I Got Purple

2/13/2015 0 Comments

We did some more babysitting last month, and the first afternoon that we picked up Silas from kindergarten, he came rushing out to the car shouting, “I got purple!  I got purple!”
    In his school every child starts the day on green, and his behavior moves him either up the color chart to blue and ultimately purple, or down the chart to yellow, orange, or red.  Red means mom and dad have to come in for a serious talk.  Usually all the obedient, well-behaved students end up on blue, and everyone is perfectly satisfied with it.  But purple?  Purple takes something extra-special.  It is the height of achievement for a student.  No wonder he came out running, shouting, and grinning a smile as wide as our windshield as we watched him through it.
    Why is it that I can’t have the same glee, the same sense of accomplishment and exhilaration when I overcome a temptation or grow out of a bad attitude?  Why don’t we all come running to share the good news with one another?  I’ll tell you why—because we are a bunch of judgmental grumps that’s why.  Two things are going to happen if anyone opens his mouth about these things.
    First, someone is going to gasp and whisper to another, “You mean he has trouble with that sin?”  We can’t share our accomplishments when we are afraid people will look down on us, will lose respect for us, and will probably gossip about us at the first chance they get.  “Did you hear about so-and-so?  Did you know he has these problems?”
    Second, someone else will puff out his chest and say, “Tsk, tsk.  Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall!”  We can’t share our successes without someone thinking they have to knock us down a peg because of our “pride,” as they so hastily judge it.  
    In both of these cases, shame, shame, shame on us!  Those are unscriptural, even sinful attitudes.  Gossip, which is nothing less than slander, is included in that horrible list of sins at the end of Romans 1.  And what in the world do we think it means to “Encourage one another?”  It means when a pat on the back has been earned, give it!  Don’t hoard it with the self-righteous notion that we are doing what is best for the person’s soul—“wouldn’t want him to get the big head.”  Would you do that with your children?  Would you never praise them for their successes, but only criticize their mistakes?  
    AA doesn’t do it, and God doesn’t do that either.  And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”  Job 1:8.
    The Psalms are full of statements by people of God who know they have done right.  The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight, Psalm 18:20-24.
    Don’t tell me it’s because the Old Testament people did not understand grace and were all about “earning” their salvation by keeping the Law.  “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart…Deut 9:4,5.  O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy, Dan 9:18.
    Those people knew they had not earned God’s love and mercy, but they also knew when they had done well in keeping His commandments.  Why do we think it’s a sin to recognize that?  The apostles didn’t.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2 Tim 4:7,8.
    When my grandson came running out that day I could easily have told the difference between arrogance and joy.  Why can’t we tell the same thing about one another?  Why can’t we share victories over Satan and expect others will be just as happy about it as we are?  God wanted us to know we were saved; he wanted us to be confident in our destiny. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life, 1 John 5:13.
    I’ll tell you this, if we are going to “become as little children” and so inherit the kingdom of heaven, we had better stop acting like peevish, petty grown-ups.  With that sort of behavior we will never be able to run down the streets of Heaven shouting, “I got purple!”

Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: Yea, let them say continually, Jehovah be magnified, Who hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant, Psalm 35:27.

Dene Ward

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An Outstretched Hand

2/12/2015 0 Comments

Keith went out in the dark one night last summer to check for armadillos.  We have found our garden, yard, and flowerbeds torn up nearly every morning for the past two or three weeks, and he was out to rid the world of a few of those pesky critters, a fruitless venture it turned out.
    As he stood in the black, heavy, humid air amid the croaking frogs, his eyes not yet used to the dark, he put his left hand down, knowing full well that Chloe’s head would find it whether he could see her or not.  It did, and he scratched her between the ears and told her what a good dog she was to help with the hunt.
    The Bible mentions God’s hand being held out as well.  Jeremiah speaks of God creating the earth with great power and an outstretched arm, 27:5.  Moses tells the Israelites that same mighty hand and outstretched arm brought them out of Egyptian bondage, and thus they should obey His commandments, Deut 5:15ff.  Later in their history Ezekiel warns them that, since they disobeyed, His hand would be held out with wrath poured out, 20:33,34.
    That is not the way God wants to hold out His hand.  We have all seen animals or children cringe when a hand was held up.  It speaks volumes about the kind of treatment they are used to receiving.  But God has held His hand out in fellowship from the beginning.  We are the ones who ignore it or push it away.  
    In chapter 11, Hosea tells of God teaching Israel, his son, to walk, and I cannot help but picture a father standing just a step away with his arms outstretched, urging his small child to take that first trusting step into his arms.  That is the hand God wants to hold out to us.
    The question is do we naturally gravitate to the one who loves us, or do we simply ignore the pleading hand and go about our foolish ways?  Chloe is always looking for her master’s hand, even in the dark.  How about you?

Fear thou not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you; yea, I will help you; yea, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
With a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm; For his lovingkindness endures for ever, Isa 41:10; Psa 136:12.

Dene Ward

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February 11, 1650--Think!

2/11/2015 0 Comments

Monday morning I was outside for a good while, exercising Chloe, feeding the birds, pruning some dormant perennials in hopes of a good summer’s bloom.  While I puttered around, my mind wandered here and there, but eventually stayed on an idea for a devotional.  By the time I finished I had the thing half-written in my head, a good introduction, a nice outline, and even a punchy ending.  But I came in needing to study for my Tuesday morning class, a study that took nearly three arduous hours and left my brain frazzled, my neck aching from poring over the books and papers, and my eyes needing to do something besides focus so intently.
    The next day I spent in town, our usual one day a week of Bible class and all the stops we need to do at once to save gas.  Then Wednesday we left early for a dentist appointment that was one of the worst ever, leaving me fit for nothing but going to bed with a pain pill.  Then Thursday we had more appointments and by the time I sat down on Thursday night to type, my half written devotional was nothing but a vague memory in the back of my mind.  I sat for nearly half an hour trying to grab onto it as it floated just out of reach.  Finally I gave up and here I sit without that wonderful piece I was so excited about.
    I know this forgetting thing happens to you too.  Do you know how frustrating it is to teach something in a class, then six months later when it comes up in a sermon by a visiting preacher you can hardly get your next class started because everyone is so excited about this new truth they just heard the past Sunday morning?  I find myself sitting there thinking, “Where was your mind when we did this six months ago?”
    Keith feels the same frustration when he un-teaches a faulty concept that many have grown up with, watching the light bulbs go on one by one, only to have those same people repeat that faulty concept yet again the next time that passage comes up.  Yes, it happens to all of us—we forget what we have learned all too easily.
    Do you know how to avoid that?  I keep a notebook handy to jot down ideas that come up in my head when I don’t have time to sit down then and write.  The problem last Monday was not getting inside as quickly as usual and so forgetting to even put the idea in my notebook. 
    Learning involves some work.  I just sat through a wonderful class on a prophetic book I have never studied before, and never heard taught in any church anywhere.  What amazed me was the fact that only two of us were even bothering to take notes.  How much do you think the others remember now, several months later? 
    Come let us reason together…God says to His people in Isa 1:18.  That Hebrew word also means argue, convince, correct, dispute, judge, and many other words that involve thinking.  God will not listen to anyone try to argue, dispute, or convince Him of anything if that person has no clue what he is talking about.  I will be that clueless one if I do not study the Word of God and meditate (think) on it.  I will be equally clueless six months later if I have done nothing to help myself remember what I have learned.  I certainly won’t get it by osmosis from the pew I am sitting on or by an airborne germ just because I am sitting in the building where it was taught.
    Rene Descartes was the French philosopher who came up with this famous idea:  "I think, therefore I am."  The guy did a whole lot of thinking his whole life long, but on February 11, 1650, he stopped thinking.  He died.  At least he had that excuse.  What’s yours?

And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen, 2 Pet 3:15-18.

Dene Ward

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Fowl Weather Friends

2/10/2015 0 Comments

The catbird is back.  Finally the weather is turning and he is back for an easy meal.  Funny how he only comes to the feeder when finding his own food becomes too difficult.  The rest of the year I do not have the pleasure of his handsome company.  He is flying out there enjoying himself with scarcely a thought in my direction.
    How many times do we usually pray in a day?  How many conversations do we have with a Father who loves us more than anything else?  If you are like me, I call many more times when things are difficult than when they are going well.  That may be normal, but does that make it right?  Any parent worth the name wants his child to call when he needs help, would, in fact, be angry if he did not receive such a call, but it certainly goes down better when those calls come at other times too, doesn’t it?  
    Solomon set forth the principle in Proverbs when he personified wisdom as a woman offering her gift to any who needed it.  Too few take her up on the offer and she says, Because I have called and you refused to listen, I have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me, Prov 1:24-28.  
    Oh, but that would never happen with God, some will say.  Jesus loves everyone, even the vilest sinner.  Neither will ever refuse to help someone who asks.  Listen to the words God spoke through Isaiah to his chosen people, who continually fell away, repented when times got hard, only to fall away yet again.  I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in, Isa 65:12.  
    We want this relationship to be one with a revolving door-- we can come in and out of it as we please.  We want to live like we choose to live and then come running to God for help when our foolish choices bring us pain and misery.  We expect Him to snatch us from the jaws of disaster and make everything right again.  That’s what He’s supposed to do!  But God will not tolerate being used; He has a right to expect certain behavior from us.  Even if He were not so good to us, He is still our Creator and that gives Him the ultimate authority in everything we do.  Perhaps one of the biggest dangers of living in a democracy is thinking we have rights when it comes to our dealings with an Almighty God.
    Are you like the catbird who only comes calling when times are tough, or are you there every day, building a relationship with your Father through constant communication, obedience, and dependence?  Maybe you should make an appointment with Him sometime in the next few minutes.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words.  They have gone after other gods to serve them…Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble, Jer 11:10,14.

Dene Ward

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Directions

2/9/2015 0 Comments

Men and women are different when it comes to directions.  Men want exact road names and exact number addresses.  Women?  We’re happy with, “Turn by the weeping willow and it’s the house with the closed-in carport.”  Even if I have been there before, Keith does not feel secure if he doesn’t have something more than, “Two roads past the firehouse and the next door neighbors have a yard full of crabgrass.”  I always thought it was my vision—I haven’t been able to read street signs in years, forget those numbers on the houses.  But no, all my women friends give directions exactly the same way:  turn left at the round-about and it’s halfway around the next curve where the honeysuckle blooms on the mailbox.  Can we help it if men can’t tell the difference between honeysuckle and plumbago?
    Funny how that also describes the difference in people in spiritually.  Some people want a list.  Here, they seem to say, I’ve done this and this and this, so I ought to be all right.  Then there are others who go by what “looks right” or “feels right.”  I recently heard a young woman who has decided she wants to be a preacher say this: “When I walked into the room, I just felt at peace, so I knew God was saying that was all right.”  And this woman wants to preach the gospel?
    Just like you need a good balance of exact address and some helpful landmarks when following directions, maybe you need a good balance of exactly what is right and what is wrong plus the common sense to know when something just doesn’t “feel right.”  In Galatians 5 Paul ends that list of the lusts of the flesh with, “and such like,” and the fruit of the Spirit with, “against such there is no law.”  “Such” means he hasn’t listed every single thing, but if you are honest, you should be able to figure this out for yourselves.  It should be obvious to anyone with a normal IQ, he seems to be saying, but here is a list to get you started.
    “The Bible doesn’t say it’s wrong,” is as an excuse as old as my grandparents at least.  I’ve heard it all my life.  It’s just an admission that the person doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, the common sense He expects us to use when we are trying to determine His will.  
    You can’t check off your service to God as if it were nothing more important than buying groceries and you can’t tell Him it felt good so you fell for it, even if it did violate the plain words of scripture.  
    God gives us directions that are easy to follow—as long as you want to do His will.

If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood, John 7:17-18.

Dene Ward

Being Green

2/6/2015 0 Comments

Several years back we camped at Cloudland Canyon one autumn week, enjoying the new varieties of bird, the mountains carpeted with fall colors, and the spectacle every morning of clouds wafting through the campground from the cliffs just beyond it, cliffs high enough to look down on hawks as they soared by.  
    The neighbors twenty yards away were a small family, a man, his wife, and two little boys, the older about 7 or 8, and the younger just barely past the toddler years.  This was obviously a planned family outing, one that probably didn’t happen very often but that the parents were determined to make a good experience.  They did everything in a planned and almost regimented fashion.  “It’s time to light the fire.”  “Now it’s time to tell ghost stories.”  “Now it’s time to roast marshmallows.”  In between all this, the mother was on her cell phone every hour or so, sometimes for as long as a half hour, seeing to her business.  
    And both parents became impatient at the drop of a hat.  If the boys didn’t react to every activity as they thought they should, they became frustrated and almost angry.  (Who should be surprised if a ghost story terrified a four year old?)  They had mistaken the stereotype of a camping trip for the spontaneous fun of the real thing.  They had probably fallen for that “quality time” myth.
    And because we can’t seem to stop helping out, we offered them a few things, like some lighter wood to help get those campfires going more easily, and we occasionally stopped by on the way back and forth from the bathhouse, to talk and reminisce with them about the times when our two boys were that age.  They seemed appreciative, especially the father, who, we discovered when we got closer, was about 20 years older than the usual father of boys that age.
    As we talked we noticed that the older boy always wore Baylor tee shirts and sweat shirts and had a Baylor hat, so Keith talked to him some about football and asked how Baylor was doing—this was long before RGIII.  The father sighed and said, “He doesn’t know anything about Baylor football.  He just likes the color green.”
    They left after just a weekend, and it sounded like they were leaving one night early, perhaps disappointed that this hadn’t turned out quite like they expected.  
    You can learn a lot yourselves, just considering this family.  It’s always easier to judge from a distance.  But that little boy can teach us all something today.  Why is it that you assemble where you do?  Why did you choose that place?
    We would all understand the fallacy of going to the handiest place, regardless what they taught.  But how about this:  Do you go where you are needed, or to the place considered the most popular in the area, the most sociable, the one where you wouldn’t mind having people see you standing outside hobnobbing?  Do you go where the work is hard or where the singing is good?  Do you go where the preaching is entertaining or where the teaching is scriptural and plain?  Do you go expecting the church to do for you, or because you want to do for them?
    Too many Christians look upon a church in a proprietary way, as if they had the right to judge everything about it and everyone in it, especially the superficial things—the singing, the preaching, the way the people dress and their occupations and connections in the world.  The way some people choose congregations, they might as well go because they like the color green.  
    The church belongs to Christ, that’s what “church of Christ” means.  It belongs to God, that’s what “church of God” means.  Christ’s church is there to give me an outlet for my service and a source of encouragement toward doing that service.  It is not there to serve me and my preferences.  
    Someday that little boy will grow up and learn to examine the football programs he roots for, choosing them for their character and integrity instead of their colors.  Maybe it’s time we grew up with him.

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 1 Pet 4:9-13    

Dene Ward

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City Slickers

2/5/2015 0 Comments

It never ceases to amaze me.  Folks from the city move out here and, even though they believe they are so much more sophisticated and knowledgeable than we country people, they will soon learn at least one lesson the hard way, possibly more, and we country people will just shake our heads.  It’s okay not to know; but it certainly is arrogant to act like you know when you have absolutely no experience to back it up.
    A few years back a couple moved out with their dog, letting it remain outside with no pen or fence installed, “so he can run free like animals are supposed to.”  When farmers near them started losing livestock it couldn’t be that “my sweet Scruffy” had anything to do with it.  They did not understand that dogs are pack animals and when they are left alone at night, “free to run,” they will join up with the strays and wreak havoc.  They didn’t understand until a farmer called the sheriff and there lay three or four dogs shot dead, next to an equally dead calf, nearly torn to bits. Among the dead dogs was Scruffy, the calf’s blood smeared all over his mouth, throat, and chest.  The farmer, of course, was not at fault—he was protecting his livestock from a pack of wild dogs.  At least he only lost one calf that time.
    On a less somber note, we have a neighbor now who would not listen when Keith told him he needed to ditch the edges of his dirt driveway.  It may be the dry season now, but when the summer rains start, he will soon be looking for a friendly farmer with a tractor to pull him out of the muddy drive that has nowhere to drain.
    We once had a neighbor who moved to the country “because there are so many more stars out here.”  He wondered why he couldn’t see them after he moved in.  Probably because of the street light he had installed outside his door.  The reason the country seems so much starrier is the lack of light pollution.  The more city people move out here, the fewer stars we can see because they are so scared of the dark.  Far better to install a motion detector floodlight than a constant mercury lamp, one high enough to avoid the rambling coons and possums.
    And then there is the garden.  Thirty-five years ago I was a city slicker too.  I thought having a garden from which you could pick what you wanted for supper every night was a wonderful idea.  Unfortunately, that is not the way it works.  You don’t tell the garden what you want when you want it.  It tells you what there is and when it is ready, and if you do not want it to go to waste, you take care of it then regardless of your schedule.  If you wait, the produce will ruin.  If you do not plan to tend it when it needs tending, pick when it needs picking, and put up when the crop comes in, don’t plant one.  Do not spend a hundred dollars on supplies, then let a thousand dollars worth of groceries spoil.
    I could go on and on, but this is not a treatise on country vs. city.  Let’s take this lesson today.  I recently heard someone say that Christians were people who had one foot in this world and one foot in the next, like that made them weird.  Isn’t that the way we are supposed to act?  In fact, maybe we should have a little more of the second foot in the next world too. 
    No, we do not act like ordinary people—at least we shouldn’t. As new Christians we have to learn a new way of living. Our citizenship is in Heaven.  Our minds are set on spiritual things.  The cares of this world do not upset us the same way they upset others, because they do not mean as much to us.  We have far better things to think about.
    City slickers may think country people are a little strange, but guess who knows how to get along out here the best?  If the world thinks you are strange, don’t worry.  You will manage far better than they.  One day, they will call frantically and ask for your help.  Hope and pray it is not because the trumpet just sounded, but because they have finally figured out that you knew more than they thought, and there is still time to do something about it.

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.  They are of the world: therefore speak they as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God: he that knows God hears us; he who is not of God hears us not. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:4-6.

Dene Ward

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A Bad Mood

2/4/2015 0 Comments

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!  Psalm 107:1

    Have you ever had a friend who made you wonder how you would be greeted and treated on any particular day?  Have you ever had a boss who one minute nominated you for employee of the year and the next left you in fear of losing your job?  Have you yourself ever woke up one morning and bitten everyone’s head off just for being alive and daring to smile?
    Moody people are difficult to deal with.  You never know how to act.  You never know what to say and not to say.  In fact, you do your best to avoid people like that if at all possible.  And when you recognize that you have done it to others, you loathe yourself for it.  It isn’t right; it isn’t fair; it certainly isn’t kind.
    This brings me to the verse at the top, a promise we all too often read without thinking, as if it were a meaningless refrain.  “His steadfast love endures forever.”  It isn’t just that God will love us forever, though that is reason enough to praise Him.  That word “endure” also carries with it the idea that His love is consistent and will never waver.  You will never find God in a bad mood.  
    You don’t have to worry that one day He has a headache and might be a little short-tempered.  He won’t ever get up on the wrong side of bed and snap at you because you dared to talk to Him before He had His morning cup of coffee.  He won’t decide on a whim one morning to hand you a pink slip.  God’s love is consistent—nothing can cause it to vacillate as long as you serve Him with all your heart.
    If we truly want to be more like Him, we should love Him the same way—whether the day brings good or ill, whether we feel well or not, and even when we suffer.  It’s not like He didn’t suffer for us, and not only did His love not waver then, it is precisely because of His unwavering love for us that He suffered.
    And if we want to serve Him, maybe we should do our best to get past those bad moods we foist on others.  There is no excuse for pettiness, for mean-spiritedness, for spite and malice, no matter what we are going through at the time, certainly not because we just happen to be in a bad mood that day.  As servants, we don’t have the right to be in a bad mood--we must be in the mood to love and serve Him every day, which means, according to Matthew 25, loving and serving others that way.  
    Unwavering, eternal love—that’s what He gives, and that is what we should return.  

Love is patient and kind…it is not arrogant or rude. It is not irritable or resentful… 1 Cor 13:4-6.

Dene Ward

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Johnny Can't Read

2/3/2015 0 Comments

It’s been over fifty years since Rudolf Flesch wrote Why Johnny Can’t Read.  Someone had finally been brave enough to say out loud, “Modern education methods are not working.”
    There was a sudden push in the universities for all teachers in every subject to be able to teach reading as well.  Even in music education, I was required to come up with methods to teach word reading while at the same time teaching music reading—a bit like trying to teach English and Math simultaneously.  I haven’t noticed that is has helped.  We have a newspaper columnist who keeps track of the English, spelling, and word choice errors in his own paper.  His list never seems to shorten.  
    The other day, I heard a sportscaster, who was speculating about a certain team’s future in the season ahead, say, “Of course, I realize we are living in the speculum here.”  As I recall, the last time I heard that word a doctor used it.  That same day another sportscaster said he was “efforting” to give us an unbiased view of things.  Then there are the want-ads:  we recently noticed a “12 gage shotgun” for sale, along with a “chester drawers.”
    So in many cases, Johnny still can’t read, but I think in the case of many Christians it is more a matter of “Johnny won’t read.”  
    In nearly every overseas mission I have heard of, the biggest need is for Bibles in that particular language.  Those people, to whom Bibles are rare and precious, crave them the most and read them the most.  Most of us have several Bibles in our homes, gathering dust, spending more time in the car seat traveling back and forth to the meetinghouse than being read.
    How do I know?  The same way I know that sportscaster made a low score on the vocabulary portion of his SAT.  When I hear that Jacob had to wait fourteen years before he could marry Rachel, that David saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop, and that the wise men showed up at the stable the night Jesus was born, I know someone is not reading.  When I hear people say, “Money is the root of all evil,” and “Pride goes before a fall,” thinking they are quoting scripture, I know they are not reading those scriptures they claim to live by.
    And here is an excellent point—many do know their scriptures backwards and forwards, inside and out, yet they don’t allow them to penetrate their hearts.  But how can they ever reach our hearts, if we never read them in the first place?
    I look at a cookbook four or five times a week to feed my family well.  What and how often am I reading so I can feed their souls even better?

And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the broad place that was before the water gate; and they spoke unto Ezra the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which Jehovah had commanded to Israel…And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, (for he was above all the people); and when he opened it, all the people stood up…and they read in the book, the Law of God, distinctly, and they gave the sense so that they understood the reading. Neh 8:1,5,8.
Till I come, give heed to reading, 1 Tim 4:13.

Dene Ward

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It's All About Me

2/2/2015 0 Comments

I have studied Abigail for a few decades now but, just like always, I noticed something new this time through.  
    Most everyone knows the story:  a bad man married to a good woman, a woman who dares to stand against him and do right.  But let’s speculate a little—and it really isn’t much speculation at all.
    1 Sam 25:4 calls Nabal “a churlish and evil” man, or, in the ESV, “harsh and badly behaved.”  That is not the half of it.  Look at the way those two words were translated in other places.  “Churlish” is also “obstinate, hard, heavy, rough, stubborn, and cruel.”  “Evil” is “grievous, hurtful, and wicked.”  This man wasn’t just a grouch, he was mean and cruel, and it came from a wicked heart.
    Now imagine a “beautiful and discerning woman” married to such a man.  It almost had to be an arranged marriage—she certainly didn’t fall in love with him.  Since he is extremely rich and she is still in prime childbearing age (we find out later), he is probably older than she.  This is also a time when no one would have said anything about physical abuse.  As you keep reading in chapter 25, the man’s servants are clearly terrified of him.  I do not doubt for a moment that they had all suffered physical punishments from him, probably many unjust.  I wouldn’t even be surprised if Abigail hadn’t suffered the same.  God’s Law protected women from men in every way possible, but for a man like this the Law meant nothing.  
    So along comes David’s army, men who had protected Nabal’s servants from passing raiders by the way, which means his livestock--his wealth--were also protected, and David is now in need of provisions for several hundred men.  Surely this “very rich” man who was already in the middle of a celebration time when the food would be plenteous, v 4, 8, could spare some for them.  
    David carefully instructed his men exactly how to approach Nabal.  If you have one of the newer translations you will miss this.  ESV says they “greeted” him, v 5.  But that word is one that means far more than saying hello.  It can also be translated salute, praise, thank, congratulate, even kneel.  All those words involve respect and honor.  Yet Nabal drives them off with exactly the opposite attitudes—disrespect, dishonor, and ingratitude for their service to him.  “Who is this David?” he asks, accusing him of rebellion (v 10, 11), though Abigail knew exactly who he was (v 28, 30), the anointed of God.
    Abigail knows nothing about this event, but Nabal’s servants know plenty about her.  They come running, afraid for their lives for the way their master has treated a warrior and his army.  And Abigail saves the day, gathering up as much as she can and sending it on to David, riding up herself to reason with him and beg for their lives.  When she asks David to remember her, she isn’t asking him to save her from her lot in life.  She goes back to the man and the responsibilities she sees as hers.
    Now think about this.  What would happen today if something similar occurred to a beautiful young woman, stuck in a loveless marriage to a horrible man, a cruel man who probably beat his servants and maybe her as well?  Do you think she would have had any concern for anyone else?  
    Abigail was not so wound up in her own misery that she couldn’t see the misery of others.  She probably cared for the servants her husband abused.  She didn’t whine about not deserving this kind of life.  She didn’t expect everyone to wait on her hand and foot or bend over backwards for her because she was mistreated, nor did she fall into a useless heap of flesh because life was “unfair.”  She just “dealt with it.”  Instead of being a drama queen focused only on her own problems, she looked for ways to help others as the opportunity arose.  She did not allow her misery to blind her to the needs of others.  
    We could talk about her “going behind her husband’s back,” but let’s quickly notice this—she saved his life too, at least until God came into the picture and took it Himself.  “Looking to the good of others,” we call that nowadays and label it the highest form of love.  Abigail did this for everyone, including the undeserving, and regardless of who did and did not do it for her.
    Abigail understood this, and so should we:  it’s not about me, it’s about Him.

[Doing] nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others, Phil 2:3,4.
    
Dene Ward

For instructions on using this blog, click on FAQ and tutorial on the left sidebar.