Flight Paths

In our last study we noted things that will take more faith (trust in God) to handle, things that should cause us, along with the disciples, to say, "Lord, increase our faith."  Receiving instruction, especially instruction we do not like, repeatedly forgiving the same person for the same sin, enduring persecution and affliction, and dealing with scoffers and division among the disciples all take a stronger faith than ordinary, everyday life.  But, every one of those things will also build us up and make us stronger when we handle them successfully.  Isn't that interesting?
            What else might help us to increase our faith?  God did not leave us floundering around without help, and we do not have to go far in the scriptures to find the answer.  Just look at many of those same passages we looked at in Part 1.
            We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing (2Thess 1:3).  If anything can make our faith grow, it is the tender love and care of our brothers and sisters.  Knowing that no matter what may happen, someone cares, you can increase one's strength to make it through the darkest days.  When a congregation is not close, those things will not happen, and you will see a decline that eventually leads to the death of the group if nothing changes.
            But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life (Jude 20-21).  Prayer should be our foremost weapon.  No matter how strong we are, no matter how convinced of our faith and commitment, if it is not accompanied by prayer, how can it stand against Satan and his weapons?  It is through our reliance upon God that we achieve the victory, and that reliance is best shown through our prayer life.  Only the self-reliant avoid prayer, and self is useless in a spiritual battle.
            And why is this so important?  What good will increasing faith lead to?  Go back through all the passages we have looked at in this and the last post one more time, and you will find them.    Increasing faith will lead to:  a) Acts 16:5—increasing numbers in the church; b) 2 Cor 10:15—a larger ministry; c) 2 Thes 1:3,4—increased love and endurance in trials; d) Jude 20—eternal life.
            Kind of amazing how much you can pull out of the same passages, isn't it?  That's what happens when you do more than just read over them quickly.  Pay attention to what is in them, tear them apart, find categories and chart them.  If you want to know how I study, and several have asked, those are the basics right there.  And in the study, find the things you can use in a practical way to improve your walk as a Christian.  It really works.
 
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2Thess 1:11-12).
 
Dene Ward

Three year old Silas has learned to pray, and often sits at the table, eagerly clasping his little hands together, looking back and forth at his parents, hoping they will ask him to say the blessing. 
            “Do you want to say the prayer?” his daddy asks, as if it weren’t obvious, and he gets a big nod and off we go. 
It’s never about the meal.  To him it’s about talking to God and saying thank you for something, for anything, for whatever happens to be on his mind.
            “Hey God!”  Read that the way an excited child would greet his grandparents, not the way a New Yorker would yell, “Hey Mac!”
            “Thank you for sisters,” although he has none, but one of his little friends does, so he wants to mention it.
            “Thank you for blue, and red, and yellow,” the colors of the containers he puts his blocks in.  He doesn’t complain about having to pick up his toys.  He thanks God for something to put them in, and that’s the one that really made me think.
            I wonder how many of our complaints could be expressed as thanks with just a little thought.  Dealing with rush hour traffic?  Thank God you have a car to drive through it in.  Complaining about the stack of ironing?  Thank God you have that many clothes to wear.  Griping a little about picking up your husband’s shoes?  Thank God he is alive and well enough to leave them in the middle of the floor.
            I thought about this again yesterday when I was blowing off the carport.  We didn’t have one for years, and sometimes I think that all getting a carport did for me was give me something else to keep clean.  But last week when one of our usual summer gully washers came through, I could unload the groceries and stay dry. 
            Then I came in and heaved a sigh at the extra dirty floor.  That happened because we saved enough money to buy a new vanity for the bathroom and the plumber tracked in sand going in and out. 
            Stop and think today about the things you complain about.  How many are caused by blessings you could have thanked God for instead?  How many extra chores do you have because God has provided you a home and a family?  I never had to wash diapers until I had babies.  Do you think for one minute I would have given them back? 
            If ever anyone had something to grumble about, it was Daniel when the other two presidents and the 120 satraps tricked the king into making the law against praying to anyone other than him.  How did he react instead?  And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Daniel 6:10.  Surely if Daniel could say thank you at a time like that, we can in this relatively easy time in history.
            God is patient with us as we daily grumble our way through a life He has blessed in thousands of ways.  You have to go to work?  These days especially, be grateful for a job.  Gas prices too high?  You’re still buying it, aren’t you? 
            Maybe we should be a little more like a three year old.  “Hey God!  (I’m so excited to talk to you!)  Thank you for all you have done for me, for the things you have given me that I don’t deserve and forget to be grateful for.  For all those extra chores, because they mean you have blessed me beyond measure.  For all my pet peeves, because it means I am able to be up and around and go to those places where they happen.  For the fact that I have to work so hard to lose weight, because it means I have plenty to eat.  For people who get on my nerves, because it means I have friends and family and neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ—I am not alone.”
            Today look at everything you gripe about and find the blessing.  You will be amazed--and probably a little ashamed.  And maybe those gripes will go away, for at least a little awhile.
 
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1 Thes 5:18.
 
Dene Ward

"The power that we ascribe to these idols that we have set up for ourselves [money, possessions, power, approval] is evident in the way we pour ourselves so devotedly into pursuing their demands and are so wrapped up in fears of their loss. We would willingly go to the end of the earth to do their bidding, and we regularly sacrifice on their altars whatever they demand. They fill our dreams and our nightmares, and they shape our expenditures and our relationships. They are profoundly expensive masters, both in financial terms and in terms of the turmoil that they create in our souls. Yet in the end, like all idols, they are impotent to deliver what they promise or threaten...Tracing back the smoke of our strong desires will lead us to the smoldering fire on the altar we have erected to our idol."

I.M. Duguid, Numbers, 284,88

Every dog we have ever had has loved a good belly rub, but Chloe seems to have taken it to another level.  It isn’t just that she begs for a belly rub, it’s that she thinks God put her here to have her belly scratched, and that scratching her belly may be the only reason He put us here.
            A few people seem to have the same opinion about themselves and the church.  The only reason God instituted a church is to pander to their every need.  It seldom seems to cross their minds that other people have needs as well, and that those needs may be even more critical than theirs.  Chloe wouldn’t care if the house were on fire if she saw us running outside.  She would still scamper up, plop herself on the ground and roll over—isn’t that why we came outside, to scratch her belly?  A Christian who thinks he is the center of the universe is behaving the same way.
            Others think the only reason God put them in the church was for the church to listen to them.  They never ask a question in a Bible class, or offer a comment to stimulate discussion and deep thinking.  Instead they have all the answers and are happy to tell you exactly how things ought to be done, even things that are not specifically spelled out in the scriptures.  They know best.  It amazes me when these are people new to a congregation, who don’t yet know the background and experiences of the people they are trying to advise, often including elders, or who are in their mid-twenties with little life experience behind them.  Kind of reminds me of Chloe who thinks a belly rub is appropriate any time of day, any place, even while you are trying to shoot a rattlesnake that she obviously has not seen.  But she knows best, Boss!
            Then there are the ones who think their feelings, or the feelings of a family member, are all that count.  The church is supposed to pussyfoot around and never offer exhortation or criticism that might “offend” by our definition of the word.  They think they are put here to be stroked and petted and “have their belly rubbed” regardless of what might be happening to their souls.  Reminds me of that passage about people “whose god is their belly”—nothing matters at the moment but how they feel.  I am not about to let Chloe roll over on her back in the middle of a garden row I have just planted that is supposed to help feed us this year, no matter how much it hurts her feelings for me to tell her, “No!”  Some things are more important than her feelings, and if she were my child instead of my dog, I would explain that to her rather than let her do as she pleased and cost us a few hundred dollars worth of groceries. 
            So what do you do about people like that?  You do the same thing the Lord did for you when you were still that immature and selfish.  You tolerate, you teach, you show them a better way with the example of your own service and willingness to accept abuse or take on responsibilities that are not yours but that you do because they need doing and you are there.  You love them in a way they don’t deserve and yes, you rebuke when necessary and hope they won’t act childishly and run off to play somewhere else, where everyone will scratch the belly they offer, and let them be the only ones who matter and the only ones worth listening to.
            The Lord did all that for us, and he expects us to do it for them.  Some day maybe they will learn to be better than a silly little dog who thinks the world is here to scratch her belly.  Didn’t you?
 
And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all. 1Thes 5:14
 
Dene Ward
 

This book shocked me.  Instead of reading all the reasons the Bible does not mean what it says, Kassian carefully exegetes all those passages about a woman's role in the family and the church, and comes up with almost all of the same conclusions I have.  She believes in the hierarchy established by God based upon the creation of man and woman, and tells us exactly why it has to be that way.
            Please reread the above paragraph and in your mind underline almost all.  In the first place, as a Baptist, she believes in Calvinism.  At least twice she tells us that we cannot do good unless the Holy Spirit acts on our hearts (Irresistible Grace).  Then you will find a couple of places where, after carefully and logically going through a passage, she simply asserts something without proof or quotes the passage incorrectly, leading to the opposite conclusion she should have reached.  When it comes to the head covering issue, she reads right over something that for me is the pivot point in my understanding of the text.  With all of these warnings, however, I think you would be like me, shocked to find a modern woman who, for the most part, gets it and does not resent what cannot be changed based upon the order of creation.  And she makes several arguments I have made myself in explaining these things.
            Chapter 12 on Feminism, is one of the most helpful chapters.  She explains the different kinds of feminism and carefully shows their error.  She comes right out and says that "Biblical Feminism" just plain isn't, which I found refreshing coming from a woman.  Her conclusion about that branch of feminism is that if you take their stand, you can ignore any part of the Bible you don't care for.  She is absolutely right, and needs to apply that to her own theology as well.
            This book was printed in 1990.  If you Google it, you can find many different places that carry it used.  I am positive I found my copy in a used book store, I just don't remember where.  I looked up her books on Christianbook.com, however, and could not find it new among the other nine or so of her books listed.  The book is no longer listed on Crossway Books, who first published it, but it is out there and easily found with a little web surfing, if you are interested.
 
Dene Ward

I did a comprehensive study on faith several years ago.  I think I have even written a few posts on the things I learned, but I don't think I ever did one on this aspect of faith.  If I did, it was before I reached the startling conclusion that faith, far from being some sort of mystical quality that can be difficult to define, boils down to simple trust.  Trust that God knows what He is doing, no matter how it feels to me at the moment.  Trust that He has my best interests at heart in a spiritual way, even if it looks like my physical life is falling apart.  I love making discoveries when I study, and I love sharing them.  So here goes.
            I saw many occasions in the Scriptures where things like this were said:  O ye of little faith; I have not seen so great a faith; and Increase our faith.  In some way, faith can be quantified, and, more important to us I think, it can grow.  A little more searching and pondering and I came to the conclusion that some things take more faith (trust) to handle than others.  So maybe we should take note of those things so that our faith will not fail because we were unprepared.
            And as they went on their way through the cities, they delivered them the decrees to keep which had been ordained of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily (Acts 16:4-5).  When we exercise a particular muscle, that muscle will usually be sore the next day.  We can either stop exercising and see an actual decrease in strength, or we can keep exercising and grow stronger.  It seems to me that exercising our "learning muscle" can work the same way.  Sometimes learning hurts because it shows us our weaknesses, our faults, our misunderstandings of the Word.  So what will we do about it?  Keep working and studying and learning, or quit because we don't want to learn something new or what we learn—some "decrees"--may not be to our liking.  So learning new things not only requires us to trust that God knows best whether you agree with Him or not!  Only those without that kind of trust (faith) will rebel.
            We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring (2Thess 1:3-4).  Paul tells the Thessalonians that he boasts about their growing faith and love for each other.  But what is it that is making that faith grow?  Persecutions and afflictions.  I suppose this ought to be a no-brainer.  Of course it requires more faith to handle persecution and afflictions, and those very things are also making their faith and love grow. 
            Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:3-5).  I have always found this passage hilarious.  Jesus says we are to forgive again and again and again, even for the same sin, and the apostles immediately cry out, "Lord, increase our faith!"  These men knew that it would take a lot more faith than they had at the moment to obey that command.  Faith to forgive?  Yes.  Remember, faith is trust, and it takes that kind of faith to rely on God to take care of the wrongs done against us.  Vengeance is mine, he says in Romans 12:19, I will repay.  Do we trust Him to handle our affairs, or do we think we need to take care of it ourselves?  If we find ourselves unable to forgive, then maybe we don't have enough faith (trust) in God to do so, no matter how much we protest otherwise.
            But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life (Jude 1:17-21).  This might be the most obvious case.  We need a strong faith to handle it when people scoff at our beliefs.  How many have fallen because someone called them stupid for believing in God?  How many could not stand up to the crowd and dare to be different?  And how many times have divisions in the Lord's body caused the weak to falter and eventually leave.  "If this is the Lord's church, I don't want any part of it."  If only they had worked harder on "building up" their faith instead of allowing others to tear it down.  When you see these things happening, pray for God to "Increase our faith."  We are trusting in Him, not in fallible, flawed people, because that is what the church is made of.  If you want the perfect group of people, then you had better stay away from it yourself.
            Remember when these times come to shore up your faith.  In fact, start working on it now before the hard times come.  Lack of preparation is no excuse.  If I can find over 200 passages on faith, what it is, how to build it, when we need it most, and the wonderful things it can do for us, so can you!
 
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt 17:14-20).
 
Dene Ward

We eat a lot of soup.  It’s cheap, filling, and healthy.  Even a 400 calorie bowlful is a good meal, and most are far less.  You won’t get tired of it because of the nearly infinite variety. 
            We have had ham and bean soup, navy bean soup, and white bean and rosemary soup.  We’ve had cream of potato soup, baked potato soup, and loaded baked potato soup.  I’ve made bouillabaisse, chicken tortilla, pasta Fagioli, and egg drop soups.  For more special occasions I have prepared shrimp bisque, French onion, and vichyssoise.  We’ve warmed our bones with gumbo, mulligatawny, and clam chowder.  I’ve made practically every vegetable soup there is including broccoli cheese soup, roasted tomato soup, and lentil soup.  And if you want just plain soup, I have even made chicken noodle.  You can have soup every week for a year and not eat the same one twice.
            Not only is it cheap to make, it’s usually cheap to buy.  Often the lowest priced item on a menu is a cup of soup.  I can remember it less than a dollar in my lifetime.  Even now it’s seldom over $3.50.  So why in the world would I ever exchange a bowl of soup for something valuable?
            By now your mind should have flashed back to Jacob and Esau.  Jacob must have been some cook.  I have seen the soup he made that day described as everything from lentils to kidney beans to meat stew.  It doesn’t really matter.  It was a simple homespun dish, not even a gourmet concoction of some kind.
            Usually people focus on Jacob, tsk-tsk-ing about his conniving and manipulation, but think about Esau today.  Yes, he was very tired and hungry after a day’s hunt.  But was he really going to starve?  I’ve had my men come in from a day of chopping wood and say, “I could eat a horse,” but not only did I not feed them one, they would not have eaten it if I had.  “I’m starving,” is seldom literal.
            The Bible makes Esau’s attitude plain.  After selling his birthright—his double inheritance—for a bowl of soup, Moses writes, Thus Esau despised his birthright, Gen 25:34.  If that inheritance had the proper meaning to him, it would have taken far more than any sort of meal to get it away from him.  As it was, that was one expensive bowl of soup!
            The Hebrew writer uses another word for Esau—profane--a profane person such as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright, Heb 12:16.  That word means “unholy.”  It means things pertaining to fleshly existence as opposed to spiritual, things relevant to men rather than God.  It is the exact opposite of “sacred” and “sanctified.”  Jacob understood the value of the birthright, and he also understood his brother’s carnal nature.  So did God.
            What important things are we selling for a mess of pottage?  Have you sold your family for the sake of a career?  Have you sold your integrity for the sake of wealth?  Have you sold your marriage for the sake of a few “I told you so’s?”  Have you sold your place in the body of Christ for a few opinions?  Have you sold your soul for the pleasure you can have here and now?
            Examine your life today, the things you have settled for instead of working for, the things you have given up and the things you gave them up for.  Have you made some really bad deals?  Can you even recognize the true value of what you have lost?  Don’t despise the blessings God has given you.  Don’t sell your family, or your character, or your soul for a bowl of soup.
 
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:17-20.
 
Dene Ward

We had our first opportunity for an overnight with our grandson Silas when he was two.  It was better than a trip to Disneyworld, better than a vacation in an exotic place, better than dinner in a five star restaurant, better than just about anything you could possibly think of.  Do I sound like a doting grandmother yet?
            When he woke the next morning, he remembered that it was the two of us who put him in the crib the night before and he called out, “Granddad!  Grandma!”  And there was that smiling face and those big blue eyes under a head full of tousled blond curls. 
            My one concern that weekend was understanding what he was saying.  He has been talking since he was one, but sometimes in a language we can’t quite figure out.  It sounds for all the world like a real tongue.  It comes complete with hand motions and facial expressions and he is quite fluent in it.  Unfortunately, we aren’t.
            The last year he has gained more English and less of his personal argot.  For two years old, as he was then, he had quite a vocabulary.  We were doing shape recognition, and he pointed to one and said, “That’s an oval.”  I hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of that when he added, “And that’s a rhombus.”  I quickly flipped through my own mental file card index, trying to remember that one from high school math classes. 
            That morning after we got him out of bed, he turned to me and said, “Can I have bussenwuddy?”
            I was stumped.  Maybe I didn’t hear right, I thought.  So I asked, “Bussenwuddy?”
            His little eyes brightened and he started jumping in my lap.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy!”
            Okay, now what?  Bussenwuddy...  I flipped through those file cards in my mind once again.  What have I heard him talking about that sounds like bussenwuddy?
            Finally it came to me.  “Buzz and Woody?” 
            Another excited little bounce.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy.  Can I?”  He wanted to watch the Toy Story DVD.  I felt like a successful grandmother--I had figured out what my two year old grandchild wanted.  Do you think anyone but a grandparent would have tried so hard?
            God is trying to talk to us every day.  He has put it down in black and white.  All we have to do is pick it up and read it.  Some of us won’t even be bothered with that.  Then there are the ones that will pick it up, but then put it back down in frustration.  “I can’t understand this.”  Well, how hard are you willing to try?
            I have had women leave my classes because “They’re too much work.”  Keith has had people complain about his classes because, “They’re too deep.”  Really?  I would be embarrassed to say such a thing if I had been a Christian for two decades or more. 
            Don’t I care enough about my Father in Heaven to put a little effort into it?  It isn’t that He expects us all to be scholars, who love to put our noses in books for hours on end.  But He does expect us to care enough to spend a little time at it.  He expects us to be willing to push ourselves some. 
            No, it isn’t all as simple as, “Do this,” or “Do that.”  Sometimes He throws a bussenwuddy in there (Matt 13:10-13; 2 Pet 3:16).  But if you really care about communicating with your Father, if talking to Him really excites you, if He is the most important thing in your life, then you will exercise that file card memory of yours and flip through it occasionally, striving (a word that denotes effort, by the way) to learn what He expects of you. 
            Knowledge alone doesn’t make you a faithful child of God.  You don’t have to be a genius with a photographic memory, but you do have to love your Father enough to be willing to work at building a relationship with Him.  Pick up your Bible today, and show Him how much He means to you.
 
And he said to me, "Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel-- not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. Ezekiel 3:4-7
 
 Dene Ward

Some have called eggs the perfect food with their own perfect container.  I recently heard a TV cook say they are “hermetically sealed.”  Eggshells themselves are stronger than their reputation says.  After all, birds sit on them for days, and it takes a good deal of effort for a baby bird to peck its way out of one.
            However, it doesn’t take more than one instance of carelessness to discover just how easily they will break.  Mine usually make it home from the grocery store in one piece, in spite of being placed in a cooler with a couple of bags of groceries and an ice block, and then traveling thirty miles, the last half mile over a bumpy lime rock lane.  Only once in nearly 30 years have I opened my cooler to find eggs that have tumbled out and cracked all over the other groceries.
            You must also be careful where you put them on the counter.  Most recipes require ingredients at room temperature, so I take the butter and eggs out a half hour or more before I plan to use them.  I quickly learned to put them in a small bowl so they couldn’t possibly roll off the countertop onto the floor, even if I did think I had them safely corralled by other ingredients.  Somehow they only roll when you turn your back.  As I recall, that recipe required a lot of eggs, and suddenly I was short a couple.
            Because of their relative fragility, we have developed the idiom “walking on eggshells.”  When the situation is tricky, when someone is already on a short fuse, we tread carefully with our words, as if we were walking carefully, trying not to break the eggshells under our feet.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  No one wants to hurt a person who has just experienced a tragedy.  No one wants to carelessly bring up a topic that might hinder the growth of a babe in Christ.  Certainly no one wants to put out a spark of interest in the gospel.  But sometimes the need to walk on eggshells is a shame, especially when the wrong people have to walk on them.
            I suppose every congregation has one of those members who gives everyone pause; one who has hot buttons you do your best not to push;  one who seems to take offense at the most innocuous statements or actions.  The shame of it is this:  in nearly every case I can remember, that person is over 50, and most over 60.  “You know old brother so-and-so,” everyone will tell newcomers.  “You have to be careful what you say around him.”  Why is it that younger Christians must negotiate minefields around an older Christian who should have grown in wisdom and forbearance?
            Do you think God has nothing to say about people like this? 
            The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. Pro 12:16
            Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Pro 10:12
            Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Pro 19:11
            Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor 13:7
            Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet 4:8.
            Now let’s put that all together.  A person who is quick to take offense, who is easily set off when a certain topic arises, who seems to make a career out of hurt feelings is a fool, imprudent, full of hate instead of love, divisive, and lacking good sense.  That’s what God says about the matter.  He didn’t walk on eggshells.
            On the other hand, the person who overlooks insults, who doesn’t take everything the worst possible way, who makes allowances for others’ foibles, especially verbal ones, and who doesn’t tell everyone how hurt or insulted he is, is wise, prudent, sensible, and full of love.  Shouldn’t that describe any older Christian, especially one who has been at if for thirty or forty years?
            So, let’s take a good look at ourselves.  Do people avoid me?  Am I defensive, and quick to assume bad motives?   Do I find myself insulted or hurt several times a week?  Do I keep thinking that everyone is out to get me in every arena of life?  Maybe I need to realize that I am not the one that everyone always has in mind when they speak or act.  I am not, after all, the center of the universe.  Maybe it’s time I acted the spiritual age I claim to be.
            Maybe I need to sweep up a few eggshells.
 
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Col 3:12-14.
 
 

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
As I opened the door to let Dene into our car, I felt something rip at my sleeve near the shoulder and felt the scratch on my upper arm. A large dog had lunged through the partly opened window for me. He broke the rain/sun guard over the window. No blood. Not even a real scratch mark. We were at a medical center, where else these days, and I went in to complain at the desk. Part of being deaf means that I am seldom soft spoken and I was still scared and worried, "What if it had been Dene?" When I got back out, I met the man coming from rolling up the window to leave a smaller opening on his little pickup. I said, unnecessarily since he had obviously come from the lobby where I complained, "Your dog almost bit me, did get his teeth on me." He was apologetic, but I just got in our car and drove away. A few blocks up the road, I put my hand on Dene and said, "I sure hope he never comes to church!" Another block or two, "I should hope he does so I can apologize."
 
Now, you know that I know better if you have read any of my devos. I have preached better for 50 years and done better at least as often as not, but, I have a good excuse, in fact, two or three of them. My adrenaline was still high, I have been bitten before, one requiring stitches, whereas, it is evil to leave the windows up in Florida heat with any live thing in the car, a gap that wide for a dog that big and aggressive is inexcusable, etc.
 
But, do you remember WWJD? Bracelets. Yes, Jesus was angry, but not over a personal injury but over indifference to the disease of a fellow and the refusal to believe (Mk 3:5).
 
So, how many people would you be ashamed to have see your car and the partial plate number they remember in your church parking lot? Or, someone who heard how you spoke to your wife? Maybe a co-worker who sees your goof-off work ethic?
 
If my man did walk in, would I have an opportunity to apologize or would he turn and leave when he saw me across the room?
 
We are responsible for our deeds (Mt 16:27).
 
"Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. " (Prov 14:29).
"​A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. " (Prov 15:18).
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: " (Eph 4:31).
 
Keith Ward