Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

A little while back I had one of those days. The first guy I delivered to answered the door wearing only his boxer-briefs. Not exactly a pleasant sight. A little while later, I delivered to a hotel room, and the guy apparently thought we would take longer than we did, because I caught him in the shower. In fact, I was about to leave when he opened the door covered only in soap and one of those too small hotel towels. As I walked back to my car I thought, “So that’s how it’s going to go today, huh? Well, if I have to deliver to undressed people, why can’t they at least be attractive women instead of dudes?” Then, before I could even chide myself for that thought, I remembered the last thing I prayed for before I began my day. I prayed that God would protect me from temptation. He sure answered that one with a resounding YES! There was NO temptation involved in what I saw that day, let me tell you. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, nor was it what I had in mind, but God did protect me from temptation that day.

That reminded me that sometimes God does things for our own good that isn’t exactly pleasant at the moment. An example would be James 1:2-4:

“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into manifold temptations knowing that the proving of your faith works patience. And let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.”

The only way to receive patience is to go through trials. You don’t get callouses on your hands without first getting blisters and you don’t get patience/steadfastness without going through trials. A Christian can’t be complete or perfect as God wants him without patience. This is why James says that trials should be met with rejoicing: they are the only path to being a complete Christian. But they are not pleasant at the time.

The best passage to explain what I am talking about is in Hebrews 12. The anonymous writer is explaining that God will chastise His children as necessary to make them better. He uses earthly fathers as an example, saying we still honor our dads even though they chastised us as they saw fit, so we should surely honor God during chastisement since He actually knows what He is doing and is doing it specifically for our good. He sums it up with this:

Heb. 12:11 “All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness.”

God, in His perfect wisdom and perfect love, will send us trials and tribulations and chastisements to cause us to grow into perfection. The plan is for our good, but boy, does it not feel good when we are going through it! Chastening is never pleasant when it happens. Grievous is a good description. It is for our ultimate good, though, and if we have faith that God truly loves us, we should count it all joy when those chastenings come. They prove that God is still not done with us. That He thinks we are worth the effort, present evidence to the contrary.

We often cite Romans 8:28 (“we know that to them that love God all things work together for good”) but do we understand it? It doesn’t mean we will always be happy here on Earth. It means that God is making sure things work out best for us, i.e. that we get to Heaven to be with Him. Combine Rom. 8:28 with Heb. 12:11 and we understand that, while the present chastening may not be fun, the end result will “work together for good”. This destroys the idea that some have that “God wants me to be happy.” You know, when you show them in the scriptures that they aren’t living their lives right, that according to God’s word, not my judgments, they are sinning and they say, “I know, but God would want me to be happy,” it is as if their happiness outweighs the eternal word of God. I think, based on James 1:2-4, Hebrews 12:4-11, and Romans 8:28 among other passages, that God doesn’t care a whit whether we are happy on this planet or not. Look at the list of the heroes of faith at the end of Hebrews 11 and tell me how many of them seemed happy. God wants us to be joyous in eternity. God wants us to be glorified with Him in eternity. God wants to commune with us in eternity. If it takes unhappiness, if it takes trials, tribulations, chastenings, and sacrifices (and delivering pizza to nearly naked men) to accomplish that, then so be it.

I hope God grants me the strength of faith to be able to count it joy when trials come, because I’d much rather be unhappy for 70 years or so and joyous in eternity than ecstatic in this life and in Hell for eternity.
 
Lucas Ward

My jogging time has been cut drastically.  What happened?  My music studio began a boom that resulted in two dozen lessons a week with the associated paperwork, bookkeeping, lesson prep, and concerto and art song accompaniment practice, often as much as 90 pages—I couldn’t even get through it all once in an hour of playing time.  I no longer had 8-10 hours a week to spend jogging and exercising. So I adjusted the five mile jog down to three, and the exercise to thirty minutes a day instead of 45. But I was still exercising, wasn’t I?  The Lord understands if life gets a little busy.  Maybe, but He won’t alter the formula of calories in/calories out just for me.
 
           Then foot injuries with the corrective surgeries that followed slowed me down to a walk, and now a chronic illness brings along with it activity restrictions—no exertion, no lifting, no bending over among others.  Suddenly jogging and heavy exercise is a thing of the past, but it wasn’t my fault.  I was doing the best I could.  Yes, but…

              You can look at me and see the results.  It’s pretty obvious.  Returning from one of the many surgeries I have had, I walked into the ladies room and nearly ran over a sixty-something lady with gray hair, all bent over as if the weight of the world were on her.  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, then nearly fainted when I realized it was a mirror and I was talking to myself.  At that point I was barely over fifty.

              But it didn’t happen overnight.  Gradually I had to cut back on the exercise time and gradually the weight piled back on.  Gradually the nearly constant pain put lines in my face and grayed my hair.  Suddenly, I am not only back where I thought I would never be again, but even worse.

              When my problem became apparent, we looked around for a way to fix it.  I now have an elliptical machine in the middle of my kitchen.  I can set the resistance to something my body can handle without harm, and there is no danger of stepping in a hole or tripping over a limb or vine when I “walk,” as often happens these days.  It isn’t quite the same thing, but it is far better than sitting in a chair all day.  My fitness, which will never again be like it was during those years of jogging, is increasing, probably less than one fencepost at a time, but increasing nevertheless.

              Losing your spiritual fitness happens the same way.  It can start when you are suddenly satisfied with your progress and think you have arrived.  You can think that while still saying the words I have heard out of so many mouths, “I know I am not perfect.”  It isn’t just Satan who excels at fooling us. 

              The Hebrew writer reminds us, We must pay closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it, Heb 2:1.  You can wander back one fencepost down the road and still see your way back pretty easily.  But one fencepost will lead to another and another until you have rounded a curve and the goal is no longer in sight.  When you can’t see it, it seems much farther away than it really is, and that’s when you give up—that’s when you say, “Might as well go a little further.  It can’t be any worse.”

              Yes, it can.  You can get caught back there, time ending on a day when you meant to turn around and head back where you belonged, but suddenly it’s too late.  God won’t reset the clock for us either.  So turn back now, while you still can.  Just go one fencepost at a time and you will soon be back around that corner within sight of the goal, making progress perhaps not as quickly as you would like, but in the right direction, which is all that really counts in the end.
 
"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isa 55:6-7
 
Dene Ward

I grew up reading and playing the piano instead of playing outside where it was dangerous to someone who couldn’t see well.  As a result, I was about as physically un-fit as anyone could possibly be.  Even after a genius of a doctor fitted my strangely shaped eyeballs with contact lenses more or less successfully in my mid-teens and I could finally see what lay in front of my feet, I had grown accustomed to sedentary activities and preferred them.

              Then I had babies, gained thirty pounds and could hardly walk across the house—which is not exactly large—without gasping for air.  I decided it was time to change things.  Keith had jogged since I had known him.  My closest friend, who lived just across the cornfield from me, also jogged.  Surely I could do this, too, I thought.  But I did not want to be embarrassed by how I looked doing it or by failure if indeed I couldn’t. 

              We lived well off the highway on property not ours, but whose owner allowed us to use it in exchange for the improvements we made to it—tearing down and hauling off a dilapidated frame house, digging a well and septic tank, and putting up a power pole—and for watching the property and livestock for him since he lived a half mile away.  We were surrounded by his fields, including a small hay field and larger cow pasture.  Neither of those could be seen from either the highway or the neighbors’ homes.  So I drove around the fields and measured them with the odometer.  The hayfield perimeter measured a quarter mile and the pasture three-quarters.  Now I could keep track of my progress.

              Nathan was four, so that first day I set him on a hay wagon in the middle of the hayfield and jogged the quarter mile around.  When I finished I thought I might pass out, or die, or both.  The next morning I could hardly get out of bed, but I did and after Keith left for the meetinghouse I jogged again, but this time I went all the way around plus one fencepost further.  Once again I survived.  The next day I went two fenceposts past one lap, and the next day three.

              The hayfield was a rectangle and I was adding my fenceposts on a long side.  When I finally reached the end of that side, I added the whole short side at once making one and a half laps.  The day after that I added half the other long side, then the other half and the last short side, making two whole laps.  Once I could do three laps I moved to the cow pasture.  One lap around the pasture plus one around the hayfield and I had completed a whole mile.  I could hardly believe it.

              I made that progress in one month and lost ten pounds without even trying.  Within six months I was jogging on the highway, a five mile circuit six days a week.  I had lost thirty pounds.  I was never fast.  The best I ever did was the tortoise-like pace of 5 miles in 47 minutes, but it wasn’t the 47 minutes that got me back to my front door that day, it was the fact that I kept going.

              Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves.  I have known new Christians who expected their lives to change instantly the moment they came up out of the water.  They thought sinful attitudes would suddenly morph into godly ones and temptation would be a thing of the past.  Once the adrenaline rush wore off and life became routine, their lack of speedy progress discouraged them.  No one would expect a person such as I was to run five miles the first time she ever tried, but for some reason we expect that in our spiritual progress.  We do have a lot of powerful help, but powerful doesn’t mean “miraculous.” 

              We seem to expect it of others too.  If a person has a failing as a young man, it will be held against him forever.  The fact that he improves is seldom noticed, but let him slip one time, even if it has been ten years, and suddenly everyone is saying, “There he goes again.”  Many of my brethren would never have allowed Peter to reach the eldership for exactly that reason.  Peter’s impetuosity was a problem for him, as was fear of what others thought, even after Pentecost (Gal 2), but he did improve, and those people noticed instead of saying “again,” or he would never have been an elder.

              Do you think others didn’t have problems after their conversion?  Look at the admonitions in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.  They were still suffering from a background of idolatry.  They couldn’t eat that meat without “eating as a thing sacrificed to an idol” (8:7).  That problem did not disappear overnight.

              Unless we are willing to say that we have reached perfection, none of us believes that it’s how fast we progress that matters.  We all believe that it’s the improvement that God judges.  Some of us have gone farther than others, but if we have stopped and are leaning on the fence, perfectly content with where we are, God will not be pleased with us.  God rewards only the one who is progressing, even if it’s just one fencepost at a time.
 
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil 3:13-14
 
Dene Ward
 

When I was growing up, all the young people wanted to be "different."  As I looked around me and actually considered what was happening, it dawned on me that they didn't really want to be different at all.  They didn't want rules or even societal expectations, that was the problem.  They wanted to be different from their parents.  But every single one of them wanted that in exactly the same way, and they all wanted to just like each other. 

               When it came right down to it, I was one of the "different" ones.  I wore my skirts to my knees, no strapless or spaghetti straps, nor deep vee necks or backs, no short shorts, no bikinis.  I never swore, never smoked, drank, or used drugs.  And they all knew it.  But because I was not like them, I was an outcast.  So much for appreciating individuality.  They were as much hypocrites as they claimed their parents were.

              Now think a minute about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Those boys were probably the same age as our children who struggle with wanting to be like all their friends—late middle school to early high school.  Not only were they different, they reveled in it.  They forced the issue with their insistence on different foods. 

              Just to clear up a few misconceptions, vegetarianism is not required by the Law.  In fact, to be a good Jew, you had to be a meat-eater.  The Passover meal and all the sacrifices required eating of the sacrificed animal as part of the worship.  So why did these boys insist on vegetables only?  It might have been that the meats they were given were sacrificed to idols.  Part of their training was probably in the Babylonian religion.  Maybe that is why they refused the meats.  But understand this, eating any meal prepared by Gentile hands in a Gentile country was unclean, even if it were not sacrificed to idols.

              So maybe this is the point:  they were trying to show that they were different from the other young men who had been carried away from other cultures.  They wanted to be seen as different.  And before long, their God-enhanced abilities made the differences even more obvious.  God himself made sure they were seen as different!  And they didn't mind one bit.

              So here is my question for you:  Are you teaching your children not only to be different, but to want to be different?  Do they want to stand out from the world or do they want to disappear into the crowd, eventually being swallowed up by the same desires and goals as the rest, living the same lifestyle, blending in, being, in the words of the Star Trek franchise, "assimilated?"

              When I graduated from high school, my junior English/senior Writing teacher gave me a poster with this quote by Henry David Thoreau: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.      

               I did not realize its significance at first, but my mother did.  "She knows you are not like all the rest," she told me, "and she respects that."

              Perhaps it's time we all taught our children, not to march in step with all their friends, but to listen for that distant, and different, drummer, and keep pace with Him.
 
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1Pet 2:21)
 
Dene Ward

Last year I read a book that proved by extensive research of ancient writings that mainstream Protestant belief is completely different from the beliefs of the apostles and the first century church.  The author wrote page after page quoting men who were companions or students of the apostles, men who knew firsthand what Peter, Paul, John, and the others believed.  You would think that by the end of the book the man would have taught himself straight into restoring the New Testament church.  But no, he stopped short.  In fact, he said it was impossible to restore the real thing, and the doctrines he had chosen to attack were only a few.  He never questioned his own desire to keep a few of those “heretical” -isms for himself. 

              I thought about that this morning and went on a rambling train track of other doctrines.  Finally, I hit the premillenial kingdom.  Do you realize that no one even heard of that in the first century?  In fact, it did not become a popular belief until the 1800s.  How can we possibly believe that the men who stood by the Lord as He proclaimed His kingdom and the others who learned directly from them could have missed it?  How can it be that everyone in the next 1800 years was wrong? 

              The problem with that doctrine is the same one the apostles first had.  They thought that the kingdom was a physical one, one that included physical armies that would destroy Rome and install a Jewish Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem.  Even they should have known better.  The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that no descendant of Jeconiah (a Davidic king shortly before the captivity) would ever reign in Jerusalem, Jer 22:28-30.  That includes the Messiah.

              Finally those men got it, and they fought that carnal notion of anything physical, or even future, about the kingdom for the rest of their lives.  John made it plain that he was in that kingdom, even while he sat on the isle of Patmos writing the book of Revelation, 1:9.  We are in a spiritual kingdom, one where we win victories by overcoming temptation and defeating our selfish desires, one where two natural enemies, like a lion and a lamb, can sit next to each other in peace because we are all “one in Christ Jesus.”

              The belief in a physical kingdom here on this earth?  Isn’t that a bit like an astronaut candidate stepping out of a training simulation and proclaiming, “I just landed on the moon?”  Our inheritance is far better than a physical earth--it is “incorruptible, undefiled, [one] that fades not away, reserved in Heaven,” 1 Pet 1:4.  Why should I want something on this earth when I can have that? 

              But it will be newly created, you say?  No, Jesus said my reward is already created, “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.

              It will last a thousand years?  Then what?  We cease to exist?  No, no, no.  I was promised “eternal life” Matt 19:29; 25:46; John 3:16; 4:14; 5:24; 6:40; 10:28; Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:23; 1 Tim 6:12, and—well, there are dozens more, but surely that makes the point.  No wonder no one in the first 18 centuries after Christ lived believed such a doctrine.

              We are supposed to have matured in Christ, to have gone beyond the belief in a material, physical kingdom, just as those apostles finally did.  Our kingdom is"not of this world."  It may not look like much to the unbeliever, but we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18.  We have a kingdom right now far greater than anything a mortal man can dream up.  It’s just that only those with spiritual eyesight can see it. 

              But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel…At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens…Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:22-29.
 
Dene Ward

What do you do when someone you love is in the middle of a crisis?  Prayer is probably the first thing that comes to mind, but after considering this awhile, I realize that a few other things must come before that.

              First we need to get our lives in order.  The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous avails much, we are told in James 5:16.  If you really care about the ones you are praying for, nothing will keep you from making sure you live a righteous life.  None of us can be righteous by being perfect, but we can all be made righteous by forgiveness.  Usually the only thing standing in the way of that is pride, and pride will form a ceiling past which your prayers cannot travel.  If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear, David wrote in Psa 66:18.  Whatever needs fixing in your life, first get on your knees and fix yourself before you even try to pray for anyone else.

              That one was obvious.  This one not so much.  God will never hear the prayers of a grudge-holder.  So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift, Matt 5:23-24.  Adam Clarke says, “A religion, the very essence of which is love, cannot suffer at its altars a heart that is revengeful and uncharitable, or which does not use its utmost endeavors to revive love in the heart of another.” 

                Do you know the easiest way to fix this problem?  Stop wearing your feelings on your coatsleeves.  Stop being so easily offended and insulted.  Stop seeing the worst in everything anyone says or does toward you.  Love “does not keep account of evil,” Paul says in 1 Cor 13:5.  “Love covers a multitude of sins,” Peter reminds us in 1 Pet 4:8.  If we weren’t so quick to make something out of every little thing that comes along, maybe more of our prayers would be heard.  “First be reconciled,” Jesus said.  There is a definite order to these things. 

              And the last thing I thought of?  I need to stop distracting those who are praying about this huge crisis with my own petty problems.  I know that it is impossible to overwhelm God—He can handle as many problems as we feel compelled to send his way.  But his people can be overwhelmed.  They can be distracted.  Feeling emotionally swamped can paralyze you, and keep you from the service that others desperately need.  The shepherds shouldn’t have to take time putting band-aids on boo-boos when a couple of other sheep need CPR. 

              So, just for now, while the crisis looms, you and God handle your problems, and God and I will handle mine.  God and even just one of his children are more than a match for any one or any thing.  When any crisis is at hand--I must be aware of priorities, and do my best not to cause other problems.  “Act like a man!” Paul told the Corinthians.  “Man up!” is the current way of putting it, or just, “Grow up!”  During a crisis the last thing the people of God need is someone raising a fuss or whining for attention. 

              I have a friend whom I have known since before I was even old enough to know her.  She needs the prayers and the undivided attention of the saints right now.  I do not want to be the one who fails her.
 
Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, "Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you…2 Kings 20:2-5.
 
Dene Ward

I have been teaching Bible classes since I was sixteen, to literally hundreds of women and children in over a dozen different locations, in several different venues.  Sometimes I wish I could go back and apologize to those early classes.  Experience has taught me so much.  This particular experience has probably happened to every teacher everywhere, probably more than once.

              A sensitive topic was on the agenda so I approached it with more than a little trepidation and a lot of prayer.  What I was about to tell them is no longer popular in the world.  I had prepared myself for possible objections, and steeled myself to stay calm and give thoughtful answers in a calm voice.  Oddly enough, when you defend the word of God, it should never sound “defensive.”

              A few weeks later, one of the young women wrote me a note.  She told me she had not agreed with everything I said, but that she had learned things she never knew before that would affect her views from then on.  She said she was likely to change her mind on some as she considered the things I had presented.  She thanked me for the time and effort I had taken to teach that study.  I still have that note, and always will.

              Contrast this to another young woman who, as the subject was presented, began to seethe.  She compressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes in contempt.  As soon as I took a breath, she raised her voice, and accused me of judging her personally.  She told me I was wrong in a tone of voice I would not have used on an enemy.  Then she folded her arms, sat as crossways as she could away from my general direction, and lifted her chin defiantly.  I doubt she heard anything else I had to say.

              It was an important topic that should not be avoided, and really, to be responsible before God as a teacher of His word, I could not have avoided it.  No names were mentioned.  I knew no one’s personal history.  I carefully said at the beginning, “I am not aiming this at anyone here because I do not know you that well.”  By her own actions, this person identified herself to all as one who had the problem, and by her own actions she told me that she would not even consider that she might be wrong.  

              I have far more confidence in the first woman’s continuing faith than the second.  I only hope that by making such a big deal out of it herself, that the latter will remember it and perhaps reconsider in spite of herself.  Her problem, you see, was pride.  She wasn’t wrong simply because she couldn’t be wrong.

              But he gives more grace.  Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble,” James 4:6.  That word “resist” is a military term.  It means “to range in battle against,” according to W. E. Vine.  It means you are going to war against God.

              Matthew Henry says it like this:  “In his understanding [the proud man] resists the truth of God; in his will, he resists the law of God, in his passions, he resists the providence of God.”  How many other ways can God reach us?  If we resist all these things because of pride, we will never find his grace.

              I found so many passages where God talks about destroying the proud that I lost count.  Sometimes it was individuals.  Sometimes it was a small group like the church at Corinth.  Sometimes it was the general personality of a nation, like Edom and Moab.  People who are proud will never find God, because they will never admit their need for Him.

              It can all be seen in something as small as a Bible study.  That first listener is far more likely to experience the grace of God.  She is open-minded and willing to listen, and most of all, she is willing to consider that she might possibly be wrong about something.  Peter refers to the same scripture as James in 1 Pet 5:5,6.  Notice, however, the context of this reference. 

              Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elder. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.

              Though he begins by speaking about the elders in particular (5:1-3), he gradually moves on to the more general “older” and “younger.”  As with the constant urging in the book of Proverbs from which the original passage comes (3:34), he expects us to learn from those who are older, who have more knowledge, and more experience.  Perhaps they are wrong, but if we instantly dismiss them because they disagree with us, how can we ever hope to find out?  It all reminds me of children who look at a new dish and say, “I don’t like that,” when they have never even tasted it.  Childish, indeed, and so are we when we are too proud to listen and study because, “I’ve never heard that before, so it can’t be right.”

              Is anything worth missing out on the grace of God?  When it is asking too much of us to say, “I was wrong about that,” or even, “I might be wrong about that,” it will be asking too much of God to say, “Enter in…”
 
Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. 1 Sam 2:3.
 
Dene Ward

A few weeks ago we piled into the car and headed off for town.  As we reached the western end of the driveway, we saw a stack of pine limbs, 12-15 feet long and still green, as if someone had simply cut them off and laid them there.  Keith stopped the car and stared .

              "What happened here?"

              We went over it together.  I had been by the spot late the afternoon before and seen only the usual foot high field of grass shaded from the afternoon sun by the line of oaks and wild cherries along the west fence.  We had a few gray clouds that evening, as we do nearly every afternoon and evening in the summer, and maybe a quick shower, but no thunderstorm.  Once the evening deepened into pure night, all was still and warm and humid—nothing unusual at all.  It may be five acres, but the distance from the house near the eastern side and the pines on the west is not really that far.  How had this happened without us knowing it?

            Obviously, a small eddy had blown through the pines, and sixty feet above ground it was stronger than you might imagine had you been standing beneath.  I have seen those eddies before.  Sometimes they stir up the dust out in the field where there is no shelter from the trees, but where the trees are thick, they stay aloft.  For it to tear large green limbs meant it was a strong one, but also localized.  Spread out it would not have done any damage.  And so it left us with a neat pile of limbs that Keith hauled to the fire pit for the coming fall.

              When these eye crises first began to hit me, my whole world turned upside down.  I couldn't keep house or cook, I couldn't teach Bible classes, and I had to close my music studio.  Eventually I missed three months of assemblies because of the pain and the appointments and the surgeries and the medication schedule.  When I did make it back and the announcements began I had a bad moment or two.  That week was a baby shower.  The next week was a wedding.  In two weeks was a potluck.  My poor little me self said, "How can they keep on having fun like this?  Don't they know my world is a shambles?"

              Of course that didn't last, but it did come to the surface.  When you are having your own personal storm, you wonder how anyone else can remain unaffected.  Don't they see how miserable you are and how dire the situation?  Don't they care anything about you at all?  Something selfish inside you wants everyone to cry with you.  Maybe that's where the old saying comes from:  Misery loves company.  I was having my own little storm in a localized area and it wasn't affecting anyone downwind.  Or so it felt.

              Okay, so where do we go with this?  First, I am reminded of the injunction to "Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep" (Rom 12:15).  We are all to share in one another's burdens.  If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1Cor 12:26).  Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body (Heb 13:3).  Knowing that others care about what is happening to you makes the trials somewhat easier to bear. 

              But there is always, as I said above, the selfishness that must be overcome.  I may be having a storm in my life.  That does not mean that anyone who does not know about it and act like the same storm is ruling their lives doesn't care.  Too many times we act like we have been specially set up to judge others in how they offer their compassion and help.  If it doesn't come when I want and the way I want, they are unloving.  And that of course, can lead to the excuse so many use for leaving the church.  "You didn't come visit me when I was in the hospital.  The elders didn't call, the preacher didn't hold my hand and pray over me, none of the members sent me a card."  Yet, when pressed in the matter you will usually find out one of two things:  the problem wasn't ignored; it was unknown because it was not shared.  Somehow everyone should just "know"—if I have to say anything, they aren't caring enough.  Or, "no one" is a gross exaggeration.

              And it also insinuates that because no one helped me the way I expected and thought they ought to, that I am now excused for any bad behavior.  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Heb 2:18).  That passage seems to imply that one of the purposes of suffering is so we can learn to help others who are also suffering.  That's what it did for the Lord I claim to be following.  I am supposed to be learning something here, not judging others.  And if I really do learn it, then it becomes my responsibility to do better than the ones I think left me high and dry--not castigating them or using them as an excuse for my own bad conduct, but showing them the way.

              Once my mind cleared that morning, I knew that others were affected by my storm.  They came in droves with hugs, welcoming me back to the assembly.  They had sent me off to difficult surgeries with hugs and money in my pockets for the expenses.  They had fasted and prayed during my scariest operation.  They had taken turns carrying me back and forth to the doctor after Keith ran out of leave time to do it.  That is usually the case when you let your brothers and sisters know your needs, when you share your fears and troubles.  If no one knows you are in a storm, that's your fault entirely.  Don't let a few moments of self-absorption steal the joy of brotherhood.
 
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal 6:2)
 
Dene Ward

On November 4, 1863, Dr. John Braxton Hicks delivered an address to the Obstetrical Society of London, advocating a new method of cephalic version (turning an unborn infant) in cases of placenta previa.  The older methods waited until the latter stages of delivery and were extremely painful.  His method, however, was pretty much shelved by the physicians who listened to his lecture.  It took years for them to acknowledge him and his genius as an obstetrician.  Having been pregnant, his name is not unfamiliar to me, but for an entirely different, and relatively minor, reason.

               I was the typical first timer, scared to death that I would not know what labor was when it actually hit me.  All I had ever seen were television and movie versions of labor where the woman grabs her rounded abdomen and gasps, so that is what I expected.  Turns out I was right to worry.

            About twelve days before my due date I suddenly began having contractions.  This was surely it, I thought.  I told Keith and we waited it out for a couple of hours as they gradually faded, never having hurt at all.  Yes, they were the old Braxton Hicks contractions, so named for that English doctor, who finally figured them out.  Some people call them “practice labor,” but that practice did not help me a bit.

              Four nights later I sat at the table trying to finish up a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  We lived in Illinois and I had been stuck inside most of the winter because I did not have a coat that would fit around me, so I wiled away some of the long hours with puzzles. 

               I had come close to finishing that night, when about 10 pm I noticed a little twinge in my back.  Pregnant women have backaches all the time so I thought nothing of it.  But about 2:00, when I had still not been able to get to sleep, that twinge suddenly became stronger.  “But this can’t be labor,” I thought.  “It’s just a bad backache.” Then my water broke.  Good thing because that was my only clue that it was indeed labor, a labor that, counting the time from 10:00, only lasted six and a half hours, and never found its way around front.  I might not have made it to the hospital on time if I had not suddenly found myself awash with the evidence.  At 4:45, I had a posterior birth, sunny-side-up the nurses call it, a nine plus pounder, twenty two inches long who, because of my anatomy and his size, could not make the final turn.  When that happens you get “back labor,” which is why I did not recognize it. 

               Two years and one week later, a day before my due date, I was in the front yard weeding my flowers.  We were in South Carolina this time so that early in May my plants were already blooming.  Suddenly I felt a little twinge in my back.  This time, because of my previous experience, I paid attention.  A half hour later I felt another.  Five hours later another sunny-side-up nine plus pounder entered the world.  This time I was ready for it because I could now tell the difference between false labor, a pregnant backache, and back labor.

              The Hebrew writer tells us, But solid food is for fullgrown men, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, 5:14.  That tells me that sometimes deciding what I need to do in a given situation is not always a simple matter.  Just like I had to learn from experience what was and wasn’t labor, sometimes I need to “discern” the Word to decide between good and evil, or maybe between good and better.  In fact, “discern” is translated “decide” in 1 Cor 6:5 ASV, “weigh what is said” in 1 Cor 14:29 ESV, and determining what makes things “differ” in 1 Cor 4:7 ASV.  God gives us guidelines and we must determine the best course of action, always following those guidelines. 

              The Pharisees had a difficult time with this.  They took the easy way out and simply followed a set of rules without weighing the circumstances, and where there were no rules, they made some up.  Their guideline was often their own best interests.  “Instead of taking care of your aging parents, you must dedicate your money to the Temple treasury,” they preached, Mark 7:11.  In other words, God always trumps people.  And even if that money never was given, as long as it was declared “dedicated to God” (Corban) they could keep it for their own use and not be counted guilty for not honoring their parents.

              Though it was told as a story, one can easily imagine the priest and the Levite saying, “Going to the temple services is more important than stopping to help this poor man because God must always come first,” in Jesus’ narrative of the Good Samaritan.  It perfectly fit their little formula for how to determine the “right” course of action.  What they forgot was that serving his children is one way we serve God—“inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren you have done it unto me.”  They would pull their oxen out of the ditch, but castigate our Lord for healing on the Sabbath.  Their pious formula, “God trumps people” was an out that served only to make him angry, Mark 3:5.

             Jesus said, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone, Matt 23:23.  They had forgotten the obligation to “discern,” to “weigh things out,” and make a decision based on years of experience with God.  And maybe that is our problem, too—we don’t have enough experience with God in his word.  We still think a Braxton Hicks contraction is the real thing.

              Over and over Jesus reminded those people that it was not simply a matter of a rote following of the Law. Sometimes you have to think, “What is the greater good here?”  That “good” must always be lawful, which should go without saying or it would not be “good,” but when our decisions always ignore grace and mercy, we are forgetting the very thing that caused our Savior to die for us.  How can we possibly think we will receive those things from him?
 
And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless, Matt 12:7.
 
Dene Ward

Wives of probation officers learn to live with a lot of things, including fear.  As certified law enforcement officers their husbands regularly go into neighborhoods that well-armed policemen will not enter without back-up.  Yet they do it on a regular basis to keep track of their caseload, making sure they are where they are supposed to be and not out getting into trouble again.  Keeping the community safe by supervising convicted felons is their job.  They knock on doors every day, never knowing who might answer, or what condition they might be in (drunk, high, angry) and what they might be carrying with them.  Yes, it’s illegal for them to have a weapon, but they broke the law already, remember?  One time Keith came upon one of his people parked in front of a convenience store with a shotgun in the front seat next to him.
 
             One of the other rules for the probationer is never to go near their supervising officer’s residence.  Most of them have no idea where their officers live anyway, and the office is not allowed to pass out that information, but when you live in a tiny rural county where practically everyone is related to or otherwise knows everyone else, they don’t even need a phonebook to find their officer.  Twice I have had one of those people knock on the door, once when Keith had already left for work.  That is why I always lock my doors when I come inside, and why, since we had a fence put up, we lock the gate 24/7.

              It’s a habit now.  I come in the door and shut it with a twist of the wrist and it’s locked.  I don’t even know I’ve done it. In fact, one time I walked outside to do something and locked myself out without realizing it. 

              On the weekends, I regularly lock Keith out too.  He will be chopping wood or mowing the yard and I come back in from taking him a jug of water and—flip—it’s locked.  I don’t know until I hear him knocking at the door.  He never gets angry; he always says, “Good job,” and goes about his business.  Now if I didn’t respond to his knock that might be a different story.

              Acts 6:7 tells us that many of the priests were “obedient to the faith.”  That word “obedient” is the same Greek word used in Acts 12:13.  Peter had been miraculously released from prison and went to Mary’s house, where the church had met to pray.  He knocked at the door and Rhoda came to “answer”—that’s the word “obedient.”  Just as a knock on the door requires a response, the gospel knocking on our hearts requires one too.

              First, let me praise poor little Rhoda.  This was a time of danger for the church.  Two had been arrested and one of those already killed.  The use of the word “maid[en]” or “damsel” tells me she was unmarried and therefore quite young.  Yet she is the one who was sent to answer the door.  What if it had been Herod’s soldiers?  Then she finds Peter standing there and is so excited she forgets to let him in.  It takes others coming to respond to the continued knocking for Peter to actually get into the house.

              A lot of charlatans who claim to be preachers of the faith will tell you that all you have to do is look out the door and recognize the Lord and you will be saved.  Faith is merely mental assent, with perhaps a lot of excitement thrown in, too much to actually get the door opened, to prove its sincerity, but this word requires some action.  Those priests in Acts 6 were “obedient” to the faith.  They responded completely and fully to whatever was asked of them.  “Mental assent” is not an appropriate response to the gospel, any more than me looking out the diamond-shaped pane of glass at my locked-out husband and waving, “Hi!”

              How many professional athletes have you seen wearing crosses and “thanking their Lord” before going out to live exactly the way they want to instead of the way He wants them to?  Too many.  But what about those of us who do not live with such public scrutiny?  How many times do we tell the Lord, even after having “obeyed the gospel” as if it were a one-and-done deal, I’m happy to serve as long as it doesn’t cost too much money or take too much of my precious time, as long as everyone does things my way (which is the only smart way), or calls me every day to check on me and take care of my every whim?

              The Lord is knocking on the door and He wants far more than your words.  He wants all of you, your heart and your life, your total submission to His way of doing things.  Don’t just nod at Him through the peephole.  Either answer the door and let Him in, or allow Him to go on to someone who really wants Him there.
 
As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 3:19-21
 
Dene Ward