Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, ‘You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.’” Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The LORD is righteous.” When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah: “They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless, they shall be servants to him, that they may know my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries,.” 2Chr 12:5-8.

            It’s easy, when you find yourself in a trying situation, to make excuses for your behavior; to say, “Woe is me,” and expect everyone to sympathize with you and pat you on the back, not just occasionally or even often, but almost as if it were a daily penance on their part because you have to deal with the difficult and they don’t—at least in your mind.

            “Why is this happening to me?” can become a mantra if you aren’t careful.  Maybe God, in the passage above, answers that question.

            Judah repented when they learned the consequences of their disobedience and God repented their destruction.  But He did not stop their servitude to the king of Egypt.  “This way they will learn how to serve me,” he told the prophet.

            Did you ever think that maybe that “unjust” master (boss) was there to teach you service?  Or that difficult spouse? 

            Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly, 1Pet 2:18-19.

            Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct, 1Pet 3:1-2.

            Did you ever think that maybe that obnoxious neighbor or ornery brother in the Lord might be there to teach you patience and forbearance?

            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.

In fact, doesn’t God expect us to use every situation, whether blessing or trial, to improve as His servant?  The sufferings we endure are meant to be opportunities for growth, not merit badges on a boastful sash.

            Suffering does not make us exempt to the call to service.  People in all situations of life have been serving God as hard as they can for as long as they can, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, hungry or full, old or young, even in slavery, for thousands of years.  The place God puts us is not only the test of our faith, but the textbook from which we learn our service.  What lesson would God have you learn today? 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you, 1Pet 5:10.

Dene Ward

Due to the huge number of college football games seen in my home, that commercial in which cows turn on lights, parachute onto a football field, and stand on top of a car pestering the little boy in the back seat has evidently made an impression on me.  A survey company called the other day. A long time ago I made a few dollars doing phone surveys and appreciated anyone who did not slam the phone down, so I answered their questions. “Which fast food chain comes to mind first?”  I answered immediately, not with any of the hamburger, pizza, sandwich, or taco joints; but the chicken place with the name I never knew how to pronounce until I was grown.

            Those commercials stand out to me for a reason—those are dairy cows!  They don’t need to worry about becoming someone’s hamburger. 

            Does it make a difference?  Only to purists, I suppose.  The commercials certainly do what they are designed to do as evidenced by my quick answer to the survey question.

            But for some things it does make a difference.  Jesus warned that blind leaders will cause others to fall into the ditch too; God wasn’t going to save them because someone led them the wrong way.  John tells us in the fourth chapter of his first epistle that God expects us to “prove the spirits” because many false ones have gone out into the world.  Paul marveled in chapter one that the Galatians had been fooled so soon after their conversion.  None of them told us not to worry, that God would save us if we were tricked into believing something that wasn’t so.

            A long time ago, a prophet was sent to warn King Jeroboam about his sinful ways.  God told that prophet not to stop anywhere on his way home.  An older prophet sent word for him to come by for dinner.  When the younger prophet told him he could not, the older prophet lied, saying, “God said it was all right for you to eat with me.”  Instead of checking with God first, the younger prophet stopped by the older prophet’s home.  Before they had finished their meal God came to him and told him he would be punished for his disobedience, and, sure enough, on the way home he was killed by a lion (1 Kings 13).

            Not knowing the difference between what God said and what this man had said, even a prophet of God, cut his life short.  God expected that young man to check with Him when he heard a command other than the original.  God expects the same of you and me.  And even though this young prophet probably thought he could rely on one of his own, one older and supposedly wiser as well, that didn’t mean the message was correct. 

            One cow is not the same as the other, no matter what it looks like, or what we think about it.  Believe me, you could tell the difference between steaks cut from dairy cattle and those cut from beef cattle.  And the first time you tried to milk a steer would definitely be the last.  Believing a false message, no matter who tells you and no matter what you want to believe, will not make that message true, and the results will be much more serious than a tough steak or even a kick in the head. .

But evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you abide in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them, 2 Tim 3:13,14.

Dene Ward

            The garden has come and gone.  Day after hot, humid day I stood in the kitchen, scalding, blanching, peeling, seeding, chopping, mixing, packing, freezing, pickling, preserving and canning.  After an hour or more in the garden, followed by six hours of standing in the kitchen, my back ached, my feet throbbed, and I had a knot between my shoulders blades.  Then the next day I got up and did it again.  In the evenings we shelled and snapped until midnight or our hands ached too much to continue, whichever came first. 

            So why did I do it?  Because it had to be done.  This is one way we manage not only to survive on what we make, but to eat fairly well in spite of what we make.  This is how we fed two teenage boys and remained financially solvent.  And it wasn’t all bad.

            Some days I managed to do a lot of meditating while I worked.  When you must do the same action over and over, like peeling four hundred tomatoes, it becomes automatic, so you can use your mind for better things, pondering recent lessons you have heard, drawing conclusions from verses you have read, and praying through some of the problems that beset you. 

            Keith helped me out.  I am not quite what I used to be, and the live-in help left quite a few years ago.  We cannot “chat” over our work as most couples can.  Sometimes I touched his arm to get his attention so I could tell him something I thought important.  Other times he spoke (since I don’t have to see to hear) and then I could reply when he looked up.  Once or twice we got into a friendly competition.  He still cannot fill a jar as quickly as I can—his hands are bigger and not as well trained, but what he could do still meant jars I did not have to fill myself.  And even after forty-one years, or more probably because of them, it was pleasant to be together.

            The other day Lucas said something like, “Isn’t it funny how we look forward to the garden starting, and then near the end look forward to it ending?”  And he is right—except for the peppers, things are nearly at an end, and I am glad.  Still, at the end of each day’s work the past few months, I looked on the rows of jars cooling on an old rag of a towel laid across the countertop and felt a sense of accomplishment, despite the occasional tedium, the many aches, and the pools of sweat on the floor from the rising steam in the kitchen.

            I wish you could see my pantry—twenty-three jars of tomatoes, fifteen jars of salsa, eighteen jars of dill pickles, a dozen jars each of okra dills and pickled banana pepper rings, and thirty jars of three kinds of jellies and jams.  Then open the freezer—two dozen bags of corn, twenty bags of green beans, ten bags of lima beans, eight bags of zipper cream peas, twelve quarts of tomato sauce, and eight quarts of blueberries.  The best is yet to come though, when my grocery bill totals half what it might have been and ultimately, when we eat it all.

            So maybe it was not what some might consider a “summer vacation.”  In fact, I also had a couple of days worth of testing at the eye clinic mixed in there somewhere, but it was a worthwhile venture that did us far more good than tanning at a beach might have. 

            I think living a Christian life might be the same sort of vacation.  Some days it is hard work.  Some days it is tedious.  Some days it causes us pain.  But we can make even the worst days better by meditating on the comfort in God’s word, and by talking to Him whenever we want to.  We have a spiritual family who will help bear our burdens, who will weep when we weep and rejoice when we rejoice, people who will make the bad days go quicker and the good days even happier.

            And then before you know it, it’s almost over.  But there are things we can look back on with satisfaction, unlike our friends in the world who will have so much to regret.  They will also have nothing to look forward to, while for us the best is yet to come, and aren’t we looking forward to that? 

            For all of us summer will soon turn to fall, and after that the winter.  Make sure your pantry is full.

And I heard the voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them, Rev 14:13.

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer, Keith Ward.

It is easy to read a passage and go right past an important thought without catching the Holy Spirit’s intent. This is a major reason those of us who have been studying for years are still discovering new truths.

It is also the reason I do not mark up my Bible. When your Bible has underlines, highlights and notes, all you see when you return to a passage is the same points you marked the last time, or wrote. It is difficult to see or think anything else.

Such a verse is Heb 12:1-3, “Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  We often jump right to the cross and to our need to look to him for an example without considering his motivation.

“Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising shame”

What was “the joy set before him,” Jesus, that made the cross worthwhile? Years ago, I did a Lord’s Supper talk in which I stated the following position.

First, it cannot be Heaven, or returning to the Father. He had those before he came. If that were his goal, he need not have become incarnate in the first place. Or, as late as the betrayal night, he said that he could ask the Father and receive deliverance by legions of angels. No, the cross was not necessary for returning to the Father, neither was any form of death.

So what one thing did the cross gain? He endured the cross for us. We are the “Joy set before him”; the goal that kept him nailed there instead of crying out for the angels of deliverance. Considering him doing so is our motivation for perseverance, per vs 3. We see this more easily if we think about it in abstract terms--he endured for the church, his bride, his body. Otherwise, we must face things inside us that we hope no one else ever finds out, not even our spouses. We know that it is a joke to think that we personally could ever be a joy to the Lord sufficient for such a sacrifice.

But it is true, that is the Holy Spirit’s meaning. You, with all the warts, blemishes and faults that you have not overcome with grace yet (because you have not applied yourself to grace with sufficient devotion), YOU are so great a joy to Jesus that he died that shameful death willingly and with the joy of anticipation of having you for his friend. He is not ashamed to call you “family” (Heb 2:11).

If that is true for you, then I can hope that it is for me too, though, having known better for so long and having not gotten any better than this keeps me doubting.

Let us then “not wax weary fainting in [our] souls”.

Keith Ward

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, Matt 6:10.

            All my life I have thought of this in a passive sense.  I pray for something, just as the Lord did in Matt 26:39, 42, and then add, “But thy will be done,” as if God is the only who expected to do His will.  Then suddenly one day I thought, “Doing God’s will is the simple definition for obedience.”  If I am praying for His will to be done, I have an obligation to do that will myself.

            I cannot pray, “Thy will be done” if I look at one of his commands and say, “But God wouldn’t mind if…”  I can’t expect an answer to my prayers if my answer to His will is, “I do well at everything else and this is such a small thing.”  If I do not obey in even one instance I am not doing His will.

            So I did a quick little study.  I may have thought that “God’s will” had more to do with what He does, but I was wrong.  Notice the following.

            “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, Matt 7:21.  A lot of people out there go around doing “good deeds,” but if doing God’s will doesn’t come first, it isn’t worth a thing.

            For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother, Matt 12:50.  You are not in the Lord’s family if you are finding excuses for your disobedience.

            Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work, John 4:34    If you want to follow in his footsteps, doing the Father’s will must become an essential of life, every bit as much as food.

            If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority, John 7:17.  You can’t go around claiming to know Jesus if you are not obeying the Father.

            Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, Rom 12:2.  The only way to know God’s will is to change your life.

            For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, 1Thess 4:3.  You are not doing the Father’s will if you are engaging in sexual sins of any kind.

            Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1Thess 5:18. You are not doing God’s will if you are whining and complaining about your station in life, about your trials, about the suffering you must deal with, especially those due to your faith.

            For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised, Heb 10:36.  It isn’t always easy to do the Father’s will and the task is never completed.  One good deed doesn’t mean your work is finished.

            [God will] equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen, Heb 13:21.  No matter how hard it seems, he will see that you have whatever you need to do His will.  If you didn’t manage to do it, it was your fault, not His.

            The next time you end a prayer, “Thy will be done,” remember that you are as much responsible for that as He is.  If you aren’t willing to do His will in every aspect of your life, why should He believe you mean it when you pray?  And why should He do what YOU want, when you won’t do what HE wants?

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God, 1Pet 4:1-2.

Dene Ward

This is an old one, but the lesson is always current--for someone out there.

            Magdi is now eleven years old.  She was the first dog we ever had that would not only chase a ball and bring it back, but catch it in the air like a fly ball, or chase a ball on the bounce, leaping four feet into the air to catch it.  If you said, “Bring me a ball,” she ran to the nearest one, picked it up, and brought it to you.  If you said, “Give it to me,” she would drop it on the ground next to your feet or place it in your hands if you bent over.  It was almost as if she really understood English.

            She also loved to play “soccer,” chasing a soccer ball around the field, then guarding it when one of us ran up as if to take it away, and take off again after she caught her breath, even balancing it on her shoulders or head or nose as she ran.  She had a large exercise ball, nearly a foot higher than her shoulders, that she would treat the same way.  Once in awhile, it rolled so fast that as she tried to jump up to grab it, it threw her over the top.  She would simply get up and go again.

             Her bones and joints have steadily betrayed her this last year.  She drags one hind foot occasionally because it hurts too much to pick it up.  Her knees are swollen and stiff and some days she doesn’t even try to get up when we go outside; she simply looks up and gives one floppy tail wag—thump, glad to see you, boss.  She has stopped racing to the gate to greet us when we come home, but if we have been away awhile, she will slowly walk until she gets there.  I always feel so bad when we get the gate closed and start down the drive before she makes it.  She has to turn and retrace those several hundred steps, but if we stand and wait at the door, she will eventually make it for a pat on the head and the words she wants most to hear, “Good dog.”

            Pick up a ball, though, and her ears stand up even if she does not.  If you bounce it, she will rise to her feet, though a bit unsteadily, and stand poised ready to run.  We have learned to merely toss it now, rather than throwing it as hard and far as we can, and she hobbles after it, all thought of pain and age and weariness abandoned. 

            The other day Keith blew off the roof, leaving piles of leaves around the house, and wads of moss clinging in the topmost branches of the azaleas.  I spent the next morning trying to “rake” it down to the ground.  Magdi thought I had something--something that might be interesting, like a snake or a lizard--and she was up instantly, running from bush to bush, even standing precariously on her aching hind legs, trying to help me get whatever it was I didn’t want in those bushes.  She has “taken care of” many snakes and lizards over the years, as well as moles, tortoises, armadillos, and possums.  It’s her job, and since all these surgeries started, she has taken her duty as my protector much more seriously.  Despite her creaking joints she was ready to work and if necessary, rescue me from whatever monster lurked in the azaleas.

            I have been reading through the Old Testament laws concerning the elderly lately for some classes I have been teaching.  What has become most apparent is how carefully God made arrangements for those and other equally helpless people like orphans and strangers, to be taken care of.  Did you know that the penalty for oppressing a widow or orphan was death (Ex 22:22-24)?  Did you know that sin is listed in the same category as adultery and witchcraft (Mal 3:5)?  Truly we need to take this more to heart than we usually do.

            But I also noticed God’s expectations for those same people themselves.  The older men and women are to train the younger (Titus 2).  In times of struggle they should be fonts of wisdom, not buckets of bitter resentments and regrets.  In the midst of fiery disputes they should be sources of temperance and cooling thoughts not fanners of the flame.

            As to the widows indeed, widows with no family who had met certain qualifications and were still able-bodied, they were to pledge themselves to work for the church in return for monetary support.  All those women were over sixty mind you, yet God said if they could still work for Him, they should, (1 Tim 5:9-12).

            What about Anna?  She stayed at the temple, prophesying every day.  She might possibly have been one of those women who worked there (Ex 38:8), even though she was over eighty.

            Simeon, who was also elderly, was still actively searching for the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple that first time.  The Spirit sent him that special day not only to see the answer to his many prayers, but to testify to the identity of the young babe.

            People of God work for God and serve Him as long as they possibly can.  Working for God takes one’s mind off himself, off her own problems and pains.  As long as I can, I should do what I can, perhaps adapting to new circumstances, but never sitting back and saying, “Well that’s it, I’m done.”  I have known mortally ill Christians who were still talking with people who needed help, still holding the hands of those who came to visit and cheering them up instead, while only days from death. 

            I know an old dog who still loves to play, who still wants more than anything to please her masters.  I think she will probably die with a ball in her mouth, trying to bring it back for one last throw.  I hope I never drop the ball for the Lord.

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of Jehovah; they shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and green to show that Jehovah is upright; He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him, Psalm 92:12-15.

Dene Ward

            The little girl stuck her head inside the door.  Yep.  It was empty.  Stepping inside, she shut the door, turning the cast iron doorknob—nearly as big as her head—as quietly as she could.

            She panned the room slowly, her brown pixie-cut hair shining in the sunlight that shone through the tiny window near the ceiling.  It did look different now.  She shoved the thick glasses higher up on her pert nose and looked harder.  Now she could see the dust balls atop the army green footlocker, the dirt clods clinging to the ramshackle plow, straw poking out of the stacked crates, ropes looped over rusty nails jutting out of the wall, dark gray lines netting the sides of clanky buckets like veins, the ridges circling the cane fishing pole leaning against the wall, empty dust-frosted preserve jars lining the rickety shelves, the delicate weave of her grandmother’s flower basket sitting empty on the bottom shelf of a drawered table.

            She shuffled across the concrete floor, listening to the grit scrape with every step.  Stopping, she leaned over and studied it.  It glinted in the slanted sunlight like little slivers of glass.  A black ant crept up to one and shoved it along like a tiny bulldozer.  At first she was startled; she had never seen an ant before, but now…  She shoved her glasses up again.  A whole bunch of ants darted crazily around the center pole of the old garage.  She skipped over but it was only an old dead roach lying on its back, so she sauntered back to the corner.

            For a while she roamed around with her head up, gazing at the pine rafters and silvery spiderwebs until she tripped over an old footlocker and sprawled over the top on her poochy stomach.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way down her face.

            With the footlocker before her, she had found a new interest.  The lock hung open and she took it off and lifted the metal latch.  Her grandmother’s lace garden hat lay on top, a pair of gloves under its floppy brim.  Red and yellow flowered aprons with gnarled strings, a caramel colored walking cane, a yellow-stained baptismal robe, a pair of steel rimmed spectacles wrapped in a once-white lace handkerchief; she fished beneath all these before she found what she wanted—a huge rusty cowbell whose clang sounded more like a clonk.  She held it up to her ear and listened two times, three and another just for good measure.  Then she held it up over her head and watched the clapper swing from side to side.  So that’s how it worked!  She knew there was a metal jobbie in there but how it made the clonk was beyond the comprehension of her four year old mind—until now.

            She closed the top of the locker and set the bell on top.  Taking a step back to gaze at it, her heel landed on the rake tines and the handle slammed against the back of her head.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way around her head, too.

            She set it up against the wall and looked at the floor.  It was really dirty.  And that big, hairy janitor’s broom leaned against the opposite wall just itching to sweep some.

            She took it by the middle of the handle and lugged it across the floor to the back corner.  It was longer than she was and she had to stand on her toes to reach the end of the handle, but when she pulled it down the broom end slid out so-o-o far in front of her.  After a half dozen pushes, she was worn out.  She yanked up her striped tee shirt and wiped the sweat off her face, sticking her finger up under the bridge of her glasses to get to her nose.  It was too bad glasses had to sit on her nose.  She brushed her hands off on her red corduroy pants and reached up for another swoosh.  That pile of dustballs, dirt, sawdust, and spider webs wasn’t big enough for her to quit just yet, even though a big red blister was rising on the inside of her thumb.

            But she only had time for three more swooshes before she had to stop and listen.

            “Denie!” came the call again.

            Oh well, she had just as soon stop anyway.  Something else needed tending to.  She had seen lines in her grandmother’s face.

 

I wrote that when I was 17.  It won a couple of prizes, but that’s not why I have posted it today.

I doubt that as a four year old I had any sense of other people’s troubles, but as a 17 year old I must have begun to see one of the biggest problems a trial in your life can give you—an inability to see the pain others are going through.  All you can see is your own.  All you can feel is your own.  All you care about is your own.

Contrast that to our Lord.  He led a difficult life, a poor man with no belongings, ridiculed by others and in danger more than once, yet all he did was serve anyone who needed him.  As he anticipated what was coming the night before his death, he taught his disciples, concerned about how they would handle what lay ahead.  As he hung on a cross in hideous pain, he worried about his mother, seeing to her care. 

How do we do when we are suffering?  Is it all about us?  Can we even tolerate hearing that someone else might be going through something even worse?  Believe it or not, I have seen people become angry when the attention shifts to someone else who is suffering, perhaps even more.  Is that how a follower of Christ, one who walks in his footsteps behaves?  Of course it’s difficult.  Of course you are in need of help and service.  But an attitude of selfishness that denies others the same help they themselves crave is inexcusable. 

My new glasses helped me see more than a blur of moving colors for the first time in my four years of life, yet, as the story shows, they had their limitations.  You could only see what was right in front of you.  “It’s too bad they don’t---“ fill in the blank, I have thought all my life.  Now I think, it’s too bad glasses don’t help us look inside our own hearts too.

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

A lot of folks think that there is no place for “order” in their religious lives, nor for orders, either.  Order, though, is an important concept in the scriptures beginning as early as Genesis.

            One would ordinarily think that when he reads, “Noah was 500 years old when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth,” that the order in which the sons are listed is birth order: Shem was the eldest, the first of Noah’s “begetting.”  In fact, whenever Shem is found in any crossword puzzle I do, the clue is invariably, “Noah’s eldest.”  Not so fast—I can prove he was not. 

            Gen 5:32--And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Noah had his first son at the age of 500.

            Gen 7:6--And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.  That means his eldest son would have been 100 at the time of the flood.

            Gen 11:10--Shem was one hundred years old and begat Arpachshad two years after the flood.  That means that Shem was only 98 at the time of the flood and could not have been the eldest.

            Then we have the case of Terah’s three sons, “Abram, Nahor, and Haran.”  Was Abram the eldest? 

            Gen 11:26--Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

            Acts 7:4--Then [Abram] came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran, and from there, when his father was dead, God removed him to this land, wherein you now dwell.

            Gen 11:32--And the days of Terah were 205, and Terah died in Haran.  That means his oldest son would have been (205 minus 70 equals) 135 years old when he died.

            Gen 12:4--So Abram went as Jehovah had spoken unto him…And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran.  So since he left Haran after his father’s death, he was only 75 when the eldest son would have been 135.  Abram was certainly not the eldest son.  In fact, he could well have been the youngest.

            In the New Testament order is important as well.  We have “Barnabas and Saul” in Acts 12:25 and 13:2 and 7, until suddenly in 13:13 we have “Paul and his company,” and “Paul and Barnabas” from 13:43 on.  I think all those are enough to show us that in the Bible, people are listed according to their importance, and their amount of involvement in the activity in question.  Shem and Abraham, the ancestors of the Christ were certainly more important than their brothers, and Paul gradually took over as the leader of the missionary journeys.

            So why might that be important?  For one thing look at Acts 18:26, where we have a man named Apollos who was taught better by “Priscilla and Aquila.”  If the principle about order means anything, it means Priscilla did much more than just sit there and nod in agreement, and that of necessity means that it is possible for a woman to teach a man, at least in private, without violating the principle not to teach “over” a man, 1 Tim 2:12.

            “Order” meant a lot of things in the New Testament church.  They were commanded to do things “decently and in order,” 1 Cor 14:40.  Yet in the same context we find that they were shouting out hearty amens, 14:16.  That tells me we should be careful about imposing our own culture’s sense of order upon an order which God plainly approved.  If one reads the chapter carefully, we are once again talking about doing things in sequence—don’t let two talk at once, take turns; don’t let someone speak in tongues unless there is someone who can interpret afterward.

            Paul left Titus in Crete to “put things in order.”  Among other things that meant to appoint elders, Titus 1:5.  Think about this:  He had told Timothy that a new Christian was not suitable material for an elder, and he did not appoint anyone immediately upon that man’s baptism.  Yet, here is another sense in which “order” is important:  these men obviously set their lives in good order because in a relatively short amount of time, they had matured enough to take the leadership position.  Maybe the reason there are churches without qualified men today is that those men do not have their lives in a godly sort of order.  Everything—career, recreation, physical fitness, education--everything seems more important than time spent on spiritual growth, and that is the wrong order.

            Funny how many tidbits you can pick up by simply studying one word or concept in the scriptures, isn’t it?  Perhaps the most important tidbit today is this:  God expects us to put our lives in His order, to run our families in His order, to put the church, the body of His son, in His order; always His order, not ours.  Anyone who is “out of order” will be found in contempt of that righteous Judge.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.  Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving, Col 2:5-7.

Dene Ward

            Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.

            So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”

            Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.

            Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”

            Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.

            And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.

            And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 

            What are you afraid of this morning?

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, Isa 8:12-13.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, (Matt 10:28.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,” Isa 51:7-8.

​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.

Dene Ward

Keith had to have some fairly serious surgery last year and since he is 90% deaf, the doctor arranged for me to be in his hospital room as his caregiver 24/7.  He does read lips fairly well, but lip reading is not the perfect solution to the problem.  He must “fill in the blanks,” so to speak, as his mind tries to interpret the sounds his ears miss, which is most of them.  It takes a lot of concentration, and when he is tired or does not feel well, he simply cannot hear at all.  But over the years I have learned how to communicate in all the various ways, from hand signals to pantomime to pointing at people or things to carefully wording without overdoing the mouth movements or using too many words. 

            So for six days we were both away from home and wouldn’t you know it, it was the height of garden season.  When we came home I had to do it all because he couldn’t even lift more than 10 pounds for two months, let alone bend over to pick vegetables or drag hoses.  That first week was the worst.  I picked every morning, sprayed the whole garden twice, (we’re talking an 80 x 80 garden here), pulled cucumber vines covered with blight, chopped out and hauled away the old corn stalks, placed folded newspapers under 50 cantaloupes so they wouldn’t rot on the ground (a very thin-skinned variety), cleaned out weed-choked flower beds, put up both dill and red cinnamon pickles, and picked and tossed 8 five gallon buckets of squash and cucumbers that did not have the grace to stop growing while we were in the hospital!

            Of course we all know that is not going to happen.  The plants continue to grow, the blossoms continue to set, and the fruit grows far larger than you ever imagined it could.  The back field looked like a marching band had gone through throwing out big yellow saxophones as they passed.

            It works that way with children too.  I can think of dozens of things we planned to do with our boys when they were little—things we never got to.  Sometimes it was a case of no money, but sometimes we just let life get in the way.  I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything we planned that we actually accomplished at all!  But just like gardens, children keep on growing.  They don’t stop to wait until you have more time to spend with them, or more resources to spend on them.  They won’t wait till you get a bigger house or an easier job or a raise.  They won’t wait until your life is exactly like you want it.  If that’s what you are waiting for, it will never happen.  You have to set your own priorities and make it happen.

            Every summer I made my boys a chore list.  I am sure they remember it fondly!  No, probably not, but on that list was this:  “Play a game with mom.”  Guess which “chore” they never skipped?  Sometimes it was checkers, sometimes it was monopoly, sometimes it was even pinochle, a game they learned with some of their dad’s commentaries set up on the table to hide their hands because they were too small to hold all the cards at once.  Sometimes it was one of the board games I made to help them with their Bible knowledge.  And every day we had Bible study of some kind, whether just talking about things between the bean rows as we picked together or a formal sit down study. 

            These are just some ideas to help you along.  We have all heard the old poem “Children Don’t Wait.”  It’s true, and last summer I thought about that even more as I looked out over the overgrown garden.  Maybe my grandsons will reap a little from the repeat of a lesson that is never taught enough.

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...Deut 32:46-47.

Dene Ward