If you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line, please don’t leave!  I have converted not only several children, but several Northerners to this Southern delicacy.  It’s all about taking the problems and turning them to your advantage--and being patient.

            The problem with okra, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the slime.  One reason it was used in gumbos was its thickening power, which is a nicer way of referring to that viscous property.  My family just calls it what it is.  It doesn’t bother them because they know what I can do with that--stuff.

            Follow these directions closely.  Use a colander, not a bowl, when you slice it.  You will still get the goo on your knife and a little on your hands—my method won’t fix that—but it will disappear when you cook it.

            Slice it about a half inch thick, discarding the stem end and the tails.  If it has been in the fridge a few days, it might need a little coaxing to release some of its “juices.”  If so, put that colander in the sink and scatter a few drops of water here and there from a wet hand.  Don’t deluge it.  If it’s already good and gooey, don’t bother.  Sprinkle it with salt, then with flour, not corn meal.  (My mother taught me that and we are both GRITS—Girls Raised In The South.)  Stir it to coat.  Now walk away.  In five minutes come back.  If it’s dry, do the water trick again, just a sprinkle.  Add more salt and more flour and stir it again.  Walk away again.  You may need to do this several times, allowing the excess flour to fall through the holes in the colander into the sink where you can wash it away—loose flour will burn in the bottom of a skillet. 

            After about fifteen minutes and maybe as many as five applications of flour and salt, the flour will have adhered to the “slime” and, magically, the okra will have made its own batter.  It will stick together in clumps like caramel corn, which is exactly what you want.

            Heat a half inch of vegetable oil in a skillet—no higher than medium high.  Put in one piece of okra and wait till it starts bubbling and sizzling.  Slowly add only as much okra as there is room in the pan.  Since it tends to stick together, you will need to mash it out to spread it around.  Now walk away and leave it again.  No fiddling with it, no turning it, no stirring it. 

            In about ten minutes you will begin to see browning around the edges.  When that happens you can start turning it.  The second side will brown faster, as will the entire second batch.  Watch your oil; you may need to turn it down if the browning begins to happen too quickly.  Drain it on paper towels. 

            You will now have the crunchiest okra you ever ate.  No slime, no weird flavor, nothing but crunch.  You cannot eat this with a fork—it rolls off, or if you try to stab it, it shatters.  This is Southern finger food, a delicacy we eat at least twice every summer before we start pickling it or giving it away.  Too much fried food is not healthy they tell us, but everyone needs a lube job once in awhile.

            The trick to that okra is patiently using the problem itself to overcome it—given enough time, that slime makes a batter that is better than anything you could whip up on your own with half a dozen ingredients.

            Patience is a virtue for Christians too, not just cooks.  How do you make it through suffering?  You patiently endure it (2 Cor 1:6), and you remember its purpose and use it for that purpose.  Patiently enduring suffering will make you a joint-heir with Christ (Rom 8:17,18).  It will make you worthy of the kingdom (2 Thes 1:4,5).  If we suffer with him, we will reign with him (2 Tim 2:12).  Only those who share in his suffering will share in his comfort (2 Cor 1:7). 

            But none if this works if you don’t patiently endure the suffering.  If you give up, you lose.  If you turn against God, he will turn against you.  If you refuse the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, he will refuse you.  We must use that suffering to make ourselves stronger and worthy to be his disciple. Just like I am happy to have a particularly “slimy” bowl of okra to worth with, knowing it will produce the crunch I want, the early Christians “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  They knew it would make them better disciples of their Lord.  We can understand these things when it comes to something as mundane as fried okra.  Why can’t we recognize it in far more important matters?  We even have a trite axiom about this—when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  When life gives you trials, make yourself a stronger person.

            After suffering, Peter promises that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us (1 Pet 5:10).  He is talking to those who endure, who use the suffering to their advantage and become better people.  Remind yourself of the promises God gives to those who suffer.  Remind yourself of the rewards.  Remind yourself every day that it’s worth it.  The New Testament writers did, so it is no shame if you do it too.
 
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:16-18.
 
Dene Ward

Part 4 of a series taken from material created by Patricia Miozza.  See parts 1-3 in the archives on the right at June 6, 13, and 20, 2016.
 
            And so now the excuses are arising:  “My house is too small.”  “I don’t have any extra money in my budget for guests.”  “I’m too shy.”  “I live too far away.”  “I’m too busy.”  And so on and so on and so on, as many excuses as there are people to make them.

            Can I first just mention Priscilla and Lydia?  Both were working women, Priscilla alongside her husband making tents and Lydia with her own business.  Surely they were as busy as any woman today, especially when you remember the labor saving devices they did NOT have that we take for granted.  Yet they kept people in their homes.  In fact, Lydia said it this way to Paul and Silas, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay,” Acts 16:15.

            Am I faithful to the Lord?  Then “too busy” can be taken off the table right now.  I can always find a way around it.  Instead of cooking, take someone out to dinner.  Are you faithful to the Lord or to your overburdened schedule?  Prove it and postpone something.  Get your husband in on the act and ask for his help.  In Bible examples, it was almost always the husband who did the inviting and acted as a servant/host. 

            And speaking of sharing the work, go in with another family.  That will automatically lighten the cooking load and help with the shy problem.  The more people, the fewer awkward silences.  If that other family lives closer to the guests, have the meal in their home and you have another problem solved.  See what we are saying?  You can always make it work if you put your mind to it.

            Then there is the money problem.  And the “too small” house problem, which we would assume is at least partially caused by the “money” problem.  Once again, asking for another to help can remedy it, but assuming there is no one to ask, stop trying to find a hindrance and remember this:  Jesus looked at the widow and her two mites and said her gift was far greater than the richest man’s there.  Surely people who claim to be his disciples will also recognize your lack and the fact that you gave to them even in your own need and bless you for it too.

            When my parents were first married they had friends over nearly every Sunday night for scrambled eggs and toast.  No, not fancy eggs with smoked salmon or goat cheese or fresh herbs—just plain old scrambled eggs.  The other couple brought a loaf of bread for the toast.  They had a great time every week.  Do you know why?  It certainly wasn’t because of the food—it was because of their relationship.  Get over worrying about what you serve and start thinking about who you should serve.  Look for specials at the store and serve what’s cheap--chicken and dumplings, chicken and rice, macaroni and cheese, yes, even scrambled eggs. 

            And the “small” problem?  My guest room used to be my boys’ room—room for bunk beds and two bureaus.  As a guest room there is barely enough space for the double bed and a chair and one night table.  I do my best to offer the things in Patricia’s list, but there isn’t room for it all.  The shower is so small that a larger person has to get wet, step outside on a towel to soap up, and then step back inside to rinse.  If you dropped the soap, you couldn’t bend over to pick it up without the other side of you banging against the shower wall and, depending upon how cold it was, possible hitting the ceiling.

            Guess what?  No one has complained.  Without exception, all of my guests have thanked me for taking them into our home.  You are worrying about nothing, and I am here to prove it.

            I hope you have enjoyed Patricia’s material and I thank her kindly for allowing me to use it.  If you would like to thank her yourself, then do so in the comments section below.  She has a knack for mixing the scriptural with the practical.  I learned a lot just listening to her, and more by actually being a guest in her home, something I hope will happen again.  Maybe I will get to return the favor someday, and I hope she won’t drop the soap in that tiny little shower!
 
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Rom 12:13.
 
Dene Ward

A couple of times when I was young my family, together with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, shared the rent on a house in Daytona Beach for a week.  It was an ordinary cement block house, probably built in the 50s, two bedrooms, one bath, a living room and kitchen.  What made it worth renting was its location—right on the beach.  Every morning we four girls were out building sand castles and playing tag with the waves, floating on the undulating water just past the sandbar or diving below to play shark attack on one another.  We all smelled of suntan lotion and seaweed, coconuts and salt, and only came in for lunch and an afternoon of card games and board games during the worst of the heat, and were back out again in the evening when the sea breeze cooled enough to give us a shiver after once again dunking ourselves in the brine.

            Our parents got the two bedrooms, but we girls didn’t mind sharing the floor in the small living room, the gray, white-streaked linoleum tiles covered with quilts, the floor beneath crunching with a little grit despite all the sweeping our mothers did every day.  You live on the beach, you WILL have sand.  At 8 I was the oldest and usually the last one asleep.  No air conditioning in those days meant the windows stayed open wide and I loved listening to the roar of the ocean.  Over and over and over, the steady pounding of the surf gave me a feeling of security.  I did not have to guess if the next wave would roll in; all I had to do was wait for it, and eventually it lulled me to sleep.

            Fast forward to a time thirty years later.  We were camping on Anastasia Island, a beach 60 miles further north.  The state campground was still small back then, only one section just a few feet off the dirt trail to the beach, acres of palmetto groves separating it from the bridge to the city streets of old St Augustine.  The boys had their own tent, and as we lay in ours once again I listened to the surf crashing onshore, just as it had all those years before.  Over and over, as steady as a ticking clock, as a piano teacher’s metronome, as a heartbeat on a hospital monitor.  All those years and it had not stopped.

            And then another twenty years passed and we two spent a weekend on Jekyll Island.  This time we were too far from the beach to hear it in the night, but after a wonderful meal at the Driftwood Bistro we stopped on the beach for a walk and there it was.  The wind whipped around our legs and plastered my hair across my face, gulls screamed over us in the waning light, and the waves were still coming in, again and again and again, just as they have since the dawn of time.  They never stop.  Some days they may be rougher than others.  Some days the sea may look almost calm.  But check the water’s edge and that lacy froth still creeps onshore in its never-ending cycle.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: ​“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Jer 31:35-36

            Jeremiah tells the people that God will restore his nation and establish a new covenant in the verses just preceding those, a covenant in which their sins will be “remembered no more.”  He uses the stability of the natural phenomena that He created as a guarantee of His promise.  Only if the sun stops rising, if the moon stops shining, if the waves stop rolling in, can you discount my promises, He says.  That guarantee counts for all of God’s promises.  He never changes, we are told.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so yes, He will keep the promises He has made to us of redemption, of protection, of spiritual blessings and a final reward.

            Are you a little blue today?  Has your life been upended in a way you never expected, in a way you can hardly bear?  The sea God made is still roaring.  Those waves are still rolling in just as they have for generation after generation after generation.  The white caps you see are the same your parents saw and your grandparents and your great-grandparents on back to your earliest ancestors.  And God is still faithful to His people.  Close your eyes, listen to that perpetual roar, and breathe a little easier tonight.
 
I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name. ​And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” Isa 51:15-16
 
Dene Ward

When you pull up any sort of plant by the roots, you are likely to pull up some soil as well, and often some wigglers you never knew were there.
 
           As I pulled up the more deeply rooted weeds around those morning glories, I often pulled up a few earthworms.  Earthworms are a good sign.  They work to cultivate the soil and leave it well fertilized.  Generally speaking, the more earthworms you find, the better your crop and the prettier your flowers.  But a few times I pulled up some ugly stuff--things that were not beneficial to the plants, things that would feed on the roots, and eventually kill them. 

            I couldn’t help but think of the “underground” among God’s people.  I think one of the most comforting things to know is that there are a few earthworms out there in the garden, good people quietly seeing to the things they can, visiting, calling, advising, teaching, and in the process defusing a few bombs before anyone even knows they are there.  They take care of the minor problems so the elders have the time to deal with the major ones.  In fact, because of their work, some of the major problems never come to pass.  They don’t worry about not getting their fair share of attention from those men either.  They are spiritually mature enough not to need constant coddling. 

            On the other hand, there might very well be a few uglies underground, roiling the waters, attempting to stir up controversy and dissatisfaction.  They often disguise themselves as earthworms, “just trying to make people think,” “playing Devil’s Advocate so we can get a helpful dialogue going.”  Those sorts of dialogues need a carefully chosen audience.  Instead of being careful of the babes who may not be ready for such a discussion, they are often actively seeking to turn their vulnerable minds from the simple Truth of the Gospel toward themselves and their own pet beliefs.  At best, they are careless of the souls of others.  When the church must take its attention away from its mission of saving the lost in order to pander to the egos of the bitter and undo the carelessness of the inconsiderate, the Devil does indeed have an advocate, and he is in control.  The more minions he has working underground, the fewer lost souls will be reached, and the fewer saved ones will make it to the end of the road.

            Think about that the next time you have a conversation, either in the church or with a lost soul out in the world.  What just reared its head above the soil line? Did it help a soul find the Lord, or did it raise antipathy toward the body for which Christ died?  Whose side are you working for? 
 
Now I beseech you brethren, mark those who are causing divisions and occasions of stumbling contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them.  For they who are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies, and by their smooth and fair speech, they beguile the hearts of the innocent, Rom 16:17,18.
 
Dene Ward

As I worked my way around that morning glory bed, I discovered some interesting things.  We had originally planted the seeds in concentric circles, and then as the vines grew we trained them to head to the center of the bed toward the huge metal trellis, a cow panel Keith had woven along half an old antenna pole and then stood up on its end toward the sky, fifteen feet high.  Every year they come back, but they aren’t in circles any longer.  They grow up wherever the seeds fall from the dried out blooms the year before.  The more weeds I pulled, the better I could see the vines, and a few surprises awaited me.

            More than once I had to be careful not to pull out a morning glory along with the weed.  The long spindly vines often clung to the weeds, and I had to carefully unwind them.  Sometimes as I unwound them I discovered that they were headed in the wrong direction—to the outer edge of the circle rather than toward the trellis.  These I carefully turned around until they were pointing the right way.

            Other times the vine was too tightly wound around the weed, using it as a trellis, despite the fact that it was nestled, supposedly safely, among its brother vines.  The only way I could get it loose was to break it off.  Those I was especially careful with, laying them along the ground pointing toward the true trellis, and watering them deeply.  Maybe they will survive and maybe not, but the only hope they had was the amputation.  Maybe they will live but their growth be stunted.  Maybe they will mend and grow again.  Time will tell and we all know that healing often hurts.

            And then there were the morning glories I found totally outside the bed, headed in no direction at all.  What to do?  Well, I guess I could have picked up a spade and a hoe and made the bed large enough to include them, but that would have been ridiculous unless we eventually wanted our whole yard to be one morning glory patch.  So I pulled a few, the ones that looked iffy to begin with, and transplanted others.  Will they live?  I don’t know, but they would have been mown down next weekend if I had done nothing.

            Another thing I discovered underneath all those weeds was new morning glories.  Some vines were only a couple of inches long.  But now they will have a chance.  They will not be choked out by the weeds that steal the nutrients from the soil and shade the sun.  New growth cannot happen if you don’t get rid of those weeds.

            Spend a few moments today thinking about the metaphors here.  Are you clinging to something besides the Lord?  Have you wandered away from His care?  Are you trying to make His flower bed bigger than He made it?  And, ultimately, are you headed in the right direction, toward the one trellis that reaches for the sky?
 
And he answered and said, He who sows the good seed is the Son of man, and the field is the world, and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the weeds are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy that sowed them is the devil; and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.  As therefore the weeds are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world, Matt 13:37-40.
           
Dene Ward

The vegetable garden has taken all my time lately and the flower beds are showing it.  A few days ago I started the weeding, content to make a quarter “pie slice” in the circular morning glory bed.  The next day I took forty-five minutes out of my morning to finish. 

            The vines were doing fine once they got to the trellis, climbing over 12 feet high by now and blooming every morning, but the bed itself was ankle high not only in morning glories but also moneywort, wood sorrel, snake root, castor beans, and purslane, among other colorfully named weeds, plus a little grass as well.  I started with the previous day’s pie slice, amazed that so many of those rascals had once again sprung up overnight, but that was easily handled in about five minutes.

            I learned some things as I spent the time kneeling in the damp grass.  First, whenever you get down on their level, the dogs think you are ready to play.  Instantly the two of them were at my elbows, tails wagging, inundating me with doggy breath, and grunting for my time and affection.  So I gave them a few requisite pats, hugs, and praises as I meandered away from the bed before they could decide to throw themselves on their backs in the middle of it, begging for a belly rub.

            Finally they were satisfied and I started pulling weeds in earnest.  With my diminished vision I have to concentrate to see what I am doing.  I finished up another slice and stood up to catch my breath and my equilibrium.  When I looked back down I could hardly believe my eyes.  I thought I just weeded that section, but no, all I had done was pull up the moneywort.  The wood sorrel was still there, wiggling its little leaves at me in what I was sure was smug satisfaction.  So I bent once again and pulled it all up. When I finished I sat back on my haunches and looked it over.  Now I saw the snake root, not much of it to be sure, but it was odd that I had not seen it at all when it was by far the tallest weed in the bed. 

            Suddenly I made sense of it all.  I had to focus so hard to see one thing I was blinding myself to the others.  I looked for more of the taller plants and there were the rest of the snakeroots as if they were waving a flag at me saying, “Here we are!”  Then I looked for the purslanes’ creeping red stems and shiny green leaves and there they were, ready for the pulling.  Then the castor beans, and the cow vetch, and the grass—well, you get the point.  You will only see what you are looking for.

            Do you wonder why you cannot see your own faults?  Maybe it is because you are focused on everyone else’s.

            Do you wonder why you are so stressed about life?  Maybe it is because you are too focused on it—on paying the bills, handling the schedules, dealing with work problems—and not focused on the things that really matter.  Jesus tells us in more than one passage that focus on the wrong things can cost us our souls.

            Are you so focused on your own problems that you cannot see the problems of others?  Maybe that is why you are so down in the dumps all the time. 

            On the other hand, do you focus so much on your own failures that you cannot see your successes?  Maybe you have grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years.  You will never know it if all you do is tear yourself up over today’s failures.  Guess what?  Tomorrow morning I will have to pull a few more weeds from that morning glory bed, but I doubt it will take forty-five minutes.  The fact that a few grew back does not mean I should never have bothered to pull them all in the first place.

            Work on your focus today.  Train yourself in what to look for. Make sure you are seeing the things you need to see, rather than the things you want to see.  You will never reach a point where there are no weeds to pull, but you can totally eradicate some and make the others far less common.
 
For if these things (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, love) are yours and abound, they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.  Wherefore brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if you do these things, you shall never stumble, for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 1 Pet 1:8-11.
 
Dene Ward

Part 3 of a series taken from material created by Patricia Miozza.  Parts 1 and 2 are in the archives at June 6 and June 13, 2016.
 
            Let’s get down to brass tacks.  Assuming you actually have a guest room and guest bath (which I stress in all caps IS NOT NECESSARY!), here is “the guest room test.” 

            Sleep in your own guest room just as it is, using the guest room pillows (you are not allowed to use the pillows from your own bed).  See if you are comfortable and think about the following checklist.  Ask yourself if there are any improvements you are able to make.  If you do not have an actual guest room, think about ways to make your sleeping area as comfortable as possible.
            Is the mattress comfortable?
            Are the pillows comfortable?
            Are the sheets and blankets comfortable?
            Do you have extra blankets for those who might like to sleep warmer?
            Are there end tables on both sides of the bed, i.e., places to set down a glass of water, eyeglasses, a book, medicine, etc.?
            Are there lamps beside the bed for reading or to find one’s way in the dark without having to walk across the room to the light switch?
            Is there a mirror to dress by?
            Are there space and hangers in the closet to hang up clothes?
            Is there a box of tissues and a waste basket?
            Does the window open easily for a guest who wants fresh air, and a screen in the window for that purpose as well?
            Are their curtains or shades for privacy?
            Is there a place to set luggage or a luggage stand?
            Is there a chair (often needed when dressing)?
            Is there an alarm clock?
            Are there guest towels set out in the bathroom, and more in case needed?
            Are there toiletries like soap and shampoo and plenty of toilet tissue?  ( I keep a painted porcelain pail of all types of travel size toiletries, including shower gel, body wash, deodorant, toothpaste, dental floss, hand and body lotions, chapstick, bath talc, shave cream, a disposable razor, and a clean toothbrush in the bathroom closet—dw.)

            As stated above, your house may not be the Ritz.  A fold-out sofa, a cot in the den, or an air mattress on the family room floor may be all you have to offer, but most guests—and all Christians, we hope—are gracious and grateful for whatever you offer.  Spending this kind of time together promotes an intimacy that keeps misunderstandings at bay and creates deeper relationships that last a lifetime.  God knew what He was doing when He commanded hospitality. 
 
Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. Prov 15:17

Dene Ward

Back in the late 19th century a man named William Smart lost his wife in childbirth.  Somehow he managed to raise that infant and the five older children all on his own while supporting them all as well.  When his daughter Sonora Dodd grew up, she finally realized what an amazing feat that had been and how much her father had sacrificed for all of them.  She asked her minister to preach a sermon honoring fathers on June 5, 1909, her father’s birthday.  Evidently she did not give the man enough notice so the sermon did not occur until June 19 that year, the third Sunday of the month.

           It became a tradition there and gradually spread.  A national holiday in honor of fathers was supported by Calvin Coolidge but was not made official until 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson.

            When we discussed Mother’s Day I hope you remember that parenting magazine I spoke of that offered a list of things for moms to do since no one ever bothered doing anything for them [it opined], thirty-one items totaling nearly $1000.  The next month, Father’s Day month, that same magazine “celebrated Pop culture” with an article taking up less than a fourth of one page, the rest being filled with a 72 point font title and a picture of a dad playing with a little girl. 

            And what were we supposed to do for dads?  Four measly items, none of which cost a penny, and two of which were not even directed toward the fathers.  Read a book called Animal Dads.  Teach your kids how to say, “Dad,” in several other languages.  Help your kids learn some silly jokes to make their dads laugh.  Make sure they have breakfast with their dads at least once that month.  Evidently fathers are not worth a whole lot.

            While I don’t espouse spending nearly $1000 doing something every day of June for fathers any more than I did for mothers in May, doesn’t this strike you as incredibly biased?  Yet it all fits in with our society’s downplaying of the importance of the role of father.

            You haven’t noticed?  How long has it been since we have regularly had television shows with strong, intelligent fathers?  No, instead, if you get a father at all he is a buffoon on the order of Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor, an uncultured, clumsy, immature, dare I say “stupid” clod, who must constantly be pulled out of trouble by his smarter, wiser, more responsible wife.  Or you get a family without a father or with too many fathers, or simply a work-based sitcom because career is the center of everyone’s life now.

            Add The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan to the sexual revolution of the sixties and you get a society that believes a nuclear family is no longer necessary.  Women don’t need men except as sperm donors; they can raise their children alone just fine, thank you.  And while that may get you a few more women who no longer feel guilty about making their professional level careers the most important part of their lives, women who can afford nannies or other private care, it also gets you the rise of “the feminization of poverty,” as Mona Charen puts it in her op-ed pieces.  There are far more Wal-Mart cashiers and diner waitresses trying to make a living for their kids than there are female doctors and lawyers.  They were told they didn’t need a man and they believed it, so their children are being raised by grandparents or daycare center workers or simply being left alone at home, and they are pinching pennies trying to feed them and keep them warm in the evenings.  The media perpetuates the myth and more young women are taken in because they grew up on television shows with scripts—one crisis and suddenly we have a breakthrough and everyone lives happily ever after, all in thirty minutes.  Unfortunately, we are living real lives not following scripts with rosy endings.

            When God made the first family, He made a mother and a father—one each.  There may be legitimate times when that cannot happen, but we should be trying to help those single parents and deprived children, filling in as missing role models rather than telling them it doesn’t matter.  How will we ever have a nation of strong fathers if there are no examples for our sons to follow?  How will fathers ever realize how important they are when we minimize and marginalize those men as if they were nuisances instead of necessities?

            If your father is still alive, I hope you tell him how much you appreciate him.  If your husband is being the kind of father he ought to be, I hope you let him know how much you appreciate him.  If you are a dad, I hope you know that you are necessary to the lives of your children.  That is what God had to say about the matter—don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.
 
Hear, my sons, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding; for I give you good doctrine; forsake not my law.  For I was a son unto my father, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother.  And he taught me and said to me, let your heart retain my words, keep my commandment and live, Prov 4:1-4.
 
Dene Ward

Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite television cook is Ina Garten of “The Barefoot Contessa.”  I have saved very few recipes from the Food Channel, but of the few I have, the vast majority is hers. 

            One of my favorites is her “Ultimate Ginger Cookie.”  This is just about my favorite cookie ever, which is saying a lot for a cookie that doesn’t have chocolate in it.  It’s a chewy cookie, something else I like, and I have added my own little twist by rolling the balls of dough in sparkling sugar before baking them.  But what makes it “ultimate?”  Not only does it have powdered ginger in it, but also over half a cup of chopped crystallized ginger.  There is no question what kind of cookie this is—it’s a ginger cookie.

            I have several recipes with that word “ultimate” in the title.  My “Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie” is good too.  Not only does it have half again more chocolate chips than the usual recipe, but two kinds, bittersweet and milk chocolate.  My “Ultimate Fudge Brownie” is maximum chocolate with minimal flour.  My “Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookie” has no flour at all—just gobs of peanut butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Do you get the picture?  “Ultimate” in a recipe means “a lot,” “more than usual,” and “well above average.”  “Ultimate” means there is no question what kind of cookie this is.

            I started thinking about the word “Christian” in that context.  Technically speaking, the word means “a disciple of Christ.”  That is not the way we use it today.  “Christian” gets tacked on to anything that is even remotely religious.  People can claim to be Christians just because they believe in a few of the Ten Commandments, which in itself is ironic when you understand the relationship of Christ to the Old Law.  In our vernacular, Christians do not even have to be members of a church.

            To keep that from rubbing off on us, maybe we should start thinking in terms of recipes.  We should be “Ultimate Christians.”  If we are really followers of Christ we should be different from those who merely claim the name with a few allusions to prayer and God in their vocabulary.

            Real disciples of Christ, by the definition of the word “disciple,” are trying to be as much like their teacher as possible.  They talk like he does and behave like he does.  They know what commitment means—they serve as he did, sacrifice as he did, and fight the Devil like he did every day of his life.  In fact, they are not afraid to acknowledge the devil as a real and dangerous being (like He did), even when others laugh at them for doing so.  They condemn hypocrisy, especially among those who try to claim the same discipleship. They abhor sin, yet seek the vilest sinners in their own environment, knowing they are the ones who need their Master the most.  They have compassion on the ill, the hated, and the lost.  They will yield their lives to their Teacher by yielding their rights to others.  They live by the Word of God, take comfort in the Spirit of God, and glory in their fellowship with them.  In every decision, every event, and every aspect of their lives, they ask themselves how their Lord would have handled it.  They are completely consumed with the spiritual; nothing else matters.

            So, the question today is are we Christians in the modern vernacular, or are we real Christians, “Ultimate Christians?”  Maybe if more of us started showing the world what the word “Christian” really means, we could stop making distinctions. 
 
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked...A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher, 1 John 2:6; Luke 6:40.
 
For the recipe accompanying this post, click > Dene's Recipes page 

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.  You will find parts 1 and 2 in the archives at April 18 and May 16.
 
Having determined that anger can be very dangerous from our Lord’s description in Matt. 5, and seeing that Solomon in the inspired Proverbs describes actions taken in anger as those of a fool and yet learning from Paul that it is possible to be angry without sinning (Eph. 4:26), we now turn to the question of whether any actions taken in anger are approved of by God. Or is anger without sin merely the emotion without ever acting on it? To answer this question, we turn to the New Testament which has several examples of both Jesus and various Apostles getting angry and acting on their anger. We will look at these, determine if sin is present (obviously not in the case of the Lord) and then examine what made these men angry and what the extent of their actions were. We will then try to draw some conclusions about this issue.

Obviously, our Lord never sinned (Heb. 4:15). So His angry actions should be the most instructive. The most famous events in which He showed anger came at the very beginning of His ministry and again at the very end, when He cleaned the Temple of merchants. John records the first instance:
John 2:13-17 “And the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and he made a scourge of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers' money, and overthrew their tables; and to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for thy house shall eat me up.”

While the other three Gospels record the latter event (Matt. 21:12ff, Mark 11:15ff, and Luke 19:45ff). Here is Matthew’s account:
Matt. 21:12-13 And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of he money-changers, and the seats of them that sold the doves; and he saith unto them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer: but ye make it a den of robbers.

In both cases, His anger was real. He made a scourge (a really souped-up whip) in the first instance, to drive out the livestock (and the merchants?) and in both cases He overturned tables, dumped out money, and forced the merchants to leave. In the later episode, He combine two Old Testament passages (Is. 56:7, and Jer. 7:11) into one quote in which He intimates that not only had the merchants turned the worship of the Father into a commercial exercise, but that their activities were not on the “up-and-up”. Read up on the House of Annas sometime, and you’ll see their shenanigans.

So, our Lord was obviously angry, and He took some rather drastic actions. He made a scene! He raised His voice and was physically violent!! Worst of all, He probably hurt their feelings!!! Why was He so riled up? Look at what He said: they were turning the worship commercial and were thieving as well. In the process of this, they were polluting the Father’s House. This is where the people of Israel came to worship and commune with God. It was to be holy. These merchants were making it common. This enraged the Lord and, as His disciples noted, zeal for the Father’s house consumed Him. So, He exercised His anger against the pollution of God’s House.

Another time the Lord was angry was recorded in Luke:
Luke 9:41 And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and bear with you?

He sounds pretty angry here, doesn’t He? “Faithless and perverse”? When you read the corresponding passages in Matthew 17 and Mark 9 it becomes clear that His anger here was directed at His Apostles for their lack of preparation for handling the major challenges they were to face. What’s perhaps most instructive is the fact that, though He expressed His anger in the above statement, He took no angry action against the Apostles. He let them know He was angry at their failure, then He instructed them in how to be better in the future. In other words, He seems to follow the principle given in Eph. 4:26. He was angry with them, but did not sin in His anger.

Next we turn our attention to Paul, who has several recorded instances of anger. The first takes place during his first missionary journey:
Acts 13:8-11 “But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith. But Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fastened his eyes on him, and said, O full of all guile and all villany, thou son of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.”

Obviously, Paul is angry here. You don’t say someone is full of all guile and villany an call him a son of the devil if you are feeling light and happy-go-lucky. So, the first question is, did Paul sin? Did he go too far in name calling and in striking this man blind? Even a cursory reading gives the answer as a resounding no. Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit when he did these things. They weren’t Paul’s words and actions so much as they were Holy Spirit’s. So what made Paul (and the Spirit) so angry? What justified such harsh actions? Elymas was trying to turn a listener away from the faith. In standing against the Gospel, he earned his fate. Twice more Paul displayed anger, in Acts 13:44-47 and 18:5-7, when the Jews tried to keep the Gentiles from hearing the Gospel and/or stood against it on their own. They also blaspheme both times. In both cases Paul angrily leaves them to their fate and turns to teaching the Gentiles alone. Other than his words denouncing their thickheadedness, though, he takes no actions against them in his anger. In fact, his actions mirror Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in Matt. 10:14 as he shakes out his cloak at them.

Finally, we have an instance of Paul cursing in his anger:
Gal. 1:8-9 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

Here Paul literally pronounces a curse upon a class of people. Did he sin in so doing? Obviously not, as he was writing as the inspired prophet of God in recording the epistle to the Galatians. What has him so worked up? People who changed, perverted, the Gospel in some way or other. And this makes sense: if the Gospel is God’s power to save (Rom. 1) then changes to it would undo the salvation inherent in it. So Paul was angry and took approved actions (leveling a curse) in his anger.

While this is not quite an exhaustive list of instances of approved anger in the New Testament, it does cover every major category of approved reasons to act on anger. These are
1) When the House of God is being profaned.
2) When someone is actively trying to keep an individual from hearing the Gospel.
3) When people are opposing the preaching of the Gospel generally.
4) When people blaspheme.
5) When some try to pervert the Gospel.

In looking at the first category, I’m reminded that the Church is now the House of God (1 Cor. 3:16). When people are profaning the church by their sectarianism or their disregard for authority, or in whatever way they are profaning the Church and making it just a common, worldly social group, I had better follow my Lord’s example and get angry. The profaners need to be rebuked into repentance or driven out (“FIRST pure, THEN peaceable” James 3:17)! The sanctity of God’s House must be maintained and I had better care enough about it to get angry. When I look at number four, I wonder at my reaction to people who take the Lord’s name in vain – the most common form of blasphemy. These are the times it is ok to be angry. Indeed, these are the times I should be getting angry and that actions taken in anger will be approved of by God as long as they don’t go too far. NOTE: Jesus drove the merchants from the Temple, He didn’t hang them from the battlements.

Another thing I note as I look at the above list is that there is no mention of it being ok to take action in anger when the reason I’m angry is someone did something to me. When someone commits an affront to God (blasphemy) or pollutes His house, or stands in the way of the Gospel, it is permitted/expected for me to act in righteous anger. When someone does something to me, I am to “turn the other cheek”. Paul deals with this:

Rom 12:19-21 “Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord. But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

God claims the right to avenge wrongs done to us. If you think about it, He has priority. After all, when someone injures a son of God, that is an affront to deity, to God Himself. His family has been affected. Surely He has priority in the vengeance line over me merely trying to avenge myself. And, of course, God’s vengeance will be just, whereas I might go overboard. So, as Paul says, give place to God when angry over personal slights, but be filled with righteous zeal when any pollutes the House of God, perverts His word, or stands in the way of the Gospel. Those are the only approved actions from anger mentioned in the New Testament.
 
Lucas Ward