A prevalent religious tenet says that we can do nothing to earn our salvation.  Now as far as that goes, it is correct.  The scriptures teach us that nothing we can possibly do will ever merit the salvation of our souls.  That is how bad sin is to the Divine Nature of God.  But that doctrine we were discussing goes on to say that obedience plays no part in our salvation at all, that to obey any command is to try to earn salvation, almost as if obedience were a bad thing.

              Common sense comes to the rescue.  How in the world can anyone possibly think that God will accept a disobedient child, especially a deliberately disobedient child?  My women’s class found at least two dozen passages in the Bible to back up this little bit of wisdom.  It took far longer to read them all than to find them, and concordances and topical Bibles put together by men who actually believe that nonsensical doctrine were a big help in finding those opposing passages.  Do you see a problem with this picture?  It takes distortion of epic proportions to put this doctrine together.

              That is not the biggest fallacy though, to my mind.  If I somehow had a hundred thousand dollar automobile and told you that you could have it if you would only drive me home first, would you for a minute think you had earned that car by doing so?  Of course not, unless you think that your time is worth a whole lot more than I do—almost $100,000 an hour in fact.  But I bet every time I needed a ride to the doctor, you would be more than happy to offer it.

              To ever equate baptism and good deeds with earning salvation is to completely misunderstand the seriousness of sin, to demean the sacrifice of Christ, and devalue salvation.  Obedience can never earn the sacrifice of Deity becoming flesh, living in a world of indignities, becoming subject to sin, temptation, and death, and finally being tortured and killed by the very beings He created.  Nothing is equal to that sacrifice, or to Eternity in Heaven with God.  Yet that very fact ought to make us even more diligent in our obedience, not less.

              No, living a faithful life, overcoming temptation, putting up with persecution on its various levels, or even dying for our Lord will never earn us a spot in Heaven, nor will menial tasks like baptism either.  What we do for God is out of gratitude for a salvation we could never have managed on our own and will never be worthy of, except as He has made us worthy with a forgiveness we do not deserve.  But if we think the ingratitude of disobedience makes us worthy, we’ve simply lost our minds.
             
Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, Come at once and recline at table? Will he not rather say to him, Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty. Luke 17:7-10.
 
Dene Ward

Boundary disputes once helped win an American presidential election. 

              In 1818, we signed a treaty with Great Britain agreeing to joint ownership of the Oregon Territory.  Citizens from both countries had settled there.  They eventually agreed to a boundary between America and Canada at the 49th parallel.  Then they both got greedy.  The British claimed anything north of the 42nd parallel.  Along came American expansionists who were willing to go to war in order to claim the disputed area up to the 54th 40 parallel for America. 

               Franklin Polk ran on the expansionist platform with the slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight," referring to what is now the southern border of Oregon, fifty four degrees, forty minutes north latitude.  On Dec 4, 1844, after an election that had run since November 1, he won the presidency.  However, he abandoned the fight and left the Oregon Territory boundary at the original line of agreement, the 49th parallel, where it still is today.

             We've had some boundary issues ourselves.  When we first moved onto this land, no one else lived on the parcels anywhere around us.  Everyone else bought for the investment and planned to sell later, and with the titles unclear (except for ours) the plots remained empty for a long time.  With no fences in place, the boys literally had their own version of the Hundred Acre Woods to play in. 

              When the first hard rains showed us how the land around here drained, and that we would soon be washed away if something weren’t done, the owners to the north of us plowed a ditch along that side to help us out.  It was required by law, but they were compliant and even stopped to make sure we were satisfied before their rented equipment went back to the store.  Yes, we were.  The ditch worked fine and we stayed dry.

              We assumed the ditch ran right along the northern edge of the property and used all the land up to it for our garden, for our yard, for flower beds, even for a post to hold guywires for our antenna.  When the land around us began to sell and people moved in, we finally had to put up a fence.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we had been using as much as five feet more land along the north boundary than was actually ours.  But of course, the surveyors were correct.  They had sighted along the boundary markers, white posts set on all four corners of our five plus acres.  I even had to dig up half of a lily bed one morning and transplant them elsewhere so they could put the fence along the correct line.

              The Israelites were aware of boundaries and the landmarks that outlined them.  “You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. Deut 19:14.  It was a matter of honesty and integrity.  “‘Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ Deut 27:17.  And this is just talking about land.  Imagine if someone moved a landmark that showed something even more important than that.

              The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark… Hos 5:10.  The wicked kings of God’s people had blurred the lines between right and wrong, between good and evil.  The standard became which will make me wealthier or more important among my peers, rather than which is right in the eyes of God?  Which is more convenient, which is easier, which do I like the best, which appeals to my lusts?  All of these have been used to move the boundaries of right and wrong in people’s lives for thousands of years.  When the government does it too, we have an instant excuse.  After all, it’s not against the law, is it?

              Do you think it hasn’t happened to us?  What do you accept now that you would never have accepted thirty years ago because you knew that the Bible said it was wrong?  Now people come along and tell you the Bible is a book of myths or the Bible only means what you want it to mean.  They have moved the landmark, and many have accepted it.

              God does not move landmarks.  What He says goes—then and now.  He may have changed the rituals we perform in each dispensation, but basic morality—right and wrong--has not and will not change.  Even Jesus used the argument, “But from the beginning it was not so…” (Matt 19:8). 

              We can move the landmarks all we want, but we will still wind up on the Devil’s property, and God will know the difference, whether we accept it or not.
 
​Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you. Prov 23:10-11
 
Dene Ward

Trying to make sense of tribulation without the Divine guidance of the scriptures is hopeless.  People have been asking this question for thousands of years.  Why do bad things happen to good people? 

              David, Job, and Jeremiah all spent time pondering the seeming inequities of life, and those writings are where we spend our time mulling over the matter.  It dawned on me one day last week, that after Christ came, you seldom see any writing on the subject at all.  Suddenly the question comes with answers.  Suddenly people see a reason for their troubles.  Suddenly it all makes sense to them.  Why is that?

              Christ created a hope that was only dreamed of in the Old Testament; a hope that the faithful looked forward to with anticipation, but were never allowed to see.  The early Christians, many of whom were never even brought up with the notion of the true Jehovah God, quickly gained a perspective that actually turned tribulations into a reason for rejoicing.  Why?  Because they presented opportunities to serve God and to serve others.  That is what being a disciple of Christ is all about.  That is what they had committed their lives to.  Of course they were happy when an opportunity arose.

              Paul was thrown into prison.  Surely Satan meant that as a means to keep the gospel from spreading.  How did Paul see it?  I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear, Phil 1:12-14.  Paul managed to find two good reasons for being thrown into prison—he could preach to those he had never reached before and others were preaching even more. 

              No, it is not easy in the midst of pain and sorrow, in the middle of worries that spin uncontrollably in your mind all night long to find the opportunity in a trial.  Yet that is exactly what Paul’s example shows we should do. Surely we can find opportunities when tribulations assail us, especially considering how small they are compared to Paul’s.

              Are you suffering with a terrible illness?  How many of these medical people you now see every day would you never have met otherwise?  Now you can show them what faith means.  They might never have seen it otherwise.  Certainly the ones among them who never even pick up a Bible wouldn’t have.

              Are you shunned for your stand for morality?  Perhaps there are others watching who might now have the same strength due to your example.  Perhaps one of them will ask you about it and you will have the chance to teach him, or to invite him to an assembly of saints, a whole group of people who feel like he does, which will give him an instant desire for the fellowship you enjoy.

              Can you see in just those examples and Paul’s that trials may be Satan trying to take you down, but they are also God trying to pull you up, trying to give you a reason for your faith and the legs to stand on when anyone else might simply cave?  Can’t you see that in tribulation God is allowing us to do the thing we claim to be most important in our lives—service.

              Tribulations are opportunities to serve.  Repeat it like a mantra.  Then put it into action.  If we don’t, then have we truly become disciples of Christ? 

              Seize the opportunities.  God only parcels them out to those he loves.
 
"Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Job 23:8-10.

Dene Ward

Actually, this should probably be Conducting 101, but let’s stretch a point this morning.  Meanwhile you are sitting there wondering what in the world an ictus is and why you should care.

              The ictus is the point in the conductor’s pattern where the actual beat occurs.  If you are tapping your toes to the music, the ictus occurs when your foot hits the ground.

              My conducting professor would have a cow if he saw most of the conducting patterns we see on Sunday mornings.  Not because they are “incorrect,” but because the ictus usually occurs up around the song leader’s ear, when it should be at his waist.  But few of my brethren are professional musicians, so who cares where the ictus is, as long as there is one? 

              That ictus, that stable underlying pulse, must be visible and steady so that we know when to sing.  What drives me crazy is when a leader just waves his arm on each word, rather than each beat, and expects us to read his mind about when the next one is coming.  Give me an ictus!  Even if you begin an accelerando (gradually speeding up) or a ritardando (gradually slowing down), we can still anticipate when a beat is coming and stay together as long as there is an ictus in your pattern.  If you’re just beating words instead of beats, who knows when it will come?

              Of course, the group has to be watching the leader for any of it to work at all.  Funny how the ones who recite, “Let all things be done decently and in order,” will sing what they want when they want, regardless what the leader is doing, and do it loudly enough that they take half the congregation with them.  But don’t get me started…

              God is the ictus in a Christian’s life.  [The Lord] is the stability in your times, Isaiah said, 33:6.  That word is the same word translated “faithfulness” in many other passages.  God’s faithfulness endures forever, Psa 117:2.

              Interestingly enough, it is also the word “steady” in Ex 17:12.  Moses lifted up his hands as the people fought the Amalekites, but as his strength failed and they sagged, Aaron and Hur sat him on a rock and held his hands “steady” for him until the battle was over.  God holds his hands steadily on high as we fight our battles.  That is how we defeat Satan and overcome sin.  It’s how we handle trials and tribulations—with the steady helping hand of a God who never wavers. 

              Even if you aren’t a trained musician you can feel the beat.  That’s why your toes tap and your hands clap.  It’s why your head bounces when you hear a tune you enjoy, but none of it matters if you aren’t watching the leader.

              God doesn’t leave you wondering when the next beat will come.  Look for the ictus as He leads you.  Sometimes it may slow as the toils of life bog you down, but it will not leave you behind fending for yourself.  Sometimes it may speed up as you run from the Enemy, but it is always there for the ones who care to watch and be led. 

              I often listen to music when I exercise.  I find I can go longer and do more than just counting repetitions.  If you are in a particularly difficult time of life, let God’s ictus help you put one step in front of the other, again and again and again, until you have finally reached the end of the trial.  Let it help you keep moving until you achieve the final goal.  God’s steady, stable, faithful hand will lead you on, until you sing that final triumphant note in the song of life.
 
 I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, "Steadfast love will be built up forever; in the heavens you will establish your faithfulness." Psa 89:1-2.
 
Dene Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

This phrase is used a number of times in the Old Testament at the time of someone’s death. I believe that I can establish that it means something more than being buried in the family tomb.

Gen 25:8 And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years], and was gathered to his people.
Abraham had lived a long time away from his ancestral home and burying grounds. Only Sarah’s bones waited him in this world. Abraham went somewhere to be with someone, not just any someone, but those (people is plural) who were HIS people, dare we say, people of faith.

Gen 35:29 And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, old and full of days: and Esau and Jacob his sons buried him.
Clearly, the gathering and the burying were distinct.

Gen 49:33 When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
In a clear distinction, dying, i.e., breathing his last, is separate from being gathered to his people.

Deut 32:50 And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. Aaron died and was buried. Moses died and God buried him. In no sense is it possible to equate his being gathered to his people to simply being dead like they were. And, being in the wilderness, it is impossible that they were buried where their forebears had been.

Someday we shall “Gather at the River” with those Old Testament saints who’ve gone before, who, knowing less than we do, still walked by faith in hope of being together and with God.

Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing from the throne of God
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river,
Gather with the saints at the river,
That flows from the throne of God.
 
Keith Ward

Getting old is the pits or, as is popular to say among my friends, it isn’t for wimps. 

              I remember when I used to run 30 miles a week and exercise another 5 hours besides.  I lifted light weights and did aerobics and the standard floor exercises for abs and glutes and those floppy chicken wings on the back of your arms—triceps, I think they’re called.  I didn’t like the notion of waving hello to the people in front of me and having those things wave goodbye to the people behind me at the same time.

              Now, due to doctor’s orders, I have to limit how much I pick up, how long I bend over, and how much and how strenuous the activity I participate in.  Good-bye slim, svelte body (as much as it ever could be with my genes), and hello floppy chicken wings.  Now I can only do a little and boy, does it show—and hurt!

              I was doing a little step work the other day (very little) when a knife-sharp stab stopped me in my tracks.  Yeow!  What was that?  So I stepped up again and found out immediately—it was something deep inside my knee.  I stopped and thought.

              In all that exercising over the years I have learned at least a little bit about it.  For example, if you change the angle of your body, suddenly you feel the work in a different muscle, sometimes on a completely different part of your body.  When I took that step up, I was using nothing but my knee, a very fragile joint—how many professional athletes have had their careers cut short with a knee injury?  Lifting that much weight over and over and over, even for just the ten minutes I allowed it, was too much for that little joint to bear alone. 

              So I focused on changing the working muscle.  All it took was putting the entire foot on the step instead of just my toes, and pushing up from my heel on each repetition.  Suddenly, the large muscle mass from my legs and up through the small of my back was doing all the work (especially that extra large muscle), and my knee scarcely hurt at all.  Ha!  I finished my allotment of sweating for the day with no pain, and only a mild ache where it really needed to be aching in the first place.

              That’s exactly what happens to us when we try to bear our burdens alone.  All we are is a fragile little knee joint, when what we need is a huge mass of muscle.  Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you, David said in Psa 55:22.  Do you think that strong warrior didn’t need help at times?  But David was greatly distressed…[and he] strengthened himself in the Lord his God, 1 Sam 30:6.  David was not too macho to know when he needed help and where to get it.

              Too many times we try to gain strength from everything but God--money, portfolios, annuities, doctors, self-help programs, counseling, networking, anything as long as we don’t have to confess a reliance on God.  It isn’t weak to depend upon your Almighty Creator—it’s wisdom and good common sense.  The Lord is my helper, I will not fear; what can man do to me? asked the Hebrew writer in 13:6.  Indeed, not only is what man can do to you nothing compared to the Lord’s power, what he can do for you is even less. 

              When life starts stabbing you in the heart with pain, anxiety, and distress shift your focus.  Remember who best can bear the weight of sin and woes, and let Him make that burden easy enough for you to handle.  I still had to use my knees that day, but they certainly felt a lot better than they did before, and even better the next morning.  By yourself, you will do nothing but ruin your career (Eph 4:1) with a knee injury, but you and the Lord can handle anything.
 
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7
 
Dene Ward

We had a terrible time with gnats this past summer.  Despite our automatic atomizer, a dozen swarmed the lights at night and several buzzed us during dinner.  So I looked up the reproductive process of gnats and found out why.  We live in a veritable breeding ground—standing water (water buckets for the dogs), damp landscaping (mulch in the flower beds and more rain this year than any in the past ten), food (a large vegetable garden, a blueberry patch, and grape vines), and, ahem, animal residue—we live in the country, it’s everywhere.

              So keeping the doors and windows shut should fix the problem, right?  No, they breed in garbage cans too.  When you live in a small rural county, there is no weekly pickup.  You must carry your own garbage and trash to the dump.  To minimize the number of trips we put all the flammable items in a paper bag to burn in the “burn barrel” onsite, and the wet garbage in the kitchen can until it fills enough to empty it into the one outside.  That means our kitchen can is probably emptied less often than yours because there is no paper trash “filler,” and that means plenty of time for any gnats that whiz in a door as we enter or leave to lay eggs and hatch. I have tried spraying it every morning with insecticide, but even that does not seem to help.   

              There is no getting around it.  Garbage breeds vermin of one sort or another all the time.  They simply love filth. Putting it in the garbage can, as long as the can is still inside the house, doesn’t really help a bit.  You have to remove it from the house entirely, and soon enough that the gnats cannot breed.

              If we don’t want spiritual vermin, we have to get rid of the garbage in our hearts.  It doesn’t help to just try to hide it.  Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof, Paul told the Roman brethren in 13:14.  You can’t just stash it away in case you might want to indulge again.  You have to remove it completely, and soon enough that it doesn’t breed yet more.  The Devil loves the dirt.  His minions wallow in it.  Why do we think it won’t soil us too as long as no one knows?  Would you eat a meal that was swarming with gnats and flies?

              Get rid of the gnats in your soul.  The only way is to empty that garbage can inside yourself and keep it that way.
             
…Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you.  And I will be to you a father and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.  Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us therefore cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor 6:17-7:1.
 
Dene Ward
 

When I was teaching piano and voice, my students often participated in an evaluation day at the university with judges rating their performances—superior, excellent, very good, good, and fair.  When I was a child I participated in the same event and the words given as ratings were exactly what they said they were.  Even a “very good” was very good. 
 
             By the time my students participated we were well into the philosophy of promoting self-esteem by never telling a child he was wrong about anything.  The vast majority of the 1000 entrants received a superior, which simply meant he didn’t play or sing more than a few wrong notes.  It had nothing to do with his musicianship or his artistry.  If a judge handed out more excellents than superiors, he was taken aside and enlightened.  As a result only a small handful of “very goods” ever hit the rating sheet, and news of a “good” spread like the plague, with exactly the same reception.  Everyone knew that a “very good” wasn’t, and a “good” was just plain awful.  Judges were actually forbidden to even look at the “fair” rating, much less circle it.

              That may be why “good” means little to us these days.  It is probably why we just read right over it when Luke calls Joseph of Arimathea and Barnabas “good” men.  Luke did not use that term lightly; those were the only two times I found that particular Greek word used of a man. 

              So can we ever hope to become so good that term can be used of us, the same term that Jesus used of God?  Only if, like God, that goodness becomes an intrinsic part of us, a goodness that exists no matter what happens on the outside, no matter what anyone else says or does. 

              Jesus seemed to expect it.  You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. Matthew 12:34-35.  There is the word, agathos.  A good person can only do good things if his heart is good, so if I am not doing them, something in my heart needs to be changed.

              “But that’s just not who I am,” won’t cut it with the Lord.  He expects us to change who we are.  He expects us to turn that evil heart into a good one, one that is good the way God is good, simply by its nature.  But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Luke 6:35.  There it is again, that same word, or a compound of it in this case, a “do-gooder.”  If you want to be a child of God, that’s what you have to be.

              Jesus makes it even plainer a little later.  Becoming “good” is not an option. It is not something we can do on the outside, while harboring a heart of evil or malice towards others.  It is not something we can do by rote without compassion.  It is the thing that will determine our destiny.  Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your lord, Matt 25:21. 

              “Good” is a very special word in the Bible.  It isn’t passed out profligately so we can keep our self-esteem intact.  It isn’t bandied about simply because of good deeds or loud hallelujahs.  It is a quality so deep that if one ceases to exist in this life, so does that much goodness in the world.  “Only one is Good,” Jesus said, in the absolute sense.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect us to become good as much as is humanly, with a little help from God, possible.
 
And let us not grow weary of well doing, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:9-10
 
Dene Ward

I imagine many of us grew up using that phrase in the first prayer we ever uttered at the table.  Maybe that is why we are so prone to say, “God is good,” and indeed He is.  We will shout it to the world.  When?  When we get exactly what we want.  When what we pray for comes to pass.  When life is easy and carefree and comfortable.  And that means we have absolutely no understanding of the goodness of God.  We are, in fact, showing ourselves to be those same immature little children uttering a memorized grace. 

              Jesus said in Mark 10:18.  Why do you call me good?  There is none good except God alone.  That Greek word is agathos.  I am not a Greek scholar and at this age, never will be, but I can tell when one Greek word is used and when another is simply by looking at the letters.  Here is the difference in this one.  God is good whether I get what I want or not.  God is good whether life is easy or not.  God is good even in the midst of storms and trials and disease and pain.  The goodness of God never changes because it is intrinsic to His nature.  That’s what that word means.  Nothing on the outside of Him affects that goodness.  It always is because it is part of who He is.  God is good because He is God.

              We too often mean a different Greek word when we shout, “God is good.”  Kalos means something is good only when it is beautiful, valuable, or useful to the person judging it so.  It is an extrinsic quality, affected by circumstances on the outside of it.  Thus a person would cease to be “good” if he became disabled or too ill to work, or if she were no longer beautiful due to age.  If the only time I utter the phrase, “God is good,” is when my prayers are answered in a positive way, then that is exactly what I am saying about God.  If I were a first century Greek, I would be calling him kalos instead of agathos.  He is only good when He is useful to me, just like children who “love” their parents when a wish is fulfilled, but say, “You’re so mean,” when they get a “No.” 

              So how do we feel about God?  Do we understand that He is good simply because He is, or do we feel the right to judge His goodness based on our own desires?  The real test of my understanding of the nature of God comes when, in the wake of disaster, I can say along with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21).
 
Moses said, "Please show me your glory." And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy…The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Ex 33:18,19; 34:6-8.
 
Dene Ward

All summer I had been watching those monarch butterflies flit over my flower beds. Every couple of days I carefully checked the herb garden twenty feet away for signs of their caterpillars.  That’s what I read somewhere—that monarch butterfly caterpillars are the dreaded parsley worms that can wreak havoc on that herb almost overnight.  Nothing happened.  My parsley grew well and was never infested.  Somehow I got off easy this year.  I thought.

              Then in mid-October we went away for a week.  We returned on a Friday night, after dark, too late to see much but the back porch by the light hanging outside the back door.  The next morning we stepped out for a stroll and saw what had happened.  Every sprig of parsley was completely bare, only the bright green stems sticking up completely naked—except here and there for the bright green worm still clinging to the bush it had just decimated.  I am not so paranoid as to think that somehow they all got together and planned the attack for while we were away, but it was certainly suspicious.

              Satan, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of planning his attacks that way.  He waits until we are most vulnerable.  He waits until we have experienced a crisis in our lives, until we are frustrated by circumstances, until our defenses are down, and then he zooms in for the kill.  Being on the alert when you are tired and hurt is not easy, but that is exactly what we must do, standing guard as a soldier in the Lord’s army. 

              One of the greatest benefits of being in the family of God is having people who care enough to watch your back.  All of us should be aware of the crises in our brothers and sisters’ lives.  Too often we are so consumed with our own affairs that we don’t have time to watch out for others, and that means we are too consumed, period.  Then we wonder how a brother could fall so far, why a sister was caught up in such a sin, why a family has “suddenly” disappeared from among us.  How in the world could those things have happened?  They happened in part because everyone was too busy to notice.

              What do you do when announcements are made in the assembly?  Is that when you spend your time arranging your books, glasses, and children on the pew, the time you flip to the first song and look through it, the time you know you can spend a little longer in the ladies’ room before you need to be seated?  Those announcements should be your greatest tool the next week as you figure out what you need to do for whom, how you can encourage a brother or sister in distress, what you might say to one whose soul is in danger.  How much do you hear when you are finishing up a conversation that has no bearing on a soul, or racing to your pew before the first song begins?  Those pieces of news are about service, and that is the most important part of a Christian’s life, considering one another…Heb 10:24.

              Be aware of the timing in the lives of others too.  Is it the first anniversary of a widow’s loss?  Is it a season that makes being alone that much harder for the single?  Are ordeals approaching in people’s lives that might make them more prone to Satan’s attacks?  We have a job to do; we have service to offer; we have comfort to give and sometimes exhortation and rebuke when we see those attacks making progress in the lives of another.

              If we see them.  If we care.  If we aren’t so wrapped up in ourselves that we miss the attacks and wake up one morning to an almost overnight slaughter in the garden of God.
 
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed, Hebrews 12:12-13.
 
Dene Ward