I have done more traveling than I really care to lately—in less than two years’ time 7000 miles to either family funerals or experimental surgeries, and all in an automobile. I have started noticing place names that are a bit unusual.  Now, Florida does have its own peculiarities.  Have you ever heard of Two Egg, Florida?  As we traveled through Mississippi recently, we came across an exit for Dry Creek Water Park.  I am not sure I would want to go down their water slide.  Then there was Aux Arc, Arkansas.  If you have not had French lessons, or, as in my case, taught French art song, where the judges dock your students severely for mispronunciation, you may not get it.  “Au” in French is pronounced “oh”, and an “x” at the end of a word is not pronounced at all unless it comes before a word beginning with a vowel, in which case it is pronounced as a “z.”  So Aux Arc is pronounced “Ozark.”  Sounds like someone got a little cute.  Then there was Toad Suck Park.  I do not even want to contemplate how that one got its name.
           I am reminded of my readings, in Genesis especially, how various places were named.  Almost always it had to do with something that happened there, and in the case of God’s people, usually included a reference to God in their lives. 
            After Abraham offered Isaac (Gen 22) in all but actual deed, he called the mountain “Jehovah-jirah,” meaning “Jehovah will provide,” for indeed God did provide an offering.  When Jacob fled Esau, he dreamed of angels ascending and descending a ladder, and the next morning set up a pillar, poured oil upon it and called it “Beth-El,” meaning “house of God” (Gen 28).  When he returned to the land 20 years later, he called for all the foreign gods to be disposed of, for his family to purify themselves, and built an altar, calling it “El-beth-El,”  “the God of Bethel” (Gen 35)  In 33:20 he bought a parcel of land and spread his tent there, calling it “El-Elohe-Israel,” “God, the God of Israel.”
            So if we were going to name our homes, whether they be small apartments in the city, homes in the suburbs, or acreage in the country, what would we call them?  Is God a big enough part of our lives to figure in their names as He was to the old patriarchs?  Would “Beth-El” be suitable because God is regularly spoken to and the Lord is spoken of in our homes?  Could we call it Jehovah-jirah because we understand that all we have is provided by God?  Could we call it “El-Elohe-Ward,”  “God the God of the Wards” (or your own particular last name)?   Or would we, as Isaac did when the Philistines feuded with him over the watering holes, have to name our wells “Esek,”  (“Contention”) and “Sitnah,” (“Enmity”) (Gen 26)?  What emotions are our homes filled with? 
            It is an interesting exercise to think about giving our homes a name.  Try it, and see if it doesn’t help you make yours a better home for your family, and a wonderful place for anyone to visit
 
But will God in very deed dwell on the earth?  Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!  Yet have respect unto the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, O Jehovah my God, to listen unto the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day:  that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day …and hear in heaven your dwelling-place, and when you shall hear, forgive.  1 Kgs 8:27-30
 
Dene Ward

On our last camping trip we stayed on the Blackwater River in the Florida panhandle, “the last white sand river in the country,” according to the brochures.  We decided to take advantage of a local outfitter and rented a canoe.  For the price they transport you upriver eleven miles so that when you get to your destination, your vehicle is waiting for you, and you can pull the canoe onshore and leave on your own schedule.
            It was a crisp winter morning, with a sky so clear and blue you wondered if God had simply done away with clouds forever.  We put in on a white sand beach and headed off with our paddles dipping rhythmically at first, but eventually lying across our laps for the bulk of the trip as we drifted along with the current.
            We saw turtles by the dozen, sunning on logs near the shore, ducks splashing ahead of us by the river’s edge, a heron that seemed to taxi across the top of the water before its take-off, and an owl that took flight from a huge cypress branch as we passed him,. We scared up one poor water bird of some sort that would fly on ahead, and then as we came round the next bend, fly again.  I felt sorry for the poor fellow.  If he had only flown inland twenty or thirty feet and waited for us to pass, he could have stayed where he was.  I wondered how far from home he finally ended up.
            We passed small streams emptying noisily into the bigger river, and backwaters that sat still and quiet, forested with cypress knees, and impervious to the river’s current.  I am happy to report that we saw no alligators at all.
            About noon we pulled onto a white sand bar, sat in the shade of a scraggly myrtle, and dug into a backpack for a lunch of biscuits and sausage leftover from breakfast and a canteen of water.  We wandered around and found some deer tracks by the water’s edge, freshly made we knew, because it had rained the night before. 
            Then a half hour or so later, as we drifted on down the river, we suddenly found ourselves tangled among the branches of a cypress that had fallen into the river.  We had not kept a lookout and floated right into it.  Since we were there anyway, and stuck, we had a snack of tangerines, dropping the peels into the water to see if fish enjoyed that sort of thing.  Evidently they don’t, so we extricated ourselves from among the branches and once again caught the current going downriver.
            That stop made a small respite but this morning it makes a big point.  We spent most of the four and a half hours on the water drifting.  We seldom put our oars in unless we saw something ahead that we wanted to avoid, usually fallen trees in the water, some just under the surface scraping the bottom of the canoe.  Sometimes as we came round a bend, the current would send us toward shore and we had to paddle to keep from bottoming out.  Usually it was no problem to stay out of trouble.  That one time was a result of becoming so entranced with our surroundings that we did not notice what lay ahead.
            That is probably the way we wind up getting in trouble in our spiritual lives too.  We get distracted by things, not necessarily sinful things, but things that keep our attention too long from the direction we should be going.  When you are looking around, you can’t paddle straight, so you wind up drifting where the current takes you, and in this world, that may be a dangerous place.  More likely it will be into a bend in the river where the current swirls around in a slow, endless eddy, leading you nowhere.
            So be careful of your surroundings today, be careful that the things of this world do not take too much of your time and energy away from things of the next world.  You need to be involved in this world—how else can your light shine?  But you do not need to wrap yourself up in it to the point that it squeezes out your spirituality and concern for Eternity.  When visiting a lonely widow, cooking for a family burdened by illness, studying the Bible, or assembling with the saints becomes simply one more thing on a “to do” list, on the same plane as the PTA meeting, the piano lesson, and the Little League schedule, the priorities of life need a serious overhaul, even if it means giving up something.
            Don’t drift into the fallen logs and trees that will scrape up your soul.  Don’t let the bottom of your canoe bump against things that could tip you and drown out your spirituality.  Don’t bottom out, mired in the mud of life’s responsibilities.  Don’t spend so much time looking at the world as you pass it by, that it winds up meaning more to you than the one you are supposed to be headed for.
           
And that which fell among the thorns, these are they that have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. Luke 8:14.
 
Dene Ward

Poor old Martha.  How many times does she serve as a bad example from the pulpit or in women’s Bible studies?  She’s even had one of those studies named after her--Martha, Martha—and it isn’t a compliment!
            Jesus spent many hours, in fact, many days, in the company and home of those three siblings, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  You do realize it was probably Martha’s house:  and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house, Luke 10:38, which means the sacred duty of hospitality lay squarely on her shoulders.  No wonder she was so consumed by it.
            But consider this wonderful attitude of Martha’s:  Jesus, for whom she has labored so hard, comes into her home and delivers a scolding that is recorded for all posterity simply because she works so long to give him her best (or so it appears), and still she serves him.  How many of my sisters might have thought, “The ungrateful lout!  See if I ever invite him here again.”  I would have been hard-pressed not to think those words myself.  Do you think you wouldn’t have thought them?  How do you feel and react when your husband indicates that he does not like a meal you have worked on for several hours?  Aha!  I thought so.
            But Martha did not react that way.  She changed.  I know this because she served him again, shortly before his death (John 12), and though Mary was once again sitting at his feet, Martha never uttered a complaint against her.  And Jesus did not correct Martha, which proves that it was not the serving itself that was the problem, it was the attitude. 
            Perhaps it was simply that she had decided what Mary needed to be doing instead of focusing on herself.  Some of us are more suited to being Marys and some to being Marthas.  The Lord had a physical body that needed serving.  It was not wrong for Martha to feed and house him.  It was wrong, though, for her to decide what Mary’s obligations were and then resent her for not fulfilling them.  That was between Mary and the Lord, not between the two sisters.  When we all take care of our own duties to the best of our abilities, the Lord will be served in every area. 
            And here is another thing for which to praise Martha.  Imagine the Lord spent as much time in your home as he did with these three beloved friends of his.  Just how many times would he be scolding you?  I would be lucky not to have more than one a day recorded in my case, much less one in about three years’ time.  Yet this poor woman, who served him faithfully, who corrected her attitude when he spoke to her, who had the faith to say, If you had been here my brother would not have died, and even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you, John 11:21,22, this woman we hold up for all generations as a bad example. 
            I hope in my lifetime I can do as well as she did.
 
Jesus said unto [Martha] I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes on me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  She said unto him, Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world.  John 11:25-27.
 
Dene Ward

Our late winter/early spring gardening chores include pruning.  Pruning is serious business.  If you do it at the wrong time and in the wrong way, you can kill a plant.  But correct pruning encourages healthy growth, more flowering, heavier fruit yields, and in general, better looking plants.  Correct pruning can also scare you to death.
              If Keith had not had an experienced friend show him how to prune the grapes, he would never have done it correctly.  Light pruning does not promote fruiting on grape vines.  It takes a heavy-handed pruner, one who knows exactly how far down which vines to cut—and it is much farther than you would ever expect—to make vines that in the late summer provide both greater quantity and quality of grapes. 
              Roses also benefit from good pruning.  Every January or February (remember that we are talking here in Florida before you follow this to the letter) you should cut off 1/3 to ½ of the mature canes, plus all dead or dying branches, as well as those that cross or stray out of the general shape of the bush.  That is how you get more flowers and larger blooms, and healthier, prettier bushes altogether.
              God believes in pruning too.  John 15 is full of the imagery of pruning grape vines, cutting off those that no longer produce and throwing them into the fire, which just happens to be where we throw all our prunings as well.  God has done a lot of pruning throughout history.
              The wilderness wandering was nothing but one big pruning exercise.  All the faithless, those men of war responsible for the decision not to take the land, had to die, and a new generation be prepared.  Do you realize that if you only count those men, on average throughout those forty years, 40 men died every day?  That does not count the people who died of accident, disease and childbirth, and the women and priests who simply died of old age.  Every morning the first thing on one’s mind must have been, “Who died yesterday?”  Those people must have done nothing but bury the dead every single day for forty years.  No wonder they moved so often.
              Then there was the Babylonian captivity.  Ezekiel worked for seventy years preparing the next generation to return to the land as a righteous remnant while the older one died off.  Pruning made them better, stronger, and more able to endure those months of rebuilding, and the years that followed.
              And what else was it but pruning that made God cut off some branches (Jews) and graft in others (Gentiles)?  They were broken off because of their unbelief, Paul says in Rom 11:20, and then goes on to say that if God will prune the natural branches, he will certainly prune those that had been grafted in if their faith fails.
              God still prunes.  We tend to call it by other metaphors these days—refining our faith as gold, Peter says in one of those passages.  “Discipline” the Hebrew writer calls it, adding that the Lord only chastens those he loves.  But all these figures mean the same thing.  Pruning can be painful.  The best pruning shears are the sharp ones, for the wound will heal more quickly the cleaner the cut. 
              We carry a lot of deadwood on us that God has to whittle away through the trials and experiences of life, and with our own growth in the knowledge of the Word as we learn what is and is not acceptable to God.  It is up to us to use that pruning, shedding the dead wood and cultivating new growth, bearing more fruit, higher quality fruit, and more beautiful blooms.  If I am not growing, I can expect nothing more than my whole vine to be cut off and cast into the fire. 
              We want to be that productive grape vine with fruit so heavy and juicy we almost break from the sheer weight of it.  We want to be the rose that brings the oohs and aahs, whose perfume wafts on the breeze to all those around us.  We must submit to the pruning of the Master Gardener, glorying in His work in us, no matter how painful, so that we can “prove to be his disciples,” John 15:8, faithful to the end.
 
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit, John 15:2.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
The year we moved here, 1985, lightning struck a huge oak at the west end of our five acres. Sure that it would die, we planted two pecan trees nearer the house but still far enough away to provide shade late in the day when the sunlight tended to come in under the live oaks in our yard. Florida sun is brutal.
 
The oak tree survived and is now over 13ft around, about 4 ½ ft in diameter. It lost a limb and has a huge dead spot the size of an adult that goes up at least 20ft and which has partially scarred over with thick bark. But, in the right light one can see right through the tree as the opposite side has a smaller damaged area.
 
Most of us have been struck by sin, far more damaging than lightning. We have dead places in our hearts because we have covered the sin with callouses just as the tree grew bark to cover and strengthen the edges of the dead area. We pretend they are not there and if no one knows, well it is not so bad. I just pulled a chunk of dead wood out of the tree with my hand. Sin-dead areas of our hearts that are hidden still rot. Secret sins, acts we deny are sin, actions and thoughts we pretend are "just the way we are" and "I am doing my best" rot and putrefy.
 
God promised through Ezekiel, "“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. " (Ezek 36:26). Anyone who has been through open heart surgery will tell you that it is painful. But those who have received a new heart must also take anti-rejection drugs the remainder of their lives. Spiritually, it is hard to confront the sins we hide from everyone. Some of these have become part of who we are! Repentance involves ripping out who we are and what we do and becoming a new man. Also, we must take anti-rejection doses of scripture, prayer and the exercise of self-control for the remainder of our lives. The body of our flesh tries to reject the new heart.
 
Do not be satisfied with covering over the scars of sin-struck lives. Become a new person.
 
"for he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he lives, he lives unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof: " (Rom 6:7-12).
 
Keith Ward
 

A few Sundays ago the chill weather made it possible for me to wear my best suit, one a little heavier than anything else I have, one a little more expensive, but a hand-me-down from a friend.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a couple of limited time specials.  That’s one way we stay financially afloat—picking up specials when we are already the thirty miles into town for assembly.
              So we were loading the trunk and as she passed, a stranger said to me, “That’s a lovely suit.  You’ve been to church, haven’t you?  I apologize for being nosy, but would you mind telling me where you attend?”
              Would I mind?!  Of course I spent the next five or ten minutes telling her where I attend, when we meet, who we are, and what we do.  Then I handed her a blog card and pointed out my contact information in case she had more questions.  “Please email me or just call.  I can give you more detailed directions,” I finished with.
              I know a lot of people who no longer “dress up” for church.  They certainly have that right.  But I know a lot of others who go even further—who tell those of us who grew up doing it that we are wrong, that we are trying to be Christians on the outside instead of the inside.  I have yet to figure out why wearing my good suit on Sunday makes me a hypocrite any more than someone who thinks sitting on the pew in jeans on Sunday then dressing up for the boss all week makes him a Christian. 
              In fact, tell me this.  If you were this woman and you were searching, who would you ask on a Sunday about noon at the grocery store—the guy in shorts, tee shirt and flip-flops or the man with a tie on?  The lady with a dress on or the one with cut-offs and an oversized shirt hanging over her waistline?  Maybe there is something to be said after all for making it obvious on a Sunday that you have been to church. 
              But then we have this point—it isn’t what you wear on Sunday that makes the Christian; it’s what you wear every day. 
              Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do you: and above all these things [put on] love, which is the bond of perfectness, Col 3:12-14.
              My neighbors need to see these spiritual clothes every day.  There can be no “dressing down” spiritually after you have “put on Christ” in baptism, Gal 3:27.  The people I work with, the people I go to school with, the people I come into contact with, especially on a regular basis, should know by my speech and my actions that “I went to church on Sunday.”  God won’t accept a “casual Friday” set of spiritual clothes any day of the week.
              I’ve had a great many things make people ask me questions—maybe that’s a good subject for another day, but it all boils down to this—I have to look different.  Whether it’s how I act, how I speak, how I run my family, or any number of ways, it needs to be obvious.  Let’s stop making judgments about one another’s literal clothes, and just go out there and show people who we are with the spiritual wardrobe of a child of God. 
 
The night is far spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof] Romans 13:12-14.
 
Dene Ward

I brought four pencils in here by the desk to sharpen.  I gather them up from here and there, all colors, all brands.  Ticonderoga yellow may be the most famous brand, but I haven't a one of those to my name.  The erasers are all in different levels of use.  A couple already sport one of those separate ones you put on the top because the one they came with is totally flat.
So I will grab my old fashioned school sharpener, the one with the hand crank, and get them all back to their pointy selves and ready for use.  Then I will carry them back to the windowsill next to my chair to use with my crossword puzzles.  No, I do not do my puzzles in ink.  Well, if it's a Los Angeles Times Crossword, even their Sunday crossword, I do.  But a New York Times Crossword—no way.  It will wind up a mess if I try.
              The Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword is so easy I can do it in ink in just about 15 minutes.  Once in a great while it will take 20.  I might have one or two squares where I have had to go over a mistake in darker ink to correct it, but most of the time it is clean and legible without a single blotch.  But the New York Times' puzzle takes me nearly an hour and quite a bit of erasing.  If I tried it in ink, I probably wouldn't be able to read it for the mess I made.  I may love to do those puzzles, but I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.  You know those people who finish the marathon three hours after everyone else, coming in while the banners and signs are being taken down?  That's me doing a crossword puzzle.  All I can say is, I get it done.  And hurray for pencils and erasers.
              Jesus is my pencil and God is my eraser.  The Lord's sacrifice is far larger than we usually give him credit for.  Not to diminish it in the least, but he didn't just die for us and rise from the dead for us, a process that took no more than three days.  He lived a lifetime for us as a human being, experiencing the same trials and sorrows we do.  God, mind you--and he did it without the failings we so often want to excuse because we are "only human."  When we do that, we insult that sacrifice, because he did it to show us how, to show us that we most certainly can do it, especially with his help—or will we insult that too?
              No, life is not a Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle.  God never told us it would be easy, and that's why I need the pencil.  He promised us "thorns and thistles" and "sweat of the brow."  He told we would have to kill our old man (crucified) and become something brand new.  He may have said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," but it's still a yoke and a burden.
              But then he tells me that all is not lost if I do fail.  After all, this life is written in pencil if we just repent, get back on our feet, and try again, determined to go farther than the last time, determined to improve—not to make excuses.  And then God will erase that error like it never happened, clean, white paper without even a smudge, ready for the next attempt.  And with his help, we might even get the right answer this time.
              When we refuse to try, when we make excuses for our failure and refuse to admit our wrong, that's when we are writing in ink.  We can go over it and over it and over it, making it darker and uglier with every try, and everyone will still see the obvious error.  Maybe everyone but the one who need to see the truth the most--me.  And it can never be erased, if that is the attitude we have.
              Far better to follow the Lord's example.  Far better to be tough and work hard and try again and again and again.  Pencil is, after all, easily erased.
 
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  (1John 1:6-7).
 
Dene Ward
             

We have two wild turkeys coming to the feeder these days, a brand new development.  We knew they were out there in the woods—you can here the toms gobbling and the hens clucking early in the morning and in the first hours of dusk.  Then last fall we saw four traipsing across our garden in the middle of the day.  A young visitor that day heard Keith and her father talking about “turkey season,” and I heard her whispering, “Run turkeys!  Run!”  And they did.
              Then in the middle of winter one morning I looked out and there stood a turkey hen under the south feeder pecking at the fallen birdseed.  She visited every day for awhile and eventually found her way around the house to the other two feeders.  Gradually she became used to us, and now we can go out on one side of the house without her leaving the opposite side at a “turkey trot.”  She will even let us move by the window inside, where she can see us clearly, without running away.
              Then one afternoon there she was again, only she looked a little different, didn’t she?  Maybe her neck was thicker we said, and then one of us moved in our chairs and she ran down the trellis bed and actually flew over the fence.  Turkeys do not like to fly, so she must have been terrified.  That’s when we put two and two together and realized we now had two turkeys, one with a thinner neck who has learned that we won’t bother her, and one with a thicker neck who still thinks we are some sort of predator out to get her.  Isn’t it odd that it’s the skinnier turkey that is the least frightened?
              That is an apt metaphor for the people of Israel.  They were the country with the skinniest neck, yet throughout their history they routed huge armies or saw them turned back by “circumstances.”  They watched God’s power work when no other country their size, nor even some larger, could withstand the enemy.  But despite that ongoing evidence, only a few learned to depend upon God, only a few saw the chariots of the Lord on the hilltops around them (2 Kings 6:12-18).  Only a few of them had faith and courage like this:
              And Asa cried to the LORD his God, “O LORD, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, 2 Chron 14:11.
              Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright, Psa 20:7,8.
              Eventually there weren’t enough faithful to save them from destruction.  Eventually God had to remove the ones He thought had some potential and send the prophets to ready them for a return, but even then only a small remnant came back.  Many of them were still frightened turkeys, and they were well aware of how skinny their necks were.
              Learn the lesson those people didn’t.  God has given you evidence every day of your life that He is with you.  If you think otherwise, you just haven’t noticed.  Trials in your life are not an indication that He is not with you.  Paul told the Romans that “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword,” none of those could separate us from the love of Christ--not that they would never happen! 
              Be ready to stand against whatever army Satan throws at you, knowing that ​the chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; [and] the Lord is among them, Psa 68:17.                                                                                      
Dene Ward

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, (Eph 5:18-19).
              It had to have been a science class somewhere along the way in my education, maybe as early as fourth grade.  The teacher put a glass in front of us and asked us what was in it.
              "Nothing," we replied in unison, at which point she told us we were mistaken—it was full of air.  It took a while for some to catch on.  A glass is never empty, not even half-empty.  It is either full of some liquid or it is full of air or it contains some of both.  That was the beginning of our study of vacuums, leading to the old Bell jar demonstration.
              What is true for a glass, is true for us as well.  "Be filled with the Spirit," our passage above says, and we understand that if we do not fill ourselves with that, something much worse will worm its way inside us because, just as physical nature abhors a vacuum, so does spiritual nature.
              And so we need to know how to fill ourselves with the Spirit and all too often we stop with those two verses.  "By singing!" we exclaim when someone asks how it is done, and then laud our congregation for its Spirit-filled singing, as if that is all there is to it.  We sound great and those harmonies and rhythms stir our souls, making our hearts even beat faster, so that must be how to do it.  Wow!  Look at all the Spirit we have in this one room.
              Yes, that is indeed part of it.  But if we think that a good songfest will take care of the issue, we have shown ourselves to be poor readers of the Word.  That paragraph does not stop with "singing," and neither does that sentence.
              …giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Eph 5:20).
              How good am I at giving thanks, especially if I have had a particularly trying week?  How often does my thanks become complaining because my life has not gone the way I expected?  Because Ii got up on the wrong side of the bed?  Because someone cut me off in traffic?  How often do I resort to those words of self-pity, "Why me?"  when suffering comes my way?  Probably more often than I should, but still, being thankful is fairly easy to do when you have been steeped in the plan of God to save us from sin and the sacrifices He made to do it for your entire life.  So how about the final point in that sentence?
              …submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:21).
              What?!  Yes, if I am filled with the Spirit, I am submitting to my brothers and sisters.  "Aye, there's the rub," we say along with Hamlet.  We are perfectly happy to sing and even to give thanks, especially when reminded every so often, but submission?  Now that IS a rub—a hindrance or impediment—to allowing the Spirit to fill us.  What exactly is meant by this (grumble, grumble) "submission?"
              Well, it is the same word as the next verse, Wives submit to your own husbands, as unto the Lord.  The answer is right there.  A man should submit to his brothers and sisters exactly as he expects his wife to submit to him, and even the manner is specified:  as unto the Lord.
              Whoa, now! 
              "I have my rights." 
              "I have liberties."
              "I have my opinions."
              "I am just as good as anyone else." 
              "No one can tell me what to do."
I have heard them all, not just once or twice, but too many times to count.  And what does that mean?  It means I have heard a lot of people who are filled with something besides the Spirit, probably themselves, because your heart abhors a vacuum just as much as nature does.
 
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, [How?]
1.  addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
2.  giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
3. submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:18-21).
 
Dene Ward

I despise dusting.  I think part of the problem is all the things you must lift and dust individually in order to get the job done.  It takes forever to do it right.  Maybe if all I had to dust were flat surfaces I wouldn't mind so much.  Of course, being allergic to dust mites doesn't help either.  I am usually miserable for the rest of the day, no matter how careful I am.
              So last Saturday I was taking all those knickknacks off the shadow boxes in the bedroom and, to make the job less annoying, thinking about where those various gadgets came from.  Piano students and family members were the biggest culprits—vases of all sizes and materials including one made of olive wood from Bethlehem, cups and saucers with cute pictures and sayings, dinner bells, porcelain figurines, seashells, a few pictures, a whiskey bottle inside of which Keith's uncle had whittled a wooden airplane.  (Yep, after he drank the whiskey.)
              Then I took down the brass candle holder.  It used to have a twin, but it was broken long ago in one of the many moves it has made since I received it over 45 years ago.  It came from my best friend in high school years.  We did not attend the same high school because we lived in Tampa across town from each other.  Even 45 years ago, Tampa was big enough to have several high schools.  But we attended church together and did our best to call one another and spend the night every so often.  Her parents owned some lakefront property and every summer found us out on the raft, a la Huckleberry Finn, talking, laughing, and planning our lives as we soaked up the sun.
              We were different in a lot of ways.  She was a petite blonde with big blue eyes and long hair, interested in becoming a secretary.  I was a not so petite, beady-eyed brunette with long hair, planning to attend college and eventually operate a music studio.  We traded lessons—she teaching me Gregg shorthand, and me teaching her music theory.  I can still do some of that shorthand, but I doubt anyone could read it!
            We were both introverts and loners, both had distinct likes and dislikes especially in clothing styles, which amounted to high neck Victorian collars, billowy sleeves, Bell bottoms, and granny dresses in those days.  We both wrote in our spare time and had things published in the school literary magazine.  We even wrote spiritual poetry together in some of those late overnighters.  We taught the children's Bible classes, brainstorming together about techniques and take-homes since no one had bothered to actually teach us how to do it.  We discussed our favorite hymns and their deeper meanings.  We took sermon notes in shorthand and always sat where we could see the overhead projector, the precursor of power point.
            All of that came flooding back as I picked up that well-patina-ed candle holder.  I have done a little purging lately, not as much as I should, but some.  I don't even use this thing any more, I thought, especially since it lost its mate.  While we lose our power often out here in the country, we have plenty of flashlights and a much more powerful propane camp lantern, not to mention a generator for the long hauls.  I have much prettier candle holders in my china cabinet now for special occasion dinners.  So why not throw it out?
           I suppose part of the problem is that I have completely lost track of this friend now.  She was in my wedding and asked me to be in hers, even though I had moved a thousand miles away, but by the time the wedding came around I would have been 8 months pregnant and that just wasn't going to work. 
          We also married differently.  Her husband was a professional, a PhD in psychology, I think, and a city guy his entire life.  Mine was an Arkansas hillbilly who had been in the Marine Corps, and then became a preacher.  They were as different as night and day, and though she did convert her husband before their marriage, we still had little in common.
           But we kept in contact, visiting one another a few times, back and forth, anxious, at least I was, to keep that old friendship that had meant so much alive.  But then, after about thirty years, it was only a matter of Christmas cards, and now that has gradually come to an end, and I don't even know how that happened.  Right now I cannot find out if she is even still alive, and no one from the congregation we used to be a part of is around who knows where she might be.  When I checked the address on Google, she is no longer listed as a resident there.
          So, what about this candle holder?  Well, I still have it.  It isn't that it would be hard to throw it away.  After all, it isn't even worth much now.  What's hard to throw away is the relationship.  I think God has the same reluctance.  When I look at those churches in Revelation, the symbolic seven (there were many more in the area) have so many problems, you wonder that God had not already angrily destroyed them.  Leaving their first love, sexual immorality, idolatry, lukewarm faith, but still he warns rather than simply throwing out their candlestick—the symbol of their identity as a church of the Lord, giving light to the world.  Even in the Old Testament, he waited for centuries, hoping that his people would turn to Him again.  He was their father, and they his firstborn.  But finally, he did come in destruction, just as he will for us someday if we follow their footsteps instead of our Lord's.
          But maybe, for a little while longer, I will keep dusting that brass candlestick.  Maybe I will someday find my old friend.  I will hold out hope a little longer, and try a little harder to find her before I discard this candle holder.  What we used to have was wonderful enough to be worth it.
              How about your relationship with the Father?  Does He even have a candle holder to remember you by?
 
For thus says the LORD: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. ​With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. (Jer 31:7-9).
 
Dene Ward