Flight Paths

I hardly ever make a post on my personal Facebook page.  I have it so I can keep up with my children and have a separate page for this blog more than anything else.  I might post ten times a year and that's it.  Recently, I remembered why.
            I had spent the morning picking up groceries, steadily growing more and more alarmed at the price increases.  Finally a jar of mayonnaise took my breath away.  $8.62!!!  So I came home and made a humorous little post about needing to carry around smelling salts to revive myself every other aisle, hoping it might give everyone a chuckle, something sorely needed these days.  I should have known better.  My attempt at consolation turned into an argument about where one should and should not shop.
            A few years ago I wrote a blogpost about an old hymn whose words had been changed from the lyricist's original ones due to an editor not knowing his Bible, evidently.  I carefully explained the original words (and where I found them), and what they should mean to us.  I got a dozen argumentative replies that eventually deteriorated into an ongoing argument between various commenters (none of whom I knew).  After three years, the argument was still going strong with people checking in to add more vitriol to a debate about a hymn!  Something that should have been helpful, not a cause of strife.  So I deleted it.  It was no longer fulfilling its purpose, if it ever did after that first ugly comment.
            I am not sure what I am getting at today.  Maybe it's watching people miss the real point over and over and over on Facebook, on blog comments, in Bible classes, and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon to take the discussion off the rails into a chasm of futility that creates division instead of bonding us together in the same fight.  And so many of these people claiming to be Christians! 
           But then, they did it to Jesus, too.  How many times did a compassionate healing become an argument about their Sabbath rules?  How many times did a lesson on love and grace turn into a hate-filled diatribe?  How many times did a point offered for consideration become a point to misconstrue and argue about, even to make an unwarranted accusation about?  Why are we so quick to jump in with criticism?  Why do we think it is our God-given role to say, "Yes, but," and pontificate on the other side when it isn't the one that is most needed?  Why do we always think that we are the ones who can say it the right way and make everyone understand and that we know better than anyone else how to say something?  Some of us are drawn to arguments like a magnet.  As Paul told Timothy, some of us have an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions (1Tim 6:4).
            Maybe today I am just giving in to a weariness about the mess the world's in not just on Facebook, but everywhere we look--except when we look at our Lord, whose simple message can fix anything—if we let it.  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt 11:28-29).
 
Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2Tim 2:14).
 
Dene Ward

The statements of Jesus are some of the most twisted and misused statements you will ever find.  I am sure you have instantly thought of "Judge not that you be not judged…" Oh, if that were the only one!
            How about this one?  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith… (Matt 23:23).  Usually that is quoted when people think that the little things don't matter, that as long as we have good hearts (the "big thing"), we can do as we please otherwise.  But once again they are misusing the scripture.  In the first place, that is not the whole the verse.  Immediately after this, Jesus adds, but these you ought to have done and not left the other undone.  Jesus does not excuse us from following God's Word to the minutest detail—"these you ought to have done"—he simply stresses the larger matters.
            It is not that difficult to understand.  What would you say are the larger things a good husband should do?  Sexual faithfulness probably tops the list, especially since God makes that the one thing that can dissolve a marriage in His eyes (Matt 19:9).  But most women would probably add things like a responsible, mature provider, a good father, and certainly not an abuser.  All of those qualify as "the weightier matters", I think.
            But are there any little things you might like in a husband as well?  Remembering special days, especially anniversaries.  Maybe even remembering your favorite color or favorite flower.  You might find it especially endearing if he brings you a cup of coffee in bed every morning before he leaves for work, or brings home a hand-picked bouquet of wildflowers on an ordinary day, "out of the blue".  Certainly these are all small things, things most people would consider nice but unnecessary to a good marriage.  But what do those things say?  They say I love you, I care enough to remember things that are special to you, I will go out of my way to do something sweet for you—I have picked burrs off the slacks he wore when wading through those wildflower fields, but I didn't mind one bit!
            If that is how you feel about things that are small, what makes you think they mean any less to the God who created us and made us in His image?  Don't quote only half of Jesus' statements, twist them to mean something he did not, take them out of context, or any other of a half a dozen ways people do injustice to his words, for Jesus also says, the little things do matter.
 
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven… (Matt 5:19).

Dene Ward

Several years ago I received a pot of rust colored chrysanthemums as a gift.  I enjoyed them for many days before they began to fade.
            “Well that’s that,” I thought as I placed them on the outside workbench so Keith could salvage the dark green plastic pot for other uses.  By the time he got to them, they were brown and withered, as dead looking as any plant I had ever seen.
            Keith cannot stand to throw things away.  “It might come in handy,” he always says as he pulls things out of the trash.  That is why he stuck those dried out flowers in the ground beneath the dining room window.  Yet even he was amazed when a few days later green leaves sprouted on those black stems.  It was fall, a mum’s favorite season, and before long I had twice as many as I had started with.
            Fast forward to Thanksgiving, a year later.  I now had a bed full of rust colored mums about two feet square.  The next year the bed was four feet wide and my amaryllises were swamped.  Keith built a raised bed about eight feet square, half of it for the mums and the rest for a plumbago, a miniature rose, and a blue sage.  That has lasted exactly one year.  The plumbago, rose, and sage have been evicted by the mums and need a new home.
            What started as one six inch pot of mums, withered and brown, has become 64 square feet of blooms so thick they sprawl over the timbers of the raised bed into the field surrounding it.  Whenever I cut an armful for a vase inside, you cannot even tell where I cut them. 
            We often fall prey to the defeatist attitude, “What can one person do?” Much to the delight of our Adversary we sit alone in the nursery pot, wither, and die.  Yet the influence we have as Christians can spread through our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our communities.  The good deeds we do, the moral character we show, the words we do—and don’t—say make an impression on others.  Those are the seeds we plant, never giving in to the notion that one person cannot accomplish anything.  The attitudes we show when mistreated and the peace with which we face life’s trials will make others ask, “Why?  Can I have this too?  How?”
            Plant a seed every chance you get.  If a six inch pot of dried up mums can spread so quickly, just think what the living Word of God shown through your life can accomplish.
 
And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God?  Or in what parable shall we set it forth?  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth,  yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof, Mark 4:30-32.
 
Dene Ward

The expression "the fruit of the Spirit" comes from Paul's letter to the Galatians.  These are his words:  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control… (Gal 5:22-23).  The mere recital of these Christian graces should be enough to make the mouth water and the heart beat faster.  For this is a portrait of Jesus Christ.  No man or woman has ever exhibited these qualities in such balance or to such perfection as the man Christ Jesus.  Yet this is the kind of person that every Christian longs to be.
            This, then, is the portrait of Christ, and so—at least in the ideal—of the balanced, Christlike, Spirit-filled Christian.  We have no liberty to pick and choose among these qualities.  For it is together (as a bunch of fruit or a harvest) that they constitute Christlikeness; to cultivate some without the others is to be a lopsided Christian.  The Spirit gives different Christians different gifts…but he works to produce the same fruit in all.  He is not content if we display love for others, while we have no control of ourselves; or interior joy and peace without kindness to others; or a negative patience without a positive goodness; or gentleness and pliability without a firmness of Christian dependability.  The lopsided Christian is a carnal Christian, but there is a wholeness, a roundness, a fullness of Christian character which only the Spirit-filled Christian ever exhibits.

John Stott, Authentic Christianity
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If husbands and wives are supposed to be partners on this journey to Heaven, we sometimes have a funny way of showing it.
            One of the most amazing examples Sarah set is not one we often talk about, and when we do, we miss what to me is the most important part.  Peter tells us in 1 Pet 3:6 that she called her husband “lord.”  Today that might translate better “sir,” but notice the only example Peter had of this:  Gen 18:12, where she is in a tent, away from the three “men” and talking “within herself.”  When she realizes these men heard her when they normally should not have been able to, she realizes who they are and becomes afraid.  Do you get it?  When she called him “lord,” she was not speaking to Abraham, but about him to herself, behind his back, so to speak, where he could not have heard her if he had wanted to.
            Now here is the point ladies, how do we speak about our husbands when they are not around?  Can my neighbors list his faults by now as well as I can?  Can my children?  Can my co-workers relate every mistake he’s ever made because I make sure I talk about them?  Does anyone who has anything to do with me wonder why I married such a jerk in the first place because that is the impression I have given them about this man I claim to love?  I have seen women, as the Proverb writer warns, tear down their houses with their own hands, or in this case, their own mouths.
            Do we even stop to consider the pictures others must have of our marriages by the things they see and hear?  No one should ever have to endure the embarrassment of standing in my kitchen while I berate my husband in front of them.  Do I ridicule and complain about his efforts to support me as well as the gifts he gives me?  Do I constantly correct every little detail—even those that do not make a whit’s worth of difference—when he tries to tell a story?  Do my friends know that I secretly do things he disapproves of?  We are not the daughters of Sarah when we act this way.
            But Peter does not let the husbands off the hook either.  In the same chapter, he tells them to dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman… v 7.  There is nothing honorable about the label, “my old lady.”  And here is a clue for you:  women do not generally appreciate male humor.  It is one thing to be able to laugh at yourself, but another thing entirely to have someone constantly make a laughingstock of you.  If she asks you not to tell a certain story yet again, or call her by a certain nickname in front of people, then don’t—not if you honor her.
            I have seen too many a man use up the prime of a woman’s life, then somehow think he has “outgrown” her.  More likely, his head has outgrown him.  But one of the most common complaints I hear is, “She let herself go.”  That always translates to gaining some weight.  Do you know how she gained that weight?  Fixing you the meat and potatoes meals you insist on and carrying your children.  Excuse me if the brag that you can still wear the same size jeans as you did in high school does not impress me—the only reason you can do that is you are fastening them six inches lower!  No wonder Malachi called such treatment “treachery” Mal 2:15.
              What in the world do we think we are telling people about our marriages and about ourselves when we engage in such insults?  After all, we do not live in a culture of arranged marriages—we chose our partners.  In actuality, we are insulting ourselves.
            Peter tells husbands that their treatment of their wives will affect whether their prayers are heard.  I have no difficulty believing the same is true for a wife’s treatment of her husband.  I don’t know about you, but I need God to hear my prayers.  I ask for forgiveness regularly and it’s the only way I know I can get it.  How about you?
 
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.  This mystery is great…nevertheless do each one of you love his own wife even as himself, and let the wife see that she reverence her husband.  Eph 5:31-33  
 
Dene Ward

This was a more interesting read than I ever expected it to be, primarily because it approaches the subject in a way I have never heard before. 
            First, the sub-title, discipline as a gift, came completely out of the blue for me.  A gift, really?  It had always seemed to be, mainly from the way I had seen it handled before, an odious chore that most completely ignored.  But the author makes you see it from a completely different perspective.  Discipline defines the church by setting boundaries, something every child psychologist should readily recognize.  Children who know the limits are happier children because they have a sense of security.  It also helps define who we really are.  As Mr. South says, "Any group, religious or otherwise, which claims unique status must have and maintain clearly-demarcated boundaries so all can recognize who is not in the group…No discipline, no church."
           He also shows discipline as a command that must be obeyed just like any other if we dare to call ourselves a New Testament Church.  "In spite of an abundance of New Testament teaching, churches today are largely negligent in the practice of corrective discipline, which is nothing less than disobedience."
Then we see that our negligence in this is not just disobedience, but a lack of trust in God who has told us to practice it.  Presumably, He thinks it works, and who are we to question Him?  It also shows a lack of love for those in sin, and a "tendency to accommodate ourselves to our pluralistic society."  Okay, now he has my attention.
           But in doing these things, he carefully sets forth his arguments with far more scripture about church discipline than I was ever aware of, and with a sense of sorrow for those who are lost and could be saved if we followed God's plan.  Covering each passage from every angle, he makes the point that the Bible writers discuss more than one type of discipline which are each dealt with in a different way.  "One size fits all" does not work in such a delicate, yet momentous, topic. 
           I have hardly done this book justice with this review.  It should probably be read by every Christian in the country, certainly every elder and preacher.  Don't waste any time getting to it!
            Church Discipline:  God's Gift for a Healthier, Holier Church is published by DeWard Publishing Company.
 
Dene Ward

My Daddy did not have Alzheimer's, but he did end his life with dementia.  What he did and did not remember was mystifying.  One day he asked about Silas, a great-grandchild he never saw past the age of 2, and the next he would ask me to take him to visit his mother, who died when Silas's uncle was not quite a year old and his daddy not even born.  One day he showed me all his important papers so I would know where to find them when he passed, and the next he did not know how to write a check.  Seeing this intelligent man reach the point that he did not even know how to use a toothbrush was devastating.
            But he never forgot the Lord.  With his severe heart disease, some days he could not get out of his chair.  Some days he was exhausted from just putting on a pair of socks.  My mother had to make hard decisions about what he could and could not do, where he could and could not go due to his health.  But any time he felt reasonably able and she told him it was Sunday, he would ask, "Can we go assemble with the saints today?"
            Yes, that is exactly how he said it:  "Can we go assemble with the saints?"  He was so steeped in the Word of God that he talked like the Word of God.  And he never forgot how to do that. 
            I hear a lot of people fussing about the older hymns, especially the somewhat stilted wording.  They make fun of the "King James lingo."  Do you know why those hymns are worded that way?  Because the poets who wrote them were steeped in the Word, and all they had was the King James Version in the 18th and 19th century.  Just like my Daddy, they knew their way inside out and upside down through that Bible.  They could quote more scriptures than most of us read in a whole day.  They made allusions to verses that go completely over our heads because we are so ignorant of the Word we claim to love.  "Ebenezer?!" I heard someone say with a snort one time.  "Who in the world even knows what that means?  Why do we have to sing such archaic songs?"  I would be ashamed for anyone to hear me say such a thing.
            This is not a diatribe against the newer songs.  I like some of them, but not all of them, just as I don't like all of the old ones.  It's about content.  Seems that today when someone lauds a song as one that comes straight from the Bible, most of the time it does—one verse, or even one phrase, repeated a dozen times.  Well, I think, at least it does come from the Bible, and there is a lot to be said for that, even if it can't compare with the quotes and allusions in the older hymns (like "Ebenezer").
            No, what I am saying this morning is that I need to be so steeped in the Word of God that I talk like it.  I should be able to make allusions to verses or even quote them as a normal part of my speech.  I should be able to use "the lingo," just like my Daddy did, without a second thought.  It just came out of him and it should just come that way for me, and you, as well.  Do you really love the Word of God?  Then talk like it.  You might use a newer version, but you can still sound a whole lot different than all the unbelievers out there.  In fact, that's what the Lord expects of you.
 
if any man speaketh, let him speak as the oracles of God… (1Pet 4:11).
 
Dene Ward
 

Our first morning in Apalachicola I peeked out our wooden blinds toward the Apalachicola Bay and onward to the Gulf.  The sun was just creeping up out of the water and lighting up the second floor veranda below us with a golden sheen.  Looking down and across the street with its sparse and slow moving traffic was a shop we had seen as we wandered the afternoon before.  "Old Stuff" the sign proclaimed and we could hardly wait to cross the street and give it a look.
            As we walked in a local policeman was coming out.  "If you can't find it here, you can't find it anywhere," he told us, and I believe he might have been right—assuming you were indeed looking for "old stuff."
            The shop area was not huge, but the owner had lined up table after table jammed against each other, and you could walk up and down the single-file-wide aisles and look at the things he had piled on them and beside them, and in some cases above or below them.  We saw huge old ice tongs—the kind the iceman would have used when he brought that block for your icebox.  We saw a real scythe.  This city girl is not sure she would have known what it was if Keith hadn't told me.  There was an old adding machine with what looked like at least 100 buttons on it.  A stack of LPs sat next to another of comic books, including the original "Iron Man," and behind them stood a crossbow.
            There was carnival glass, Depression glass, candy dishes of every size and shape, and an antique 8 place setting of china for a mere $75.  There were pull-up metal ice trays, metal serving trays with painted ads for Coca-Cola, and cast iron implements of every sort.  There were old soda bottles, bowls full of old silverware, and Emily Post's book, Etiquette.  A pile of early 20th century sheet music sat next to an ancient accordion.  Old dolls with porcelain heads and eyes that close when they recline, sat next to toy trains and model planes, jacks, and tiddly winks.  And that's not even the half.  One separate room held tools I had never seen, and probably never heard of, in my entire life.
            Keith asked the old gentleman about the soda bottles and what he got for them.  "Depends on their age," he said.  "The later ones go for about $5, and the older ones for up to $25."  Each.  We have a couple dozen of those $5 bottles ourselves.  The kind you used to pay a 10 cent deposit on.
            If respect and honor are measured in dollars, isn't it funny, or not, that the same old gentleman could probably walk down any street in our country and not command half the respect those old things in his shop do?  And why?  For the same reason his "old stuff" does get respect--because he is old.  In any other venue, our society wants nothing to do with the old.  Even those who are old want nothing to do with it—they do their best to get rid of its evidence with hair color, plastic surgery, and wrinkle cream.
            But the Bible is full of commands to respect the elderly—or else.  “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. (Lev 19:32)
            And more than that it tells us to walk, to live our lives, in the old paths.  Thus says the LORD: Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls... (Jer 6:16)
            There is much value in old things.  But there is even more in older people, and in older ways of doing things—if they are old because they come from the Ancient of Days, a God who has been and always will be, and to whom we owe the utmost glory, honor, and respect—not by shouting, "Hallelujah!" but by obeying his ancient and everlasting word.
 
“As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. ​A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. (Dan 7:9-10)
 
Dene Ward

As mentioned yesterday, we recently spent a few lovely days in Apalachicola.  Our children pooled their resources and gave us an anniversary gift certificate for a turn of the 20th century inn, Florida cracker style with large windows and wrap-around verandas and white wooden rockers, antique furniture, narrow, steep stairways (no elevators!), and a widow's walk.  Our room had a four poster bed with bars for mosquito netting, wooden-slat blinds, a chamber pot (just for decor), a clawfoot iron tub and a pedestal sink.  The floors were all original long leaf pine and black cypress, complete with creaks!  Despite the authenticity, it was completely comfortable, well, except maybe for Keith having to carry our suitcases up three flights of stairs.
            Located in the center of this small fishing town, we were able to park at the inn and simply walk everywhere.  One day we went to the Orman house, an old home originally owned by the man who practically put Apalachicola on the map.  It is now a "state park" and the ranger was our guide.  This place is not just his job, it is his life.  He has written books on it, and he knows it like it is his own childhood home.  We saw all the furniture, dishes, and even clothes from the original family, up three stories all the way to the locked entrance to the widow's walk. As nice as this home must have been in the 1800s, it amazed us more to find out that it had been the guest house.  When the family's main home was destroyed they had moved into this one.  Being this family's guests was a privilege indeed.
            After we left the house, we began our walk back to the center of town down the residential streets.  Most of the houses were beautiful old frame homes in the same style as the inn—large windows, high ceilings, wrap around porches, and widow's walks, with professionally landscaped lawns. Before long we were taking pictures of ordinary peoples' homes instead of those in the historic district.
            After a few blocks we came upon the Chestnut Street Cemetery.  The cemetery is the oldest burial ground in the town.  It is said to have 560 marked graves as well as many unmarked ones.  Certainly it appeared full to me as we walked around what looked like a haphazard layout on a rough, uneven path shaded by old live oaks.  We had been given a map but it was almost impossible to find some of the graves.  It was equally impossible to read some of the gravestones because they were so old.  We found at least one grave of a woman born in 1700s. 
          Our wandering showed us the final resting sites of people who died in their 60s, 50s, 40s, and even 20s and teens.  We found Confederate soldiers and Union sympathizers lying not 50 yards apart.   We found large plots where the remains of wealthy family members all rested together, and small insignificant stones marking the graves of the poor, among them a marker reading "Rose, a Faithful Servant."  Then, not far from another large family enclave, we found the grave of a woman who had cut her husband's throat—and then her own. 
          We found many, many tiny stones marking the graves of infants, often several from the same family.  In one spot we found three names on one marker, a 40 year old father, his 2 year old child, and 6 month old baby, all victims the same year of a yellow fever epidemic.
          All this reminded me of the fourth Lamentation.  The whole focus of that psalm of lament seems to be that the destruction of Jerusalem did something no reformer ever could—it made all the people equal. 
         Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form was like sapphire. Now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood. (Lam 4:7-8).  The wealthy among them, who neglected and even mistreated the poor, now looked no different and suffered no differently than the poor they had once looked down upon.
          Death does the same thing.  The large, ornate markers over the graves we saw were just as difficult to read due to age as the smaller plain markers, and the bodies beneath them would not have looked one bit better had they been dug up. 
          But death does do this:  it separates the righteous from the unrighteous.  The final destination of the former is far better than that of the latter.  In that they are not equal.  And if anything can finally make us realize that all these things we spend our lives on are pointless unless our work and service is directed toward God, perhaps it is that.  Unfortunately, too many of us learn this a little bit too late.
          If you can find the Chestnut Street cemetery, or one like it, maybe it would do you a world of good to walk through it soon.
 
One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure, his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. (Job 21:23-26)
 
Dene Ward

We had headed out on our trip to Apalachicola in the middle of the week, in late October.  Since Keith retired we have discovered the best times for traveling are any time but the week-end.  Less traffic, fewer tourists vying for the same sights, food, and lodging.  And our own Inn was less expensive midweek, so the gift certificate from our children went further.
            We had decided to take US 98 west along the coast.  As a born and bred Florida girl it seemed a shame that I had never in my life made that trip, winding around on two lane roads bordering the Gulf, watching the waves through and beneath the stilted beach houses, swaying sea oats, and sand dunes.  We prepared ourselves to be relaxed and patient and enjoy the brand new scenery despite miles and miles of bumper to bumper tourist traffic.
            So we headed out early, stopping in Branford, a small town on the Suwannee River with a café featuring an excellent breakfast, including the biggest, fluffiest, tastiest biscuits I had eaten in any café anywhere—the Branford Gathering, if you care to know.  We took our time there, as well, chatting up the waitress about their lunch and evening meals, asking her favorite dish and the best times to eat each of those meals—just in case.
            Then we crossed that fabled river and headed through "Old Florida," not the glitzy Florida of amusement parks, tourist traps, and high end hotels.  This was more like the Florida I grew up in, though decidedly more wooded than central Florida.  The sun flashed metronomically through pencil thin pine forests.  Logging trucks sat rumbling by the side of the road in deep muddy ruts awaiting their load of logs before pulling out on the two lane blacktop.  Pickups passed going the opposite direction, some pulling horse trailers, some boats, and others farm equipment.  Up ahead we would see a green sign telling us we were entering a town—Cabbage Grove, Scanlon, Newport--only to find a convenience store or a gas station, and little else.
            Finally we turned south toward the Gulf, wondering when the traffic would begin.  We wondered that for mile after mile, even after we gained sight of the water.  We kept trundling along at the speed limit, on cruise control, in fact, never once having to hit the brakes for another vehicle.  Somewhere around Carabelle we picked up a car or two ahead of us, but it was probably Eastpoint before we really had any traffic.  As a result we arrived about two hours earlier than we expected, and had absolutely no trouble finding our inn.  We came across the bridge at the mouth of the Apalachicola River and there it stood.
            Apalachicola is a slow, lazy, Southern town.  Diagonal street parking, a lone blinking yellow light, more pedestrians than vehicles and not that many of them.  After finding our room and unpacking, we went for a hike and quickly found the Visitors' Center.  We were the only visitors there.  And that may be the first place we came across the nickname of that area of Florida's Big Bend—the Forgotten Coast.
            You may be thinking, "Forgotten?  Who ever heard of it in the first place?"  As it turns out, Apalachicola was once a very important place.  Between 1840 and 1860 it was the third busiest cotton port on the Gulf, after New Orleans and Mobile.  By 1860 the population was nearly 2000.  And now?  The population in 2010 was still just over 2200.  The railroad no longer runs from Columbus, Georgia, with its tons of cotton, and Apalachicola is suddenly not as important as it used to be.  Shrimpers and oystermen still work the waters, supplying 90% of the oysters consumed in the state.  But without the railroad, the cotton, and the ships offshore waiting for those bales, the town, even the whole coast, never continued growing.  It has become "Forgotten."
            When something is no longer an important part of our lives, we tend to "forget" it.  Not that we really cannot remember it happening, just that we seldom think about it, and certainly never plan our lives around it.  That's what happened to God.  His people "forgot" him.
            God warned them that might happen.  And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deut 6:10-12)
            And sure enough, even that warning did them no good.  But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. ​It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; ​but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. (Hos 13:4-6)
            I wonder if we don't need the same warning.  We live in prosperous times.  Most of us are so wealthy we don't even realize it.  "Busyness" has become a status symbol in itself.  And so our extra classes die on the vine because no one attends, the older men who offer their help in study sit alone and waiting for all the ones who never show up, and our children complain because doing a Bible lesson is "boring."  A very few good women take care of every need among the saints while others have their families, or their careers, or their "me time."
            Do we realize how dangerous this is?  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hos 4:6)  When God is no longer the center of our lives, when pleasing him is no longer our purpose, when knowing more and more about him and his Word so we can serve him even better is considered extraneous, when serving his people is the last thing on our lists and therefore usually undone, we are forgetting God just as those people did so long ago.
            A God whom the Old Testament describes as one whose "lovingkindness endures forever" again and again, eventually ran out of patience with a people who no longer valued him or his law.  Don't think his patience won't run out on us.
 
I will scatter you like chaff driven by the wind from the desert. ​This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares the LORD, because you have forgotten me…(Jer 13:24-25)
 
Dene Ward