We live in a rural county.  We have no garbage pickup.  Instead we have dumpsites at several places with recycling bins and a dumpster for household garbage.  We have to haul our own trash.  Ask yourself how much trash and garbage your family generates in a day.  How many garbage cans do you have outside and how many times can you empty the trash indoors before your outside can is full?  Now, how often would you like to drive several miles to dump your trash, and how many of those big trash cans will fit in your car?  You now know one reason most of the folks out here have a pickup truck!
              But this also explains the burn barrel.  We keep two receptacles in the house—one for wet garbage and one for burnable trash.  The more we can burn, the less often we have to cart garbage cans down the highway.  We put everything we possibly can in that box of trash—junk mail, out-of-date documents, bills, and receipts, cardboard boxes, empty plastic containers and lids, plastic bottles and bags, old rags, irreparable clothes—everything that will burn, or melt and then burn.  Don’t talk to me about recycling.  We recycle in several other ways, and this practice saves gas.
              But let me ask you this. Would you ever put anything important in a burn barrel?  Of course not.  Do you know what God thinks of this world?  He has his own burn barrel, and this world is what He plans to throw in it.
              We need to remember that.  Too often we become enamored of the very things God will ultimately destroy.  Some of our favorite things in life are sitting in God’s burn barrel.  Even when we think we have our priorities straight, we often do not.
              I remember telling my little boys that one day we would take a month long camping trip out west.  We would show them all those beautiful national parks they had only heard about.  They could look across the Grand Canyon, watch Old Faithful erupt, and stand in a place where the mountains rose peak after peak after peak with no signs of modern man—no power lines, no sounds of traffic, not even a tangled skein of contrail in the perfect blue sky--a place where a thousand years before some native had stood and enjoyed the same view.  It never happened.  We never had the money or the time.  They are grown now and can understand the pressures of life, making a living, paying the bills, meeting one’s responsibilities to others, but I have always felt bad about missing that trip.  We managed one or two other things while they were still at home, but never that one.
              But remember this, no matter how good a plan it was, how good the values we were trying to instill with an appreciation of God as the Creator of all that majestic beauty, God Himself doesn’t think that much of it.  It’s temporary.  He plans to destroy it all.  The things God meant for me to teach those boys were things I could teach any time, any place, no matter how much money we did or didn’t have. 
               The Bible is full of people who did not have the right priorities—Esau for one, who sold a birthright for one meal.  The Hebrew writer calls him “profane” (Heb 12:16).  Paul talks about having a “mind of the spirit” rather than a “mind of the flesh” (Rom 8:4).  And why?  Because Jesus’ kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18:36).  It is “not meat and drink” (Rom 14:17).  So many things we allow ourselves to become upset about simply do not matter.  Traffic jams?  Noisy neighbors?  Pet peeves?  Even the trials of life—precisely because it is this life we are becoming distracted with.
              For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is perdition, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:18-20.  Yes, Paul says that when I let things of this life upset me to the point of distraction that my “god is my belly.”  I am not supposed to be minding those earthly things.
              So today, think about God’s burn barrel.  He has a place for the things He plans to destroy, just like I do, one that gets too full too fast.  God’s burn barrel holds things like wealth, possessions, awards, careers, opinions, irritations, Jimmy Choo shoes, stock portfolios, time shares on the beach, cabins in the mountains, camping trips out west—even this earthly tabernacle that so many try to keep looking young.  They all go in the barrel at the end of the Day.  And God will light the fire Himself.
 
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed…Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace, 2Pet 3:10-14.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Warren Berkley.
 
I was the visiting speaker at a large local church in a metropolitan area here in Texas last month. As the announcements scrolled across the screen, then prayers offered, there were those words I see over and over: Cancer, Heart Attack, Asthma, Parkinson’s, Surgery, Diabetes, Leukemia, Alzheimer’s, Brittle Bone, on and on.
             When we see or hear these words, we often feel disappointed, defeated and we grieve with the “sick and afflicted” and their families. Sometimes the word “terminal” is part of the reality.
                Here is another perspective. All these conditions are temporary! It is so hard to replace the word “terminal” with the word “temporary.” But when the full scope of existence is brought into view, that there is an existence after this life, “terminal” is overpowered by “temporary,” especially for those who build their lives on the foundation of active faith in Christ.
I            I was preaching from 1 Peter 1 at this church. I read their list of conditions/diseases and told them, “these are all temporary,” then I read 1 Pet. 1:6.
 
Truth Connection: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.”
 
Warren Berkley
Berksblog.net

Years ago I sang in the evening chorus at the university.  Chorus was required for my degree, and this was the only chorus that fit my schedule, a schedule that included teaching private piano lessons, running a home, and interning as a music teacher in a local elementary school.  Add to that, I was a preacher’s wife—just learning, as he was, but still dealing with extra obligations.
              We had a program scheduled and the director called an extra rehearsal.  That rehearsal did not fit my schedule.  I would have had to cancel a few lessons and more important, miss a Wednesday evening Bible study.  He made it clear that no misses would be excused short of death beds.  So I took a deep breath when I broached the lion in his den the next afternoon.
              My heart sank when I saw three others waiting outside his office.  Instead of calling us in one by one, he came out and stood in the hall and listened as the first one asked to be excused.  “Absolutely not!” he said sternly.  “You already miss too many rehearsals.  If you don’t show up, you will be dismissed from the chorus.”  The next one received a similar reply and the next.  They all left, crestfallen.
              Then he saw me at the back of the line.  “If you have to dismiss me, I understand,” I began, “but my husband is a preacher and we have a Bible study that night.  I just cannot miss it.” 
              I was shocked when a small smile twitched at his lips.  “You I don’t worry about,” he said quietly.  “You are always there.  You listen when I give directions.  You know your part.  You haven’t missed a single performance.  Go to your Bible study.  You still have a place in my chorus.” Talk about relief.  I drove home praising God in my heart.
              Have you read Psalm 123?  That psalm is classified as a psalm of trust, written on behalf of the entire nation of Israel.  Many psalms are full of hallelujahs, with shouts of Hosanna, with dancing and leaping and loud expressions of joy.  Not this one.  Psalm 123 is a quiet psalm.  It is presented as servants watching quietly from the corner of the room for the smallest sign from the master that he wants something. 
              Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us, v 2.
              Leupold says, “There is nothing powerful, moving or sublime that finds expression here.  A quiet, submissive tone prevails throughout.  It is subdued in character.”  This is simply a servant doing his master’s will in an unobtrusive manner, calmly asking for relief but going about his duty even in the midst of trial, trusting that his prayer will be answered without his further interference.
              I like this psalm.  I have never been one who needs to demonstrate my love for God loudly, yet everyone knows it is there simply from the way I live my life.  If my chorus director could know I was a “faithful student” despite the fact that I was quiet instead of boisterous, certainly God can know the same about my spiritual life.
              God, the Father of spirits, made all kinds of personalities.  And because He made them, he accepts them—just look at the apostles and all their differences.  If He will accept that varied crew, He will accept my worship, even if it is quiet and restrained, as long as my emotion and intent are sincere and obedient.
              Nowadays it seems people are quick to judge others as less thankful, less sincere, and less loving if they sit quietly and say little aloud about their feelings.  This psalm says it isn’t so.  If I sit quietly in the corner waiting for my master’s smallest cue, I may, in fact, be a whole lot more likely to see it than someone who can’t sit still long enough to notice, or be quiet long enough to hear someone besides himself.  
              We are all different, yet God accepts all worship that is “in spirit and in truth,” the brash, the boisterous, even the analytical and the subdued.  Perhaps our judgments of one another should be more subdued as well.
 
But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious, 1 Pet 3:4.
 
Dene Ward

In the midst of grief there is always business that still needs to be taken care of.  Planning funerals, going through belongings, paying final bills, and other such matters.  But this is the first time I have had to deal with death certificates.  My mother took care of my father's since they lived over two hours south of us and I could not be there for everything.  If you have seen them, you know that there are two kinds, the long form and the short form—just like taxes.  The long form lists the manner and cause of death.
              The manner could be natural, homicide, accidental, etc.  The cause will be the primary cause, such as heart failure.  Then there are "other conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause" which might include things like hypertension or diabetes.
              I began thinking about people I know who have experienced spiritual death—those who used to sit on the same pews I do, but for some reason left, those who decided that living as a Christian was not worth the taunts or the sacrifice or the minuscule persecution we have to deal with in this country, or simply not worth giving up the pleasures of this world.  Those causes of death are pretty obvious. But how about those who just weren't careful to live a "healthy" spiritual life, watching their diets and exercising their senses to discern good and evil (Heb 5:14)?  I wondered what their death certificates might look like.
            
              Manner of death:  suicide
              Cause of death:  sin
              Other contributing conditions:  failure to assemble with the saints, no companionship with their spiritual family except at the meetinghouse, prayer and Bible study deficiency, failure to consider and counteract the materialism of our "too rich" culture,  thoughtless acceptance of society's standards instead of determining whether those standards will help or hinder their spirituality and are truly part of a holy life.

              I will keep a copy of my mother's death certificate in the file next to my father's.  But this I know—it is only the certificate of their physical deaths.  They never had, and now they never will have, a spiritual death certificate.  I don't believe I could bear it if they had.
              Do you have one?
 
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.  (Rev 20:6).
 
Dene Ward

Since I have written several and published some Bible Class literature, I am in the position to hear a lot of complaining about it.  That is why I have written so much of it—I wasn't happy either.  While I only have a couple of published books out there, I have another half dozen in my computer file that I have taught and could print out for publication with very little more work.  So, yes, I feel for you teachers who are looking for material.
              Most of that was women's literature.  As for children's?  My biggest gripe about the genre was first, the errors.  I actually grew up being taught in the Journeys Through the Bible and the like workbooks that Jacob married Leah after seven years of work, and then worked another seven years before he married Rachel.  I heard more times than I can count that Bathsheba was bathing on the rooftop.  I was given pictures to color that had the wise men showing up at the stable.  And we won't even start with the cultural errors that showed not only in the pictures, but also the wording and assumptions.
              Second, the workbooks were all too easy.  You could have given the fifth grade books to second graders and the high school books to sixth graders.  Do you want to know why so many of our children are bored with church?  Because we are the ones boring them to death!
              But that is not the point I want to make this morning.  We will never find perfect Bible class literature for our children.  With so many different styles of learners out there, and so many different needs in different cultures/neighborhoods, it is impossible.  When people start complaining, I worry that what we have is uncreative teachers with little insight into what their students actually need.  So how do we go about choosing good literature?  Here are a few guidelines.

              1.  Carefully assess the needs of your group.  And folks, that means look at the parents.  The attitudes your students have come directly from their raising.  If the parents are good Bible students, usually their own children will arrive with a completed workbook and answers to all your questions.  If not, then you must steel yourself to go over the story in class, again and again, to get it across.  If the parents are all about the facts but not about the heart, you will need to stress godly attitudes.  If the parents are all about emotionalism and "God knows my heart" is supposed to excuse any misapplication of scripture, then you need to stress God's attitude to the disobedient.  It may take a couple of quarters to figure all this out, but if you do not, you won't ever accomplish much that truly needs accomplishing.

              2.  Now that you know the needs, begin to look over the various curricula carefully in order to determine their strengths and weaknesses.  It should be obvious that you need to be knowledgeable in the scriptures in order to do this.  If you see that ubiquitous little boat picture of the ark with half a dozen windows and doors, and the giraffe's head sticking out of it because it's shorter than a giraffe and do not immediately see red flags, please go study Genesis again.  As I said, you will not find one that's perfect, but egregious errors should be obvious to you.  Then choose the one that fills the needs (#1) with the least amount of error.

              3.  Do not approach the curriculum you have chosen as the be-all and end-all.   Instead, use it as a guide.  Adapt and re-adapt as you see the need arise.  One of my published classbooks has a statement pointing out that I have given the teacher too many scriptures to use on a particular point.  I expect the teacher to go over those passages and choose what is relevant to her group.  To my mind, that is the way to use Bible class literature.  Adapt, adapt, adapt.

              4.  Feel free to add your own methods to the book.  I do not teach like you and you do not teach like I.  I have certain ways I teach memory verses and people, places, and things facts.  And students do not relate to each method in the same way.  My methods tend to cater to active children, helping them harness that energy in productive ways.  Yours may reach a different type of child.  Anyone who thinks there is only one correct way to teach a Bible narrative probably ought not be a teacher in the first place.

              5.  No matter what curriculum you have chosen, no matter how many times you have taught that lesson over the years, pretend you have never seen it before, and read it out of the Bible half a dozen times before you ever read it out of the workbook.  The first classbook I ever wrote came as a result of me doing exactly that.  I could not believe the number of errors I was taught nor the wrong ideas that had been placed in my mind by teachers who simply went over the classbook and never opened a Bible because they thought they "knew the story." 
              In the middle school class I taught for years, the kids had two favorite activities.  One was, "How many mistakes can you find in the book?"  They were to read the Bible first and then the classbook and look for them.  It was the first order of business in every class.  Besides becoming completely familiar with the lesson, it also taught them a pretty good principle about manmade material.  The second was, "I'm going to teach you something most grownups don't know."  Talk about hearing a pin drop.  I had their attention in a flash, and most parents learned those things, too, when their children went home that day.

              However, you choose your material, stop looking for perfection.  You won't find it.  Instead, look for guides.  Try to find ways to help embed these truths into our children so that nowhere along the line someone will write of them:  "And there arose a generation who knew not God."
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward, a sequel to his post at the end of November.

That men often suffer as a result of another's sins has been shown over and over in the Bible: "Cursed be Canaan" for his father Ham's sin (Gen 9:25), 36 men died for Achan's covetousness (Josh 7), Eli's descendants lost the high priesthood to another Aaronic family because he failed to restrain his sons (1Sam3:13). Sin is an asteroid strike in the ocean with death and disease rippling outward and drowning innocent and guilty alike. So, babies and other innocents die or suffer horrid diseases because we keep sin and death active in the world, "and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned" (Rom 5:12).
 
No other event illustrates the one to one consequences of a sin causing the death of an innocent baby more clearly than the death of David's baby son. After Nathan confronted David, "Thou art the man," one of the judgments he pronounced was, “However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.” (2Sam 12:14). David sinned; the baby died (vs 19).
 
About a thousand years later, another son of David was born innocent and lived and innocent life (2 Sam 7:14ff). He died a horrible death despite his innocence. It was totally unfair for this innocent lamb to suffer at all, just as it was unfair for the baby to die for David's sin. Jesus died for us, the innocent for the guilty. How easily the old phrase rolls of our tongues and through our minds   His death transcends all the unfair deaths of all the innocents before and since for this son of David was the Son of God.
 
If I never understand why babies die, I know God loves me because he killed his Son that I might live (Acts 2:23, 3:18, 4:28, Jn10:18). More than I want answers to the injustices in a sin-sick world, I want to go to the place where that love is.
 
 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1John 4:7-10).
 
Keith Ward

The Music Teachers' National Association, of which I was a member, was founded on December 26, 1876, by Theodore Presser, who was both a musician and a music publisher.  The stated aim of this organization was the support, growth, and development of music teaching professionals.  Its various programs include the certification of teachers, competitions for the students of member-teachers, and commissioning of composers, among many others.  Because I was a member of MTNA, I was able to participate in workshops and other continuing learning experiences in both my local and state branches, and my students in various activities, earning prestigious recognition and even scholarships.  The application for membership was five or six pages long and I remember feeling both relieved and ecstatic when I was accepted.  It officially made me one of the pros, and it put me in some rarefied air as well.
              One year the state music teachers’ convention was held in my district.  Somehow I found myself in charge of the name tags and the registration desk.  Since I did not know most of the people, my standard greeting was, “Welcome to Gainesville.  What’s your name please?”  Then I riffled through a couple of shoeboxes containing the laminated name tags that we hung around our necks.
              The second afternoon a man in his thirties came bustling up to the desk.  His expensive suit was sharp, and probably custom tailored since it fit his rounded figure without a pull or pucker anywhere.  He was well-groomed and carried a leather portfolio that also bespoke of money.  Not your typical music teacher, I thought.  Most of us are clean and tidy, but few of us dress like lawyers.
              He stood before me, but couldn’t be bothered to actually look at me.  Instead, he looked around at the passersby and intoned, “And do you have a name tag for me?” in a deep, full-of-himself voice.
              “I don’t know,” I answered.  “Who are you?”
              Then he looked at me—with an incredulous, wide-eyed stare.  At last lowly little music-teacher-me had gotten his attention.  When he told me his name, I managed to keep a straight face.  He was one of the university professors who also performs on the concert stage.  He had won some international competitions.  In fact, I recognized his name, I had just never seen him in person. 
              That afternoon when the rush had calmed at the table, I told a couple of my friends about my faux pas.  They both laughed.  “Good,” they said.  “He needed that.”
              Do we need something similar?  The Proverb writer says it like this:  Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him, 26:12. 
              Why is it we think so well of ourselves?   Paul reminded the Corinthians, For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? 1 Cor 4:7.  So you have a gift for speaking, for singing, for teaching, for welcoming visitors—any special ability.  You wouldn’t have that gift if God hadn’t given it to you, so what are you bragging about?
              Why is it we feel so compelled to remind people of our successes?  Why must we pat ourselves on the back whenever the opportunity arises, recounting all our various experiences as examples of wisdom for all to learn from?  We couldn’t have done any of it by ourselves.
              Sometimes those things are used as excuses.  Maybe I didn’t do well this time, but in the past you should have seen all I did for the Lord.  Or, I know I shouldn’t be bragging, but no one else seems to notice what I’ve done. 
              God notices.  Who else should we care about?  Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends, 2 Cor 10:17,18.
              I think this happens most with age.  As older men and women teaching the younger, we must be careful how we come across.  It isn’t an episode of “This Is Your Life,” where we can boast about all the wonderful things we have done in the past, careful to leave out the bad examples, of course.  It’s about edifying and encouraging others.  That attitude must always be with us.
              Don’t worry if people don’t know who you are and what you have done.  God holds the name tags, and he won’t have to ask who you are.
 
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Rom 12:3
 
Dene Ward
 

I have only seen it once and hope to never again.  We were guests of others on Christmas Day and their method of passing out gifts went like this:  One person starting picking up presents, read the name, passed it to its recipient and continued, about one every five seconds.  In five minutes it was over with.  Everyone else was sitting there panting with exertion amid piles of crumpled wrapping paper and snarled up ribbon, and no one knew who got what from whom.  Meanwhile, my poor boys were still opening up what were far fewer, far less expensive presents, and looking up at the folks around them with a look of befuddlement.  "That's not how it's supposed to be," was clearly written on their faces.
              So how was it supposed to be?  We never had much money growing up, but my mother was still careful to teach us the point of gift-giving—it was to do kind things for others, not amass things for oneself.  She taught us to listen to one another all year long, to make note—sometimes literally—of things different ones of us needed or mentioned wanting, usually something that would make life a little easier.  None of us ever wished for the expensive and unattainable.  What was the point?  And then a couple of weeks before Christmas, the four of us went to the Mall, my sister and I with money carefully saved from our allowances and birthday gifts.  We divided up and I went with my father to buy for my mother and my sister, while she went with our mother to buy for me and our father.  Then we met in the middle of the concourse at a predetermined time and switched companions in order to finish our shopping.  We were usually so excited about what we had gotten each other it was difficult to keep the secret.
              Then on Christmas morning each one in turn got to choose a gift to give to another.  We all sat and watched that person open the gift.  The joy, the excitement, the pleasure on the other person's face was as much a part of the gift to us as the gift to the receiver.  We had very few gifts under that tree, but that gift giving process lasted far longer than our neighbors' who were soon out riding new bikes or scooters and hauling out boxes of trash while we were still sitting there enjoying the process of giving as well as receiving.
              I passed that on to my boys.  We were in the same boat as my parents in their early days—not much money and few gifts.  But they have both told me that choosing the gifts and watching their opening was always their favorite part of Christmas.  I still see that in them as mature adults, looking to give, looking to see the needs of others, looking for ways to share what they have.  My mother did that for me and she has now done it for them too.  I think I see it in my grandchildren as well.
              Christmas does not have to be about materialism.  What it does have to be about is this:  It is more blessed to give than to receive, (Acts 20:35).  Don't let your Christmas morning be a feeding frenzy of piranha in the river "Gimme."  Make it a point to take time and savor your gifts to others.  My mother thought that was what it was all about, and that is a gift I truly treasure.
 
Dene Ward

The first crossword puzzles appeared in England in the 1800s.  They were usually built on a small square and the solved puzzle would read alike both vertically and horizontally.  These were so basic they usually appeared in children's puzzle books.  But once the crossword puzzle crossed the Atlantic, it became a serious adult game.  The first crossword puzzle is said to have been created by Arthur Wynne on December 21, 1913, and was printed in the New York World.  It was a diamond shape without the internal black squares.  Within a decade nearly every American newspaper featured a crossword puzzle.
              I am a crossword puzzle enthusiast—a cruciverbalist, but that is not the extent of the word games I enjoy.  One of my favorites involves making as many words as possible out of one larger word—not anagrams exactly, which use every letter of the word and are small in number, but using the letters of the word only as many times as the original word uses them and making as many other words as possible, three letters or larger, not counting plurals, past tense, or other obvious derivatives. 
              For example, how many other words can you make out of the word “jealousy?”  Sea, use, you, soul, say, aloes, lose, louse, yea, seal, joules, lea, sole, jay, lay, say, soy—and that’s just off the top of my head typing as fast as I can.  But how about this one—joy?  Seems a little ironic, doesn’t it, that you can make joy out of jealousy?
              A lot of people get those two mixed up.  In times where we should be “rejoicing with those who rejoice,” we find ourselves feeling just a tinge of jealousy.  Why did he get that promotion and not me?  Why is she being lauded from the pulpit and not me?  Why do people run to them for advice when I am just as smart/experienced/knowledgeable/wise, etc.?  And that green-eyed monster gradually takes over, turning us into its willing minion.  We can easily think of reasons that other person does not deserve this and spread it to whomever will listen, causing us to ignore our own blessings, steeping ourselves in ingratitude that gradually becomes bitterness, not just against the other person, but at life in general. 
              Elizabeth is the best example I know of someone who got it right.  She took what could have been a cause for jealousy and changed it into a cause for joy.
              Zacharias and Elizabeth had made it to old age without having children.  According to Lenski, Elizabeth was probably looked down on as someone who had somehow displeased God—that was the general attitude toward barren women.  Finally, after years of waiting, probably with a multitude of prayers, Zacharias came home with the good news—albeit written down, since he could no longer speak:  “We are going to be parents!”  And not only that, but this child will be special—he will be the promised Elijah spoken of in Malachi.
              Then lo and behold, six months later, along comes her teenage cousin with even better news.  She too, is pregnant, and is blessed to bear the Messiah.  What?!  Elizabeth has been waiting for decades.  She is older and wiser.  She has been the faithful wife of a priest, and borne the ridicule of an ignorant culture, blaming her for her own misfortune.  And she gets the Forerunner while this child who has scarcely lived long enough to even be considered faithful, who is fertile (in this culture the family would know her menstrual history) and will probably (and ultimately did) bare more than half a dozen children, this girl gets the Messiah?  How fair is that?
              But Elizabeth had the grateful attitude and the abiding Messianic hope of a faithful child of God.  In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Luke 1:39-43.
              Not only is she excited for Mary, she humbles herself before a younger woman, one with far less experience and far less service on her record—she simply hadn’t lived long enough to do much yet.  And her joy?  It was not a feigned, polite joy, but a joy so overwhelming that “the babe leaped in her womb for joy” v 44.  I am told that “leap for joy” is one Greek word, the same one used in verse 40, quoted earlier.  It is a sympathetic joy.  In other words, Elizabeth was so moved with joy that it caused her unborn child to move within her.  Every mother understands how her own emotions can affect her unborn baby, in the last trimester especially.  Elizabeth’s joy for her young cousin was that deep and moving.  Jealousy never entered her heart for a second.
              How does that match with statements like, “He gets to lead singing more than my husband;” “My husband hasn’t been asked to teach in a long time;” “How can he be an elder when my husband is just as good as he is and no one has asked him”? 
             Oh yes, it happens.  And it should not.  If we are all members of the same body, then if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1Cor 12:26. 
            Love “envies not” 1 Cor 13:4.  When you do envy, you do not love as you are commanded to.  Jealousy and envy are works of the flesh (Gal 5:20,21).  Those who practice them “will not inherit the kingdom of God.”   Check yourself on this.  Are you playing games with your words?  Has your speech given you away?
            Too many of us get this backwards.  We rejoice when bad things happen to others and weep when good things happen to them.  How are you doing at this word game?  Can you keep joy from becoming jealousy?
 
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Gal 5:25-26
 
Dene Ward
 

I just made a chocolate mousse cake.  This is one of THOSE recipes—you know, one of those trendy kinds you find in upscale restaurants, the kind that come with a chocolate or raspberry swirl on the white china plate, a piped dollop of whipped cream on the side and maybe even a shard of caramel “glass” sticking up out of it.  This recipe is bound to get me oohs and aahs at the table from excited guests who suddenly think I must be a gourmet cook.  And that’s when I start feeling guilty.  Why?  Because this conglomeration of bittersweet chocolate, butter, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla took me exactly 15 minutes to put together and throw in the oven.  The only thing hard about it is waiting 8 hours for it to chill so it won’t fall completely apart when you try to cut it.
              I don’t deserve any oohs and aahs and it certainly wasn’t hard to do.  I will grant you that it tastes amazing—but look at that ingredient list above and tell me how it could not.  I have absolutely nothing to do with how it tastes unless I buy cheap ingredients—like Hershey bars and margarine.  Taking a bow for producing this cake is like claiming a cordon bleu culinary education when all you’ve had is watching your mother and grandmother and reading a few cookbooks.
              Have you ever had a friend ask you how you do it?  How you go through some of the trials you have been through, yet live a happy and contented life, in fact, a life of joy and faith?    What do you instantly say?  Do you claim huge inner strength and unimpeachable character?  Do you talk about your spiritual integrity?  Of course not.  You tell them that you had nothing to do with it except having the sense, or maybe the desperation, to take your Heavenly Father’s offer and let Him handle things.
              And it was just that simple, wasn’t it?  No, not really.  A lot of time passed before it really “took,” before you really could face your demons with assurance instead of doubt, before you could race toward that “way of escape” instead of stumbling through it, before you could sit back and let God be in control and accept His will instead of trying to figure things out so you could understand them.  And sometimes you still don't quite manage.
              It takes a long time to say those words Abraham said on that mountaintop 4000 years ago--God is able; God will provide.  But once you have reached that point, it’s just that simple.  Every time life hands you the inexplicable, you don’t try to understand, you just count on God to handle it.  How can anyone take the credit for that?
 
Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name, 1Chr 29:12-13

Dene Ward