When my boys were small, I bought them a book with the above title.  It was written by Ruth Shannon Odor and has the format of a Little Golden Book, including the gold spine.  However, it is called a "Happy Day" book, put out by Standard Publishing of Cincinnati.  The illustrations, drawn by Robert Burchett, are colorful, a bit cartoonish, perfect for a child.
 
             The book begins with the usual manners we all try to teach our children, but divides them as to location—home, playground, school, and most interesting to me, church!  By the end you realize that the point of the whole book is that when you try to be like Jesus, you will be courteous and considerate of others.  In short, you will have good manners!

              My boys loved that book.  I occasionally took it to the children's Bible classes I taught and they loved it too.  And now I have introduced it to my grandsons and they love it.  And all of this is in spite of the fact that they occasionally see themselves in the book and hang their little heads in embarrassment.

              I think its appeal might be the characters that are included:
              Me-First Millie
              Sulky Sue
              Look-at-Me Louie
              That's Mine Thelma
              Picky Pete
              Messy Bessy, and a few others.

              All come with pictures to match.  Over the years, my own boys were apt to look at one another and say, "Now don't be a Look-at-Me Louie!" or some other of the characters.

              I thought it might be interesting over the next few weeks, on Mondays as often as I can manage it, to see what kind of people some of these characters might have grown up to be, if they were real.  And oh yes, they are real.  We run into them every day, and sadly, even among our brethren.  We might ourselves still be clinging to childish ways without realizing it.  But this is important for, as the book concludes:

              "Jesus taught us to be  kind, to love others, to treat others as we would  like to be treated…If we try to be like Jesus in all we say and do, then good manners will be as easy as 1-2-3, A-B-C."
 
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phil 2:3-4)
 
Dene Ward
 

On August 9, 1854, Walden by Henry David Thoreau was published under its original name, Life in the Woods.  A book categorized by various critics as autobiography, natural history, philosophy, and social criticism, it became a slogan source among the educated hippie movement of the 60s.  Thoreau had left "modern" living to stay in a hut on the banks of Walden Pond without even the minimal luxuries of his day for two years, two months, and two days.  He wanted to be away from the constraints of society and the pull of personal expectations that society places in us.  He wanted to be "different."

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

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

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

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

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

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

              When I graduated from high school, my junior English/senior Writing teacher gave me a poster with this quote from Walden: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.  I did not realize its significance at first, but my mother did.  "She knows you are not like all the rest," she told me, "and she respects that."

              Why aren't we teaching our children, not to march in step with all their friends, but to listen for that distant, and different, drummer, and keep pace with Him.  Why aren't they as determined to do so as those three teenagers from Judah who sat in Nebuchadnezzar's court.  Perhaps, parents, we need to take them on a "visit", not to Walden Pond, but to Nazareth, Gethsemane, and Golgotha.  Maybe then, they would understand what it is really like to be "different."  Maybe we would, too.
 
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1Pet 2:21)
 
Dene Ward

I’ve known a lot of people who seem to think that true repentance is shown by moping around in a depressed state for weeks on end, as if the longer they beat themselves up the more worthy they are of forgiveness.  If we have learned anything in our Psalms study lately, it’s just the opposite. 
 
             David shows us in the progression of repentance that occurs between Psalms 51 and 32 that we should “get over it;” that a failure to do so is harmful to our souls.

              In our class we charted the verses in those two psalms.  We found similar things in each:  repentance, the effects of sin, and the effects that God’s forgiveness ought to have in our lives.  Guess what we discovered?  In Psalm 51, obviously written within a short time after Nathan’s visit to David in 2 Sam 12, even though at that time Nathan proclaimed God’s forgiveness, David is fraught with guilt and sorrow, even physically ailing from that burden of regret.  He uses every synonym you can imagine for sin and his plea for mercy.  In our modern divisions, those pleas take up seven verses.  Another three describe his woeful emotional and physical state after finally recognizing the enormity and complexity of what he has done, a total of ten verses.

              Yes, he finally recognizes his forgiveness and spends three verses on his desire to get back to work for the Lord and on his concern for others, a general list of things he plans to carry out as “fruit meet for repentance.” 

              And Psalm 32?  This psalm is much less emotional.  David repents yet again, but in two verses this time instead of ten.  Does that mean it is not as heartfelt?  Of course not, but his focus has changed.  This time he spends most of the psalm recounting what he has learned from his sin and how to avoid it in the future.  Listen to instruction, hear counsel, consider and come to an understanding, learn to control yourself.  He has gone past emotion and is now using the experience to gain wisdom and strength.  Then he spends more time in concern for others, that they learn the same lessons he has. Finally he shouts for joy, the joy found in forgiveness and a renewed fellowship with God.  This section takes up four verses of an eleven verse psalm, where in 51 we are looking at three verses of a nineteen verse psalm.  Those four verses in Psalm 32 are far more practical and helpful to us in terms of overcoming than the ones in 51, where his grief over his sin is the focus. 

              By the time of Psalm 32’s writing, David has learned an invaluable lesson—though indeed his sin was “ever before me,” he understood that allowing one’s grief to paralyze him and pull him down into despondency was as much an aid to Satan as sinning in the first place.  He was no longer serving God; he was no longer serving others.  In fact, he was bringing others down with his depression.  There is a selfishness in this sort of sorrow that is completely inappropriate—a “worldly” sorrow.

              Grief is certainly fitting.  I wonder if we ever experience the kind of grief David did over sin, especially as shown in Psalm 51.  If we did, perhaps we would sin less.  But there comes a time when we must “get over it” and get back to work.  “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation,” David says (51:12).   “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,” and “Shout for joy!” (32:11). Sitting in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your life, David is telling us, is not the way to show gratitude for your forgiveness.   
 
For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter, 2 Cor 7:8-11.
 
Dene Ward

Just as I expected he would, Judah has long since conquered the scooter we gave him for his 5th birthday.  In fact, he wore that one out and is now, at six, on the next size up.  You should see that little guy as he rounds the cul-de-sac again and again, pushing off with his left foot, zooming around parked cars and navigating between the neighbor's trash cans on the edge of the road.  His older brother on his bike can barely keep up. 
 
             No one has to remind him to put on his helmet.  That's a good thing, because he has had his share of spills and the last time we were down, he had a doozy.  We saw him hit the road, but he waved us off as he stood up and lifted the scooter off the road, pushing it all the way to the driveway.  The blood was already pouring, so Granddad took him inside while I stayed with his brother.

              After a few minutes I was told that I was needed.  Granddad could do the cleaning, but Grandma was requested for the bandaging.  When I sat on the floor in front of his dangling leg I got my first good look at that knee.  A half dollar sized piece of skin was completely missing, as if someone had taken a grater and scraped it off, a nearly perfect circle.  Bright red and oozing blood, I knew that it needed some sort of antibiotic and I knew it would hurt.

              I looked up at those big blue eyes brimming with unshed tears, his little lips compressed into a straight line, trembling just a bit as he struggled to keep his composure.  "I will use the spray and blow on it to make it hurt less, okay?"

              "Okay," he managed to squeak out.

              A quick spray and Grandma nearly undid herself blowing as hard and long as she could until the walls around us began to spin.  Then a big bandage that barely covered that skinned spot and we were on to the next one, for the whole top of his foot and leg were scraped and bloody halfway to his knee.  Altogether we used five bandages, but that little guy never uttered a peep.

              "You were a very big boy!" I told him. 

              That seemed to ameliorate the still stinging wounds on his foot and leg.  He gave me a small smile and he was off to play again.  Later that evening when Mommy and Daddy came home, he was proud to show them his boo-boos and even prouder when I told them how brave he had been—"just like a grown up!"

              It must have been a week later before the irony struck me.  We told him how "big" and "brave" and "grown up" he had been.  I am not sure why, because many of the grownups I have seen are perfectly happy to whine and fuss and demand attention from everyone about every little thing that comes along.  Have you looked at Facebook lately?

              Yes, some things do need the concern and care of others.  Some things are so difficult to bear that we might very well topple without someone to lean on.  Those things, which are far worse than a skinned knee, demand our love and help and attention.

               But too many times a relatively minor trial is treated as if it were a life-threatening emergency.  Too often a "skinned knee" is used to judge our brethren as uncaring, or to excuse ourselves from serving.  Exactly what is "big, brave, and grown up" about that?

               Let this sweet little boy, who did his best to be "grown up," teach you what it means to be brave and mature.  Let him remind you that small things like skinned knees happen every day in the life of a Christian.  God expects us to doctor the wounds and then get back up and carry on, to dry the tears and act like an adult.  As a general rule, skinned knees won't kill you.
 
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, (2Cor 4:16-17)
 
Dene Ward

It is a culinary fact that fat tempers acid.  That is why some of the world’s favorite dishes combine a good helping of both.  Melted mozzarella offsets a tomato-y pizza sauce.  A cheese-stuffed calzone is almost unbearably rich without a small bowl of marinara to dip it in.  A homemade pimento cheese sandwich SCREAMS for a homemade dill pickle on the side.  The South’s favorite summer treat, a drippy tomato sandwich on high quality white bread, simply must be slathered with a glop of mayo.  Fat and acid—the perfect combination; it’s why we dip French fries in ketchup and chips in salsa; it’s why the favorite toppings for a hot dog are ketchup, mustard, relish, and chili.  It’s why we put whipped cream on strawberries and why a Key lime pie is just about the perfect dessert.

            Trials, tribulations, sufferings and afflictions are the acid tests for Christians.  No one wants to go through them, yet we all understand that is what makes us stronger, builds up our faith, keeps us able to endure till the end.  All of us would be spiritual wimps without them. 

            What we fail to realize is that God gives us plenty of fat to offset them.  How many blessings can you count in your life today, not even considering the most wonderful one of all, your salvation?  How many good things happened to you just this morning?  Did your car start?  Did you make it to work safely?  Are your children safely ensconced in a safe place?  Do you still have a roof over your head?  Is there food in your refrigerator?  Is the electricity on, the water running and the AC humming away?  Are their flowers blooming in your yard and birds singing in the trees?  Do you have pleasant memories to calm you in the midst of sorrows?  Is there a Bible in your home and are you free to read it whenever you want to?  Did you pray to a Father who loves you more than anything else?  How many more “fat” items can we come up with?  Probably enough to fill even the gigabytes of memory in our computers if we just took the time to think of them.  If you have trouble, just ask a three-year-old—they are pros at this.

            I don’t mean to make light of people’s problems with this little analogy—but then again, maybe I do.  Paul calls them “light afflictions” in 2 Corinthians 4, and he was including persecution to the death in that context.  Compared to the end result, compared to the reward, compared to our Savior’s sufferings so we could have that reward, our trials and tribulations are light indeed.

            So today, if you are in the middle of a struggle, if the acid is burning your soul, look for the fat God gave you to temper it.  Look for everything good in your day, in your life, no matter how small it may seem.  If that doesn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t, remember the good that will result from your testing, and don’t let it be for nothing.  Don’t let Satan win.  The bigger the tomato, the more mayo God smears on, if you only know where to look.
 
Wherefore we faint not, for though our outer man is decaying, our inward man is renewed day by day.  For this momentary light affliction works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:16-18.
 
Dene Ward

Nothing annoys me much more than a chirping smoke alarm.  Yes, yes, yes, I tell it.  I know you need a new battery.  I will get to it as soon as I can.  But aren't we glad we have them?
 
             It has taken a long time for affordable, reliable, home smoke detectors to hit the market.  The first fire alarm was invented and patented by Francis Robbins Upton, a friend of Thomas Edison's, in 1890.  George Andrew Darby of Birmingham, England invented the first smoke detector in 1902.  Both items were too basic to be reliable and marketable.  In the late 1930s a Swiss physicist named Walter Jaeger attempted to invent a poison gas detector.  It didn't detect the poison, but the smoke from his cigarette did set it off.  This one was too expensive to produce to have much impact on the market.

              I was finally able to find a patent given to inventors Randolph J. Smith of Anaheim, California and Kenneth R House of Norwalk, Connecticut on August 5, 1969.  Their model was evidently the first battery-powered residential model that was actually affordable and reliable.  It emitted a piercing alarm at the presence of smoke.  And yes, I suppose it did that annoying little chirping thing too.

              Maybe it’s because I am the only one around here who even needs the smoke alarm.  Keith not only can’t hear the chirping, he can stand under the thing when it goes off and not hear it.  As long as I am in the house I can wake Keith up and get both of us out in time should a fire start.  If only the toaster and the broiler and the occasional spillover on the burners didn't set it off too.

              Warnings are often annoying.  How about the various beeps in your car?  For us, it’s just the ding-ding-ding when you leave the keys in, but I have friends whose cars ring, buzz, beep, or whoop-whoop-whoop when they back up too close to something, pull in too close to something, swerve a little too close to the lane markings, let their gas tanks get too low, open the wrong door at the wrong time…  Honestly, I don’t know how they stand to drive at all.

              But only a fool ignores warnings.  And there are quite a few of them out there—fools, that is.  Just try warning someone about losing their soul, and you may well lose a friend.  They get mad, they strike out with accusations about your own failings, they tell everyone how mean you are.  Trouble is, ignoring the warnings won’t get them anywhere they want to go. The danger is still there.

              If I don’t answer the call of the chirping smoke alarm with a new battery, I may very well burn to death one night.  Telling everyone how annoying the thing is won’t change that at all.  If I don’t answer the warnings of someone who cares enough about me to brave losing his reputation and being hurt, my end won’t change either.  It doesn’t matter whether I thought he was mean or whether he needed a warning just as badly as I did.  I know the first reaction is anger.  I’ve been there myself.  But anger never saved anyone, nor accusations, nor whining and fussing about my hurt feelings.  There is a whole lot more at stake than a few feelings.

              Heed the warning when you get it, no matter how you get it or from whom.  It may be the only one you get.  People aren’t like smoke alarms.  Not many of them will put up with your bad reactions.  They’ll either stop chirping, or never chirp again.  Then what will you do when the fire starts?
 
"Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life,   Ezekiel 33:2-5.
 
Dene Ward

On August 3, 1970, Mairiam Hargrave of Yorkshire, England passed her driving test.  So? you ask.  You passed yours too, I bet, and didn’t even consider it important enough to remember the date.  Why in the world would anyone remember someone else’s?  Because Mairiam passed her test on her fortieth try, that’s why. 
 
             After twenty tries she began to make the papers.  After thirty-seven she made the Guinness Book of World Records.  She kept trying and nine years after her first test, she passed.  And no, her examiner did not just take pity on her—he didn’t know anything about her previous failures until she told him, after he passed her.  This woman spent over $700 taking driving lessons.  Even though she became a laughingstock, she never gave up.

              How easily do we give up?  How many times do we have to fail before we say, “It isn’t worth it?”  If we’re talking about overcoming a sin, I hope we have the endurance of Mrs. Hargrave.  If we’re talking about praying, I hope we ask again and again.  If we’re talking about having a relationship with God, I hope persistence is our middle name.

              Remember the Syrophenician woman whose little girl was ill with a demon (Matt 15:22ff)?  The first time she approached Jesus he never even acknowledged her.  The second time he insulted her.  Yet still she kept coming and soon her great faith was rewarded.

              Remember the parable of the widow who pestered a judge to death until he finally gave her what she wanted (Luke 18:1ff)?  Just to get her off his back he relented.  Jesus’ point is if it works with an unrighteous man, surely it will work with a Holy Father. 

              Remember Paul’s admonition to the Galatians?  They seemed to be wondering if all their labor was worth it.  Paul reminded them of the law of reaping and sowing.  Sooner or later, he said, you will benefit from the good works you do.  Do not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.  Waiting for God’s timetable may well be the most difficult thing He has asked us to do, and the greatest test of our endurance.  Don’t give up.

              The church at Ephesus may have had many faults, but the Lord does say to them, I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary, Rev 2:3.  Can He say that about us?  Or have we given up, whining about the pressures of temptation, not just bent but completely broken from the trials, deciding that being a disciple of Jesus’ simply isn’t worth the bother?

              What if He had decided you weren’t worth it?  What if he had told God that the cost was too high, that you weren’t worth the trouble, the pain, the anguish of taking on a human form and dying a hideous death after the spiritual torture of taking on every person’s sin throughout all history?  What would you say to him if you knew he had been about to quit?  How hard would you have begged him not to?

              Surely you have more grit, more tenacity, and more determination for spiritual things than a 62 year old grandmother had for a driver’s license.  Surely you won’t give up now.
             
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted, Hebrews 12:3.
 
Dene Ward

Croquet has a long and unsure history as a game.  The things we do know even seem to be in dispute.  Sometime in the early 1850s, a woman named Mary Workman-MacNaghten, whose father was a baronet in Ireland, went to a London toy maker named Isaac Spratt, and asked him to make a croquet set.  Her family had played the game long before she was born "by tradition," which means no written set of rules, using mallets made by local carpenters.  Her brother eventually wrote down the rules they used.  Spratt made some sets and printed out those rules.  He registered his creation with the Stationers' Company in 1856, but the copyright form gives the date as August 2, 1853, plenty of time for Lewis Carroll to make the game even more famous in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
 
             When our boys were in middle school we gave them a croquet set.  At first they seemed a little disappointed—croquet?  How boring.  Then we actually started playing and they discovered strategy, like whacking your opponent completely out of bounds with one of your free shots.  Now that was fun.

              We have settled down to annual games during the holidays whenever we get together.  It is the perfect way to let the turkey digest, and we usually wind up playing two or three times.  But that time of year means a less than clear playing field on what is already a rollercoaster lawn.  Our yard, you see, isn’t exactly a lawn.  It’s an old watermelon field, and though the rows have settled somewhat after thirty-odd years, we still have low spots, gopher holes, ant hills, and armadillo mounds.  But in the fall we also have sycamore leaves the size of paper plates, pine cones, piles of Spanish moss, and cast off twigs from the windy fronts that come through every few days between October and March.  You cannot keep it cleaned up if you want to do something besides yard work with your life.  So when you swing your mallet, no matter how carefully you have aimed, you never really know where your ball will end up.  We call it “ultimate croquet.”  Anyone who is used to a tabletop green lawn would be easy pickings for one of us—even me, the perennial loser.

              All those “hazards” make for an interesting game of croquet, but let me tell you something.  I have learned the hard way that an interesting life is not that great.  I have dug ditches in a flooding rainstorm, cowered over my children during a tornado, prayed all night during a hurricane, climbed out of a totaled car, followed an ambulance all the way to the hospital, hugged a seizing baby in my lap as we drove ninety down country roads to the doctor’s office, bandaged bullet wounds, hauled drinking water and bath water for a month, signed my life away before experimental surgeries—well, you get the picture. Give me dull and routine any day. 

              Dull and routine is exactly what Paul told Timothy to pray for.  I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:1-5. 

              Did you catch that?  Pray that our leaders will do what is necessary for us to have a “tranquil and quiet life” so that all men can “come to a knowledge of the truth.”  God’s ministers cannot preach the gospel in a country where everyone is in hiding or running in terror from the enemy, where you never have enough security to sit down with a man and discuss something spiritual for an hour or so, where you wonder how you will feed your family that night, let alone the next day.  The Pax Romana was one of the reasons the gospel could spread—peace in the known world.  That along with the ease of travel because every country was part of the same empire and a worldwide language made the first century “the fullness of times” predicted in the prophets.

              I don’t have much sympathy for people who are easily bored, who seem to think that life must always be exciting or it isn’t worth living.  I am here to tell you that excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  And God gave us plenty to do during those dull, routine times.  It’s called serving others and spreading the Word.  If you want some excitement, try that.  It’s even better than Ultimate Croquet.
 
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 1 Thes 4:9-11.
 
Dene Ward

Several years ago, after our carpet had become worn and dirty beyond cleaning and we had discovered that I have dust mite allergies which had already led to sinus surgery, we decided to replace it with laminate flooring.  We were prepared for the trouble it would cause—moving furniture, even packing things up to the point we might as well have moved—but we were not prepared for what lay under that carpet.
 
             I am not a great housekeeper, but I am not a filthy housekeeper either.  I vacuumed no less than once a week, using my old Filter Queen, which was about the best model out there when we bought it. Yet when the man started pulling up that carpet, carpet that had been sitting there for a couple of decades, I was horrified.  Not just a few grains of sand, but cupfuls of sand lay on top of the plywood.  I stood there numb with both surprise and embarrassment.

              "It's all right," the man said.  "This is the least amount I have ever found under a carpet," which may have mollified me a little and given me a selling point for all Filter Queen vacuum cleaner salesmen, but still left me horrified remembering all the times I had lain on that "clean" carpet, exercising, napping, or playing with children.

                "A carpet is really just a giant sieve," he explained.  "The big pieces stay on top and you vacuum them up, but all that tiny stuff just sifts right through.  No vacuum cleaner in the world can pull it back out."

              Which means, of course, that you can look perfectly clean on the outside and still be dirty underneath.  Seems I have heard that metaphor many times before from Jesus himself.

              And it makes perfect sense.  Especially if you were "raised in the church" as we so often say, you know better than to let the big stuff pass through your "sieve" (conscience?).  But what still goes on through to your heart?  The things we call "little," that's what.  Things we allow to invade our thinking and permeate our attitudes, but since we seldom, or even never, act on them in an open way, we think are "no big deal."  So why are they important?

              Think for a minute who actually conspired to murder our Lord.  Priests, scribes, Pharisees, Saducees--people who were considered the most religious of their day.  If you had asked them if they would have ever murdered someone, what do you think they would have said?  They would have been horrified that you even asked.

              So what are those kinds of things that we allow to sift through?  Pride, selfishness, self-importance, bitterness, grudges, just to name a few.  Insidious things that work their evil gradually, infecting the heart of even those we see as the most pious and godly. 

            We knew a man once who everyone would have described as "honest," yet when he was confronted with something he had said that was wrong, he lied about it—even though the statement was captured on tape.  His pride would not allow him to admit wrong and repent.  That is just one example.  I have known others who did much worse yet were considered "pillars of the church," and all because of those "little" things that sifted through the carpet of their conscience.
 
             So do yourself a favor today, and on regular occasions after today.  Pull up the carpet on your heart and search for the little things.  You might be surprised, and even horrified, at what you find.
 
​“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (Matt 23:25-26)
 
Dene Ward

“Are you looking for a sign?  This is it!”
 
             We saw that on a highway somewhere when we were traveling, and under it the address of the local church.  I laughed then, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.  People are still looking for a sign, just as they were in Jesus’ day.

              I have heard a lot of talk about roadside signs in my lifetime, many of them negative, and I understand the concern.  The church is an undenominational entity and those signs, if they are not carefully worded, can teach things we are trying not to teach. But can I say this one thing about them?  Through the years, many people have shown up at various church doors where I worshipped because of the sign.  They remembered it from childhood.  Or maybe they remembered a neighbor who acted differently than their other neighbors, who helped their family when no one else did.  They remembered other neighbors, people who faced their own tragedy and came through it with a smile and faith intact.  Maybe they remembered the times that neighbor invited them to church and now they are in the middle of a crisis and they see a sign in front of a building that looks awfully familiar, one like the sign where their neighbor faithfully attended year after year no matter what was happening in their lives or in the world.

              That is certainly one benefit of those signs that people, including me, sometimes wish weren’t there any more, or were worded much differently.  But maybe this is what we need to concentrate on: that sign wouldn’t have done a thing in the cases I mentioned if the remembered people hadn’t been the kind of people they were. 

              Our lives are supposed to be the sign.  In a world where “Christian” can mean anything and everything, you should still be able to tell a genuine one by how he acts.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:16.  If you really want people to be interested in your faith, then show them a faith worth being interested in.

              A lot of people in Jesus’ day wanted the other kind of sign.  What did Jesus have to say about that?  Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, Matt 12:38,39.  Jesus knew that a miraculous sign would do no good.  He said as much in the parable where the rich man desired Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead as a sign to his brothers, but was told, “If they will not hear the Law and the prophets, they won’t hear if someone comes back from the dead.”  The sign on Mt Carmel ultimately did no good either.  The next morning Jezebel was still in power, able to threaten Elijah and send him running.

              No, the signs that really matter are the ones we act out in front of our friends.  Those are the signs that spark their interest and lead them to ask questions, signs that will eventually start them reading the Word of God and finding their way to Him.  Miracles didn’t work for Jesus, and he steadfastly refused to send a sign at their request.  Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, John 12:37.  What worked were his words and the life he lived, and that’s what works today.

              You are the sign people are looking for.  Word it carefully.
 
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God, Phil 1:27,28.
 
Dene Ward