We stayed with our young grandsons a couple of months back, and one evening two year old Judah found three small bins, about the size of the largest coffee cans these days, and summarily emptied them one by one.  Small figurines, farm animals, blocks and other toys covered the family room floor.  He stood there looking around with obvious satisfaction, lifted his hands in the air and, with a big grin on his face, proclaimed, “I made a mess!”

            Then, surprising us both, he began to pick up each and every tiny toy and place them in the back of his dump truck, the big one he can sit on and push with his feet, until every toy was off the floor.

            “What a good boy!” I exclaimed.  Naively, as it turned out because he immediately knelt before the truck and began tossing the toys over his shoulders with both hands until once again they were scattered everywhere.  Again he looked on his work with satisfaction, then began picking them up and starting over.   This must have occurred five or six times before it began to bore him, but for a while there, “Making a Mess” was the game of the hour and he was quite good at it.

            Do you know any mess makers in the church?  You know, the ones who ask questions in class that are deliberately designed to foil the teacher’s carefully laid out lesson and confuse the newcomers; the ones who enjoy starting a discussion they know will end in arguments; the ones who delight in pulling people aside, especially teachers and preachers, and “setting them straight” about some detail that doesn’t even matter; the ones who pride themselves on taking the opposing view, not because it is the right one, but because they enjoy a stir.  They might as well stand in the middle of the room with my two year old grandson and proclaim, “I made a mess.”

            What does Paul say about them?  They “quarrel about words to no profit.”  They participate in “irreverent babble.”  They engage in “foolish and ignorant controversies.”  They have “an unhealthy craving for controversy”—indeed they can hardly control themselves when they see certain subjects coming up.  That lack of self-control comes because they are “depraved in mind.”  In short, these people thrive on making messes.  They live to cause trouble.  They even brag about their tendency to do these things. 

            And why is it so bad?  Their actions “subvert souls.”  They “lead people to more and more ungodliness.”  Their foolishness “eats like a gangrene.”  It “genders strife.”  It serves only to “produce envy, dissension, slander, suspicion…and constant friction.”  It troubles the new Christians and “unsettles minds.”

            At least my two year old grandson’s activity did not hurt anyone.  It was entirely appropriate for a child his age.  What excuse does a middle-aged mess-maker have?  He might as well go play with the babies.

 

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.  Titus 3:9-11

(Passages quoted in the body of the article:  1 Tim 6:4,5; 2 Tim 2:14,16,23; Acts 15:25.)

 

Dene Ward

Dear TV and Movie Producers and Advertisers of same,

    I grew up watching television.  But now I find myself completely disgusted by what you are giving me as entertainment.  May I please offer a few suggestions?

    I am not a prurient adolescent, so please dispense with the sexual innuendo and bathroom humor.  I am far more mature and sophisticated than that.  Most of the people I know are.  I am relatively well-educated, so please come up with words with more than four letters.  They have already worn out their shock value, and what other use are they?  All they do is turn me off, which means I turn the knob off.

    Please give me role models I can identify with, admire, or aspire to.  Give me a father figure who is not an idiotic doofus, one who can make rational decisions and does not need his wife, and certainly not his children, to pull him out of the messes he makes of their lives week after week.  Give me a mother figure who does not treat her husband like a child or demean him to her friends, but respects him; who is not a preacher for the ultra-liberal left, who understands that selflessness and sacrifice for her family is not a fault to be overcome, and can communicate with her family without a martyr complex.  Give me children who respect their parents and obey them without eye-rolling, sass, and deeply heaved sighs of frustration.  

    Tell my children the truth not the fairy tale of “happily ever after.”  Show my children that one talk about condoms does not make teen pregnancy a breeze.  Show them that drugs are not that easy to overcome once they are hooked.  Tell them that there is no such thing as “safe sex” outside of heterosexual monogamy, that AIDS is not the only, or even the most common, sexually transmitted disease out there, and that they could easily end up living the rest of their lives in relentless pain, unable to marry and have children till the day they die.  Tell them that the same self-control we expect of them in regard to stealing and murder is just as viable when it comes to sexual self-control.

    Teach them something called integrity and character instead of looking out for number one and doing what you can get away with.  Teach them that whatever they do affects someone else.  Do you know how many times my probation officer husband has sat across the table from inmates who were shocked to hear that their shoplifting raised the prices that their dear old grandmothers had to pay?  No one taught them simple economics.  No one told them that what they did was a reflection on the women who raised them.  “I don’t know your mother,” he often says to them, “except what I see in you.”  You would be surprised how many hardened criminals sit there with tears running down their cheeks at those words.  Too bad you didn’t say any of those things a long time before he did.  

    And tell me this—would you ever pepper dialogue with the phrase “Oh my Allah!” or “Oh my Buddha!” or “Oh my Vishnu!”?  Or would you never dare in this age of political correctness to cause offense to someone’s religious beliefs?  So why must I listen to you disrespect my God?  Or is it, as seems to be the case over and over, that discrimination against Christians doesn’t count?

    Speaking of Christians, show me practicing Christians who are neither fire-breathing, insane radicals nor hypocrites.  Show me people who live what they believe—quietly and selflessly serving others and living moral lives.  I can show you hundreds of families in just my limited circle who do.  Why can’t you find any?

    I am not the only one out there who would like these things.  A good many of us are tired of seeing sex used to advertise hamburgers and shavers and suave urbanity to advertise liquor and beer.  Let me tell you—the most interesting man in my world is not an arrogant, beer-swilling womanizer and no man should expect me to come running just because he gave me the eye across a boxing ring.  My standards are much higher than those.  My friends feel the same way.  We’re tired of having to battle an entire culture in order to teach our children how to be decent people.  Not a few have turned their TVs off.  They have made the decision to boycott businesses who promote themselves in such irresponsible ways, businesses whose only interest is the bottom line.  

    And to those who are saying amen, I am calling on more of you to do something tangible to show your displeasure--not violent, not illegal, but something that will make an impact that businesses care about—their profits.  Write a letter, using calm words, good words, not indecent ones.  Don’t become what you are opposing.  Then follow up.  Turn off that television, stop watching those movies, don’t buy those products or patronize those establishments.  You know who and what they are as well as I do, you’ve just been ignoring this issue because it would put a crimp in your style.  Maybe it’s time you sacrificed something.  You know who it’s for.  Aren’t they worth it?  Isn’t HE worth it?

 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead reprove them.  Eph 5: 11.

Dene Ward

Every other morning in June I stepped outside into the morning steam of dew rising off the grass, head and eyes shielded from the bright sunshine, and carried a five quart plastic bucket to our small stand of a dozen blueberry bushes.  It always amazes me how the morning temperature can be twenty degrees cooler than the afternoon’s, yet within minutes the perspiration is rolling from hairline to chin.  Even the dogs refuse to accompany me, though a shade tree stands within mere feet of the blueberries.  They sit on the carport, their bellies flat against the still cool cement and watch, probably commenting to one another about how silly humans can be.
 
   It was so uncomfortable one morning, and the blueberries so plenteous, their weight bending the boughs in deep arcs, that after the first half hour I became a little less careful in my picking.  Often as I reached deep into the interior of a bush where I had seen several plump, ripe, dusky blueberries hanging, I simply wrapped my hand around the clump and gently nudged each one with my thumb.  Berries that are ready to be picked will fall off the stem easily, and usually I pulled out a fistful of perfectly ripe ones.  Once in awhile though, a red one appeared in my palm, and even a white or green one.  Oh well, it certainly speeded up the process to pick that way, then toss out the bad ones, and it’s not like we had a measly crop this year.

    I wonder sometimes if we aren’t too careful in our attempts to reach the lost.  We have a bad habit of deciding who will listen before we ever start talking and our judgments are so different that the ones the Lord made.  He cast his nets into a polluted river, hoping to save as many dying fish as possible; we cast ours into the country club swimming pool, but that is another metaphor for another time.

    Sometimes we come across a blueberry bush with most of the berries still red, not quite ripe for the picking so we pass it by and leave a couple of big ripe ones, just begging to be put into the pie.  It is too much trouble to go after them one at a time.

    Other times we see a bush with quite a few plump ripe berries and instead of just reaching out and grabbing all we can, because there are a few not quite ready, we move to another branch.  No need picking a handful when we might need to throw out half of them.  And so we only reach for the easy ones, the ones that appeal to us because they look like the pictures in the cookbook and are easy to get to.  Those showing a hint of red at the stem end might take a little more effort, a little more sugar in the pie filling.  And because of that we miss some that would give our pie more flavor.

    In another figure Jesus told us to sow the seed wherever we could, not take the time to map it into suitable planting zones.  He said the world is ripe for picking.  “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” is about people who have had their chance and rejected it, not about us judging another’s suitability to be our brethren.  Where would we have wound up if people had treated us that way?

    Go pick some blueberries.  Grab all you can and let the Lord decide which ones will make the best pie.

But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, the harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few.  Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers into his harvest, Matt 9:36-38

Dene Ward

This is one of our favorite times of the year—the garden is booming and dinner will always be a treat of things we can only enjoy now, when the vegetables are truly “vine-ripened” and the price is perfect—just a lot of sweat.
 
   One night we will have stuffed bell peppers in a fresh tomato sauce with green beans on the side.  The next we will have eggplant parmigiana with a squash casserole on the side.  Later in the week it will be a country veggie plate of butterbeans, sliced tomatoes, roasted corn, fried okra, and a big wedge of cornbread.  Pasta night will feature a fresh tomato sauce with fresh oregano and feta cheese or a simple cherry tomato sauce with fresh basil.  Then there will be the times we try something new, like today’s grilled eggplant and red onion sandwich on a toasted multi-grain bun with lemon aioli and a big slice of tomato plus pita chips and baba ghanoush (a dip of grilled eggplant and tahini) on the side.  As the rest of the vegetables die off, we will still have the Italian plum tomatoes and enjoy a pizza with homemade crust and tomato sauce, plus a few late season peppers and some Italian sausage.  A few nights later, we will do the same thing, but fold it over and make a calzone out of it with the sauce on the side.  Yes, this is one of our favorite times of the year.

    But now we are seeing that it will have to end sometime in the near future.  Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s our age, maybe it’s a combination of the two, but all this good food isn’t worth sacrificing our health for, much less our lives.  Someday soon we will have to buy canned and frozen foods at the store like everyone else instead of using the preserved items we have labored over for three months every year.  

    Which all serves to remind us of what we have lost and why.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Gen 3:19.  

We sweat a lot over this garden.  Some days I think it is watered more by us than the rain.  That is as it should be, for sin deserves far worse punishment than that and every one of us has participated in it.  It is by God’s mercy that we plant in the spring when we have a cool breeze and a sun that is not directly over us.  That same mercy grants us a salvation we do not deserve, and the help to make it through a life we have all but ruined from the beginning.  Why should we expect a perfect life now?  Why should we expect that things will always turn out right?  Someone has not been reading the same Bible I have.  It is grace that promises us that there is a perfect place in the future.  Don’t look upon that hope with ingratitude because you cannot have it now.  We have only ourselves to blame.

    But in the midst of the toil, the sweat, the thorns and thistles and weeds, we enjoy a few weeks of some of the best meals in the world—not gourmet feasts, not something concocted by a celebrity chef—but the plain and simple fare that comes straight from the ground and reminds us of the provision God has made “for the just and the unjust,” not because He had to, but because He wanted to.  It also reminds us of the garden we will return to someday, and never have to leave again.  If you don’t have your own garden, head to the farmers’ market this week and remind yourselves that God still loves us.  This is the way it is supposed to be, and it can be again.  It’s up to you whether you get to enjoy it.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many…For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ, Rom 5:12,15,17.

Dene Ward

Keith decided that since we have gone to so much trouble and spent so much money on this trellis with 9 vining plants, a raised bed and 36 periwinkles clustered at the base of the vines, that we should mulch it properly.  So he bought 12 bags of cypress mulch.  I am thrilled.  I have already spent more time weeding this thing than I did the whole vegetable garden this year, and the other morning just as I was getting close to the purple trumpet flower a snake crawled out of it.  I will be happy not to have to stick my face down so close to that vine in the future.
 
   We often use the metaphor of weeds choking out a person’s spirituality.  And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word, and the care of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word and he becomes unfruitful, Matt 13:22—certainly a good and scriptural analogy.  We had a little problem with that in our beans this year as a matter of fact.

    But if weeds growing up around a plant can choke it out, certainly a four inch layer of mulch lying around the plant can choke the weeds out.  If we fill our lives with righteousness, with service to others, and with God’s word, sin won’t have a chance.  

    One reason weeds will choke out a plant is that they steal the nutrients out of the ground.  They steal the water.  They steal the sunlight by growing over the plants and shading them.  A good layer of mulch will steal those same things from the weeds.  They will not be able to grow, and meanwhile the plants will become stronger and larger. The mulch also keeps the ground cooler and retains moisture, creating a better environment for the plant.  If a weed somehow does manage to find a crack through which to grow, the plant won’t die from it, and it is so obvious it will be pulled immediately.

    Mulch your life today, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God, Phil 1:11.  Surround yourself with good people who will encourage you and teach you, who will set good examples, and whose needs will keep you so busy serving you don’t have time for sin.  Spend time with the word of God, reading, studying, attending Bible classes, and listening to sermons.  Pray as often as you can, not just before bed and at meals.  Cram so much righteousness into your life that no room remains for anything else.  Then watch how seldom you sin and how much you grow, less of the one and more of the other than ever before.

For this cause we also, since the day we heard, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory unto all patience and longsuffering with joy, Col 1:9-11.

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by Lucas Ward.  To read parts 1 and 2, click on “Guest Writers” on the right sidebar and scroll down.

Job 28 is an ode to wisdom. It is beautiful and compelling. It ends with verse 28: "And he [God] said to man, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.'" It is often pointed out that this description of wisdom is the same description made of Job in 1:1 and 1:8. Essentially, this tells us that Job was wise. But this is not all it does. It also defines wisdom for us.

"The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." Solomon reinforces this in several places in Proverbs, the first being in Prov. 1:7 "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge;" Have you ever heard new Christians say they are afraid of Hell? They often express guilt that this is their main motivation, but there is no reason for them to feel that way: the fear of the Lord is wisdom. If we aren't afraid of being thrown in Hell, then we are fools! And if we aren't living lives of faithful service to Him, God will send us to Hell, however much that saddens Him (2 Peter 3:9). So it is wise, and the beginning of knowledge, to fear the Lord. It is only the beginning of knowledge, and as we grow in knowledge of the Lord, our motivations should mature (love for Him, hope of glory, etc.). However, it never stops being wise to fear the Lord.

"To turn away from evil is understanding". So those who don't turn away from evil lack understanding, right? So what about me? Do I turn away from evil? Or do I give in to the same temptation every time it comes up? Is it to the point that an impartial observer might conclude that I don't even try to turn away from those temptations/evils? Do I go looking for it, rather than turning away? Do I see how closely I can sidle up to it without giving in? Do I have any understanding at all? Or am I like an uncomprehending beast of the field, ruled solely by my passions?

"Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding."

Am I wise?

Do I understand anything at all?

Lucas Ward

“A wall of fire about me, I’ve nothing now to fear.”

    If I were surrounded by fire, I would probably be scared to death.  Obviously this figure is meant in an entirely different way.
  
 And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst, Zech 2:5.

    Zechariah was a minor prophet who prophesied shortly after Haggai.  In fact, you can think of him as writing the sequel to that prophet’s book, Homer Hailey once said.  The Jews have returned from Babylon and are in the midst of rebuilding the Temple.  Zechariah’s job was not only to encourage them to finish the task, but to look ahead to the glorious coming of the promised kingdom.  But here they were, a small remnant (42,360, Neh 7:66, out of an estimated million in Babylon), with no armies, no weapons, and not even a wall around their old city.      

    In the vision Zechariah sees a young man trying to measure the city, as if it were a finite place.  In verse 4 God says Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it.

    “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus told Pilate.  It would not be a physical, measurable location at all.  The Jerusalem God had in mind was one too big for walls.  It is open to multitudes of peoples.  And the only wall it needs is the protection of God Himself.

    The Hebrew writer calls the church “the heavenly Jerusalem.”  We are in that city and we do not need stone walls or mighty weapons of war.  We have “a wall of fire about” us in the person of the Almighty God.  That fire represents not just the protection, but also the glory of our Savior.  Even as we approach what could be a new era of persecution in our country, if we have faith in those promises, what have we to fear?

    Of all the old hymns we sing, I can’t think of another with as many scriptural references, over forty if you count them all.  Wouldn’t it be a shame to assign this one to the trash pile just because it doesn’t have modern rhythms or harmonies?  And isn’t it shameful to us if we can’t understand what these lyrics mean?  Jesus should be to us and to our descendants in ages to come “the fairest of ten thousand” to our souls, and God “a wall of fire about” us.

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also, 1 Cor 14:15.

Dene Ward

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morningstar,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.

    Three phrases, three passages, two in the same book.  This will take some explanation.
    
The old view says that the Song of Solomon was an allegory of Christ and the church.  Fewer people accept that any longer, and though it may have sparked the original lyrics, I am not certain they were meant in precisely that way.  For one thing, the analogy doesn’t hold up.

    I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys, Song of Solomon 2:1.

    My beloved is white and ruddy, The chiefest among ten thousand, Song of
Solomon 5:10.

    In the first passage, the shepherdess is talking about herself.  In the second, the shepherdess is speaking about her beloved, the shepherd (or Solomon if you prefer that interpretation of the book).  Those passages are about two different people in the narrative, so how could the poet be following the old interpretation of Christ and the church in the hymn if the analogy does not hold up?      

    Here is the point we are so bad about seeing sometimes:  they are figures of speech.  The lyricist has borrowed various phrases out of the Bible to depict how wonderful Christ is to the believer.  Did you catch the Rose of Sharon reference too?  These are poetic metaphors.  Making literal arguments from figures of speech is something we ridicule our religious neighbors for doing.  Why do we?  Jesus is like a beautiful flower.  He is so fair (as in “Fairest Lord Jesus” too, by the way) we could say he is the fairest among ten thousand.  

    Does that mean number 10,001 is fairer than he is?  Of course not, not any more than the other phrase means he has a stem and petals.  None of these is meant to be taken literally whether you believe in the allegorical version of the Song of Solomon or not.  As it happens, I don’t.  I believe it is in there to show us how to order our romantic marital love.  If that isn’t what it’s about, then God left something awfully important out of the Bible and I don’t believe that for a minute.  He tells us too many times that it contains everything we could possibly need in any circumstance.  And if Paul can talk about the church being the “bride of Christ” why can’t I use these terms for my spiritual “husband?”

    Then we have the “Bright and Morningstar.”  What is that all about?  Balaam prophesied, “There shall come forth a star out of Jacob,” Num 24:17.  Peter tells us, “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,” 2 Pet 1:19.  The Morningstar, or daystar, was a bright star that appeared just before dawn at certain times of the year, Venus I read in one place, which at other times of the year is the Evening Star.  Jesus is our Morningstar. He appeared before the coming of his kingdom, the “day” Joel speaks of in Joel 2.  He will appear again on the “day” he takes us to our promised rest.  When we accept him in our hearts, he “appears” to us individually (and figuratively) on that “day” as we enter his spiritual body.  Take your pick of interpretations and “days.”  Any of them satisfy the metaphor.

    That leaves us with just one more wonderful phrase to cover next time, a promise that should encourage us all.  But for now, dwell on these a little while.  Is Christ that important to you?  Is he that beautiful to you?  Would these figures of speech rise from your lips?  Or are we a little too ignorant of the Word and a lot too embarrassed to say such syrupy words about a Savior who gave up everything for us?

Dene Ward

I have found a friend in Jesus, He’s everything to me,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul;
The Lily of the Valley, in Him alone I see
All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.
In sorrow He’s my comfort, in trouble He’s my stay;
He tells me every care on Him to roll.
o    
Refrain:

He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.
He all my grief has taken, and all my sorrows borne;
In temptation He’s my strong and mighty tow’r;
I have all for Him forsaken, and all my idols torn
From my heart and now He keeps me by His pow’r.
Though all the world forsake me, and Satan tempt me sore,
Through Jesus I shall safely reach the goal.

(Refrain)

He’ll never, never leave me, nor yet forsake me here,
While I live by faith and do His blessed will;
A wall of fire about me, I’ve nothing now to fear,
With His manna He my hungry soul shall fill.
Then sweeping up to glory to see His blessed face,
Where rivers of delight shall ever roll.

(Refrain)

    I bet you have sung that song all your life.  It’s one of those old ones that so many sneer at nowadays.  Yet this song does something very few of the new ones can. It contains a different scriptural reference in nearly every line.  Take a minute and look at the song.  Can you find them?  Here is the shame on us—in the days when this song was written, everyone who claimed to be a Christian, even some we would not classify as “New Testament Christians,” could find them all—they knew their scriptures that well--while we sit here at best thinking, “That sounds vaguely familiar.”

    Obviously I don’t have space to go over them all.  Let me do the obvious ones quickly, and then we will spend two more sessions on the rest.

    “I have found a friend in Jesus,” Matt 11:19.

    “All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole,” 1 John 1:7; Acts 9:34.

    “In sorrow he’s my comfort, in trouble he’s my stay;” you will find this sentiment all over the psalms and the prophets, too many to list.

    “He tells me every care on him to roll,” 1 Pet 5:7.

    “He all my griefs has taken and all my sorrows borne,” Isa 53:4.

    “He’s my strong and mighty tower,” Psa 61:3.

    “I have all for him forsaken and all my idols torn from my heart,” Ezek 36:25; Hos 14:3,4.

    “He keeps me by his power,” 1 Pet 1:5.

    “Through Jesus I shall safely reach the goal,” Phil 3:14.

    “He will never never leave me, nor yet forsake me here,” Heb 13:5.

    “While I live by faith” Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38.

    “Do his blessed will” Matt 7:21.

    “With his manna he my hungry soul shall fill,” nearly two dozen verses from Exodus 16 to John 6 along with Matt 5:6.

    “To see his blessed face,” Rev 22:4.

    Did you catch all those?  I defy you to find more than a few songs written after 1960 that have that many scriptural references in them, unless they repeat one Biblical phrase over and over, or are lifted whole cloth out of the scriptures.  It’s time we learned what those old songs were about before we go throwing them out just because we think them “old” and “archaic” and “boring.”  Maybe they wouldn’t be so difficult to understand if we knew God’s Word like we ought to.  

    And these phrases were just the easy ones, the ones you can probably figure out for yourself with no help.  In the next two days, the two remaining posts on this hymn will begin to get a little more difficult.  While you wait for those, though, spend a little time with the scriptures listed above and ask yourself, “Could I even begin to do the job this poet did?”  

Dene Ward

We watched a couple of wrens build a nest on our carport.  We keep a push broom there, hanging upside down near the ceiling, and they decided those stiff bristles would make a nice base for a home.  Back and forth those small pudgy brown birds flew all evening, sometimes carrying twigs twice their own length and clumps of moss over half their girth.

    The next morning we went out to see the finished product.  We two judgmental humans stood their bemused.  It was the ugliest, rattiest, messiest nest we had ever seen.  It was way too big for wrens.  Because it lay on top of a narrow broom, it had to lean up against the side wall to keep from falling off, and that put the hole on the side instead of the top of the nest.  Didn’t those silly birds know the eggs would roll out?  And besides that, it’s July, far too late for birds to be building nests and laying eggs.  We said all these things, looking at one another and shaking our heads.

    “But,” said, Keith, “they are the birds and I assume they know what they are doing.”

    Of course they do.  Birds have been building nests and laying eggs from Genesis 1 until now and they do just fine.  In fact, it is a rare morning I don’t step outside and hear half a dozen wrens singing back and forth to one another.  They are not in danger of extinction.

    I wonder why we don’t trust God that way.  If anyone knows what he is doing, He does.  He has been doing it far longer than wrens have been building nests, and the earth still turns, the sun still shines, and the seasons continue to revolve one into the other.  I could not do any of these things, and if any one of them suddenly stopped, so would we.

    Yet I second guess and complain because things don’t go the way I think they should.  Like a child who thinks he should have everything his own way, I forget that there is a larger purpose at work here, one far more important than my own selfish wants and desires.  And, like a child, I don’t always realize what is in my own best interests.  It takes a mature outlook to see beyond the moment, to understand the complexities of circumstance that transcend my own time and place.

    God knows what He is doing.  If I can trust a couple of little brown birds, surely I can trust Him.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?  Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Tell me if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements—surely you know!...Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?  Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads its wings toward the south?  Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?  Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?  He who argues with God, let him answer it, Job 38:1,2,4,5,41; 39:26,27; 40:2.

Dene Ward