, we suddenly stop whining out of sheer embarrassment.  I often wish Jesus were here to say that to those who complain about his church.

So they hurt your feelings?  They didn’t come see you when you were sick, they didn’t help you when you were depressed, they didn’t praise you in public after you did a good deed, the preacher preached a sermon that stepped on your toes, and you don’t like the way the Bible class teacher looked right at you when he mentioned a particular sin. 

Tell it to Jesus.  No one complimented him on his sermons. They usually just got mad and walked away.  Even his own disciples scolded him for insulting the Jewish rulers.  They called him a liar, a blasphemer, a madman, demon-possessed, and a child of fornication, none of which was true.  He didn’t sit there pouting, he kept right on teaching, right on serving, even people who didn’t deserve it, like you and me.

So the elders won’t listen to you, especially when you think you have discovered something new.  They won’t use you in the way you think you should be used.  You aren’t asked to lead the singing as often as you think you should, or teach the classes you think you should be allowed to teach.  They won’t give in to your pet ideas about how things should be said or done or presented.  So why should you bother to try any longer?  Why should you keep a good attitude, or do the things you are asked to do as well as you can when you aren’t even appreciated?

Tell it to Jesus.  I found ten passages in the gospels where the people in charge “communed with one another” to see how “they might destroy him.”  At least seven of those ten were completely different events.  Has anyone in the church done that to you yet?  Has anyone taken up rocks to stone you?  Has anyone nearly pushed you over a cliff?  Has anyone even come close to crucifying you yet?

No, but the church is full of hypocrites.  Why should I even have to sit in the same building with them?  Why can’t I just leave and do it my own way?  You know their two-faced worship isn’t acceptable to God, so why must I keep company with them? 

Tell it to Jesus.  He never stopped attending the synagogues on the Sabbath, and that wasn’t even part of the Law, it was simply a tradition that had begun after the return from the captivity.  He still attended the feast days right along with all those horrible people, even the Feast of Dedication, which was just a civil holiday.  He never left the work God gave him to do because someone hurt his feelings.  He never quit because people didn’t give him the due he deserved.  He never allowed the sins of others to cause him to forsake the God who deserved his love and loyalty.

Are you going to let those phonies do that to you?  If you do, doesn’t that make you one of them?

…The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 2 Chronicles 15:2

Dene Ward