Flight Paths

As we said last time, the first lament is one of overwhelming sadness.  In a mere 22 verses, the writer uses tears, weep, cry, and mourn a total of five times; distress, affliction and misery a total of seven times; sigh and groan a total of four times, and no comfort and desolate a total of seven times.  That is more words describing grief than there are verses in the lament.
            The speaker is Jerusalem herself.  She is no longer a "princess" but a "widow."   She whose streets were once full of people, is now lonely.  Her friends have become her enemies.  Even her roads mourn because they are no longer traversed by happy families traveling to celebrate the Jewish festivals. 
            In verses 8 and 9 she recognizes her sin, but at this point seems more embarrassed at the disgrace than anything else.  The pagans have seen her nakedness so she "groans and turns her face away."  "The Lord is in the right," she says. "I have been very rebellious, BUT…"
            Look at poor little me.  God has been so hard on me.  Everyone is laughing at me.  No one will comfort me.  See my suffering.  Yes, she is suffering badly, far worse than any of us ever have, but something is missing, even in her confession of sin.  She has more to learn about the purpose of punishment and the correct way to view it. 
            However, the grief itself is not wrong.  God has made that plain throughout his Word.  Even righteous men are shown to grieve, Abraham, David, Hezekiah, and Paul among them.  Even Jesus cried.  Paul told the Roman brethren to "Weep with those who weep," not look down on them and rebuke them for crying.  The promise we have ultimately is that God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes—then, not now.
            But our grief is to be different.  "We sorrow not AS those who have no hope" (1 Thes 4:13), not "We sorrow not."  And if on occasion, our grief is caused by our own sin, as with these people, we have an even larger obligation in our grief.  Godly sorrow works repentance (2 Cor 7:10).  These people are still working on that.  Eventually they will get there, but not quite yet.
            God made us to grieve.  It is human nature to miss a loved one, to be frightened by a bad diagnosis, to be overwhelmed by a loss of physical things, and especially by a spiritual loss.  It is even correct to grieve in such a dramatic and lengthy way as these people did.  As sinful as they were, when you read these laments and see what they went through, you still feel compassion and pity for them.
            But as with everything God made, He made grief to serve a purpose.  It can bring repentance, it can bring strength, it can bring clarity, and help us learn priorities.  Use it, not as self-pity, but the way He intended. 
 
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! ​Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps 126:4-6)

Dene Ward        

My Tuesday morning class just finished a study of Lamentations, the first study of that book I have ever done.  Which means, of course, that I learned a lot of new things, and despite this being some of the saddest material in the Bible coming as it does immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, I have fallen in love with these little gems.
            That is the first thing I learned.  Lamentations is not one book that we have divided into five chapters.  It is five separate psalms of lament.  Once we figured that out we decided to study each one separately rather than go seamlessly from one to the other and perhaps have to stop in the middle of one if class time ran out and lose the train of thought.
            Another thing we learned:  each lament is an acrostic poem.  The patterns are not always the same, but the use of the Hebrew alphabet is prominent in them all.  In numbers one and two, each stanza has three lines and the first word of each stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, all 22 in order, making 22 verses in our English Bibles.  Number three is a bit more complex.  Each stanza has three lines and each line within the stanza begins with the same letter that is next in the Hebrew alphabet, making a total of 66 verses in our English Bibles.  Number four follows the pattern of numbers one and two except each stanza has only two lines instead of three.  Then you reach number five, which is not an acrostic in the strictest sense, but which still has 22 stanzas in a nod to the Hebrew alphabet.
English poets are prone to look down their noses at acrostic poems as contrived and uncreative.  They served a real purpose in their time.  Those people did not have Bibles lying on their coffee tables.  They were used to listening and memorizing.  Knowing what letter the next stanza began with was a useful tool in that memorization. 
            Acrostics also had literary symbolism.  Using every letter of the alphabet meant a full expression of the emotion under discussion, in this case, grief.  After all this expressiveness, from A to Z we might say, nothing remains to be said.  And a study of these five poems will show you that is so.
            Number one is a poem of overwhelming sadness.  After we went through the verses and the figures of speech, the repeated words and synonyms and the nuances of expression, I read the poem aloud to the class.  They began reading along with me, but one young woman suddenly sat back, closed her eyes a second, then opened them and listened even more intently.  This poem will cut you to the heart.  You will want to weep out loud with this conquered people.
            Number two will shake you to the core.  Anger, fury, indignation, and other synonyms for the wrath of God appear several times both as nouns and verbals.  Enemy, foe, swallowed up, without pity, without mercy leave no question that what has happened is the doing of an angry God.
            Number three dwells on punishment, the reason for all this devastation and ruin, but suddenly turns close to the middle to remind the people that God is faithful.  A good God still punishes sin.  He would not be good if He did not.
            Number four brings home the consequences of breaking the Covenant.  Drawing heavily from Deuteronomy 28, the writer shows them item by item that God had warned them that this would happen, that making a covenant with the Creator involves the personal and corporate responsibility that the people had sworn to so many centuries before.
            Number five rounds out the collection.  Finally a humbled people feels remorse and repents.  They beg God for restoration and renewal, and the writer leaves it with a Hebrew idiom that seems to indicate that God's response will be positive.  After so much pain and terror, there is finally real hope.
            Do you see how the writer covers all the bases with these psalms?  Not only in the acrostics within the poems, but also by changing his focus from one psalm to the other, he has shown every possible emotion the people were feeling after the Babylonians destroyed their nation. 
And that means we can use these words in our own struggles too.  We will all have trials in our lives, but most of us will never experience what these people did.  Surely if their grief can find expression and relief in these words, ours can too. 
 
All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised.” “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. (Lam 1:11-12)      
 
Dene Ward

"That's where I draw the line."
            I suppose you are wondering about context.  Context doesn't really matter here.  This was a Christian who, in the course of a class discussion, let everyone know that when it came to serving the Lord—it didn't really matter what area--there was a line she would not cross.
            The problem is that Jesus does not allow his disciples to draw a line.  He expects us to give him a blank check.  We are to choose him over family, over wealth and status, even over our own lives.  Again and again he tells those who won't put him first that they are "not fit for the kingdom."
            ​Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37).
            No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:24).
            As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62).
            And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me " (Luke 9:23).
            Jesus does not want half-hearted disciples.  They had to be fully committed to him.  He expects them to eat and drink him, i.e., live on him, survive on him and him alone—the true meaning of John 6.  And that means there must be no drawing of lines.  Just to be plain about it, if I won't give him that, he doesn't want me.  When everyone left after that difficult sermon, Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, "Are you going, too?"  He wouldn't even cave for his favorites.  They understood that when you commit to Jesus, that's that.
            I have a theory about all of this.  If there is a line I will not cross when it comes to my service to the Lord, sometime or other in my life, he will make sure I come up against it.
 
…But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life, Rev 2:10, NLT.

Dene Ward

Now pay attention!  “Irregardless” is not a word; the word is “regardless.”  “Preventative” and “attentative” are not words; the words are “preventive” and “attentive” without the extra “ta” syllable.  You go to an “orientation” session to become “oriented,” not “orientated.” 
            You are not “laying” in bed.  If you were, there would be a pile of eggs there.  Today you “lie” there, yesterday you “lay” there, and in the past you “have lain” there.  However, if you are talking about something you put in the bed, then today you “lay” it there, yesterday you “laid” it there, and in the past you also “have laid” it there. 
            The words are not pronounced “comPARable” and “irrePARable,” they are pronounced “COMparable” and “irREParable.”  And at least until recently when the lexicographers finally gave up and put it in as an allowed pronunciation, the word was correctly pronounced “off-en” without the T, rather than “off-ten” with the T.  At least know that the pronunciation of the word “often” has been corrupted, please. 
            “Hopefully the weather will clear up” is an impossibility.  The weather cannot do anything hopefully, and that is the word being modified in that sentence.  What you mean to say is, “I hope the weather will clear up.”  “Hopefully” used at the beginning of a sentence is almost always wrong.
            You cannot “bring” something to a place you are not at; you TAKE it there.  When you feel ill, you feel “nauseated.”  When you are “nauseous,” you are causing nausea in others, although my dictionary tells me that it has been used wrong for so long that they have created a second definition for it.
            You know what is so aggravating about all of this?  I am not a grammarian.  I did not have a grammar class after ninth grade.  The English classes after that were all literature and writing.  Any real grammar scholar could find fault with me.  I was, in fact, re-reading an old devotional the other day and found a split infinitive in it.  I am just an ordinarily educated person when it comes to grammar.  So if I know all these things, what in the world happened?  I see and hear them in what purports to be professional speech and writing all the time.  It’s one thing for us common folks to be less than careful about how we speak, but shouldn’t the pros have standards?
            Before you start on me for being too picky and fussy, let me remind you that I am in good company.  Paul and Jesus both made arguments based on word choice and grammar.
            In Galatians 3:16 Paul uses the number of the noun “seed” to prove that Jesus was the fulfillment to the promise to Abraham.  Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.  He said not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.  In the first major controversy in the new kingdom, when Jewish Christians were attempting to force Judaism on Gentile Christians as necessary to salvation, that was important.  Pretty picky of Paul, wasn’t it?
            Jesus proved to the Sadducees the resurrection of the dead when he quoted God as He spoke to Moses on Mt Sinai from the burning bush, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  At that point, those men had been long dead, yet God spoke of them in the present tense.  Jesus said, But as regarding the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?  God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, Matt 22:31,32, an argument based solely on the tense of a verb.  Good thing it had nothing to do with “laying!”
            We have a tendency to think of those people in “Bible times” as primitive, ignorant folks.  Jesus made a claim of Divinity to them using two words, which of necessity were in the present tense.  Before Abraham was, I AM, John 8:58.  Did they catch something so fussy and nitpicky?  I think so.  They took up stones therefore to cast at him.  I wonder if today’s generation would have just shrugged their shoulders and walked on.
            It is permissible to be picky with the Scriptures.  We are in good company when we are.  Be careful however, that your pickiness is not about pettiness.  “Picky” and “petty” are not the same.  Jesus and the apostles were one, but not the other.  Study the difference, study your scriptures.  God did choose words to communicate with us, not subjective feelings.  Aren’t we glad?  There can be no mistake if you have it down in black and white.
           
Truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass from the law till all things are accomplished.  Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.  But whoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven, Matt 5:18,19.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
Mark Twain described normal life, “A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle for bread…the burden of pain, care, misery grows heavier year by year.”
 
Burdens of making a living, Burdens of anxiety because there is never enough to be secure, Burdens of sickness & death, Burdens of the boredom of the constant search for amusement, Burdens of the futility of it all in the face of death; these and more will obscure and mute the joys of life.
 
“Come unto me;” not, “believe my teaching” or “attend church,” but, “COME UNTO ME.” Many who call themselves Christians and do many good works fail to find the promised rest because they never answered the unreserved commitment, “COME!” One who believes and even teaches the exact truth may yet fail to place himself absolutely and only in Jesus’ hands.
 
Rest does not mean things in life suddenly start working out or health problems respond to prayer.  Rest means there is a relationship so pure and good that these things no longer matter.  We have a goal and a meaning to life while the world has nothing.  We have a hope for something more than life while they have darkness. 
 
If your life seems futile; if it feels like you can barely keep up with all the things and with all the problems, it may mean you should re-commit and, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”  
 
“Come” is not a “one and done” invitation.  Paul still wrote to long time faithful Christians, "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end 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 ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God." (Eph 4:17-19 sel.)
 
Despite all his accolades, Mark Twain died in the futility he described.  Why should you?
 
The mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory: WHOM we proclaim (Col 1:26-27).
 
Keith Ward
 

I have been clipping and redeeming coupons since we got married.  I have a file box and a system.  I search ads faithfully and use them to plan both my shopping trip and my meals.  And I don’t fall into the coupon traps—if I don’t need it or won’t use it, or did not want to try it anyway, I don’t buy it.  We got by for 50% less than most families with teenage boys.
              I seldom have one of those shopping trips you hear about, where the woman buys $100 worth of groceries for $2.98, primarily because I do not buy a lot of processed, prepared foods.  I have a garden; I bake from scratch.  My grocery bill rarely includes anything but staples, meat, paper goods, and the few produce items we do not grow, like onions, potatoes, and garlic.  You don’t find many coupons for those things, but occasionally I make a “coupon coup.”  There was the jar of mustard, regularly $1.29, on sale for 99 cents.  A 50 cent coupon brought it down to 49 cents.  There was the week Publix actually put their bakery’s key lime pie on sale for $4.50.  I had a $2.50 coupon PLUS they gave away a free loaf of French bread with every pie.  So for $2.00 I got a key lime pie (regular $7.49) and a loaf of French bread (regular $1.99).  I couldn’t have made a key lime pie alone for any less than $4.00, and theirs is nearly as good.
            Then I raided the drug store, the popular hang-out for those who are aging.  Keith needed glucosamine chondroitin.  $30.00 a bottle.  It was buy one get one, plus I had a $3.00 coupon.  We needed vitamins, regular $6.00 a bottle.  They were buy one get one, plus I had a $2.00 coupon.  They also had my favorite shampoo on sale, one I hardly ever get to buy because it is usually $4.29 a bottle.  They had it for $3.00, plus I had a coupon for $2.00 off 2, plus, for buying two, they automatically gave me another $1.00 off anything in the store at the check-out, effectively making the price $1.50 a bottle.  Finally we needed some low dose aspirins--$4.69 a bottle.  I had a $4.00 coupon, making that 69 cents.  Are you keeping track?  I bought $86.29 worth of items for $38.19.  Don’t tell me the time I spend clipping and sorting isn’t worth it.      
            Redeeming coupons brings to mind another sort of redemption.  I am always thrilled when I get a high quality item for a low price.  I would never pay full price for a crushed box of crackers or a dented can of tomato paste; nor would I for wilted produce—maybe half price for overripe bananas because they still have some use.  But top dollar?  Forget it.
            I am so glad God was not as stingy as I am!  He redeemed me, paying full price not for dented cans, crushed boxes, or even overripe bananas.  He got the culls, the totally useless, rotten, spoiled produce; he paid top dollar for something no one else would have even considered buying. 
          I think, when you have “been good” all your life, perhaps “raised in the church,” as we are prone to say, it is hard to realize our worthlessness, and really appreciate what has been done for us.  An old song goes, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die; would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?”  I noticed that in one of the newer hymnals that last line has been changed to “such a one as I.”  Unh-unh.  We need to get the “worm” back in there, because that is how low we were—totally worthless and disgusting--when Jesus redeemed us, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold…but with precious blood, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, 1 Pet 1:18,19.  Truly the Lord is gracious.  In fact, we got the real bargain—precious grace for irregular, damaged merchandise!
 
For while we were weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, maybe for a good man someone would dare to die.  But God commends his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Rom 5:6-8     
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer, Laurie Moyer

Dear One,
Have you ever noticed the three different kinds of people described in Acts 17 who heard the Gospel message? There were those in Thessalonica, who wanted only traditional ideas. There were the Athenians at the end of the chapter who wanted to hear all new things. Sandwiched in the middle were the Bereans, who were more concerned with whether or not the things preached were true. I know your heart well enough to know that you are a truth-seeker, and I applaud you for it. It is too easy for those in your age group to feel the pull toward the Athenian perspective. I do not say that all open-minded young people are sensationalists, but new ideas and approaches do have a built-in level of excitement. May I caution you not to let those aspects overpower your perception of their core worth.

It has always been the case that younger generations have a certain amount of impatience with, if not downright disdain for, a traditionalist approach to their life. In many ways this is a natural outgrowth of making up your own mind about things, and as such is healthy. It would be naïve to think our parents did not feel a bit of this themselves at this age, and so they will understand our independence. However, if an idea is absolutely new and never thought of before our day, we really should view it with some skepticism. Even the Ecclesiastes writer said there is nothing new under the sun, and that was thousands of years ago. He was right. The older you get you will see more of this. In terms of Biblical interpretation, we know that truly new doctrine will never be the correct view. Fee and Stuart cleverly phrased it as “a text can never mean what it never meant.” The Bible means what it was always intended to mean. Perhaps we rediscover what we had overlooked in what it says, but it would be the height of arrogance to insist no one else has ever seen what we realize today. Truth is truth and stands the test of time. It is not invalidated by the fact that others have taught it for years or that we have not discovered its significance.

Can we take this caution in principle and apply it to modern conventional wisdom? We are in an age of new discoveries of scientific truth, but often the recommendations we see in our digital communities are not so much based in verifiable fact as what seems to make sense to us in some logical way. College students are justly warned against a dependence on internet research in their search for truth because anyone can write anything online and have an audience for it. There is no clinical verification process and all you need is an assertion of fact or an argument that sounds logical to have a following. One example is in the area of medical recommendations. I simply do not have the expertise to speak definitively on the value of one “all natural” cure above another. What makes sense to me could involve a dangerous over-sight of other factors, and I need to recognize my own limitations in this area.

The business of selling snake oil has been popular and lucrative for ages. I am sad to say it is alive today and preys on the desperation we feel to fix our every ailment. I do not advise that young people try to be skeptical of everything they hear, just to be cautious. Even within academically accepted circles we see confident assertions of contradictory information. Not too long ago butter, nuts, meat, and coffee were all considered to be bad for you. Medical research today says the opposite is the case, with certain clarifications.  I believe this illustrates the fact that there are many more factors involved in what makes something better or worse for us than we usually calculate into these decisions. God has made us far more complicated than any of us know and we need to suspend some of our certainty and hubris and give place to the possibility that what we “know” today may not be as certain as we think it.

Children have the upper hand on us. They know they are in the process of learning. They are accustomed to being guided by another who has more information and their quest for those answers can be relentless.  Do not let that go to your head. You are the child. Your Father in Heaven is the one with the answers, but He does not need to say, “I don’t know, daughter.” He may say, “It is too much for you right now. Just trust me.” That is an answer we can be content with and one our children sometimes need to be willing to accept in return.
your loving friend,
Laurie Moyer

“There is a way that seems right to man, but the ends are the ways of death.” Psalm 14:12

Laurie writes for her husband Doy's blog, Searching Daily.  You can fins this and many other great articles there (including Doy's!).

I have written more than once about society's demeaning of men in the entertainment industry—all fathers on sitcoms are buffoons who need to be rescued by their wives and children every week.  Go watch a few reruns of Tim the Tool Man Taylor on "Home Improvement" and tell me I am wrong.  But things have gotten even worse in the past decade.
            To prove the point, the BBC ran several experiments showing viewers violence against both men and women.  The violence against women was roundly condemned while the violence against men produced very little response and even some laughter.  On two British television shows, "The Talk" and "Jeremy Kyle Show", the audiences laughed about a woman emasculating a man and about another man being forced to jump off a three story balcony after an abusive partner locked him out.  Amazon sells tee shirts saying, "Boys are stupid.  Throw rocks at them."  (They really do—I found one.)  Then there is the hashtag "KillAllMen" which generated all sorts of misandrous comments like "Men are trash," "Being a man makes you an automatic failure," and "Go kill yourself and increase the male suicide rate."* A recent conversation with some of my Christian women friends certainly did not go this far, but a certain amount of disrespect for the male gender was evident nonetheless.
            In our culture it has become increasingly difficult to be a man.  A man must constantly watch every word he says and every action he does, walking on those proverbial egg shells, while the women around him can insult, tease, or even "bash" him, and somehow, no one cares.  So what am I to do for my poor husband?  How can I be the friend he needs and a haven to come home to?  How can I make his life easier?
            1.  First, don't be so sensitive.  He might need a lesson in why women don't appreciate male humor, but as a Christian who is supposed to love the man, maybe I need a lesson in being kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Eph 4:32), and letting love cover a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8).  Maybe I can be as strong a woman as I claim to be and not get my feelings hurt by every other word he says, leaving him wondering what he did wrong.
            2.  Second, realize that "different" doesn't always mean "wrong."  My husband has taken over a lot of the household chores since he retired.  He says that since he is underfoot, causing more mess and taking more of my time, that he should help out more.  He doesn't always do it my way.  More than once I have had to remind myself that just because he doesn't put the pots in the cabinet the way I do doesn't mean he is stupid or ignorant or even wrong.  There is no valid reason to constantly criticize someone who gets a job done just because it isn't the way we would do it.  Insisting on my way instead of compromising is not a sign of strength—it's a sign of stubborn arrogance.
            3.  I am sure you have heard the old joke:  If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman to hear, is he still wrong?  I know some women who seem to think they have been put on this earth to correct men—from interrupting the stories they tell to correct even minor discrepancies to stopping every other word in a simple conversation to correct them or their grammar or their—anything and everything.  Is it really that important?  And are you absolutely sure that what you remember happening is the way it really happened?  We have kept a journal for 45 years.  When I go back to some of those first ones, I am stunned by how wrongly I remember things.
            4.  Be careful how you speak to or about him in front of people.  I have been horribly embarrassed by having a wife scold her husband like a child in front of me, and mortified for a husband when a wife told, not a funny story, but a humiliating story about him.  And these were Christian women!  Why do we do these things?  To make ourselves look better than he in the eyes of others?  What we really do is make ourselves another example of what not to do as a loving, supportive wife. 
            5.  Tell him how much you appreciate him. Our culture is doing its best to make our men feel useless, or even evil in some sort of generic way.  Haven't you heard of "toxic masculinity?"  For some women that is accomplished simply by his being male.  Don't fall in step with such ungodly behavior in the name of promoting women's equality.  Feminism in our culture is more about putting men down than raising women up.  Right now the only one who can make him feel like the man God meant him to be may be you. 
 
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life (Prov 31:11-12).
 
Dene Ward
*All this information is reported in the blog counsellorinleeds.co.uk, written by Phil Mitchell, December 31, 2020 post, "Stop Saying Kill All Men."
 

I have just spent an inordinate amount of time on the telephone with a person I have never met in my life.  I let her tell me what to do and I obeyed instantly.  I believed everything she said.  I trusted every decision she made for me.  And this is not the first time I have done this.  I have made it a habit in the past twenty years.
            I have decided that you need to have a bent for technology in order to get along in the world now.  Gone are the days when you can go out, buy something, take it home, plug it in, and it works.  Everything has to be set up, programmed, deprogrammed, downloaded, uploaded, or in-loaded.  I obviously do not have the mind for it.  When my computer asks me a question, I cannot even comprehend the words much less know the right answer.  Which is why we have a contract with Geek Squad.
            Geek Squad was originally an independent company founded on June 16, 1994 by "Chief Inspector" Robert Stephens to offer computer-related services for its clients. It later merged with Best Buy, retaining Stephens as the primary corporate leadership for the subsidiary.  Evidently there are people out there who have a talent for these things and don't need companies like Geek Squad.  We are neither of us one of them. 
            They have saved our bacon more than once.  Those techs on the phone are amazing.  They can understand my poorly phrased, obviously ignorant questions.  They can tell me exactly what my computer screen looks like, what to click on, and what will pop up next.  They can find their way through twenty different steps I never even knew existed, and magically make my computer do what it’s supposed to do.  It has happened over and over for years now.  That’s why I go to them as soon as I have a problem, and do exactly what they tell me to do, no questions asked. 
            We have never carried on personal conversations.  I have no idea what their qualifications are.  I have never taken a regular computer class from them. All I can see are results--when I need help, they always have an answer and it always works.  And so I even listened to them the time one said, “Ma’am, you need a new computer.”  We went out and bought a new computer.
            I wonder if we can’t learn something about evangelism from all this.  Maybe it isn’t about your qualifications as a Bible scholar.  Maybe it isn’t about people wanting to sit down and study with you on a regular basis, at least not at first.  Maybe it isn’t about you being able to come up with Bible verses for every occasion.  Maybe it isn’t even about the fact that every Sunday they see you load up the family and head off to church.  Maybe the thing that matters is your life.  Maybe because they see that you can handle whatever situation you find yourself in with grace and endurance, they know you have something they don’t have.  Maybe because they see your marriage last for years and years in spite of the trials of life, they know that the two of you have more than just a commitment to each other, but to something larger.  Maybe because they see that your children have turned out to be good solid citizens, they realize that what you believe as a family has lasting value.
            Because they see all that, they will come to you for advice.  They will ask how you do it.  And when they do, then you can talk about those scriptures in the Bible.  Then you can discuss the eternal purpose of God from the foundation of the earth.  They don’t want what you have to sell until they see the results in you. 
            Do you want to save souls?  Show them how it’s done.  If you cannot "work out your own salvation", why should they listen to you?
 
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ…Phil 1:27
 
Dene Ward

On June 15, 1215, on the banks of the Thames River at Runnymede, England, King John of England was forced by a bunch of rebellious barons to sign the Magna Carta.  Although it was annulled by Pope Innocent III two months later, it set the foundation for the future English legal system and influenced our founding fathers in the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Precisely because of the Magna Carta we have freedom from unlawful search and seizure, the right to a speedy trial, the right to a jury trial, the writ of habeas corpus, and protection against the loss of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, among other things.  For a "failed" document, it certainly accomplished a lot.
            However, as we often point out, while we should be grateful for our rights under law, claiming our rights at the expense of souls is wrong, not right.  For instance…      
            When Covid began its ugly reign, we had a problem.  Wearing a mask was everyone's handy-dandy solution.  Not in this house.  When one of you is deaf and needs to read lips, it simply won't work.  And then there is the issue of claustrophobia I have had my whole life.  Warm stale air equals suffocation to my mind.  HOWEVER…
            When we go out, when we buy groceries, when we have a doctor appointment, when we assemble with the saints, if we are asked to wear a mask, we do.  Some people think that makes us "sheep."  Why would we act this way?  It's simple if you read your New Testament.
            When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!  (1Cor 6:1-8).
            No, masks have nothing to do with suing one another—at least that I have heard of yet.  (But give it time.)  The passage is not really about that.  The prohibition against making lawsuits against a brother is just one specific example of ceding my rights because the mission of the church and its reputation in the community around it is more important than anyone's rights!  It is the Lord's church and the mission He gave that body of believers that matter.  Notice what Paul says:  "Why not rather suffer wrong?"  When I demand my rights about anything that hurts the cause of Christ, I have forgotten not only who I serve, but the very definition of being a disciple—following in your Master's footsteps.  What if he had claimed his rights as Creator instead of climbing up on that cross?  Where would we be then?  He suffered wrong, and was defrauded, to save us.
            Paul goes on to say in that passage above, that when I claim my rights regardless of the consequences, I am actually defrauding my brethren because of how I have made them look to the outsiders around us.  I am the one who has wronged them.
            When I do wear a mask, I am being the follower of the Suffering Servant, who, by the way, was called the Lamb of God.  If voluntarily wearing a mask makes me one of His lambs, I am happy to be called a "sheep."
 
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. (Matt 10:24-25).
 
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.  (1Pet 2:21-24).
 
​To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.  (Luke 6:29).
 
Dene Ward