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Most families have just returned from a road trip of some variety this past summer.  You may not realize it, but this is a fairly recent development.  We seem to think that the Declaration of Independence lists our inalienable rights as “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and a thousand dollar (or more) family vacation every year.”  When I was growing up we might have gone on two or three “vacations.”  The rest of the time we visited family, and that involved nothing but visiting—the adults talking and the children playing together.  Anywhere we might have gone while there was a free day trip—no admission fees—and lunch was usually a picnic we packed ourselves.  

If it hadn’t been for discovering tent camping, my boys would not have had vacations either.  In those days you could pitch a tent in a state park for $7.00 a night, and cook your own meals over the campfire instead of eating out.  We also did our share of family visiting.  Although you hate to view your family as a “free motel,” it was the only way we could see them at least once a year.

I like to think of this life as a road trip.  Too many people consider it the destination and that will skew your perspective in a bad way.  If you think this life is supposed to be the good part, you will sooner or later be severely disappointed.

As we go along the road a lot of things happen.  We will be faced with decisions that are not easy to make, and which may turn out badly.  Sometimes we are too easy on ourselves, making excuses and rationalizing.  But other times we are entirely too hard on ourselves.  If you look back on a decision you made years ago, and find yourself wishing you had done things differently, that doesn’t necessarily mean you were wrong then.  Sometimes it simply means you were without experience, a little naïve, a lot ignorant.

Let’s put it this way.  I live almost an hour north of Gainesville, Florida.  If I leave for Atlanta at 8 AM, it’s no shame if I am not even to Macon by 10 AM.  On the other hand, if I leave at 5 AM and haven’t even made Macon yet, something is wrong.  I’ve been dawdling over gas pumps, stopping for snacks too many times, or wandering through tourist traps that have nothing to do with the trip itself.  The question, then, is not where you are on the road, but when you left in the first place.  You can’t expect yourself to know what to do in every situation of life when you haven’t even experienced much life.  The decision you make today may be completely different than the one you made in the same situation twenty years ago, but twenty years ago if you did the best you could do with what you knew, you did well.

And what are we doing on our road trip?  Are we wasting too much time at tourist traps?  Life is full of distractions, things not necessarily wrong, but which may not help us on the trip at all, or may even do harm by skewing our perspective.  It really isn’t important where you live and what kind of car you drive in this life.  If you think it is, you’ve forgotten where you’re headed—the here and now has become your goal instead.  

If you want to keep your mind on the goal, ignore the billboards life puts out for you and spend time with your atlas.  Nothing helps me get through a long trip more than watching the towns go by and following them with my finger on the map.  Every time I check the mileage we are a little further on, and soon, sooner than you might think, the destination is in sight.  That’s why you started this trip in the first place—not for the World’s Largest Flea Market, or the Gigantic Book Sale, or even the Only Locally Owned Canning Facility and Orchard (with free samples).  

Watch the road, use the map, avoid the tourist traps.  Make the best decisions you can at every intersection.  This is the only road trip you get.  Don’t mess it up.

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. Proverbs 4:25-27

Dene Ward

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            The gospel is nothing if not practical.  God was more interested in helping us live our lives every day than equipping us to sit in dusty rooms arguing theology.  So today let’s be eminently practical.

            I am sure you have heard “practice makes perfect” your entire life.  It is wrong.  The only thing practice makes is permanent.

            One of the things I had to train many of my piano students to do was to practice correctly.  They would come in with the same mistakes week after week.  First they played the wrong note (the same wrong note in the same piece at every lesson), and then they would correct it.  What they had taught themselves to do was to play the wrong note first, then stop and play the right one.  Correcting it did not make the competition judge happy.  He wanted a perfect performance the first time. 

            When their poor practice habits became obvious, we had to start all over.  First I had them tell me the name of the correct note, saying the name aloud several times which I then repeated to them.  “Right, it’s an F#, an F#, an F#.”  Then I had them find that note and play it with the correct finger, while saying its name over and over.  Then I had them play the note before it and after it until they played that three note sequence correctly no less than three times in a row.  If they made a mistake, we started counting all over.

            Then we backed up one measure and played past it one measure, once again until they could do it correctly three times in a row.  Then we backed up one phrase and played past it one phrase until they could play the three phrases correctly three times in a row.  You get the picture.  We practiced it correctly over and over, using as many senses as possible, hearing ourselves say the correct name of the note, feeling the correct note under the finger, seeing the correct note both on the page and as we played it, and then playing through without the bad habit of doing it wrong first.  Usually that took care of the problem.

            What do we do as Christians?  Do we teach ourselves to do it wrong first, then pray for forgiveness over and over, constantly making the same mistakes?  Practice makes permanent.  Maybe it is time to do a little analysis. 

            Why do I keep doing the same thing again and again?  “That’s just the way I am,” is not an acceptable reason; it is a lame excuse.  God expects us to change the way we are.  If it took such detailed, tedious work to undo a bad habit in a piano piece, why do we think we don’t have to really work at it to undo a bad habit in our thoughts or behaviors, where Satan is actively pulling against us?  Some of my students may have been little devils, but that is not why they played wrong notes!  So why should sin be easier to fix?

            Often just the fact that I am owning up to my sin and thinking about the problem will do a world of good, but if you really want to make progress—and I assume we all do--it takes more effort than that.. 

            Make a plan and follow it.  Find three times in the day to pray about that particular problem.  Find three passages about that sin and read them over and over.  The next day pray again and find three more passages.  Do that every day, praying, listing and reading.  Keep a journal of all the times that problem rears its ugly head.  Write down every detail of the situation, how it happened, what caused it, and how you handled, or mishandled, it--without blaming anyone else.  When you finally have a victory, celebrate with a prayer of thanksgiving and your favorite hymn.  Call a friend with whom you have shared your problem (James 5:16) and tell them about it so they can rejoice with you. 

            You do not have to do all of these things in all of these particular ways and numbers, but do something to help yourself kick the habit.  Think about how you set about to lose weight, keeping track of what you eat (including the no-noes) and how much you exercise each day. Remember how those nicotine patch commercials show people stepping down one level at a time till they reach their goal?  But you should be stepping UP one level at the time to reach yours.

            Practice makes permanent.  Make sure you are practicing correctly.

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him,  and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God, 
1 John 3:9.

Dene Ward

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            I can hardly believe it, but Silas has started school.  When he found out he had to go back the second week, he said, “You mean I have to go again?!”

            “Yes,” his mother told him, “there is a lot to learn.”

            “But I already learned,” he said, sure that now he would get to stay home with her and his little brother.  Of course, he found out otherwise quickly.

            I know that no one would say it out loud, but sometimes I get the feeling some of my brothers and sisters have the same attitude.  “I already learned!” which is supposed to justify their never studying for a Bible class, never attending an extra Bible study, never darkening the meetinghouse doors for anything but the Lord’s Supper, as if it were a magic potion that would save them that week regardless of anything else they did.  What they have “learned” are usually the pet scriptures, the catchphrases, the simplistic theories that try to explain away the profound depth of the Scriptures—all those things that smack so much of a denominational mindset.

            I have amazing women in my Bible classes, and let me tell you, most of them are neither young nor new Christians.  These are women of a certain age, as we often say, who have sat on pews for longer than many others have been alive, yet they see the value in learning still more. 

            And that does not necessarily mean learning something new.  Sometimes the learning has more to do with a deeper comprehension, uncovering another level of wisdom, or an additional way of applying a fact to one’s life, leading to a changed behavior or attitude.  When I see someone in their later years actually change their lives because of a discovery made in Bible class, I am reminded yet again of the power of the Word.  The most amazing thing about this living and active Word, is that if you are not blinded by self-satisfaction, every time you study it you can see something new.  It’s like peeling an onion—you keep finding another layer underneath.

            You may have “already learned” a great many things, but if that is your attitude, you will never grow beyond the boundaries you have placed upon yourself with that notion.  Like a kindergartner who has learned his letters and numbers, you will be stuck in the basics, the “first principles,” and never come to a fuller comprehension of the magnitude of God’s wisdom and His plan for you.  If you are still deciding how long to keep a preacher based upon how much you “enjoy” his preaching and how many times he visited you in the hospital, if you are mouthing things like “I never heard of such a thing” or “I am (or am not) comfortable with that,” with not a scripture reference in sight, you still have a long way to go. 

            God wants meat-eaters at His banquet.  That means you need to chew a little harder and longer.  Yes, it takes time away from recess to sit in class and learn some more.  Yes, you have to process some new information which may not be as comfortable as you are used to.  Your brain may even ache a little, but that is how you learn, by stretching those mental muscles instead of vegetating on the pew.

            You may think you have “already learned,” but I bet you even my kindergartner grandson will have figured out very shortly that there is a whole lot more he needs to know.  He’s pretty smart for five.  How about you?

 Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk…Isa 28:9.

Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto perfection…Heb 6:1.

Dene Ward

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            When we camp we eat more convenience food than any other time of the year.  When you are trying to pack a week’s worth into one cooler and two 2 x 1 x 1 ½ foot plastic containers, and when there is no place to put leftovers, a packaged pasta or rice mix and a small can of vegetables is the perfect-sized accompaniment for whatever meat Keith is grilling that night.  Let’s face it, an inch thick rib chop, seasoned with herbs and spices and cooked over a wood fire is the star of the show anyway.

            As for dessert, store-bought cookies are a staple.  However, my family is spoiled by homemade cookies so just any old Chips Ahoy won’t do, not even Oreos.  So we splurge a bit on the cookies. 

            A box of Walker’s Pure Butter Shortbread Bars, imported from Scotland, are a favorite.  Melt-in-your-mouth-rich with the flavor and mouth-feel of real butter, and barely sweetened, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of instant hot chocolate—another camping necessity. 

            Another standby is any Pepperidge Farm cookie, depending upon what’s available when I hit the stores the week before a campout.  Walker’s Shortbread makes them look like a bargain, so I buy two kinds rather than just one.  If you have ever had any, you know they come in fluted paper cups, like big, white, muffin pan liners, either nestled in a variety box or stacked in a tall foil-lined paper bag. 

            To minimize the amount of trash we need to stow away from the coons, possums, and bears, we usually toss anything that will burn into the campfire as we finish its contents.  On our last trip we tossed the cup from the first layer of Chewy Fruit and Nut Granola Cookies into the fire.  Somehow in the draft of the fire it landed right side up in the middle of a scrap board Keith had just thrown in as well.  Both sat right in front of an oak log that had coaled up on the bottom, but not yet begun to burn.

            Temperatures were in the forties that night, so we had a good hot fire going with backlogs to reflect the heat our way and glowing embers several inches deep.  Ordinarily a thin piece of paper in a fire like that won’t last five seconds, including burn time.  Because of how it landed, that little cup sat there five full minutes.  Once, a gust of wind tried to blow it into the fire, but the fire’s updraft on either side of it pushed it right back to the middle of the board.  Only a small dark singe mark on its pleated edge showed how close a call it had been.

            Finally, though, the board itself began to burn from either end and the flames crept inexorably toward the paper cup.  Suddenly, in one rapid whoosh, the cup caught fire and was gone in less than a second, its final glowing ash floating into the air before finally winking out in the cold black above.

            Too many times we are like that little fluted paper liner.  We get ourselves into a place we have no business being, into circumstances that should have ended badly.  Yet because God is good, we are saved from the world of hurt we deserved.  Then, instead of appreciating the second chance and removing ourselves from that dangerous place, we stay there and gloat.  “See?  Nothing happened.  I’m just fine.  I told you I could handle it.”

            We sit there smug and confident, certain that everyone who cautioned us was wrong, while disaster sneaks up closer and closer.  In fact, we reach a point where the danger around us seems normal.  We no longer even notice.  We may have a close call or two, but for so many it just adds to the feeling of superiority instead of waking us up.

            And so suddenly, one day, we are gone in a flash—without warning it seems.  But no, we had just become blind to the warnings all around us, fooling ourselves into believing we were safe, while everyone else saw the fire creeping in from all sides.

            Pay attention to where you are today.  Take a mental step back and see the whole picture, not just the safe little ledge you think you have built.  Listen to those around you who can often see much more clearly than you can in the midst of all that smoke and glare.  They wouldn’t say anything and endure your scorn if they didn’t care.

But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, Jude 20-23.

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

“In other words, compassion in ministry is not so much the characteristic of a certain type of personality, as the characteristic of the person with a certain set of priorities.”  D. A Carson in Jesus’ Confrontation with the World.

This is true, not because a scholar said it, but because it summarizes the Bible truth on the subject (1 Pet 3:8, 1 Jn 3:17).

A number of conclusions/observations follow:

First, if I am not compassionate, it is not because I was born that way or “just the way I am.”  It is because I choose to not have the proper priorities in my thinking about others.

Next, Jesus’ compassion on the woman at the well illustrates.  He was hungry, tired.  He saw her need and was so energized by helping her that the Twelve were amazed and he said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  The apostles learned a compassionate heart in three to five years. Think on that the next time a class teacher says they were slow to understand.  I have walked with Jesus about 50 years and find myself somewhat short of where I need to be in this regard.  How about you?

We do not need a personality transplant.  We need to re-set our priorities. A lot less than 5% of the NewTestament concerns the worship and work of the church.  Yet we spend most of our time and energy as Christians there!  Jesus’ compassion flowed when among the people: sinners, workers, crowds, the infirm.  WE NEED to get out of the building.

Peter summarized Jesus’ life, “He went about doing good.”

 Certainly, Sunday worship must be right, by the pattern.  But Christianity is the life everyday and must be marked by doing good for those who do not deserve it just as we did not deserve God’s goodness.

Our priorities fuel our compassion…or lack thereof.  When much of our energy, time, and conversation concerns house, health, career, the kids’ ball schedule, and social engagements, even if we are engrossed with teaching a wowser of a Bible class in order to impress folks with our ability, compassion is a sometime thing.  When our priority is people: to show kindness, to help, to listen, to reprove the works of darkness, to shine a light to guide; when we commit each day to greet each person with the love of God which was shed in our hearts, then compassion flows naturally as it did from our Lord and example.

What is your priority?

Whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and [whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. (Phil 3:19)

Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; (Col 3:12)

Keith Ward

The first time he said it I was confused.  The second time I was a little miffed. 

            “We’re going home,” Keith told someone of our upcoming visit to his parents’ house in Arkansas.

            Home?  Home was where I was, where we lived together, not someplace 1100 miles away.

            I suppose I didn’t understand because I didn’t have that sense of home.  We moved a few times when I was a child, and then my parents moved more after I married.  I never use that phrase “back home” of any place but where I live at the moment.  But a lot of people do.  I hear them talk about it often, going “back home” to reunions and homecomings, visiting the places they grew up and knew from before they could remember.

            But what was it the American author Thomas Wolfe said?  “You can’t go home again.”  Wolfe died on September 15, 1938.  His book of that title was published posthumously on September 28, 1940, and those words have come to mean that you cannot relive childhood memories.  Things are constantly changing and you will always be disappointed.

            Abraham and Sarah and the other early patriarchs did not believe that. 

            These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. Hebrews 11:13-14.

            That phrase “country of their own” is the Greek word for “Fatherland” or “homeland” or “native country.”  Those people believed they were headed home in the same sense that Keith talked about going back to the Ozarks.  Some question whether the people of the Old Testament believed in life after death.  They not only believed they were going to live in that promised country after death, they believed they had come from there—that it was where they belonged.

            That may be our biggest problem.  We do not understand that we belong in Heaven, that God sent us from there and wants us back, that it is the Home we are longing for, the only place that will satisfy us.  We are too happy here, too prosperous in this life, too secure on this earth. 

            Try asking someone if they want to go to Heaven.  “Of course,” they will say.  Then ask if they would like to go now and see the difference in their response.  It is good that we have attachments here, and a sense of duty to those people.  It is not good when we see those attachments as far better than returning to our homeland and our Father and Brother.  Paul said, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, - if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better: yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. Philippians 1:21-24.   Paul knew the better choice.  Staying here for the Philippians’ sake was a sacrifice to him, a necessary evil.

            Heaven isn’t supposed to be like an all-expenses-paid vacation away from home—it’s supposed to be Home—the only Home that matters.

            How do you view Heaven?  The way you see it may just make the difference in how easy or difficult it is for you to get there.

 
Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

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