Flight Paths

Have you discovered panko yet?  Panko is Japanese bread crumbs, an extra light variety that cooks up super-crunchy on things like crab cakes and shrimp.  They also cost more than regular bread crumbs, but in certain applications they are worth it.    On the other hand a chicken or veal Milanese needs a sturdier crumb to stand up to the lemony butter sauce, an oven fried pork chop needs melba toast crumbs that will cook to a crunch without burning in a high heat oven, and my favorite broccoli casserole needs the faint sweetness of a butter cracker crumb to really set it off.
            Although none of these dishes are the food of poverty, using the crumbs and crusts of food rather than tossing them out certainly grew out of the necessity of using whatever was at hand to feed hungry bellies for thousands of years, and now we all do it, even when there is plenty in the pantry.  Pies and cheesecakes with graham cracker crumb crusts, anyone?  Dressing to stuff your poultry?  Bread pudding on a cold winter night?  Streusel on that warm coffee cake in the morning?  Bread-infused peasant food has even shown up on gourmet cooking shows in the form of panzanella (salad) and ribolita (soup), both of which use chunks of stale bread to bolster their ability to satisfy appetites.
            That reminds me of a woman 2000 years ago who understood the value of leftovers.  Her little daughter was demon-possessed, so ill she could not travel, but her mother had heard of someone who might be able to help, who even then was in hiding from the crowds on the border of her country.  It took a lot for her to seek him out, first leaving her sick child in someone else’s care, then approaching this Jewish rabbi, a type who had either reviled or ignored her all her life; but a desperate mother will make any sacrifice to save her child.
            Sure enough, even though she addressed him by the Messianic title, “Son of David,” he answered her not a word, Matt 15:22,23.  Still she persisted, and this time she was insulted—he called her a dog.  Oh, he was nicer about it than most, using the Greek word for “little pet dog,” kunarion, rather than the epithet she usually heard from his kind--kuno, ownerless scavenging dogs that run wild in the streets, but still he made her inequality in his eyes obvious.
            This woman, though, was ready to accept his judgment of her, Even the dogs get the crumbs, sir.  Moreover, she understood that was all she needed.  This man, whose abilities she had heard of from afar, was more than just a man, and even the tiniest morsel of his power was enough to heal her child, even from a distance.
            Do we understand that?  Do we realize that one drop of God’s power can fix any problem we have, and more, do we have the humility to accept our place in His plan, even if it is not what we have planned?  Yes, every day I ask for more—more grace, more faith, more of His power to change me and use me, but do I really comprehend His strength?  I would say it was impossible to do so, except for the example of this desperate Gentile mother who, like a widow of her nation hundreds of years before her, had more faith, trust, and humility than the religious men of God’s chosen people (I Kgs 17, Luke 4:25,26).
            And for this, perhaps, God chose her to foreshadow in the Son’s life the crumbling of the barrier between Jew and Gentile, and the inclusive nature of the gospel which had been foretold from the beginning: in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed, Gen 22:17. 
            Do I have the faith and humility to accept God’s plan for me?  One thing is certain—this Gentile mother knew she had nowhere else to turn, and neither do we.
            Even God’s crumbs are enough to satisfy our every need.
 
For this cause I bow my knees to the Father…that you…may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God…him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…Eph 3:14, 17-20.
 
Dene Ward

It only took about 20 pages into this book before I was thinking, "Ho-hum, do I really need to finish this thing?"  But yes, this looked like something one of my readers might pick up in a Christian bookstore, or even a used bookstore, so I made myself get through it.  Happily, once I hit Part 2 (page 57), things improved in a hurry.
            The biggest thing this book has going for it is its practicality, including detailed lists.  When I write blog posts, many comment that lists help them keep things organized in their minds, so I occasionally use one.  Well, this extremely organized author shares with you every single practical detail in several lists showing how she changed herself from an idle, let-life-happen-around-you wife and mother to someone who does her best to make every minute count toward her goal of becoming like King David—"after God's own heart."  As she says, "I am on assignment from God to—" be a submissive wife, support my husband, teach my children, manage my home, and on and on.  If anything will give you motivation, that mindset certainly will.
            Here is my biggest problem with this book:  Mrs. George seems to think that only by following her rigorous methods can we become women after God's own heart.  Unfortunately, even looking back on my younger years, I can tell immediately that not every one of these specific methods would have worked for me in our home and with my family.  I do highly recommend that you look at her method, but then adapt it to your life, your husband, your children.  I think you can find enough in it to help you do that.
            As for theology, since it is not a theological treatise, not too much bears watching out for.  Here and there I wonder if she even knows what she believes theologically about some things.  From what I could find out about her, she is an evangelical something or other, yet some of her statements don't quite match that.  The only thing that really made me sit up and notice was her list of priorities—family first, then God…  Wait a minute!  Whatever happened to "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me?"  So do be on guard just as policy when you read something.
            My copy is the first edition of this book.  There is an updated version.  Mine includes a study guide at the end, and I cannot imagine that a newer version would not.  With care, it might make a decent discussion group or class. 

A Woman after God's Own Heart is published by Harvest House Publishing.
 
Dene Ward

After one of my several eye surgeries, I was actually examined one day by two veterinarians.  Remember, I am one of the prime teaching tools at the University of Florida Medical School.  These young Dr Doolittle’s were doing research in pain.  Their patients cannot tell them how they feel, so they were visiting human post-op cases to ask how they felt after various types of surgery.  It was the only way to know how the animals were feeling.
            My doctor took them to three different patients, an easy case, a moderate case, and then me—the extreme.  I answered their questions with accompanying explanations by my physician, shook their hands, and on they went.  Maybe some child’s pet bunny rabbit will have an easier time of it because of a ten minute delay in my own case—and putting up with a few jokes afterward.
            Isn’t that what Jesus did for us?  Well, no, not exactly.  Instead of asking a few questions, he went through the surgery himself.  How else was Deity to understand temptation, fear, pain, anguish, sorrow, desperation, or even relatively petty things like hunger, thirst, and weariness?  He did it when he counted not being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, Phil 2:6.  He did it by being tempted in all points like we are, Heb 4:15.  It was really the only way.
            And now He knows.  Now He can tell His Father in words Deity can understand what it is like to be human.   Then He can turn around and tell us how to overcome, how to persevere, how to be faithful even to the point of death, Rev 2:10.
            Don’t make His sacrifice be for nothing.
 
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  This same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth, John 1:1-3, 14.
 
Dene Ward

After these things he departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome: and he came unto them; and because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they wrought; for by their trade they were tentmakers (Acts 18:1-3).
            Once again we have a few verses mentioning a particular woman and a boatload of lessons to be learned from her—Priscilla, the wife of Aquila.  And that is the first lesson.  Aquila and Priscilla were always a team.  They worked at a trade together, they taught together (Apollos), and they served together.  Even in a time when we know that the apostles often traveled with their wives (1 Cor 9:5), we read nothing of them, not even their names. But Priscilla was right there working next to her man, and everyone knows her name as a result.
            Next, she was a woman who had a trade—like Paul, she and her husband made tents.  I can imagine the three of them sitting in the agora working on their latest orders, perhaps in one of the very tents they had made.  But her work did not stop her from taking in a stranger—for it seems that Paul did not know them before he encountered them.  In fact, we do not know whether they were already Christians or he converted them when he met them.  If the second, then this new convert did exactly as Lydia did—she immediately began a life of service to others.  (See Part 1.)  She did not use her work as an excuse not to practice hospitality.  And Paul did not come into her home for just one meal; he lived with them for a year and a half.  Not only that, they welcomed the church Paul began there into their home (1 Cor 16:19).
            Aquila and Priscilla moved a lot.  They began life in Pontus, a region along the Black Sea.  When I mentioned this in class, one especially industrious lady checked the longitudes and latitudes and discovered that Pontus lay along the same latitudes as our state of Maine!  I am sure they saw snow in the winter, something we rarely associate with Bible lands.  Somehow they made it to Rome, but were expelled with all the other Jews by Claudius.  They then traveled to Corinth where Paul found them, but when he left 18 months later, they went with him to Ephesus.  He left them there as he continued his journey but came across them once again back in Rome sometime after the death of Claudius (AD 54).  Once again, the church is meeting in their home (Rom 16:3-5).  I knew a family who hosted the church in their home, twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday evenings week after week after week.  That meant keeping the house up constantly, no letdowns when times got busy and life distracting.  No one expected perfection, but there had to be ample places to sit in a configuration for teaching.  Eventually they even built a room on the back of their home at their own expense.  Aquila and Priscilla at work for the Lord's body in a different generation.
            And just like Lydia, Aquila and Priscilla sacrificed their security.  …Who for my life laid down their own necks…Rom 16:4.  We do not know exactly what they did for Paul, but he considered them life savers in such a way that they could have lost their own.  Priscilla did not hide behind her husband's robes.  Evidently, she put herself forward for Paul's sake every bit as much as he did, a truly brave woman.
            These early Christians we know so little about can easily put us to shame.  Here we are complaining about hot (or cold) auditoriums, hard pews, and boring preachers while they lived in so much less wealth and comfort and were willing to give up their things, their homes, their identities, even their lives for the cause of the Lord.
            And we have even more of them to study…
 
Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1John 3:16).
 
Dene Ward
 

The competition weekends I have often judged were always fun and uplifting.  It is wonderful to hear the future stars of the concert stage make two full days of beautiful music.  Which does not mean it was an easy weekend.  90% of the performances we heard were mechanically and technically perfect.  Memory lapses were rare and finger slips even rarer.  So how do you choose a winner?

Actually, at the end of each session when our panel of three compared notes, we had all picked out the same three or four that distinguished themselves above the others:  pianists who played with feeling; who made the melody sound like someone singing; who understood how to shape phrases, not just separate them; who had the musical ear and technical ability to voice their chords; students who played the non-melody hand so far in the background it was as if it were in another room; who knew the difference between a Mozart forte and a Beethoven forte; who understood that rubato meant a proportionate time-stretching like the lettering on an inflated balloon, not just a rush followed by a drag.  In short, the winners were those who played not only with perfect mechanics, but with artistry as well—they put their hearts into it.

God’s people seem to have had a problem with that for a long time.  The prophets were constantly reminding them that while God expected absolute obedience, form worship was not acceptable.  If perfect mechanics were all that mattered, he could have created a world full of robots to fill the bill.  I hate, I despise your feasts and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies, God told Israel.  Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and your meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts, Amos 5:21,22.  Why?  Because it was a mechanical following of ritual. All during their “worship” they were saying, When will the new moon be gone that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, dealing falsely with the balances of deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat, 8:5,6.  Their religion did not affect their hearts and certainly not their everyday lives.

Jesus dealt with their descendants, not only by blood, but in attitude.  Were the Pharisees right to require exact obedience to the Law?  Jesus said they were:  The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat.  All things whatsoever they bid you, these things do, Matt 23:2,3.  He even praised what we might consider petty exactitude:  you tithe mint, anise, and cumin…these things you ought to have done…Matt 23:23.  But like their ancestors, their heart was not in it.  Hear Jesus’ whole indictment:  Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint, anise, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith; but these things you ought to have done, and not left the other undone.

Correct mechanics are important.  A lot of folks in the Bible learned that the hard way.  But our hearts are more important, according to Jesus.  It is easier to just go down a list and do what we are told than it is to monitor our hearts and keep them in line—but God has never had much truck with laziness either.  I didn’t give out any prizes for mechanical playing those during those competition weekends.  What makes us think God will give them out for mechanical worship?
 
“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?  Shall I come with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, and ten thousand rivers of oil?  Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:6-8
 
Dene Ward

A special entry from our guest writer.   This one could be very useful as you grow in your ability to study God's Word.

A. Know what it says before you even think about thinking about what it means—whether “IT” is a verse, a paragraph or a book.

1.  Diagram the sentence –Who/What (subject) did what (verb) to whom/what (object). Which of these do the other words modify (go with).
2. List repeated words/phrases.
3. Analyze: Why is it in this order? Where does this “Or” or “Therefore” refer back to? Are there any pivot points that divide one side from another, e.g. “Gal 5 The works of the flesh, the works of the spirit?
4. List words that need more study and thought.
5. Note the context, the broader subject this passage is part of.
6. Note the atmosphere of the passage—confrontational Jn 8, Sarcastic 2 Cor 11, Hostile Ax 7, Instruction 1&2Timothy, Plea Philemon.
7. Be sure your interpretation includes every word and phrase in its natural/normal meaning. Nothing was written without purpose. Stray words and phrases cannot be dismissed, find their purpose.
8. Look for the author’s outline of a book or subject. Your interpretation must fit it. John’s 7 signs, In 1 Cor 8-11:1, the interpretation of10:1-13 must fit the purpose of the section.
9. Note repetition—When the Bible skips so much we wish to know, why is this repeated? e.g. Moses receives the Tabernacle plan (Ex 25-31) and then the building of it is described almost word for word (Ex 36-40); 2Kg 19-20 copies Isa 37-38.

 
B.   Figurative language is a special part of knowing what it says.

1. Words should always be interpreted with their literal meaning unless there is compelling reason to make it figurative. Such as 1) impossibility, 2) is said to be figurative, 3) common sense e.g. God is a Rock cannot be literal.
2. A figure makes only one point e.g. the parable of the sower is talking about what kind of soil one chooses to be and no point can be made about sowing, in fact, the man was a poor sower, The rich man and Lazarus is about the power of God’s word  and points about the afterlife are tenuous at best.
3. Metaphor -- The Lord is my shepherd, neath his sheltering wings….
4. Metonomy – The part is put for the whole or the whole for the part. “Come see my new wheels.” Jesus, “Not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law” Paul, “the word of the cross.”
5. Hyperbole – exaggeration for emphasis. Beam in eye, camel through the eye of a needle, salt lose its saltiness.

 
C. Note the type of literature your passage is in. Each type must be interpreted differently.
Drama: Job, and much of it is false (all the speeches of the friends), so be aware of who is speaking
Wisdom: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, speaks in generalities and its truths are not 100% true, just generally so
Thesis: Rom, Eph, Heb, John, very organized,
Epistle: organized but more casual.
History: Samuel, Kings, Acts; History is written with purpose.

1.  Note the author’s stated purpose Jn 20:30, Gal 1:6-8, 2Pet 3:1, 1Jn 1:4, 2:1, 5:13
2. The Bible is written to persuade: Note how the passage under study fits into the logic of the thing being discussed and determine what we are being persuaded of.

Keith Ward

On this date in 1099, the man responsible for one of the most corrupt systems in the Catholic Church, Pope Urban II (Otho de Lagery), died.  Unfortunately, the corruption did not die with him.  He is the first pope to use something called indulgences, whereby one could supposedly buy their way out of the consequences of their sin.
            To attempt to make this simple, Catholicism teaches that God does not just forgive a sin and it's done with.  The sinner must also suffer temporal punishment, and then time in Purgatory.  But Urban was also the catalyst for the Crusades.  He needed soldiers.  So he declared that anyone who fought in the First Crusade was absolved of all sin.  If you could not go for some reason or other, you simply bought your way out with something called an "indulgence."  Partial indulgences were also offered, which presumably cost less, and a complex system developed wherein they claimed they could calculate to the day how many of your sins had been cancelled by the amount you paid.  Although in the beginning it was assumed one would also perform acts of penance, within a few centuries that part no longer mattered.  Plus, you could even buy a dead loved one out of Purgatory!
            This is one of the things that finally pushed Martin Luther to rebel.  When he hanged those 95 Theses on the church door, indulgences were squarely in his view as one of the worst kinds of corruption in the Catholic Church.  Finally, Pius V abolished them in 1567.  It had become obvious to even the bean counters how venal the whole system was.
            Of course we know that none of this is found in the Bible—not even a place called Purgatory.  God says that when we meet His conditions, He will forgive us.  Period.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, He promised as early as Isaiah (1:18).  Aren't we glad that with God things are so simple?  But today, you still see people creating indulgences, ways to make themselves and their sins not count against them.
            "The church is full of hypocrites."  In my experience that isn't even true.  Yes, we might see a few, but certainly not 100%.  Even the apostles weren't immune from that problem.  And just how does that make it okay to ignore God's commands even if it were true?  It will not cause God to "indulge" your little foibles.
            "It's the way I was brought up.  I can't help myself."  Well, Abraham was brought up by idolaters (Josh 24: 2), but somehow or other he overcame that upbringing and became "the Father of the Faithful" and "the Friend of God."  Both Hezekiah and Josiah were sons of wicked kings who worshipped idols and made treaties with the enemies of God, yet became two of the most righteous kings Judah ever had.  So now, what was that "indulgence" you thought you deserved?
            "The preacher preached a sermon that hurt my feelings."  Jesus hurt a few feelings himself and never apologized for it.  Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Don't you know that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit (Matt 15:12-14).  Jesus said that if they let themselves be offended and did not listen to his teaching and change, that they would be "rooted up," not excused.  Most preachers I know quote the Word of God.  Those words are the ones that "hurt people's feelings."  Jesus doesn't give "indulgences" that will absolve your sin when that happens.  You always have the choice not to be offended, but to repent and change.  Take heed how you hear, Jesus also said (Luke 8:18).
            And it is probably not unheard of for someone to tell a congregation, "I give a whole lot more than any of you.  That means you had better_______ (do things my way, stop preaching about things I (or my family) am doing, etc.), or we're leaving.  I do know of one who told the elders if they didn't get rid of a certain Bible class teacher they, and their contribution, would leave.  If that isn't buying indulgences, I don't know what is. 
          Even the Catholic Church finally realized the sleaze factor in indulgences and got rid of them.  We need to follow suit.  God is a loving and merciful parent, but He is never indulgent toward unrepented of sin.
 
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Ps 1:5-6).
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago. after an unseasonable two weeks in the month of January that left our azaleas and blueberries blooming, the live oak leaves falling by the bushel, and the air conditioner humming away instead of the woodstove, we finally had a night in the thirties and woke February 1 to frost on the ground—and on all those blooms.
            Keith rose earlier than usual to start the sprinkler on the blueberries so when the sun hit them as it climbed behind the trees in the eastern woods, the frost would be washed off and the blooms left undamaged.  He also built a small fire in the fire pit beside them, pulled together from the remains of a fire we had enjoyed the night before with a cup of hot chocolate. 
            Ever since we moved to this plot of ground we have had a fire pit for hot dog fires and marshmallow roasts.  Now with the boys gone, we still like to sit there on a cold night and talk.  We sit there in the mornings too, if coals remain, and some did that day, so, thanks to a considerate husband, I had a fire to warm me along with my second cup of coffee.
            The world was waking up.  Wrens warbled loudly in the shrubs, in between perches on the suet cage.  The hawks cried out as they flew overhead, hunting breakfast.  A neighbor’s cow bawled so loudly I wondered if it needed milking or was just hungry.  Frosted off brown grass may be crunchy, but probably doesn’t offer much nourishment.
            I watched the small fire and scratched Chloe’s furry head.  Suddenly the wood shifted, and the whole fire lowered a bit as the wood beneath completely lost its framework and became nothing but ashes.  Slowly and surely the rest began to burn and fall, and within a few minutes only a twig or two was left glimmering in the white debris beneath.
            One morning recently, when we were sitting by a similar fire planning a camping trip, we suddenly realized that we could no longer plan “twenty years from now” with any reasonable expectation.  I suppose it hit me first when I did the math and thought, if Keith makes it twenty more years he will have outlived all of his grandparents and his parents.  One of my grandmothers lived to 97, but then I realized that I take after my other grandmother more and that would give me only ten more years.
            I am not being morose.  After all, for a Christian, it means the reward is closer, but I think the day it hits you will suddenly change everything you say and do from then on.  It needs to hit you sooner rather than later—life is short, a breath, a wind, a shadow, the grass, the flowers—all of these things are mentioned in scores of places in the scriptures.
            We are just like that small morning fire.  Only half the size of a normal campfire and built on the half burnt remains of the night before, it was gone in moments.  But it still accomplished two things. 
            It provided some warmth in the early morning chill.  The thermometer next to the house said 37 that day, but Keith said the car thermometer, which was not next to a warm wall, registered between 29 and 33 as he drove to work.  In a nightgown, sweatshirt and denim jacket, I needed some warmth while I sat there.  So does the world.  It’s up to me to provide that warmth, which translates as comfort and compassion, to everyone I meet.  As Paul said in 2 Cor 1:3,4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  God gives us spiritual life so we can give comfort to others, not just for our own joy.
            The morning was still dim that day, and the fire also provided me with the light to see around me.  God appeared as a pillar of cloud to lead the Israelites during the day.  What about travel after dark?  And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. Exodus 13:21-22.  Isn’t it in the dark of trial, indecision, and despair that we need guidance most?  And when do our neighbors need our help the most?  God means for us to be a light, a city set on a hill, bright enough for all to see even at a distance.
            And then we gradually burn down and the light and the warmth disappear.  Or does it?  Don’t you still remember people who have helped you along the way?  Don’t you still recall their wise and comforting words and their kind deeds?  It only looks like the fire has died, for underneath those feathery white ashes lie smoldering coals that will still warm you and give you light.
            That’s what God expects of this small morning fire we call our lives, and the fire that keeps on giving will be the one that springs to life again on that bright and glorious morning to come.
 
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, Psa 90:12.
 
Dene Ward

Out here in the country, just about every man has a pickup truck.  Most of them are several years old, caked in mud, a little rusty, and dented here and there.  That’s because those trucks are used. 
            We have one too.  It’s over twenty years old, usually wears a coat of dust, and sports a bed with scrapes, dings, and lines of orange rust.  It has hauled wood for our heat and leaves and pine straw for mulch.  It has carried loads of dirt to landscape the natural rises and dips of our property.  It has toted lawn mowers and tillers to the shop for repair.  It has gone on several dozen camping trips, filled to the brim of its topper with tents, sleeping bags, coolers, suitcases, firewood, and food.
            Whenever we go to town, it always amuses me to see a man in a tie get out of a pickup truck, especially if that truck is clean, polished, and less than two years old.  I asked such a man once why he needed his pickup.  “To drive,” he said.  What?  Isn’t that what far more economical cars are for?  He actually took better care of his truck than his car, polishing it to a high enough sheen to blind the driver in the next lane, and vacuuming it almost daily.  Obviously, his pickup was for show.  “A man ought to have a truck after all.”  Why?  Because it makes him a man?
            Before you shake your head, consider that this happens with many more things than pickup trucks.  Why do you have the type of car you do?  Not a car, but that particular one.  I know some people who think the brand is the important part, that somehow it says something special about them.  Why do you live where you do in the type of house that you have?  Is it a big house because you have a big family, because you use it to house brethren passing through who need help, because you show hospitality on a regular basis?  Or is it because someone of your status ought to have a house that size in that neighborhood?
            I suppose the saddest thing I have seen is women who have children because “that’s what women do.”  Their careers or busy schedules or social standing is far more important than the child, who is raised by someone else entirely, with mommy making “quality time” whenever she can spare a moment or two.
            The Israelites of the Old Testament had similar problems.  They wanted a king “like the countries round about them.”  Somehow they thought it made them a legitimate nation.  Do we do similar things in the church?
            Why do we have a preacher?  I have heard people say we need one to look valid to the denominations around us.  Why do we have a building?  “Because that would make us a real church.”  Neither of those things is wrong to have, but our attitudes show us to be less than spiritual, not to mention less than knowledgeable, when we say such things. 
            Why do you have elders?  “Because a church this size ought to.”  That may very well be, but you don’t fix the problem of a church that hasn’t grown enough spiritually to have qualified men by choosing men who are anything but just so you can say you have elders.
            A lot of us are just silly boys who think that having a pickup truck makes them real men.  Let’s get to the root of the problem.  What makes you a Christian, what makes a church faithful, is a whole lot like what makes you a man, and outward tokens have nothing to do with it.
 
"As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, 'Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes--and come it will!--then they will know that a prophet has been among them." Ezekiel 33:30-33
 
Dene Ward

I grew up reading and playing the piano instead of playing outside where it was dangerous to someone who couldn’t see well.  As a result, I was about as physically un-fit as anyone could possibly be.  Even after a genius of a doctor fitted my strangely shaped eyeballs with contact lenses more or less successfully in my mid-teens and I could finally see what lay in front of my feet, I had grown accustomed to sedentary activities and preferred them.
            Then I had babies, gained thirty pounds and could hardly walk across the house—which is not exactly large—without gasping for air.  I decided it was time to change things.  Keith had jogged since I had known him.  My closest friend, who lived just across the cornfield from me, also jogged.  Surely I could do this, too, I thought.  But I did not want to be embarrassed by how I looked doing it or by failure if indeed I couldn’t. 
            We lived well off the highway on property not ours, but whose owner allowed us to use it in exchange for the improvements we made to it—tearing down and hauling off a dilapidated frame house, digging a well and septic tank, and putting up a power pole—and for watching the property and livestock for him since he lived a half mile away.  We were surrounded by his fields, including a small hay field and larger cow pasture.  Neither of those could be seen from either the highway or the neighbors’ homes.  So I drove around the fields and measured them with the odometer.  The hayfield perimeter measured a quarter mile and the pasture three-quarters.  Now I could keep track of my progress.
            Nathan was four, so that first day I set him on a hay wagon in the middle of the hayfield and jogged the quarter mile around.  When I finished I thought I might pass out, or die, or both.  The next morning I could hardly get out of bed, but I did and after Keith left for the meetinghouse I jogged again, but this time I went all the way around plus one fencepost further.  Once again I survived.  The next day I went two fenceposts past one lap, and the next day three.
            The hayfield was a rectangle and I was adding my fenceposts on a long side.  When I finally reached the end of that side, I added the whole short side at once making one and a half laps.  The day after that I added half the other long side, then the other half and the last short side, making two whole laps.  Once I could do three laps I moved to the cow pasture.  One lap around the pasture plus one around the hayfield and I had completed a whole mile.  I could hardly believe it.
            I made that progress in one month and lost ten pounds without even trying.  Within six months I was jogging on the highway, a five mile circuit six days a week.  I had lost thirty pounds.  I was never fast.  The best I ever did was the tortoise-like pace of 5 miles in 47 minutes, but it wasn’t the 47 minutes that got me back to my front door that day, it was the fact that I kept going.
            Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves.  I have known new Christians who expected their lives to change instantly the moment they came up out of the water.  They thought sinful attitudes would suddenly morph into godly ones and temptation would be a thing of the past.  Once the adrenaline rush wore off and life became routine, their lack of speedy progress discouraged them.  No one would expect a person such as I was to run five miles the first time she ever tried, but for some reason we expect that in our spiritual progress.  We do have a lot of powerful help, but powerful doesn’t mean “miraculous.” 
            We seem to expect it of others too.  If a person has a failing as a young man, it will be held against him forever.  The fact that he improves is seldom noticed, but let him slip one time, even if it has been ten years, and suddenly everyone is saying, “There he goes again.”  Many of my brethren would never have allowed Peter to reach the eldership for exactly that reason.  Peter’s impetuosity was a problem for him, as was fear of what others thought, even after Pentecost (Gal 2), but he did improve, and those people noticed instead of saying “again,” or he would never have been an elder.
            Do you think others didn’t have problems after their conversion?  Look at the admonitions in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.  They were still suffering from a background of idolatry.  They couldn’t eat that meat without “eating as a thing sacrificed to an idol” (8:7).  That problem did not disappear overnight.
            Unless we are willing to say that we have reached perfection, none of us believes that it’s how fast we progress that matters.  We all believe that it’s the improvement that God judges.  Some of us have gone farther than others, but if we have stopped and are leaning on the fence, perfectly content with where we are, God will not be pleased with us.  God rewards only the one who is progressing, even if it’s just one fencepost at a time.
 
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil 3:13-14
 
Dene Ward