I went out to water my flowers early one morning, grabbed up the two gallon watering can and headed for the spigot.  The temperature had already risen to the upper 70s, and the humidity had beaten that number by at least twenty.  It dripped off the live oaks, bonking on the metal carport roof as loud as pebbles would have, but I knew that soon the plants would fold their leaves against the heat in a bid to keep as much moisture in them as possible.  A morning drink was a necessity for them to survive the coming afternoon.
 
             I picked up the filled can and began the long trudge to the flower bed.  What was that?  Water was running down the leg that bumped the can as I walked, so I lifted the can and examined it.  A steady stream of water poured out a tiny hole not quite halfway up its side.

              After a moment’s thought, I picked up the pace and made it to the bed in time to pour most of the water on the flowers.  Ordinarily after watering, I keep a full can next to the bed to fill the small bird bath next to it as needed, but that can would no longer hold even half its normal capacity.  So after the watering, I returned to the well tank and filled it only halfway and sat it by the bath.  I would have to fill it twice as often now, but at least I could get a most of a gallon out of it.  Better than nothing.

               We are a lot like that watering can.  We should be filled to the capacity that God intended, but too often we don’t hold even half of it.  Paul tells us we each receive a different gift according to the grace of God, Rom 12:6; Peter tells us to use that gift as a good steward of God’s grace, 1 Pet 4:10.  Holes in the can mean we are not using those gifts as God designed, squandering His grace in the process. 

              Sometimes we deny the grace.  “I can’t do that,” we say, when God has clearly put an opportunity in front of us.  Have you ever given someone a gift and had them tell you that you didn’t?  Of course not.  Everyone knows that the giver knows what he gave, yet here we are being so ridiculous as to tell God He most certainly did not give us any gifts.  God does not put opportunities in front of us that He has not given us the ability to handle.  More than anyone else—even more that we ourselves—He knows what we can and cannot do.  Denying the His grace is simply disobedience.

              Sometimes we cheat the grace.  “I’m too busy,” we tell people when something comes up.  Never mind that the opportunity is squarely within my wheelhouse—if I don’t want to do it, being busy is the excuse of the day.  In fact, sometimes we make ourselves busy with things we prefer in order to avoid more difficult spiritual obligations.  It’s easier to work late one night than go visit a weak brother.  It’s more fun to work out with a peer (“keeping my temple healthy”) than learn how to study with an older Christian who wants to share his hard-earned knowledge.  Shopping must be done, but it is certainly less trouble—and a lot quicker--to go shopping alone than to take an older person who is no longer able to get out on her own.  And thus our busy-ness has kept us from filling ourselves to capacity.

              Sometimes we do our best to spoil the grace by poking the hole in ourselves.  God has a purpose for each one of us.  I can sabotage those plans by my own selfish choices in life.  Worldliness and materialism can diminish my capacity for the spiritual.  Bad habits can ruin a reputation and make me less effective.  Bad decisions can make me unfit for God’s original plan for me.  Even if I turn myself around and repent, I may never again have the same impact I would have if I had made better choices earlier in life.  I may very well have drilled a hole in the can so that it will only hold half or less what God intended it to hold.

              Take a good look at your watering can this morning.  God knows better than you how much it can hold.  Don’t deny the grace; don’t squander the opportunities.  Don’t drill a hole where one doesn’t belong.  Capacity is His business, not yours, and what He wants is an overflowing can.
 
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work, 2 Timothy 2:20-21.
 
Dene Ward

I thought it was just because I was a classical voice teacher who, since I live in a rural county in the South, spent a lot of time on diction--clean enunciation, and particularly those wide Southern diphthongs.  What is the point of singing if no one can understand the words?  So I thought it was just because I was sensitive to it that I kept noticing that I could not understand the words in a lot of pop music.  Finally, one day when the boys were playing a “Best Of…” tape in the car, I asked them, “Is he really saying ‘dancin’ in the fryin’ pan?’”
 
           “No, mom.  It’s dancin’ an’ prancin,’” accompanied by exaggerated eye rolls and head shakes as only teenagers can.

            Recently I discovered a whole website devoted to “Misheard Lyrics.”  I feel vindicated at last.

            But pop music is not the problem.  The singers are the problem.  Most of us can tell stories of our children just beginning to sing our hymns and the often hilarious mistakes they make.

            In the middle of the grocery store one morning, three year old Nathan said, “Sing the song about the sandals, mom.”

            “Sandals?  A church song?”

            “Yes.  All other ground is sinking sandals, other ground is sinking sand.”

            Lucas at the same age asked his grandfather to sing the song about the peas.  “He whispers sweet peas to me.”  And a few months later I heard him singing, “When the roll is called under the water.”

            Do you wonder if God has the same problem understanding our singing?  Not as long as we sing and make melody with our hearts, Eph 5:19, rather than muttering half-memorized words on automatic pilot.  What about our prayers?

            Once in a women’s class, a dear friend was praying and had trouble with a certain phrase.  No matter how she tried, it kept coming out backwards to what she intended.  Finally she just said, “Lord, you know what I mean!”

            Of course He does.  Why was that such a revelation and comfort to me?  Because we spend so much time legislating prayer, telling folks which person of the Godhead they can and cannot pray to, what things they can and cannot ask for, and what things they MUST say if they expect their prayer to get past the ceiling when the real problem is, we don’t pray enough.  No wonder!  Everyone’s afraid of doing it wrong.  Just as the Pharisees made the Law of Moses a burden (Matt 23:4), we are making what should be one of our greatest comforts in this life, a burden instead. 

            Just pray!  We have an intercessor, a mediator who is on our side and pleads our cases.  He is not standing their just waiting to stamp my particular prayer, “Disqualified!” and send it back unheard.  There are no misheard prayers in Heaven.
 
For there is one God, one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all…1 Tim 2:3.4a
And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.  Rom 8:27
These things says the Son of God…I am he who searches the reins and the hearts…Rev 2:18,23
 
Dene Ward

Forget-me-nots are small unassuming plants with tiny blooms.  I read one legend in which God is busy naming the flowers and nearly finished when a small one whispers plaintively, “Forget-me-not.”  God replies, “I won’t, and that shall be your name.”  Of course that is not how it happened, but the plea for God not to “forget me” has sounded out down through the ages.
 
               How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever? Psalm 13:1. 

              Of course God does not forget His people.  But Zion said…the Lord has forgotten me.  Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb.  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you, Isa 49:14,15.

              Everyone knows God does not forget us, but even a nursing child, when hunger strikes, wonders why his mother is not taking care of him RIGHT THIS MINUTE!  “She must have forgotten me.”

              If we do a little research, we can understand what David meant in the psalm.  The opposite of “forget” is “remember” and both words have connotations we may not realize.

              In Gen 8:1 “God remembered” Noah and the animals, and made the rain stop.

              In Gen 19:29, “God remembered” Abraham, and spared Lot from Sodom.

              In Gen 30:22, “God remembered” Rachel, and gave her a son.

              In Ex 2:24, “God remembered” his covenant with Abraham, and sent Moses to save the people

              In 1 Sam 1:19,20, “God remembered” Hannah, and gave her a son.

              Do you see it?  Every time we are told “God remembered” He acted.  If “remembering” means to act, then “forgetting” means the opposite, no action.  David could see no deliverance.  It was not that he thought God had really removed him from His mind, it was that he could not see God coming to his aid when he needed it.

              In the midst of trials we may not be able to see the hand of God.  He often works behind the scenes.  He usually uses the hands of others to accomplish His will and those hands may be slow in acting.  His timetable may not match ours.  In fact, we may even face times when it seems He “forgot” us.  Rest assured He has not. 

              It is not for us to demand explanations from an Almighty Creator.  It is for us to follow the solution David ultimately comes to in verse five:  I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.  David had not yet seen that salvation, but he trusted so implicitly it was as if it had already happened.  I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me, v 6.

              David began this psalm with fear and depression which fell on him because the trial was long and hard and he saw no relief in sight.  Eventually he sank into despondency.  He felt completely alone. Because he felt alone, he even looked to himself for advice.   How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart?  The worst counselor you can have is yourself.  If all you do is look inward, you will despair.  According to David, you must look outside yourself to find help and consolation.

              When David states his solution, “I will trust in the Lord,” he is making a choice:  “I will.”  That choice to trust God cannot be taken away from you by anyone, whether a physical or spiritual Enemy. 

              When we face trials—especially long, difficult ordeals—we should remember Psalm 13.  What began with a charge of God forgetting ended with a trust in His bounty so complete it is as if it had already been accomplished, even more (“bountifully”) than was necessary.

              God did not forget the tiny flower and He does not forget us either.  It is up to us to choose His help when it is offered and how it is offered, not the way we think is best, but in the manner our Wise Creator knows is best.
 
Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, Psalm 33:18.
 
Dene Ward

My roses are gorgeous.  Besides the Knock-out bush rose, which will truly knock you out several times a year with thirty or forty pink blooms on a three foot high bush, I have three climbers on a wire trellis.  One is that old red standby, Climbing Blaze.  One is its cousin, the red-orange Blaze of Glory, and the third is a yellow variety I have long since forgotten the name of, with the largest blooms of any climber I have ever seen.  Then for something extra, we refused to prune off the limbs that came from the rootstock and now that yellow one also carries with it limb after limb of maroon blooms along the entire length of each branch.  One morning we counted over seventy-five blooms on those three plants.

              I keep the deadheads trimmed to promote blooming, but one week I was a little late getting to that chore and found half a dozen "rose hips," the fruit of a rose that grows where the pollinated flower bloomed, a swelling that gradually turns color as it ripens, usually red or orange, but sometimes purple or even black.  Although you have to be careful with preparation, rose hips can be used for tea, jelly, syrups, seasoning, and even fruit leather.  Occasionally, I have thought about harvesting some and trying the jelly, but here's the deal:  if you let the hips form, you will have fewer blooms.  Right now, I don't need any sustenance from rose hips.  What I want are the beautiful blooms.

              Ah, but while that may be fine for rose hips, it certainly isn't fine for my life as a Christian.  God wants something useful out of me.   He doesn't care how I look on the outside, but only how I act and the state of my heart on the inside.  If all I am is a pretty blossom on the outside, but I am bearing no fruit, whether by good deeds or spiritual growth, I am fit for nothing but to be "cast into the fire and burned" (John 15:6).

              We can take it a step further to whole churches.  The building may be an architectural marvel, as many ancient churches are, but what is going on inside?  Do they produce Christians?  If the pure gospel doesn't echo down their halls, and all they evoke is appreciation of their apses, naves, stained glass, painted ceilings, and sculpted icons, just exactly how is it that God is glorified?  Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matt 5:16)

              Most of the time we understand that the fruit is the important thing.  Here in Florida the orange blossom is the state flower and its smell, as you drive the rolling hills of Central Florida orange groves, nearly overpowering.  In my garden, those pale yellow, maroon-centered okra blooms are truly gorgeous.  But those things and others are grown for their fruit, not their blooms.  Don't let your beautiful rose bushes lead you astray on that.
 
And even now the axe lies at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. (Matt 3:10)

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

As Jesus came down from the mount of transfiguration, he met a man whose son was demon possessed.  The nine apostles had not been able to cast out the demon and Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith.  After he had cast out the demon, the nine disciples asked Jesus why they had not been able to do so.  Jesus replied, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:29).  [Peter, James, and John were on the mount with Jesus and had not failed, or even tried.]
 
Despite the popularity of this movie genre, demons do not possess people today just as they did not do so in the Old Testament.  Demons operated for a short time to show the power of Jesus to control them.  The only Old Testament  passage to use the expression "unclean spirit" which is found so often in the gospels states that they will end in "the day" a fountain is opened for sin (Zech 13:1-2).  In fact, neither demons or unclean spirits are mentioned in any of the epistles as possessing people as they do in the gospels and Acts.
 
Nevertheless, I believe that we are possessed.  Not by spirit beings but by decades of sinful habits or by years of thinking evil thoughts so that our minds are grooved into following those paths.  Often, when we decide to turn over that new leaf, we find that we cannot cast out these "demons." Just like the nine apostles, we have expected it to be easy.  We sowed the wind and find we have a tornado in our soul that we cannot control (Hos 8:7).  Neither baptism nor genuine intent to change is a quick fix for cleansing our souls of these sins.  This kind comes out only by prayer.
 
But, a quick prayer when we are already halfway into the situation will not suffice.  It did not for the nine and these quick patches on a bleeding wound of the soul will not work for us.  And, somehow, I suspect God becomes weary of prayers for forgiveness when there were few or no prayers for strength before we sinned.
 
Our regret for this habitual sin should bring us to the knees of our heart continually throughout the day begging for strength from the Lord.  This earnest care to be pure will have us making time for studied lengthy prayers about our specific sin.  Our indignation that Satan still seeks to use the same old weakness against us again must motivate us to learn scriptures to enrich and strengthen our prayers.  The fear of God's wrath should have us examining the situations that lead us to fall and praying with zeal to prepare for them.  Our longing to be pure before a holy God will lead us to make the time for these prayers, no excuses, no exceptions.
 
Actual unclean spirit demons may not inhabit humans anymore, but the demons we have created by our careless certainty that God will keep on forgiving can be as hard to cast out.  Unless we do, we will not see God.
 
Set your hope perfectly … as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance: but like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.  And if ye call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.  (1Pet 1:13-17)
 
Keith Ward

This year we picked our first garden produce in early April.  Finding that first inch long green bean hiding among the thick spade-shaped foliage gives you a thrill, but seeing the first shiny green silks spewing out of the corn shucks and the tassels creeping out of the top positively makes your mouth water.  When it has been nearly a year since sinking your teeth into a row of crisp, juicy, buttered and salted kernels, the anticipation is intense.
 
             If you are not a gardener you might not truly appreciate the sacrifice of the firstfruits under the Old Law.  Every gardener knows that the first picking is the best.  As time passes, the corn and beans toughen.  The tomatoes and peppers become smaller and smaller and rot more quickly from the many blemishes.  The cucumbers turn yellow and overblown before they reach their full length.  Yet we have the frozen food section at the grocery store and a produce section that brings food from places where the firstfruits are just appearing.  Many of us have never seen anything but the firstfruits.

              I’ve often heard that certain frozen and canned vegetables are more reliably good than the fresh.  They are picked at their peak and processed within hours.  We can have the best any time of the year, and we take it for granted.  The devout Israelite never had that opportunity.  It was ingrained in
 him from birth:  the best belongs to the Lord.
 
             All the best of the oil, and all the best of the vintage, and of the grain, the first-fruits of them which they give unto Jehovah...The first-ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring unto Jehovah… (Numbers 18:12-13)
 
             As a dedicated Hebrew watched his crops grow, his cattle bear, his vines hang lower and lower with the heaviness of ripening fruit, he knew that the best would not be for him, but an offering to the Lord.

              And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep, that they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw. The first-fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, shall you give him. For Jehovah your God has chosen him out of all your tribes, to stand to minister in the name of Jehovah, him and his sons forever. Deuteronomy 18:3-5.

              The pious Israelite knew that the best of the fruits of his labor would be eaten not by his family, but by Jehovah’s priests, his representatives on earth. 

              The first of the first-fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Jehovah your God. Exodus 23:19.

              Not just the firstfruits, but the first of the firstfruits—the best of the best—was required in his service to God.

              Most of us have learned that our weekly contribution of money must be “purposed” (2 Cor 9:7).  But we haven’t learned to apply that axiom to every aspect of our lives.  Too often God gets nothing but our leftover time, our leftover energy, our leftover effort.  I’ve heard Christians talk about exercising when their bodies are at their peak, about avoiding certain times of the day for important work, about matching body rhythms to tasks.  Do we ever talk like that our about service to God?  Do we offer service that is well planned, organized for maximum efficiency, and timed for greatest effect?  Yes, we often talk about caring for our temples (bodies) so we can use them for God, but then we use all that energy for everything else instead and still God gets the leftovers.

              The principle of the firstfruits was so important that Hezekiah included it in his great restoration (2 Chron 31:5).  It was deemed so necessary to a true attitude of worship that Nehemiah charged the returning exiles to keep those ordinances in particular (Neh 10:35-39).

              We sing a hymn:  “Give of Your Best to the Master.”  That principle has not changed.  In fact, we are the firstfruits (James 1:18), “brought forth by the word of truth.”  As such, God expects us to give ourselves.  If we do, the rest will follow.  If it hasn’t, maybe we need to take a closer look at our “devotion.”
 
…but they first gave themselves to God…2 Cor 8:5.                                    
 
Dene Ward                                                           

A father who won’t change dirty diapers probably won’t be much use to his children when the messes of life afflict them either. 

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Eph 6:4)

Keith Ward

My largest flower bed, a couple of hundred square feet, is about 75% volunteers.  Every year I plant a couple of new things, but by and large the plot reseeds itself with black-eyed Susans, zinnias, marigolds, and Mexican petunias.  Instead of planned formality it becomes a riot of color—orange, red, rust, pink, burgundy, purple, white, and tons of yellow.  About the first of June it is at its best, and has even been featured in the photos of friends and family.

              The black-eyed Susans have a way of coming up just about anywhere—in the field, in the yard, up by the gate, around the bird feeders.  I never know where one will shoot up during any given spring. A shallow ditch runs along the west side of my large riotous flower bed.  This year that ditch was full of black-eyed Susans—even more than in the bed.

              As the spring progressed, that ditch also became full of weeds and grass.  I spent over an hour one morning cleaning it out.  Along with it went some of those pretty, brown-centered, yellow flowers.  I thought about it long and hard, but I knew this:  those weeds would just get more and more entrenched and eventually choke out the flowers anyway.  And even if they didn’t, the flowers would just call attention to the tall grass around them, and all anyone would think would be, “Ugh.”  So I transplanted what I could back into the bed, hoping they would survive the rough treatment of having grass roots pulled out from among their own, and then just chopped out the rest along with all the weeds.  It’s not like I didn’t have a plethora of them anyway.  They are all over the property.

              Which brings me to this:  what we often think of as beauty can be completely overwhelmed by ugliness.  Why can’t our young men see that a beautiful young girl is anything but beautiful when she acts like a trollop and dresses like a harlot?  Why can’t a young woman see that a handsome young man spoils those good looks with the filthy words that come out of his mouth and the intemperate behavior of a drunk, or a lecher, or anything else he allows to control his life?  Why don’t they understand that if they are only attracted by outward beauty, their values are as shallow as a drop of water on a hot griddle, and just as likely to evaporate?  Maybe because we haven’t taught them any better.

              Many years ago I stood in the receiving line at a wedding and heard a few feet away a woman who claimed to be a Christian saying, “He’s such a good looking young man.  It’s a shame he couldn’t find someone prettier.”  Never mind the young bride in question had a beautiful and loving character, she wasn’t pretty enough on the outside.

              I have heard women getting excited over a new dress or a new pair of shoes and then bored about a conversion.  I have seen men eagerly discussing cars or guns or sports, and turning away in apathy at a spiritual discussion.  I have seen people happy to discuss their misfortunes to anyone who will listen, while ignoring their blessings.  Do you think our children don’t see these examples?

              We teach them what to care most about, and they follow our examples all through their lives.  If I want my child to develop a deep relationship with God, then it’s time I had one myself.

              Tell your children what true beauty is, and then show them.  Make yourself beautiful with your good works, with your kind demeanor, with your loving spirit.  If you don’t, they may never learn what constitutes true beauty until they are mired in a horrible relationship that eventually ruins their lives.  The flowers in the ditch may be beautiful, but is that really where you want them to spend their lives?
             
Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman with no discretion, Prov 11:22.
 
Dene Ward

We live thirty miles from the meetinghouse, about forty minutes with good traffic flow and no construction.  Otherwise it can be up to an hour. 
 
             To make the before-services meeting of the men who will be serving that day, we usually leave our house about 7:45 every Sunday morning.  One Sunday we passed a hitchhiker at the four-way stop a couple of miles from the house.  He was an older gentleman, decently dressed, holding a sign that said “Gainesville.”  So we stopped and picked him up.  We understood that he was taking a risk too, so as he settled into the backseat we mentioned that we were on the way to church and pointed out our stack of Bibles next to him.  This instantly set him more at ease, and he talked with us some. 

               He was on his way to work at Sears, a good thirty miles from the corner where we had picked him up, and several miles opposite where we were headed.  He didn’t have to be there till noon, but since he did not know how long it would take to get a ride, he had left his house on foot at seven-fifteen and made it to the corner where we found him.  His car had broken down and he was only able to buy a part a week as his paycheck came in, so until he fixed it, he was hitching rides.

              “But just take me as far as you can and I’ll thumb another ride and another until I get to the bus stop in front of Wal-Mart.  If I make it there by eleven I can get the bus I need in time.”  We took him all the way to Wal-Mart.

              Now just imagine this:  you find out your car doesn’t run on Saturday.  You live way out of town where no one else does.  How early would you be willing to get up to hitch a ride to a nine o’clock service?  That isn’t the half of it, people.  What other things do we miss doing for the Lord because we aren’t willing to make a sacrifice like that, because it’s so easy to say, “I can’t?”  This man was nearly 70 years old, yet he spent nearly five hours every morning getting to work, working a whole nine hour shift, and then more hours getting home after work—in the dark.  Have you ever gone to that much trouble for the Lord?

              The next Sunday the man was once again at the four-way stop.  We picked him up and dropped him off at Wal-Mart, after inviting him to sit with us at church till eleven, with an offer to take him straight to Sears afterwards.  He politely declined, and also declined to tell us exactly where he lived when we offered to pick him up and take him to work every day.  But he did tell us that his wife had died several years before and he had lost all his savings paying for her medical care.  “I have to have this job,” he said.  “I am only six payments from paying off my mortgage, but without a paycheck I will lose my home.”

              Ah!  There was the real motivation.  He didn’t want to lose his home, an old double wide on a rural lot.  He got up at 6:30 every day for a job that didn’t start till noon, so he could be sure of getting there.  And he did it so he wouldn’t lose a humble, barely comfortable home.

              We have a home waiting for us too, far better than that man had, a home that is eternal, “that fades not away.”  He didn’t want to lose his home.  Don’t we care whether we lose ours?
 
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God, Heb 11:8-10.                      
 
Dene Ward

I first had one thirty-nine years ago in a rural community southwest of here.  The farm wife put them on the table in a clear gallon jar and we dug into the neck with a long skinny fork she must have found just for that job.  They were sweet, thin, crisp, gave a crunch as loud as a kettle-cooked potato chip and left a small twinge in your jaw right under your ear from the perfect amount of vinegar.  It was the first sweet pickle I had ever liked—I am more of a dill fan myself--but I was becoming more and more adept at canning and preserving and wanted to give this one a try since the whole family liked them.
 
             "Could I possibly have the recipe?" I asked her.

              She hesitated and I presumed it was one of her "secret" recipes that she did not like to share, but no, that was not the problem at all.

              "It's a really old recipe with strange directions," she said, "but if you can figure out what they mean and follow them carefully, it does work.  It is very important that you follow the directions carefully and don't change anything."

              My first thought was that she could easily write it so I could understand it, whatever the problem was, but when she handed it to me to copy for myself, I saw the issues right away.

              The recipe called for "a gallon of water and enough salt to float an egg." 

              "I've never measured it," she said.  "I just keep adding salt to a gallon of water until an egg floats."

              Oh, well, all right. 

            The next ingredient was "a ten cent tin of alum."  If you have bought any groceries lately, you have probably not seen anything for ten cents, and you probably haven't seen a tin of alum either.

              "Just find a small container of alum and buy it," were her not so helpful instructions.

              At least the rest of the directions were clear—sort of.  On day four when you layered cucumbers and sugar, you assumed it was granulated sugar and you also assumed that it needed to be enough sugar to form a real layer, not just a mere sprinkling.  She didn't really help me with that one.  "Until it looks right," doesn't help if you've never seen it before.

              But I took that recipe home and went at it.

              Day 1—Wash and slice enough cucumbers to fill a clear gallon jug.  Dissolve enough salt to float an egg in a bit less than a gallon of water, and pour over the cucumbers.  Put on the lid and set aside for 24 hours. 
              It must have taken me 15 minutes to get the salt right.  I kept adding it by the tablespoonful, determined to find a set amount and that stupid egg kept sinking right to the bottom of the pot.  Finally I tossed the tablespoon measure aside and just poured it in.  At something just over a cup, the egg sank under the water, then slowly rose so that a piece of shell the size of a quarter showed above the surface and the egg bobbed up and down freely when I jiggled the pan.

              Day 2—Pour out the salt water and rinse the cucumbers.  Dissolve the alum in the same amount of clean water and pour it over them.  Cover and set aside for another 24 hours.  I had finally found the alum at a small town grocery store just ten miles up the highway.  Even all those years ago, its price had risen nearly 700% to 69 cents.

              Day 3—Pour out the alum water and rinse the cucumbers.  Pour distilled white vinegar over them until covered.  By that third day, they had shrunk enough that the cucumbers no longer filled the gallon jar, and you needed nearly a gallon of vinegar to cover them.

              Day 4—Pour out the vinegar.  DO NOT RINSE.  Sterilize either a gallon glass jar or several pint jars.  Add a layer of pickles and then a layer of sugar, again and again until you fill the jar(s).  Put on the lid and set it in your pantry.  By this time, the pickles are so preserved, you don't even have to seal them!  In a week or two, the sugar will have dissolved and mixed with the vinegar that remains on the pickles and make the sweet pickle juice.  Chill before serving.

              My family loved these pickles.  Some days I put a new pint jar on the table with a meal and it was emptied by the time we finished eating.  And here is the thing I want you to think about today:  it was an old recipe.  It sounded a little odd.  In fact, I had to translate it here and there into something that fit today's ingredients.  But I still had to follow the recipe for it to turn out right—nothing was intrinsically different about what I did.  And it still worked.  Never have I seen another recipe like it.  No other pickle recipe tells me I don't have to seal them in a canner so that we don't all get botulism.  The procedure preserves them that well.

              God has a recipe too.  People today think it's odd.  They look at it and think it won't work anymore.  They think they can change it and it will still turn out fine.  Certainly no one's spiritual health will suffer if we just change this one little thing to suit us.

              Botulism is a pretty nasty disease.  So is sin.  So is disobedience.  Be careful when you decide that God's old recipe is too much trouble, too hard to understand, or no longer relevant.  I'd hate for you to get fatally ill over it.
 
Thus says Jehovah, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein.  And I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they said, We will not hearken.  Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.  Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. (Jer 6:16-19)
 
Dene Ward