I knew he was wrong.  I had bought more Aleve just the week before, yet Keith was fussing because we had run out and I needed it after surgery.  I pulled myself up out of the chair, went into the bathroom, sat in the floor and began systematically emptying the cabinet under the lavatory, determined to prove him wrong.  No Aleve.  Four bottles of Advil, but no Aleve. 

            So later in the evening Keith handed me the pharmacy flyer.  On the sixth page I said, “Aha!” and showed him the ad.

            He gave me a funny look.  “Don’t you dare buy any more Advil,” he said. 

            I yanked the paper back and looked again.  Sure enough, there was an Advil ad where seconds before I was certain I had seen an Aleve ad.

            “Well,” he muttered, “now we know how we wound up with so much Advil.”

            Please don’t tell me you haven’t done the same thing; it will ruin my illusions.

            Yet too many times we do this with the scriptures, and the practice is not new. 

            If anyone thought they knew God’s Word, it was the scribes, Pharisees, and priests.  Yet Jesus told them in John 5:38, 39, You have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him you believe not. You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me.  Notice:  Searching the scriptures is not the same thing as abiding in them.  They searched the scriptures, just as we claim to do, and still didn’t see what was right in front of their noses.  Here is the problem:  You must want to see the Truth before you can see it.

            I wanted to see a sale for Aleve.  The fact that both products started with a capital A, had five letters, including L and V in each, and each came in a blue or blue-ish carton did not make them the same thing.  My pharmacy was not going to give me one for the price of the other, or allow a coupon for one to be used on the other. 

            Do you think it is easy to give up long held beliefs?  I once taught a class where I gave evidence that something they had heard all their lives might not be right.  The tenacity with which they held on to that old belief, trying to find excuses to still believe it, was amusing because it was something that did not really matter.  Yet these were honest women who had time and time again shown a willingness to accept a newly discovered truth.  If that can happen so easily to the honest and sincere, just imagine what might happen if you went into your Bible study having already decided what you wanted to find. 

            You may wind up with a bottle of Advil instead of Aleve, and it just might make a big difference.

But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears that they might not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which Jehovah of hosts had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets: therefore there came great wrath from Jehovah of hosts, Zech 7:11,12.

Dene Ward

            What does it take for me to finally wake up and repent, or just examine myself for faults that need correcting and then get to work fixing them?

            Raising children and now, interacting with our grandchildren, reminds us of a basic truth of childrearing—reward or punishment must immediately follow the deed.  A child’s attention span is short, and the younger he is, the more important the timing.  Even a child younger than one can quickly learn what “No-no” means when it is accompanied by consistent motivation. 

            But are we any better?  Peter tells us that when God delays judgment for sin out of longsuffering and patience but we don’t respond, that we “willfully forget” (2 Pet 3:5-10).  Paul says that when God forbears yet we do not repent, we are “despising his goodness” (Rom 2:4).  It isn’t that we have the attention span of a toddler—we’re just plain stubborn.

            Is that any more mature than a toddler?  We have all seen children who understand the consequences and take them anyway.  We cluck at their lack of common sense, their apparent unwillingness to learn any way but the hard way.  We wonder what sort of adults they will become.

            But you really don’t have to wonder.  You are surrounded by them.  Or, are you one of them?

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11.

 
Dene Ward

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            Did you see the video going around of the mother goose leading her babies up a set of two stone steps somewhere in an urban center?  (She might have been a duck, but I am not a poultry expert and it suits my purposes here to call her a goose.)  Those steps were twice as high as those goslings.  At first the mother waddled on, but soon she realized she was alone so she returned to the steps and watched as each baby leapt to the top of the next step over and over and over—and usually fell back.  It took no less than five or six tries per step for each one, and some many more.  The last little fellow almost had it but then fell onto his back, exhausted.  Did he give up?  No, he got up and kept on trying, and finally, several minutes after all the others had made it, he got to the top of the second step and ran to his mother, who then turned and led her tiny gaggle across the plaza.

            That mother had it easier than you and I do.  She had no hands and arms to be tempted to reach out and help.  All she could do was patiently wait, honking her encouragement.  Too many times we use those hands and arms when we shouldn’t, thinking we are doing the right thing, and our children grow up emotionally frail in the process, with a warped sense of their place in the world—usually the center, they think.

            What would have happened if you had never let go of those little hands as your toddler tried his first steps?  What would have happened if, when he tried to climb, you always came along, picked him up and put him where he was trying to go?  What would happen now if every time something wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it, you came along and made it that way?  Sooner or later he must find out that the world does not run to his schedule not his set of likes and dislikes, and the earlier he learns that the less painful it will be for all of you.

            In his work, Keith has come across many young people who finally found out that their parents could not get them out of trouble as they were hauled off to prison in manacles.  Once, a nineteen-year-old probationer thought he could bypass some of the rules of his sentence, namely his officer checking to see if he was home where he belonged, because “I have a mean dog.”

            “Lock him up,” Keith said.  “That’s your responsibility because I will be doing my job, which is your punishment for your crime.  If you don’t, I have authority to stop the dog any way it takes.”

            “Bbbbbbut you can’t hurt my dog,” he blubbered.

            “YOU will be hurting your dog,” his officer told him, and finally got through.  He did the crime because he thought he could get away with it—mama and daddy had always gotten him out of trouble before.  Now he had to pay the consequences.  I wonder if his parents ever did make him do something he did not want to do as a child. 

            God gave those goslings a goose, a mother who would stand there and patiently wait while her children tried and learned and grew stronger even with their failures.  He gave a goose who would honk her encouragement when they fell flat on their backs, urging them with “love” to get up and try again.

            Some parents don’t have the sense God gave a goose when they raise their children.  What do you think will happen if you fix every problem and adjust every situation to their liking?  As adults they will be persistently dissatisfied and miserable, or constantly in trouble and probably devoid of true friends who are tired of always having to do things their way.  Certainly love them, but “learn” to love them in the hard things (Titus 2:4).  Teach them, discipline them, tell them they can do it and cheer them on.  Add a more “tactile” form of exhortation when necessary.  Give them words of encouragement, of admonishment, of rebuke, of love.  That is why God gave them parents instead of a goose.

Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching…My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Proverbs 4:1-2,20-21

Dene Ward

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Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto Jehovah my God which cost me nothing.

            2 Samuel 24 relates the numbering of the Israelites as commanded by David.  To make a long story short, this sin caused a pestilence sent from God as punishment.  God then told David to offer up a sin offering at a threshing floor owned by Araunah. 

            Aranauh saw the king’s entourage headed his way and went out to greet them, wondering what he could do for his king.  When David explained and asked to buy the property so he could offer the sacrifice, Araunah said, “Oh no, lord.  Everything is yours for the taking, including the oxen for the burnt offering.”

            Then David uttered those words above, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord which cost me nothing.”  It isn’t worship, David meant, when it isn’t mine to give.  It isn’t worship when it’s an extra I keep on the shelf for emergencies.  It isn’t worship if it isn’t something I need for myself.  Service to God should cost me something.

            I wonder what David would say were he alive today.  I bet I know some things he would not say.

            “We have a gospel meeting this week?  I’ll go if it’s convenient.”

            “The price of gas has gotten too steep to make that extra Bible study this week.”

            “That’s just too early for me to have to get up in the morning.”

            “It’s a song service tonight?  I don’t like to sing anyway.”

            “It’s on the way to my activity, so I can stop by the hospital for a quick visit, otherwise...”

            “My neighbor mentioned wanting to ask me about some problems he is having, and I wanted to watch that ball game.  Maybe tomorrow night.”

            It doesn’t have to be inconvenient to count as service; if it did, the most pious time to assemble would be 2:00 AM.  However, if convenient service is all we ever give, you wonder if it truly deserves that description, “service.”

            Did you ever offer assistance and have someone say, “Well, only if it isn’t any trouble?”  Have you said it yourself?  Don’t deny someone the right to “pay” for the offerings they give.  It is often trouble to help someone out—it’s supposed to be!  How much trouble they go to for someone else is a measure of their commitment to the Lord (Matt 25: 40).  The same standard is a measure of your commitment as well. 

            Since we do operate our assemblies on a system of expedients, it is too easy to think that everything should be convenient.  Surely God doesn’t really expect our service to Him to cost us time, money, or pleasures and recreation that are good and wholesome.  We may understand the concept of sacrificial giving on the first day of the week, but how much do we understand the concept of sacrificial giving every day of our lives?

            Because of all He has done for me, I should be willing and anxious to say, “I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.”

Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire. Heb 12:28,29.

Dene Ward

            We had people coming for lunch and Keith was helping me clean the house, particularly the heavier work.  As he walked past the dining table he happened to look at the fixture there, six of those candle-flame shaped bulbs surrounded by twelve rectangular glass plates etched with flowers.  “Looks a little dusty,” he said, and proceeded to clean them one at a time. 

            After he finished he turned on the light and I nearly grabbed my sunglasses.  I had not known the fixture was so dirty.  Those glass plates didn’t look that bad, hanging up above my head.  Boy, was I wrong.  The thing sparkles like it hasn’t in years.   Since I use that table for most of my Bible studies, maybe I won’t have so many headaches now.

            It’s not like I didn’t know it was there.  Certainly I understood the fixture could become dirty.  I have lived here for thirty years now and I know how much dust settles.  On the other hand, it is far above my head.  Like the top of the refrigerator, I never notice how dirty it has become.  I simply take the light for granted—after all, I can still see.

            Have you ever picked up something written by a skeptic or talked to one about the scriptures?  How they see the Bible will amaze you.  “What?”  I have thought many times.  “Where did they come up with that?   How did they get that out of that passage?”  It isn’t just the ignorant taking bits and pieces out of context.  It is their way of thinking that skews their viewpoint.  Of course a “free-thinking, free-loving intellectual” will see the morality of a Christian as a prison.  It takes a man who understands the integrity of temperance to see that other lifestyle as enslavement to self-indulgence.  “I will not be mastered by anything,” Paul says, and we who practice that understand the true liberty found in Christ.

            So how do we clean off the dust and see the light?  Peter, in speaking about the prophecies of Christ, makes a powerful point when he calls the word of God a light to which “you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” 1 Pet 1:19.  We live in the country.  The first comment most of our city-dwelling visitors make after an overnight is, “It sure is dark out here.”  We have learned to see in the starlight, but after hearing them bump around in the night so often, we now lay a small penlight on the bedside table in their room.  The dark can be dangerous—anyone can trip and fall.

            The Word does for us what that light does for our guests.  It opens our minds to the Truth; it helps us see things as they really are, not as the Prince of Darkness would have us think.  It shows us first and foremost our leader and his example.  “I am the light of the world,” Jesus said (John 8:12). “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”

            But having the advantage of that light places obligations on us.

            For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light, Eph 5:8-13.

            You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do [men] light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shines to all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:14-16.

            Do all things without murmurings and questionings: that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:14-16a.

            Look at your light this morning.  Is it dimmed with the dust and film of everyday life?  It is easy to take for granted the life we live in the Lord, to be satisfied with our lack of “big, bad sins.”  We may not be associating with the “unfruitful works of darkness,” but are we “reproving them?”  We may not be doing wrong, but are we doing right?  We may not forget to study our Bibles, but are we “holding forth the word?” 

            Maybe it’s time to do a little cleaning.  I wonder if your neighbors will need their sunglasses when you do.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father…Matt 13:43.

Dene Ward

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            I published my first book of Bible class literature when I was 25 years old.  It has weathered well, but I still rewrote the teachers’ manual just a few years ago, giving this as one of the reasons:  “I have found things I hope no one thinks I still believe.  I really have learned better, I promise!”

            That is embarrassing, but I suppose it would be even more embarrassing if I had not learned better.  That is one problem with writing things down when you are young.  They follow you your whole life.  I worry about the folks who still have that old manual.  What I worry most is that they will have discovered better all by themselves and any influence I may have now will be destroyed because they think I still believe those wrong notions.

            When I was young, I was happy to give advice, too.  I thought I knew every answer because to me everything was cut and dried, black and white, and I was happy to share my vast knowledge.  Unfortunately, my vast inexperience got in the way.  I am no longer eager to give advice.  When someone approaches me asking for some, I instantly send up a prayer, “Lord, please let it be an easy one this time.”  I am willing to help whenever someone needs me, but now I take greater care with my choice of words.  If you are still eager to offer advice, even when it is not asked for, you need to take a step backwards and think awhile.  Realize that God will hold you accountable for the results.

            Nowadays we have something else to worry about—the blogosphere.  I know many who accomplish good things with their web logs, but like anything else we do, we need to be careful.  You never know who will read it, how young they might be, how inexperienced, how ungrounded, how fragile their souls.  Unless you have a foolproof way of limiting access to it, your blog needs to be exactly the way God expects your life to be—a good example that will help and serve, not a poor example that may lead someone astray. 

            Your blog does not come with a built in “tone of voice.”  It does not come with a commentary that spells out exactly what you might mean when something clearly has more than one meaning.  And realize this:  what you perceive as the only possible interpretation of what you have said isn’t!  Your background, culture, and personal baggage make you unable to see in your words alternate interpretations which may be perfectly obvious to others. 

            I have learned all this the hard way.  Not only do I have a blog, but the many words I have written in class literature, devotional books, and periodicals, and the many I have spoken in classes and speaking engagements have sometimes come back to haunt me, though I regularly pray over them, and have others read them first for any problems they might see.  So take this advice, something for once I am happy to share if it will save you from some of the problems I have had—be careful out there.  The world is a smaller place than ever before, and you never know who is listening.

Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment, James 3:1.

Dene Ward

NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page on facebook.

            We’ve done a lot of grandbaby-sitting this year.  With this set of grandparents, that always includes some Bible study time.

            On one of those occasions, Silas and I sat at the table and made a sheepfold full of sheep with construction paper, cotton balls, markers, and glue.  The lesson, of course, was “Jesus is the Good Shepherd,” so we also included a shepherd-Jesus and a wolf-Satan.  On the tabletop we acted out Jesus protecting the sheep from the wolf.

            Not only was I dealing with a four year old, but a four year old boy.  As soon as we disposed of the Devil, Silas exclaimed, “Raise him from the dead so Jesus can kill him again!”  On that afternoon, the Devil died at least a dozen times. Eventually he stayed dead, but if nothing else, Silas will remember that Jesus can protect us from the Devil.  I just hope he also learns when fighting is appropriate and when it isn’t, and that the war a Christian engages in is spiritual in nature.

            Some of us have as little discretion as a four year old.  God has furnished us with a formidable sword, His Word (Eph 4:17; Heb 4:12).  But like Peter, we often wield the wrong sword.  While we know better than to hack people to pieces with a real weapon, we stab our interested neighbors in the hearts with brutal barbs and verbally assault the newborn Christians who haven’t had the time to learn everything we think they should have in ten seconds flat.  We slash the weak because they are easy prey and instead of sowing the seed among the sinners who need it most, we skewer them with sarcasm and roast them over the coals of a threatened Hell, expecting the Lord to pin a medal of valor on our zealous chests.

            Yes, there is a time to swing the sword of the Spirit, especially when the weak and innocent are threatened or when the Lord Himself is affronted, but when we fight just for the sake of fighting, the Devil is winning instead of losing.  “Put up your sword into its place,” Jesus told Peter, “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

            Be strong and courageous.  Take up the sword and fight.  But don’t wield the wrong sword at the wrong time for the wrong reason.

And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will. 2 Timothy 2:24-26.

Dene Ward

(For hints, help, and instructions on using this blog, click on the FAQ/Tutorial page on the left sidebar)

We are continuing our progress through the psalms and came across the phrase “for thy name’s sake” in number 79:  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for thy name’s sake. 

            The whole psalm bases its appeal on the fact that God is the one being scorned when His people are defeated by the nations.  The psalmist certainly had it right—those people who had slipped so far into idolatry and all its vile and attendant practices could not possibly think that God would save them based upon how faithful and righteous they had been.  The only possibility of salvation was to throw themselves on the mercies of their God, to remind Him that it was a personal affront to Him when His people were conquered. 

            The nations have come into your inheritance…your holy temple they have defiled…the dead bodies of your servants have they given to the birds of the heavens for food…render sevenfold into the laps of our neighbors the taunts wherewith they have taunted you.  And in keeping with that, the psalmist then asks for forgiveness, not for the people’s sake, but for God’s name’s sake.

            I looked up that phrase and found it several more times in the collection.  What was God asked to do “for His name’s sake?”  Pardon sins, 25:11; lead in paths of righteousness, 23:3; preserve life, 143:11; lead and guide, 31:3; deal on my behalf and deliver, 109:21.  Herein lies a lesson we need—all these things, including pardon and deliverance, God does, not because we deserve them, but because of Who He is.  We have nothing to bargain with any more than those fickle people of old.  We, too, have sinned against a loving Father, often in a rebellious and disrespectful way.  We may not bow down to an idol, but we love the world as much as they did, follow its example as if we fear to be different from it, and let it seep into our minds to the point we no longer even recognize sin.

            I hear too many brethren in the midst of a trial ask God, “Why, when I have tried so hard to be faithful for so long?”  We just don’t get it.  One sin will damn a soul.  It forever makes us unworthy to be in the presence of God.  It breaks our covenant with Him as surely as a broken contract today.   God is Holy, He is righteous, He cannot tolerate sin.  But lucky for us, God is love, too, and because of Who He is, we have hope.

            When the trials come, when the fear mounts and the sorrow overwhelms, this is what we say to Him:  We know we do not deserve it.  We know you are far above us and our frail existence.  Please show the world your essence.  Please help us and comfort us and deliver us, not for our sakes, but for your name’s sake.  Otherwise we don’t have a leg to stand on, and we know it.

"I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25

"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Isaiah 48:9

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7.


Dene Ward

Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress: Incline your ear unto me; In the day when I call answer me speedily. Psalm 102:2.

            I don’t know how many times I have said that to God, or at least something similar.  “Now, God. Please take care of this now!”  Yet another sentence in the same prayer was probably something like, “Please be patient with me, I’m really trying.”  Avenge me of my adversaries immediately, but don’t avenge my sins for Yourself until I have had time to repent—a self-serving double standard if there ever was one.

            God does not operate on my timetable.  He does not operate on yours.  Because He inhabits eternity (Isa 57:15) He sees and knows when the time is right.  He is not limited by living only in the present.

            Can you explain the fact that God did not send Nathan to David for about a year after his sin with Bathsheba?  Uriah was dead, David had married Bathsheba, and the child they made together had been born.  Perhaps God knew it would take that long for David to be receptive to Nathan.  Perhaps He knew that holding his small son in his hands would make David’s heart softer.  Who knows why, but that is the way God chose to do it, while in a similar circumstance the Corinthian church was commanded to withdraw from an adulterous brother the next time they met together.

            As for us, sometimes we cannot know why God allows things to happen when and as they do.  I can often see later on that things turned out better than if they had happened on my schedule instead of God’s, but nearly as often I cannot.  I am left to wonder.  The good that has been accomplished may not become evident until I am dead and gone.  I simply must trust that God knows best.

            Patience in the Bible is not about waiting quietly.  The patience of Job was noisy indeed.  Patience in the Bible is about endurance, about keeping on till the end, about being steadfast even when you don’t understand, and about trusting God’s timetable when your own makes a lot more sense to you. 

            Think of Noah who built that ark waiting for God’s promised flood for 120 years.  I wonder what his neighbors were saying after just one year, or how much they sneered after ten, much less 120.  Think about Abraham, who received a promise that was not fulfilled in his lifetime, or for a thousand years afterward.  Think about Sarah and Elizabeth, women who wanted children more than anything else, but did not receive them until old age had made it seem impossible.  For a Being who inhabits eternity, “impossible” does not apply, and time is immaterial.  Remember them and wait on the Lord.  He will save you, in His way, and in His time.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!  Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!  Psalm 27:13,14

Dene Ward


(For hints, help, and instructions on using this blog, click on the FAQ/Tutorial page on the left sidebar)

 NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page.

            At the end of every gardening year I always end up with extra plum tomatoes and nothing to do with them.  My pantry is full of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and even tomato jam.  So what else is there?  Now that I have a grandson who is a manic dipper of anything he can pick up in his chubby little fingers, I had a sudden epiphany.  “Ketchup!” I said to myself.  “Make the boy some ketchup.”

            So I found an easy recipe—not a quick one by any means, but once you get past the initial chopping and measuring stage, all you do is stir once in awhile for a couple of hours. 

            I did not want to put a lot of energy into something I had never tried, so I made a small batch.  I filled a five quart Dutch oven halfway with chopped plum tomatoes, onions and peppers, sugar, vinegar, and spices, and put them on to cook.  About two and a half hours later I poured up one generous cup of ketchup.  It was definitely the best ketchup I had ever tasted, and plenty for Keith and I who take a year to go through a 32 oz bottle, but it was not going to do for a ketchup fanatic, and it certainly wasn’t worth the work.  Now that I know the recipe is good, though, I will fill two of those pots to the brim and in about the same amount of time have something a little more worthwhile.

            And that is our problem when it comes to converting the world.  We only fill one pot half full and then wonder why we got such a small return.  Then we become discouraged, or worse, decide that God’s way doesn’t work any more and then we really get into trouble, going places and doing things we have no authority for, denigrating God in the process.

            We see the 3000 baptized on Pentecost and say, what’s wrong?  Why can’t we do that?  Let’s do a little math.  Most scholars estimate the population of Jerusalem during a feast day at 1 million or more.  Three thousand out of one million is not that much.  In fact, it’s the same as 300 out of 100,000, or 30 out of 10,000 or 3 out of 1000.  That’s less than one third of one percent, or, to be silly about it, it’s a short one-third of a person for every hundred. 

            Stop being so negative.  Stop allowing sheer numbers without perspective to discourage you.  This is a Biblical principle.  The road is narrow.  Only a few will find it.  We just have to make sure that their inability to find it wasn’t our fault.  And we have to remember above all, that it isn’t God’s fault either.  It is not the fault of His methods.  It is not the fault of His plan.   We certainly cannot improve on the ways of the Almighty.  What we can do is implement them.  Fill as many pots as you have with tomatoes.  If you want a 3000 day, then cook a million.  Most of us can’t do that, but we can cook a hundred in a lifetime surely.  And if all you get is one cup of ketchup, that’s wonderful.  In fact, it’s better than Pentecost.  You did not fail by any means.  You did your part, and, even better, you did it God’s way.

For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:21-25

Dene Ward

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