The first in a five part series that will appear every morning this week.

When you live in Florida, and probably anywhere in the Caribbean and along the Gulf Coast, you keep an eye on the weather from June 1 till November 30—hurricane season.  My earliest memory of hurricanes was Donna in 1960.  The next was Alma in 1966.  I know there were others that made a Florida landfall, Cleo and Dora, for instance, in 1964, Betsy in 65, and Inez in 66, but they must not have affected my very young life.  After that, we lived in Tampa which did not have a major hit for nearly 100 years, or so I recently heard.

              As a newlywed, we lived out of state for five years so I was hardly aware of Agnes in 72 and Eloise in 75, which created a 12-16 foot storm surge from Panama City to Ft Walton Beach.  Then we moved back to Florida and suddenly hurricanes were a fact of life again, one made more real because of the two little boys we now had to protect. 

              There was Elena in 85, which sent us to our first evacuation shelter.  Andrew in 92 was the one that really opened our eyes to the danger of hurricanes.  Good thing because Florida landfalls picked up suddenly after his arrival.  Gordon in 94 whipped around and made a U-turn, hitting Florida twice.  Erin in 95 followed suit with two landfalls in the state and then Opal arrived only a few weeks afterward with catastrophic damage.  Georges wiped out the Keys in 98 and Floyd came along the east coast in 99, giving us all a good scare.  Then 2004 brought four hurricanes over the state in only a few weeks—Charlie, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan, which actually made its first landfall in Alabama, wiping out the Florida panhandle which sat on its dangerous eastern side, then crossing the southeast, heading back into the Atlantic, and traveling down to cross South Florida.  And those are just the highlights.

              So when Irma came rolling off the coast of Africa we kept an eye on her all the way across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean.  We watched as she grew from a tropical wave into a depression into a storm and finally into a hurricane.  We watched while her winds increased daily, peaking out at 185 mph—category 5.

              They kept telling us it would turn north—first, in time to miss the mainland altogether, then in time to miss Florida and bounce off the Carolinas, then in time to plow into Georgia.  Then we were told that Miami would take a direct hit and Irma would skirt our eastern coast and off to the northeast Atlantic.  Then the forecast moved west a bit, with this recalcitrant hurricane forecast to come straight up the spine of the state as a category 5.  By then she was really close, so that is what we had to plan for.

              If you have seen those Saffir-Simpson animations, you know what a category 5 will do to a house—destroy it.  That's what a category 2 will do to a mobile home.  We have lived in a doublewide "manufactured home" for 35 years.  Obviously we've taken care of it—a roofover, siding, skirting, hurricane tie-downs that were up to code at the time.  The inside has been practically rebuilt as the years passed and we saved enough money to do so.  But we were still facing the real possibility—probability—of losing it all.  That only took into consideration the winds, not the massive live oaks that spread their branches over us and make our air conditioning bill manageable.  Any one branch of those trees could destroy the house.

              And so we had some decisions to make.  What if we lost it all?  What would we try to save?  It surprised me how little it was.

              We packed a suitcase each of basics:  jeans, tees, underwear and socks, and a couple pairs of shoes.  After a hurricane there is neither time nor inclination for dressing up.  We packed photo albums, bank account ledgers and checks, 2 back-up thumb drives of files on the computer.

              We filled a box with our Bibles and all the notes from every class either of us has ever taught.  I added the September schedule for this blog in case I could find a way to keep it going.  Then we added probably a dozen books that were special to us, less than 5% of the total number we own.

              We are experienced campers.  If the house was destroyed, we planned to use the tent as housing until something permanent could be arranged.  So we packed a cooler, paper plates, paper towels, and cloth towels—things that needed to stay dry.  We figured we could find the rest of our camping gear in the debris.

              Everything we packed fit into the covered bed of the pickup, the trunk of the car, and its backseat. 

              I remember thinking, "We know that someday we will have to leave this place and downsize and we wondered what we would keep.  I guess we just found out."

              Keith nearly echoed my thoughts after our day of packing.  "We started from scratch 43 years ago.  We can do it again."

              There was a sadness about it, yes, and I shed a few tears, but that was all the time I had for that nonsense.  Irma was coming and time was short.  We had prayed for her demise for weeks and continued to for 24 more long hours.  But there was also a sense of acceptance as she came closer and closer.  When you pray, "Thy will be done," there must be, or it isn't really faith.
 
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come... Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, ​yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places... (Hab 3:16-19). 

Dene Ward

While the boys were still at home, we raised pigs and chickens.  The chickens we kept mainly for their eggs, but when one stopped producing well, it was time for chicken and dumplings.  The pigs were meant for meat from the time they were piglets.  We named the males Hamlet and the females Baconette to remind us.  You don’t want to get close to an animal destined for the dining table, but then adult pigs are so disgusting there isn’t much danger of that anyway.

              Slaughtering chickens is not quite as traumatic as slaughtering pigs.  They are birds instead of mammals, and they are small and don’t bleed as much.  We never shielded the boys from these things.  They needed to understand where our food came from.  I think there are some city people who must think meat is left in the meat markets in the night by elves the way they go on about the cruelty of ranchers and hunters.  When you understand where it comes from, you respect the animals and appreciate them much more than you would otherwise.  Both of our boys love animals and treat them kindly but they are strong-minded enough to understand necessity too.

              Lucas learned that respect in a more difficult way than we intended.  When it was time to put down a pig, Keith got up early, killed the animal and bled him as quickly as possible, and then loaded it on the trailer for the trip to the butcher.  Three hundred pounds of dead weight meant he needed help. 

              When Lucas was finally big enough to actually help load, he went out with his dad to the pigpen and soberly watched the proceedings.  Mindful of the effect it might have on him, Keith quickly poured sand on the blood.  Then he backed the truck and trailer over to the pigpen gate and Lucas crawled in on the other side to help load the pig—stepping right into that camouflaged pool of blood.  It rose around his ankles, warm and sticky.  After his dad left for the butcher, he came in to wash his feet, a little green around the gills and pale as a ghost.  He really understood the sacrifice that pig had made to feed our family.

              I suppose that is why the Lord intended for us to have a weekly reminder of the sacrifice he made for us, in all its gore.  Too often in asking forgiveness we are like the city folks buying meat at the grocery store, not really understanding all that made that purchase possible.  We need to come to grips with the fact that our actions caused a death, a particularly horrible death.  Even more than that, we are the reason for it yet again every time we sin.  The way we treat our failings as something to laugh about or shrug off as trivial, we probably need to stand beneath that cross and step ankle deep in the still warm blood of Jesus to jolt us back into reality. 

              Sin is just as horrible as slaughter.  In fact, it caused a slaughter which will prevent another one, but not if we don’t have enough appreciation for it to make ourselves do better.
 
He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth…Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. Isa 53:5-7,10
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago Keith bought me a leaf blower for Valentine’s Day.  Yes, ladies, I know what you are thinking, but in this case you are wrong.  We don’t do diamonds.  We don’t do gold.  We don’t even do silver-plate.  We have always had to live so closely that any gift-giving occasion is treated as an excuse to buy what we need anyway.  Just ask the boys about the several Christmases when they got bedspreads, sheets, blinds, and even trash cans for their bedrooms.

              I had been spending hours every week sweeping the carport.  It was either that or spend even more time sweeping the house as the sand was tracked in.  With the blower I could get the job done in about five minutes, especially after I learned to handle the thing.  You never turn it on pointed down, unless you want a face full of sand, and be careful any direction you turn if you don’t want to blow on what you just blew off.  Even Chloe learned to keep her distance the first time I turned it on in her direction and for two days her fur looked like it had been caught in a hurricane blowing in the tail direction.

              Perhaps the most obvious point is to always blow in the direction of the wind.  I have quit trying to wait till the wind isn’t blowing, not out in the country in the middle of a field—I would never get it done.  So I settle for the couple of hours the carport looks nice afterward, and remind myself how awful it would have looked if I had just let the leaves and sand pile up.  But I have learned to test the wind.  It is much easier to blow the leaves the way the wind is blowing them anyway.  Otherwise it’s exactly like paddling upriver.  You can do it, but it takes a whole lot more work.

              But Christianity is not like a leaf blower.  The converse of the leaf blower rule may be the best way to judge most decisions you have to make as a Christian.  If it’s too easy, it’s probably the wrong decision.  If it doesn’t cost you anything, you are probably selling your soul. 

              God has always expected his people to make tough decisions.  By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward, Heb 11:24-26.  Moses chose God instead of wealth and power.

              Joseph chose prison instead of adultery, Gen 39:9.  Ruth chose a life of poverty (she thought) so she could worship God and be a part of his people rather than the comfort of her own culture, Ruth 1:16.  The apostles chose to follow an unpopular route that led to death, instead of staying in good graces with the powers that be and living a normal life.  For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake…we [are held] in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things, 1Cor 4:9-13.

              God’s people have always been challenged with this decision.  “Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua demanded of Israel, 24:15.  “How long will you go limping between two opinions?” Elijah asked in 1 Kgs 18:21.  Make a decision, they were saying.  We face the same challenge, and we face it every day. 

              If life has confronted you with a decision, I can almost guarantee you that the hard choice is the right one.  You have to blow against the winds of society, and even worse, the winds of self.  Christianity has never been the easy way out.  Yet, when you set your priorities correctly and think in spiritually mature terms, it’s the only obvious one.
 
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days… Deut 30:19-20.
 
Dene Ward

Part 18 in a continuing series.  See the right sidebar and click on "Music" for others in this study.

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see,
Now I'm on my way,
It doesn't matter to me,
Chasing the clouds away.

Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near,
I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh.

I'm looking at myself, reflections of my mind,
It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind,
So gently swaying thru the fairy-land of love,
If you'll just come with me and see the beauty of

Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday, afternoon,
I'm just beginning to see,
Now I'm on my way,
It doesn't matter to me,
Chasing the clouds away.

Something, calls to me,
The trees are drawing me near,
I've got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh.

"The Afternoon:  Forever Afternoon" (also known as "Tuesday Afternoon")
 
              Many years ago, the Moody Blues was one of our favorite bands.  When the televised version of the Red Rock concert came on, we watched every minute of it and then bought the cassette.  (That's how we listened to recordings in those "olden" days.)  Keith had begun losing his hearing when he was in the service and was already in hearing aids at 27, so "listening" to music was difficult.  He asked me to please get him the lyrics and I did—every lyric for every song on the recording.

              As pleased as punch, he sat down and read through them.  He grew quieter and quieter as he read.  Finally he said, "I wish I did not have these lyrics.  They mean absolutely nothing, and now I don't like the music nearly as much."

              One set of those lyrics, and one of the best as I recall, opens this post.  If you haven't yet, scroll up and read them.  If you can tell me what it means, you are better than I.  Basically it's a bunch of pretentious nonsense, cotton candy fluff masquerading as "deep" thought. 

              That made me think and I began to experiment with our hymns.  Read them—don't sing them—as poetry and see what they actually say.  If necessary to keep the tune from cropping up in your mind, read them aloud.  Suddenly the hymn will become either one of your favorites or one you can easily do without.  The tune and the rhythm won't matter.

              New or old really has nothing to do with it.  Granted, the older hymns have already had a couple hundred years of culling out and as a result they may have the advantage here.  But you will still find one or two that make you feel like all you have been singing all these years is "Doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo" as far as their spiritual value goes. 

            Another caveat:  save the chorus for last, don't read it over and over.  That waters down the punch of the verses.  That does not mean you should never sing the refrain more than once.  Several of the Psalms have refrains in them, Psalm 80 for instance, which repeats its refrain three times.  Obviously the Holy Spirit meant them to be read more than once—they repeat the theme.  But for this test, you need to avoid the repetition and see what's left.  Sometimes you discover that you are doing a whole lot of singing for practically nothing of worth. 

              So why do this test?  Because suddenly you will understand that it isn't the spirituality of the hymn you like, it's the rhythm or the melody or the harmony, something that did not come along until a couple of millennia after the Psalms, by the way, and early on in only rudimentary form.  And then, I hope, you will remember what our singing is supposed to be about.  "Teaching and admonishing," (Col 3:16); edifying (1 Cor 14:15-26); "a sacrifice of praise" (Heb 13:15).  If the song does not do one or more of those things, does it really need to be sung?
 
Psalm 34  A Psalm of David:  Come O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord, Psa 34:11.
 
Dene Ward

When I was teaching piano and voice, besides my own annual Spring Program and Awards Ceremony, my students sometimes participated in as many as seven joint recitals a year, programs featuring the students of several teachers at once. 

              Sometimes the students were chosen according to their age—the Young Performer’s Recital was strictly for talented beginners.  It was their chance to shine rather than being lost among a studio’s advanced students.  Sometimes it was all about their music—the Parade of American Music featured students playing or singing the music of American composers.  If his best piece that year was Mozart’s Rondo in D, that particular student was ineligible.

              Sometimes a panel of judges chose the students based on their performances in a recent competition.  The year we had five chosen for the Student Day Honors Recital was a banner year for us.  To have one or two chosen from a group of over two hundred students from a dozen studios was a good showing.  Five was almost unheard of.

              At the receptions after these events, we teachers always enjoyed basking in our students’ successes.  We mined each other for teaching strategies and resources.  The experience exposed us to more crowd-pleasing music we could use with our own students, and our students to teachable moments we could discuss at the next lesson.  They could see for themselves why I insisted on such picky things as not taking your fanny off the seat until your hands left the keys when a student from another studio stood up without doing so, looking as if someone had glued her fingers to the ivory.  They could hear why long fingernails were verboten when it sounded like someone was trying to tap dance to Debussy and Haydn.  It also worked wonders for parental attitudes—suddenly they appreciated things they had before viewed as silly.

              My favorite moments after these recitals came when people approached me with these words:  “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  It wasn’t because they played or sang particularly well—every student at these recitals did that—but not every student performed well.  We spent hours on things like how to approach or leave the piano, how to hold a pose over a final note, what to do in a memory lapse, how a singer should hold the mood until the accompaniment stops, and especially how to bow.  It’s one thing to know your piece; it’s another to be able to present a polished performance of it to an audience.

              Sometimes I imagine God as the teacher watching our performances.  He knows we can do it.  He gave His Son to show us how.  …because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps, 1 Pet 2:21.  I don’t think it is out of line to think of the angels saying to Him, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”  Isn’t that the picture we get in Job 1?  Perhaps not literally, but in essence if nothing else. 

              If life is one big recital, we should learn from the performances of others—what to do, what not to do, why some of the picky things we have always heard are important after all.  We should learn from our own mistakes as well—why do I always miss the same note?!  Your daily practice should take of that.

              God is in the audience, along with all those celestial beings we read about.  As a proprietary teacher myself, I can easily imagine that He wants to hear from them, “I can always tell which ones are yours.”
 
By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 1 John 3:10
 
Dene Ward
 

The day of our 20th anniversary marked the day I had lived with my husband as long as I had lived without him.  Well, not exactly, since I did not marry on my birthday, but you understand my point.  Every year after that meant I was further and further removed from my “first life” as a dependent of my parents.

              As the years went by I saw even more “lives.”  I spent several years as a full-time preacher’s wife and homemaker who taught a few piano lessons here and there among the many moves we made.  Then I went through a life when my husband worked the regular hours of any provider and my in-home music studio became nearly a full time job.  Now I am in another life, one of increasing disability.  Yet in many ways it is the best “life” yet since I am finally able to spend hours in Bible study and writing, and have come to know the joys of being a grandparent.  I suspect there will be yet another life sooner or later.  All things being equal, as they say, I will probably be a widow someday, and due to this eye disease will be blind and once again living as a dependent.

              When I was young, I remember people speaking about a TV show called “I Led Three Lives.”  I never saw it.  It first aired on Oct 1, 1953, before I was even born, and its last episode was broadcast May 1, 1957.  It was a product of the Cold War, loosely based on the life of Herbert Philbrick, an advertising executive in Boston who infiltrated the American Communist Party for the FBI.  His three lives were as advertising man, “Communist,” and counter spy.  A little mulling it over and I realized Christians all lead three lives—first sinner, then believer, and finally immortal.

              The New Testament even speaks of it as “lives.”  In Col 3:9,10, the old self and its practices are put away for a new self, “renewed by knowledge.”  The old self was corrupt through “deceitful desires,” and the new self was “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” Eph 4:22,24.  The old life was lived for ourselves, the new life is lived for Christ, 2 Cor 5:15.  We crucified the old man, one enslaved to sin, and the new man was set free from that sin.  We were once slaves of righteousness and are now slaves of God, Rom 6:6,7,19,20.  We used to live for human passions; now we live for the will of God, 1 Pet 4:2.  At one time we lived in darkness and now we live as children of Light, Eph 5:8.  Once it was I who lived, but now it is Christ living in me, Gal 2:19,20.

              And that leaves only the eternal life to come, 1 Tim 4:8, the one Paul says is “truly” life, 6:19.  That one depends upon how we live this second life.  We must feed on the bread of life, John 6:51.  We must sow to the Spirit, Gal 6:8.  We must have patience in well-doing, Rom 2:7.  We must do good and believe, John 5:29; 6:40.  We must be righteous which, in the context of the verse, Matt 25:46, means we must serve, and we must love our brethren in order to experience that eternal life, 1 John 3:15. 

              But simply making a list and following it won’t suffice.  The life must be such an integral part of you that the “list” takes care of itself.  Philbrick lived his three lives simultaneously; ours are supposed to be consecutive, one completely giving way to the other.  Anything else is a sham that will keep you from that third life.

              Paul never speaks of eternal life as anything but a certainty.  As surely as you are living a life now, that final one will come too, the life that is “truly” life.  It will make these other two seem like nothing in its length, in its glory, in its joy.  “I led three lives,” we will say.  No, we only led two.  We will lead the last one forever.
 
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, Titus 1:1-2.
 
Dene Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

Dene's latest book, Down A Country Lane, inspired a couple of thoughts about our country lane for me, too.  (Photos of our real country lane by Katie Whipple Photography.)

Through circumstances too complex to explain here, when we bought our five acres, it was the only piece in about 200 acres with a clear title. This had the great advantage of providing a lot of elbow room for us and play room for the boys. The downside was that I was solely responsible for our 4/10 mile access lane. It was created by driving through what had been open pasture and woods down the right-of-way created by a surveyors plat map.
 
Florida is sandy. It rains 4" today and you have to water your plants the day after tomorrow. Except, in our area, there is a subsoil strata of clay about 2 feet down. Thus, in a 50 yard long depression between two rises in the lane, the rain collected into a one to two foot deep puddle that took days to percolate through the soil. It had no outlet to run downhill and away. About the time it dried out, it rained again. The car had to be parked outside the puddle. Elsewhere, Dene has written about wading through, drying our legs and going to church and reversing the process to get home. Don't come to us with frivolous excuses for missing church (read that: all excuses are frivolous).

Obviously, I had to do something. Just as obviously, I could not afford equipment rentals. An insurance customer had several dump truck loads of roofing rock from a demolished building. He asked me to take all I wanted. Every night after I finished selling, I stopped and shoveled a load onto my Isuzu pickup and drove home with my nose in the air, front wheels pretending to touch the pavement. Every morning, I shoveled the rock until I had covered that 50 yard area of the drive about 3-4 inches deep. The rains came again and the rock beat into the mud and we had to get the neighbor to pull us out again. And, start wading again.

So, I dug a ditch over 100 yards long to the highway with a shovel. I threw the dirt up into that same Isuzu pickup and hauled it down to the house to landscape to divert the water from running under our DWMH. I shoveled, Dene raked it out. The ditch was 2 shovels wide and was hip deep to cut through the rise but tapered to less than a foot deep at the road.  Finally, we had reliable access to our home 22 months after we moved here.

Much of my "training up the boys in the way they should go" came from necessities like this. Of course, the first lesson to them was how important church was to us. You cannot teach your children to love God if every obstacle prevents you from assembling to worship. They follow your example, not your words. Did I mention that we killed about a dozen rattlesnakes and cottonmouths in this same period? During this time, we followed a weak flashlight beam ¼ mile from the puddle to the house. We never missed services due to this inconvenience.
 
This was roof rock, so it came with nails and pieces of glass. I paid the boys (age 9 and 7) a nickel for each nail they found in the road and a penny for each piece of glass. I stressed how important it was to find them all as we could not afford to buy new tires if one caused a flat. Thus, they learned about working and earning but also with a sense of responsibility toward the family and making a contribution to our survival.

They saw persistence and saw it pay off. More than one person said the ditch could not be done without equipment. The boys learned to never give up by seeing the results. When one thing did not work (the rock) we started another. We never quit.

They saw a father in action caring for his family with all he had. I had no money, limited income, no equipment. But, I did all I could because my family needed me to do so. None of it was heroic. There are no medals, no monuments except those that live on in my two sons.
 
Keith Ward

[This photo shows how much the original road has been built up over the years and the ditch graded out.]

A long time ago, a couple entrusted their two teenage daughters to us while they worked away from the area for six months.  I was 29 years old at the time, and 7 or 8 years from having teenagers of my own.  I doubt we really knew what we were getting into, but we agreed and did our best. 

              Having someone give the care of their children into your hands for more than just a couple of hours is terrifying.  I think we probably made even stricter decisions than we did with our own children when the first one hit that milestone age of 13 several years later.  This isn’t like borrowing a lawn mower, or even a luxury automobile—these were souls we were asked to look after, in some of their most important years.

              Those girls are grown now, even older than we were when they lived with us.  In spite of those six months, they turned out very well, as have their own children.  I doubt it had anything to do with us, but you had better believe that we were on our toes far more in those six months than at any other time in our lives.  Still, we made mistakes, but it wasn’t for lack of praying and considering before we did anything.

              I am sure you can understand how we felt.  Here’s the thing, as a famous fictional TV detective is wont to say:  all of us who are parents are given Someone Else’s kids to care for.  All souls are mine, God said in Ezek 18:4.  The Hebrew writer calls Him “the Father of spirits” in 12:9, the same word he uses in verse 23, “the spirits of just men made perfect.”  God is the Father of all souls, including those children of His He has entrusted to our care.  How careful should we be about raising them?

              I have seen too many parents who are more concerned with their careers, with their personal “fulfillment,” and their own agendas.  They want children because that is what you do, the thing that is expected by society, and a right they feel they must exercise, not because they want to spend the time it takes to care for them.  “I’m too busy for that,” they say of everything from nursing and potty training to teaching them Bible stories and their ABCs.  When you decide to take on the privilege of caring for one of God’s souls, you have obligated yourself to whatever time it takes to do it properly and with the care you would for the most valuable object anyone ever entrusted into your hands.

              If realizing that the souls of the children in your home are God’s doesn’t terrify you at least a little bit, you probably aren’t doing a very good job of taking care of them.
 
And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life… Deuteronomy 32:46-47.
 
Dene Ward

I think most Christians understand courtesy.  Granted we have somehow raised a generation that must be reminded sometimes to consider how their actions affect others, but most of the time that reminder works with young Christians, bringing about a surprised look and a hasty, "Oh, I never thought of that."  Courtesy and consideration should be a hallmark characteristic of a Christian, especially courtesy where it is not deserved. 

              And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ​Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. (Matt 5:40-42)

              To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1Cor 6:7).

              Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1Pet 3:9)

                But for some reason we seem to have trouble with this in our homes.  Think about this:  we often talk to our spouses worse than we do to perfect strangers.  Instead of asking politely, we issue orders.  Instead of a please, we bellow, or screech, as the gender may be. 

               I have heard men talk to their wives like slaves, "Bring me a coke, get me the paper, why did you hide my ________," as if its disappearance could only be her fault.  I have heard wives talk to their husbands the same way: "Go get me this, go get me that, go do this or that for me, I can't believe you did that in my house," as if it were not his house, too.  I even stood in a kitchen once while a wife berated her husband in front of half a dozen other women who were also embarrassingly caught in the onslaught.  We talk to the people we claim to love worse than we would ever speak to someone we don't know, standing in line at the grocery store.

               "If I can't be myself at home, where can I be?" I've often heard as an excuse.  Where you are is not the issue, but who you are.  A kind, courteous person will be that way anywhere.  To anyone.  But especially at home.
 
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. (1Cor 13:4-5)
 
Dene Ward

We eat a lot of soup.  It’s cheap, filling, and healthy.  Even a 400 calorie bowlful is a good meal, and most are far less fattening, coming in at about 200 per serving.  You won’t get tired of it because of the nearly infinite variety. 

              We have had ham and bean soup, navy bean soup, and white bean and rosemary soup.  We’ve had cream of potato soup, baked potato soup, and loaded baked potato soup.  I’ve made bouillabaisse, chicken tortilla, pasta Fagioli, and egg drop soups.  For more special occasions I have prepared shrimp bisque, French onion, and vichyssoise.  We’ve warmed our bones with gumbo, mulligatawny, and clam chowder.  I’ve made practically every vegetable soup there is including broccoli cheese soup, roasted tomato soup, and lentil soup.  And if you want just plain soup, I have even made chicken noodle.  You can have soup every week for a year and not eat the same one twice.

              Not only is it cheap to make, it’s usually cheap to buy.  Often the lowest priced item on a menu is a cup of soup.  I can remember it less than a dollar in my lifetime.  Even now it’s seldom over $3.50.  So why in the world would I ever exchange a bowl of soup for something valuable?

              By now your mind should have flashed back to Jacob and Esau.  Jacob must have been some cook.  I have seen the soup he made that day described as everything from lentils to kidney beans to meat stew.  It doesn’t really matter.  It was a simple homespun dish, not even a gourmet concoction of some kind.

              Usually people focus on Jacob, tsk-tsk-ing about his conniving and manipulation, but think about Esau today.  Yes, he was tired and hungry after a day’s hunt.  But was he really going to starve?  I’ve had my men come in from a day of chopping wood and say, “I could eat a horse,” but not only did I not feed them one, they would not have eaten it if I had.  “I’m starving,” is seldom literal.

              The Bible makes Esau’s attitude plain.  After selling his birthright—his double inheritance—for a bowl of soup, Moses writes, Thus Esau despised his birthright, Gen 25:34.  If that inheritance had the proper meaning to him, it would have taken far more than any sort of meal to get it away from him.  As it was, that was one expensive bowl of soup!

              The Hebrew writer uses another word for Esau—profane--a profane person such as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright, Heb 12:16.  That word means “unholy.”  It means things pertaining to fleshly existence as opposed to spiritual, things relevant to men rather than God.  It is the exact opposite of “sacred” and “sanctified.”  Jacob understood the value of the birthright, and he also understood his brother’s carnal nature.  He had him pegged.  So did God.

              What important things are we selling for a mess of pottage?  Have you sold your family for the sake of a career?  Have you sold your integrity for the sake of wealth?  Have you sold your marriage for the sake of a few “I told you so’s?”  Have you sold your place in the body of Christ for a few opinions?  Have you sold your soul for the pleasure you can have here and now?

              Examine your life today, the things you have settled for instead of working for, the things you have given up and the things you gave them up for.  Have you made some really bad deals?  Can you even recognize the true value of what you have lost?  Don’t despise the blessings God has given you.  Don’t sell your family, or your character, or your soul for a bowl of soup.
 
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:17-20.
 
Dene Ward