It's been eleven years, which I can hardly believe.  Silas came to visit all by himself.  Granddad had carefully planned the play time, and on the first afternoon, as the thermometer hit 95, and the sun beat down mercilessly, he grabbed the garden hose and I knew immediately what was up.
            Keith was always a hands-on Dad, more hands on than the boys wanted in some cases, but also in the fun times.  He played with them from the time they were born, carefully moderating his strength when they were small, but never moderating the little boy inside that never quite left him.  One of my favorite pictures came when he knocked on the door one rainy day, and there the three of them stood, streaked with mud, having played in the soft warm rain throwing mud balls until you could only tell which was which by their relative size.
            So now it was four year old Silas’s turn, his baptism by mud, so to speak, as Keith filled up the low spot in front of the sour orange and the herb bed, dammed by a berm so the water would back up and have time to soak into the ground before rushing on down the hill to the run just off the east side of the property.  As soon as the spot was a couple inches deep, Keith called him in to splash around.  Even that took awhile, but finally Silas waded in and started jumping up and down, squealing with delight as the water splashed up around him, and especially when it splashed on Granddad.
            Then came the magic moment.  Keith reached down into the black mud, scraped up a handful, and flung it carefully onto Silas’s back.  Talk about indignant!  He scrambled up the slope to the carport where I sat in the breeze of a fan, drinking iced tea and watching the fun.  “Granddad threw mud on me,” he complained as he spun in a circle trying to see the damage behind him.
            “So throw some on him!”  I said encouragingly.
            He was aghast.  “But it’s dirty,” he argued.
            “That’s the fun,” I told him, and he slowly walked back to the puddle, glancing over his shoulder at me with a skeptical look.
            Granddad met him with another handful of mud, this time on the chest.  “Arghh!” he protested and scrambled away, but this time not to me.  I was obviously not on his side in this one.
            “Here,” Keith said, and stood, chest bare and arms out wide.  “Throw some on me.”
            Once again, Silas yelled, “No,” but it wasn’t long till he finally picked up a handful of mud on his own.  Keith stood there with a grin, waiting as Silas walked up to him.  But the little guy couldn’t stand it.  Just as he got within a four-year-old’s throwing range, he turned and threw the mud into the puddle instead.  Immediately, Keith picked up a handful and threw it on him.  Silas ran around in circles, but never left the area this time.  In a flash he had another fistful, but once again threw it in the puddle. 
            Finally, Keith sat down in the mud.  “See?  I’m already muddy now.  It’s okay to throw it on me.”
            It still took another five minutes, but finally Silas got into the spirit of the thing and threw a generous handful at Keith.   I am not sure how much reached skin, but he was as thrilled as if he had dumped a bucketful on him.
            For the next thirty minutes the mud was flying.  They both wound up with mud caked on their shorts, dripping from clumps on their shoulders, bellies, backs, and even their heads.  I doubt Silas had ever been that dirty in his entire life, and he thoroughly enjoyed it.
            I could do a lot with this one.  I could talk about hands-on fathering.  I could talk about shucking your dignity so you can play with your child, about shedding that authoritative image so he will know you love him enough not just to correct him, but to enjoy being with him--on his level, not yours.  That’s easy, so I will let you take care of those.
            How about this?  Did you notice how hard it was for Silas to actually start throwing the mud?  Even though he was assured it was all right, even though he was encouraged to have fun that normally was not allowed, it still took a long time for him to give in, but give in he did.  Why do we think we can hold up against far more powerful forces than that when we place our souls in harm’s way?
            The world will tell you it’s all right.  The world will tell you it’s fun.  The world will say, “Look at me.  See?  I’m doing just fine, and so will you.”  If you think you won’t give in, you probably have an inflated opinion of your spiritual strength.  The truly strong person would have never been there to begin with.
            So take it from a little boy who had the time of his life in a mud fight.  You will give in too, only your fight will end up with a dirt that can’t be washed away with a hose, and you may enjoy it too much to ever leave the mud puddle behind.
 
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen, 2 Peter 3:17-18.
 
Dene Ward

On February 2, 1839, Edmond Berger is said to have invented the spark plug.  I say it that way because of the differing accounts I found.  In fact, the first mention of this I saw gave the date as February 3 and said he actually patented it that day.  Several other places said the date was the second of the month and he never patented it at all.  Perhaps the most reliable citation I found said that he invented it on the second, but since he was in France he did not patent it with a US patent, and that since the internal combustion engine was new at that time and extremely unreliable, the spark plug he invented would have been experimental at best.  So we will leave it at that.
            What I want to consider this morning are mental spark plugs.  When I sit down to write, especially after all these years of doing so over 300 times a year, I often need a spark of an idea to get going.  The ancient Greeks knew the problem and came up with the nine goddesses they called Muses.  These, they said, were the inspiration behind all the Sciences, Literature, Poetry, and the Arts.  No one could create any of these without their motivating spark.  Which also gave you someone to blame when nothing came to you when you needed it, I immediately thought.  Might come in handy—if only they were real.
            And so I looked to the Scriptures to find anything about "sparks" that the Word of God might mention.  As you might suspect, no spark plugs—or Muses—were mentioned.  But I did find this verse:  O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you (1Chr 29:18).  David was finishing a stirring prayer after calling the people to give of their means for the building of the new Temple after his death.  He worried that the emotion of the moment would fade and that Solomon himself, a young man, would falter in his determination to build what amounted to a Palace for God.  So he prayed that the spirit that was then moving the people to give willingly and to support this monumental task would continue.
            But notice:  the fact that David prayed for this to continue in itself shows that this attitude is a choice.  We are not talking about the Holy Spirit coming in and forcing His will upon us.  In fact, Satan can come in as a "muse" and lead our thought astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3) in the same way.  If one is a choice we make, so is the other.  Our devotion is likely to fluctuate.  That is perfectly normal, I think.  But we have the choice of which "muse" we choose to allow to ignite our thoughts and deeds.
            God promises He will help us out—without forcing us.  Jeremiah tells us that we cannot walk in our own ways and do well (10:23), so it makes sense that if we have anything like a Muse in the Christian walk, it is the Word of God.  Seek God's way, obey His commands, listen to His voice.  With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped (Ps 17:4-5).  Indeed, that is the only spark plug that amounts to anything at all.

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple (Ps 119:130).
 
Dene Ward
 

On February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina A & T staged a sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth's.  It was not the first sit-in, but it was the first time that students had been able to make a difference.  Before, Civil Rights had been considered something for "grown-ups."  By April that year, 70 southern cities had experienced sit-ins, a direct result of this one. 
            I wonder if the feelings of people then were similar to the time when word came to Jerusalem about Peter preaching to Cornelius, the first Gentile convert (Acts 10).  They certainly took him to task in chapter 11.  By the end of that explanation, Antioch was preaching to Gentiles and welcoming them to the fold right and left (Acts 11:19-23).  All of a sudden the "status quo" had changed, and the ones "in power" were not so happy about it.
            What we fail to understand is the great divide between Jew and Gentile.  Gentiles were considered unclean and called "dogs."  Jews believed they were the favored race and that salvation could only come from them.  They went out of their way to avoid doing business with Gentiles, eating with them, or socializing with them.  Gentiles thought Jews were strange because of their belief in monotheism, and knowing their utter disdain for them, hated them in return.  We think the racial divide in our country was bad, this was many times worse.  When a Jew married a Gentile, the family held a funeral for him.  He was dead as far as they were concerned.
            But God had stated from the beginning, even as He was forming His chosen people from whom the Messiah would come, that this would be a blessing "to all nations" (Gen 22:18).  ("Goy" by the way is the Yiddish word for Gentile, and it means "nation.")  That promise continues throughout Genesis and is picked up by the prophets, more times than I can even list.  Isaiah said all nations would flow into "the mountain of the Lord's house" (2:2).  Micah repeats part of this prophecy almost verbatim (4:1-3).  Isaiah also promises that all those who had formerly been considered unclean will be accepted into Jehovah's house, for my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples (50:1-8).
            Jesus gave hints of this unification during his ministry, clear enough that the Pharisees once remarked, God forbid! (Luke 20:16).  And before he left this world his instructions clearly underlined God's original intent, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, Mark 16:15.
            God expects all of us, whatever nation, whatever race, to meet together as one body.  I would hate to be one of those in the past who forbade a certain race to come into the assembly of the saints.  What do we think?  That God will have a "Jews only" or "whites only" section roped off in Heaven?  When we sing with our children, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight," we should have a congregation that shows them exactly that—all nations accepted into the house of God.  This acceptance goes both ways—not just one side to the other, each one of us acting with perfect love and humility.  None of us is any better than the other in the sight of our Creator—who made us all.
 
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).
 
Dene Ward
 

This book sat on my shelf for so many years that I forgot I owned it until one day I was looking for something to read. For a time there, every preacher had at least one sermon on John 13 and every meeting seemed to have two. I thought this was the source for those and I had already heard it about 2 dozen times in a dozen different ways. Boy, was I wrong. Boy, was I wrong!

TGOTT challenged me far more than the Philippians commentary I had started (a good one, too). First, he challenges our view of God and insists that we expand all that we thought of Him: God loves, God is Holy, God Forgives; but these qualities and others extend far above all that we might be able to ask or think. 

Throughout, McGuiggan challenges us forcefully with, "So, now that you know, what will you do about it?" No, that statement is not in the book, but it expresses the challenge to comfortable churchgoing, respectable Christianity that we all need to step up to meet.

Chapter headings instruct us that our lives begin and breathe God:
The God Who Loves Humans
The God Who Died
The God Who Majors in Forgiveness
The God Who is Holy
The God Who Loves the Weak
The God Who Acquits Criminals
The God Who Wore a Towel
The God Who Made Yokes
The God Who Permits Suffering
The God Who Came Talking.

TGOTT is packed with scripture, and filled with lessons for everyday attitudes and actions.

It has changed some of my ways and will change more and has given me new expressions to teach old truths.

I wish I had read it sooner. It is still second best to his "Celebrating the Wrath of God," but challenges us on a broader scope.

Keith Ward
 
 

Because of double sessions in the later years, I missed them in high school, but I did have one year in a small town where grades 7-12 were packed into the same school.  Every Friday afternoon during football season, our three afternoon classes were each cut 10 minutes short so we could meet for the final thirty minutes of the day in the gym, cheer with the cheerleaders and their shaking pompoms, clap along with the band until our eardrums nearly burst and our hearts beat in rhythm with the bass drums, and get a gander at those beefy young men—16, 17, 18 years old, bigger than even my own daddy.  As a chubby frizzy-haired 12 year old, it was the closest thing to a riot I ever experienced.  We all yelled and screamed and applauded and hooted at renditions of the opposing team mascot.  We were going to win, we were sure, and we screamed, “We will WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN,” till we all went home hoarse and hyped up on school spirit.
            Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but we all showed up again Monday morning, bleary-eyed and less than thrilled to be in our first classes of the day, a long week ahead of us and all thought of football and “Our Great School!” a distant memory.  Pep rallies have their place, but if emotion is all that keeps the spirit going, it isn’t much of a heart is it?
            Elijah found that out on Mt Carmel.  Everyone pictures this great contest as his ultimate victory, perhaps the biggest in the prophet’s life.  They forget to turn the page in their Bibles. 
            Yes, the crowd saw an amazing miracle.  The prophets of Baal called all day to a deaf god made of metal, shouting his name over and over and over.  They tried to get his attention with loud cries, with dancing and with self-mutilation.  No one answered. 
            Elijah on the other hand, made the request as difficult as possible, soaking the sacrifice and the wood and filling up a trench with water till it overflowed.  Did you ever wonder what those poor three-year-drought-stricken people thought as all that water ran off onto the ground?  But none of it mattered when Jehovah sent fire from Heaven that licked it all up in a flash, and consumed the sacrifice—after just one call from Elijah.
            Then the pep rally began in earnest.  The people fell on their faces and said, The Lord, he is God.  The Lord he is God, 1 Kgs 18:39.  Can’t you hear it now?  The chant probably continued on, over and over and over, louder and louder, as Elijah called for the prophets of Baal and slew them all.  The exhilaration he felt must have been amazing.  “We did it, Lord!” he must have thought.  “Finally your people realize there is no God like Jehovah, and they will worship you again.”
            Turn the page. 
            Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life...1 Kings 19:1-3.
            Our assemblies have a small element of the pep rally in them.  It is good to cheer one another on, in the same way the men of Antioch laid their hands on Saul and Barnabas, prayed, and sent them on their first preaching trip, Acts 13:1-3.  It is wonderful to encourage a weak soul who has come to us for help.  It fills the heart to sing praises to God and to commune with one another around the Lord’s Table.
            Yet Paul does not spend much time on that emotional aspect of our assemblies in 1 Cor 14, about the clearest picture we have of a first century assembly.  Instead, his constant reminder is “Let all things be done unto edifying,” v 26.  It is, he said, the only thing truly profitable, v 6.  Paul understood that the pep rally aspect of an assembly wouldn’t last beyond the echo of the amen, but good solid teaching would carry one through life.
            If your idea of “getting something out of the services” is that excited, heart-pounding feeling that comes with emotion instead of deeper insight into the Word of God through good teaching and hard study, you are stuck in high school.  Mature people can remain motivated without the hype.  The understanding wrought by hours spent with God in quiet runs deep in their hearts. It keeps them encouraged when times are rough, wise when Satan does his best to deceive, and controlled when temptation pulls every string and pushes every button.
            Pep rally religion doesn’t last, but the Word of God in one’s heart abides forever.
 
Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth." What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away...For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings...If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples,  Hosea 6:3-6; John 8:31.
 
Dene Ward

I have to admit this one requires a bit of speculation, even after you gather all the facts, but I think it is worth considering or I would not put it out there.
   Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai (Gen 16:1-2).
   Where did Hagar come from?  Abraham went to Egypt almost immediately after he left Haran.  He was 75 then and 86 when Ishmael was born, so 10 years passed between the time he went to Egypt and the time he took Hagar as a wife (Gen 12:4; 16:16).  Several Old Testament scholars say that when girls reached puberty in those ancient Near East cultures, they were considered marriageable, possibly as young as 14.  People want to say that the ancients were malnourished and would have had a much later puberty, but these were rich people we are talking about here.  I doubt if malnourishment was an issue.  By the first century, at least one scholar says that girls were betrothed at 13 and married at 14.  Even 14 is two to three years later than today's girls reach puberty so I can easily imagine that Hagar was about that age or maybe a year older, but not much more than that.
   So it is plausible that Abraham and Sarah acquired Hagar's mother when they went to Egypt—possibly as a gift from Pharaoh (Gen 12:16), and that she brought with her a four to five year old daughter who grew up in Abraham's house.  From that righteous couple she must have learned about God.  Read the encounters she had with "the angel of the LORD" and the "angel of God" (Genesis 16 and 21) and see for yourself.  Truly I have seen Him who looks after me (Gen 16:13) does not sound like a pagan idea of God.
   Now add to this the servant who is sent to get Isaac a wife (Gen 24), who prayed to God and trusted Him to answer that prayer.  "Abraham…has clearly taught his household about the God he follows.  Not only does this servant pray—itself an indication that he knows God—he is confident God can act immediately and decisively and will do so because God has a special relationship with his master" (Our Eyes Are on You, Nathan Ward, p 10).  These two servants grew up in and/or lived in Abraham's household.  They saw their worship, their faith, and their absolute trust in God.  And that brought them to at least some and possibly a full degree of faith themselves.  Remember, despite Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael away at God's order, Ishmael still returned to Abraham's burial roughly seventy years later (Gen 25:7-9).  Somehow, a connection continued.
   So here is the lesson.  Would someone growing up in our home, or perhaps simply growing up next door, see the kind of faith Abraham and Sarah had?  Would they even have heard the name of the God we worship and have seen us in prayer and study?  Would they have seen how God was pivotal in our decisions and actions?
   Abraham and Sarah made their share of mistakes, but the majority of their lives acted as a sound testimony of their faith.  What about ours?

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19).

Dene Ward

You can find a million diets out there, but there is one thing none of them can get around:  your calorie intake must be less than your calorie usage if you want to lose weight.  That doesn’t mean it is easy or that other things do not play into it.  Just ask a middle-aged woman about the difficulties of losing weight, and you will get an earful.  I can vouch for those “other things” myself, having gone through middle age and now arrived at “old age.”  It’s true—several million women could not make this up and it not be valid.  Be that as it may, you still must count those calories and burn up more than you take in.
           Keith and I do more calorie counting these days.  Our activity level has decreased due to illness and just being too old and tired to do as much.  That means we have to be much more diligent than before when Keith was riding his bike 50-75 miles a week and I was jogging 25-30 miles a week.  Something about being in your 70s slows you down a bit.
            The other morning I was making a light version of baklava—half the calories and a third the fat of the ordinary Greek pastry.  I had phyllo dough leftover that I needed to use up and a brand new jar of raw honey. Such was my excuse that day—but at least I had found this lighter version.  After I poured the honey syrup over the baked dough, Keith came along behind me with a spoon and started scraping the pan.  In between licks he said, “This doesn’t count, right?”  Oh, if only… 
            I heard a chef say one time that he had to work out about two hours a day to burn off the estimated 6000 calories he took in just tasting the dishes he made before sending them out to his customers.  I get it.  My local brethren have so many potlucks, plus our own company meals and family meals, wedding and baby showers, that I am sure most of my extra calories come from that tasting.  No way will I send something out there that I don’t know is good.  And if I took diet food to a potluck I just might be excommunicated.
            Yes, those calories count.  And so do those little bitty sins—you know, the little white lies to keep yourself out of trouble, the little bits of gossip that you just can’t seem to keep to yourself, the pens and paper clips you “borrow” from work, that side job you did for a little extra cash that doesn’t get reported next April.  We seem to think that because we assemble on Sunday mornings and don’t do the big bad sins—the ones in the Ten Commandments—that nothing else counts.  The fact that our language makes people think less of the body of a Sacrificed Savior never seems to cross our minds. 
            The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge states that the Jews believed that “he who observed any principal command was equal to him who kept the whole law.”  Their example was idolatry.  If you didn’t worship an idol, you were good to go!  The little stuff didn’t matter.  All you have to do is read about Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees in the gospels and you can see the results of that doctrine.
            First century Christians must have had the same problem.  “He who keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it,” James said in 2:10.  The context?  People who said they had faith but didn’t take care of the sick and needy, or visit the fatherless and widows, or welcome the strangers to their assemblies.  The same God who said, “Do not kill,” also said, “Do not commit adultery,” he reminds them.  All sins count in God’s eyes.
            This is not new with God.  Ezekiel said in chapter 33:12,13, “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression…if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his iniquity which he has committed, therein shall he die.”
            Yep, all those calories count, no matter how small the spoon or how tiny the taste.  And so do all those sins.  The only cure for the problem is to quit sampling the goods.
 
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:19
 
Dene Ward

I imagine everyone has, by the time they reach my age, had some sort of physical therapy.  Sometimes it is needed after an injury, sometimes after surgery, sometimes because of a physical condition or illness.  If you have had a good experience with physical therapy, you know that it hurts, but that the hurt eventually reduces the pain.  If you have ever done any sort of strength training, that should make sense to you.  After a work-out your muscles might be sore, but soon you can do more with less soreness.  In order to strengthen a muscle, you simply must cause it some stress.  If I refuse physical therapy because "it hurts," sooner or later I won't be able to move at all.
            I keep doing the physical therapy exercises I was given 20 years ago.  That is why I can still walk.  Anyone who has had severe back pain knows that it effects every single part of your life.  No one moves anything, except maybe their pinkie finger, without aid from the back one way or the other.  When we first moved to Tampa, things were so unsettled with unpacking, finding new doctors, and having men in the house renovating practically every inch of it, that I did not do my exercises for about 6 months.  And my back knew it.  It took a couple of months to get things back in order.  And whenever I have even missed a couple of days due to traveling or illness, that little twinge in my lower back tells me it's time to get back to work! 
            I do one exercise that stretches out my back in a particularly strong way.  I feel the pull when I lean over.  It hurts, but I have grown to think of it as a "good" hurt because when I sit up straight afterward, the "real" pain is gone.  Keith has a spot just under his left shoulder blade that hurts due to a bullet wound.  When I feel around in there, I can feel the knot.  When I rub it he usually winces and grunts a few times, but afterward, he always says, "That's so much better."  I am sure you get the point by now.
            May I suggest that the same is true of "spiritual therapy?"  Studying to better oneself often hurts as we begin to see faults we have ignored.  Sometimes it hurts so much that we just blind ourselves to what we see.  James describes something similar:  But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (Jas 1:22-25).
            And then there are the "wounds" that a brother can inflict with rebukes, reproaches, or sometimes just an exhortation.  No matter how carefully he words it, it will not be any fun to listen to, any more than physical therapy is fun.  Yet, a real friend often knows best what we need to hear at the moment, and if his friendship is true, he will rub those sore spots until they grow better. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; But the kisses of an enemy are profuse (Prov 27:6).   Too often we prefer the flattery, and our souls will suffer even greater pain if we give in to that preference.
            So give yourself some spiritual therapy today.  You will feel all the better for it, and be in better spiritual shape too.
 
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it… (Ps 141:5).
 
Dene Ward

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, Eph 5:25
            Abraham married his half-sister Sarah.  He was surrounded by polygamy.  His friends and neighbors in Ur and later in Canaan were likely polygamists. He was wealthy and polygamy was far more common among the rich.  It took money to support several wives and a few dozen children.  And—Sarah had not given him an heir.  That alone would have been cause for the men of that place and era to find a second, or even third wife.  I can just imagine a neighbor stopping by and saying, "Abraham, my daughter is marriageable now.  She is healthy and could give you the children Sarah has not."  I can even imagine that happening several times. 
            But Abraham did not succumb for decades.  He was 85 when Sarah finally prevailed upon him to take Hagar as a second wife, a concubine since she was a servant.  (Concubines are wives of second rank. Gen 16:3).  It took Sarah's great love for her husband and great faith in the plan of God—that there had to be an heir for the promises to come about—before he would even think of doing so.
            Somehow, this man of God had learned the Divine Plan of God for marriage—one man for one woman for one lifetime—and had lived up to it, even among rampant, and culturally acceptable, polygamy.  This man had learned to love his wife "as his own body" thousands of years before Paul put it into words.
            We miss all that because none of us would have ever even dreamed of polygamy to solve the problem.   We miss it because monogamy is second nature to us.  We miss the love this man had for his wife, even after she had grown old and unable to bear him a child, a child God said had to be born for all those promises He made to come about.  Still he was willing to wait, willing to be satisfied with the woman he had originally chosen, when no one else he knew would have.
            And how many of us become dissatisfied over the trivial, dissatisfied enough to trade one in for a new model, as the old saying goes?  How many of us can match the devotion these two people had for each other through thick or thin, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse?  How many of us jump at the first "worse" there is to get out of it?
            See what you miss when you don't study the culture of the times?  See what you miss when you think we are so much smarter, so much wiser, so much more knowledgeable about God than those ancient people were?  Drop your baggage at the door and see what they have to teach you.
 
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Eph 5:28-31)
 
Dene Ward

What busy mother doesn’t love a one dish meal?  Whether a casserole, a Dutch oven, or a crockpot, that dish satisfies all the nutritional needs of the family, leaving little mess and full tummies. 
            Soups and stews, pot roasts, and pot pie may be the stuff of one pot wonders, but there are many others in the pantheon of gustatory delights that I have used.  If I have time, I may add some homemade bread, or maybe a salad, but those are redundant when the meat, starch, and vegetables are already included inside that single beautiful piece of steaming kitchenware.  I have a particular fondness for a half Swiss steak-half steak Creole concoction, braised in a tomato-y, herby vegetable sauce, dolloped with cheese grits.
            I was reading several passages the other morning when the thought crossed my mind that God’s Word is the ultimate one-dish meal for the soul. 
            It creates faith at the very outset of your relationship with God, Rom 10:17. 
            It instructs and enlightens, 1 Cor 10:11; Eph 3:3-5.
           It gives you a scolding when you need it, 2 Tim 3:16,17, and encourages you when you need a boost, Rom 15:4.
            It reminds you when you have forgotten, 2 Pet 3:1, and comforts you when the pain is overwhelming, 1 Thes 4:18.
            It can reveal your heart if you are brave enough to listen, Heb 4:12, and defeat the enemy if you wield it faithfully, Eph 6:17.
            The Word of God is indeed a one dish meal, satisfying all the spiritual needs of those who partake.  The world will tell you it’s irrelevant, out-dated and obsolete, that things have changed too much for it to be of any use to you at all.  Yet Jesus quoted an Old Testament that was just as far removed from him in time as the New is from us as if it was as pertinent as the latest newsflash.  For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, 1 Cor 1:18.
            From the feast of Psalm 119 to the quick power snack of passages like Rom 1:16, the Word of God will strengthen your faith, purify your heart, and save your soul--“words whereby you shall be saved,” the angel promised Cornelius, and sent those words with a preacher.
            Keep yourself healthy.  “Eat these words,” God told Ezekiel in Ezek 3:1, just like your mother telling you to eat your vegetables.  She knew what was best for you, and so does He.  
           
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16
 
Dene Ward