I told you yesterday that I had googled “reasons for abortion” and had found a couple of articles, but in that post I only told you about one of them.  I also found one of the most self-serving articles I have ever read with a title so long I won’t bother now to type it out, but it started, “Ten Reasons I am Pro-Abortion,” and the author is Valerie Tarico.  Let’s just go over some of her statements today.
            1.  Abortion is “fundamental to female empowerment and equality.”  What is this world all about any more except me and my rights?  We fight this in the church all the time, just as Paul fought it in the first century.  We are to be willing to “suffer wrong,” actually yielding our rights for the sake of others--I Cor 6,8, Rom 14, Phil 2—need I go on?  The whole mentality is the opposite of being Christlike.  Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Rom 15:1-3.  Yielding our rights and subjecting ourselves to one another, whether male or female, is what Christianity is all about.
            2.  Taking pregnancy “as it happens” instead of planning it, and by inference removing what is unplanned, “trivializes pregnancy.”  On the contrary, treating pregnancy like something listed on a schedule trivializes it.  Babies are not some kind of item we need to remember to pick up at the market before we get home, or can toss in the trash if we don’t want them.  Even when it just “happens,” the people of God have always considered …children a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:3
            3.  “Real people” are more important than a fetus.  And there you have the perennial justification.  A fetus is not a person.  God says otherwise, period.  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jer 1:5.  But our society no longer has any respect for God or his Word, and with that perspective it can justify anything.  This woman even compared an unborn child to a hamster, and the hamster came out ahead.
            4 and 5.  Abortion can “fix our mistakes” or “fix tragic accidents.”  We now live in a society that blames our mistakes on others, or that thinks we should bear no consequences from them.  Unfortunately life is not like that and trying to pretend that it ought to be is foolish.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7.  Indeed this argument is not about fixing mistakes or accidents, but about making me unaccountable for my sin.  There we go again—sin, a horribly old-fashioned word for something that no longer exists anyway, not to a godless society.
            6.  Abortion is “good economics.”  And by that of course, we are talking about having the money to raise a child.  I am so happy for her that she is part of a family that can eventually reach a point where they can “afford” a child.  If we had waited till we could have afforded them, we would never have had children at all.  Is she saying in all her wisdom that poor people should be neutered?  My children survived on hand-me-downs and happiness.  I do not believe either one of them feels deprived.  ​“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ​Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matt 6:25-30.
            7 and 8.  Abortion is “a way to form a family of your own choosing,” and not having access to legal abortion would be “a violation of our values.”  Let me be clear that I am not against contraceptive measures being used by a married couple.  I am not against choosing the number of children you want to have as far as you can control with those contraceptive measures.  Medical science has made that possible today without the killing of conceived infants.  However, notice the attitude in these two statements.  It’s all about me and what I think, not about the eternal principles of right and wrong.  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! Isa 5:20-21.
           9 and 10.  Abortion is for the sake of the “happiness of the unborn” and to “give them a healthier start.”  What we’re talking about here is aborting defective babies.  As someone who was born with a birth defect, let me tell you exactly how angry this one makes me.  Does this writer think I am not happy?  Does she think I was not loved and cared for like a “perfect” child?  How dare she make those judgments for me and intimate that it would have been better for me if I had not been born!  How dare she say that I was not worth the trouble and expense to my parents or society!
          But folks, we will never win this argument because as Christians we will never come at it from the perspective of selfishness, materialism, and irreverence.  And we have no hope against someone who claims that her views on abortion prove that she “believes in mercy, grace, and compassion.”  We obviously do not even speak the same language.
          At some point, our task becomes one of keeping ourselves from being infected by this insidious attitude.  We must avoid anything that smacks of selfishness.  We must treat all things spiritual as the priority in our lives.  We must hold God and His Word in reverence, obeying every command and living a life of holiness and righteousness.  We may never change the minds of the godless, but we can keep our own hearts pure, and our actions and attitudes mirror images of the Lord’s. 
 
 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:11-12
 
Dene Ward

It was my ten year high school reunion, the only one I have ever attended.  I graduated in a class of 800 so I wasn’t exactly pining to see a lot of close, old friends.  I did manage to find four I had known fairly well, but even that turned into a bit of a fiasco.  That sweet girl, someone I thought of as like-minded in her dress, speech, and actions, whose boyfriend became a West Point cadet, both of whom were decidedly to the right in their politics, was now, ten years later, an abortion clinic nurse.  I was absolutely flabbergasted and physically ached when I heard it.
            So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of.  He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé.  She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating.  “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.
            “An abortion,” she immediately replied.  “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it?  Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child?  And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments?  Her life will be ruined.”
            All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch.  “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.
            Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly.  I did.  One article listed these:  poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think.  There it is in a nutshell:  Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was.  And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.   
And where would we all be because, congratulations!  You just murdered the Messiah. 
            Aren’t we glad she did not?
 
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42

Dene Ward

This is one of those announcements that is difficult to make without it sounding like something it is not.  It is not meant to be an advertisement or solicitation of any sort, and certainly not a plea for sympathy.  I hope you will understand as I explain.
            If you know me personally, or have simply read the About Dene page on the Flight Paths blog, you know that I have vision issues.  God has been gracious to me, allowing a very long reprieve as these issues have progressed.  As always, my prayers have been, "Thy will be done," so if He chooses to end this reprieve I can only thank Him for the extra time He has given me to teach and write, when I have been told that I should not have been able to see past the age of twenty, and, "This usually lasts 3 to 5 years" fifteen years ago. Things are beginning to change.  I am praying that these "things" are inconsequential as they have been for so long, but when your doctor says, "You are no longer stable—you are worsening," they might have more meaning than one would wish.
            That means I have new motivation to teach and write.  I am now working harder on a new lesson series after having several ask me to have it printed.  The Teacher's Manual is in progress and I am hoping for everything to be ready to go to print next summer.  And now that Covid is also slowing down and things are getting back to normal, I actually have speaking engagements on my calendar.  As to that…
            If you have ever considered it, let me encourage you, due to my doctor's warning, to stop putting it off.  Nothing thrills me more than to meet the people who read my blog and others who just love to learn about the Word of God.  There are so many hungering for deeper study and meditation.  But let me quickly talk about some of the questions you may have.
            It doesn't matter how many.  I have spoken to as few as 9 or 10 or as many as 300 women.
            It doesn't matter where we do it.  I have spoken in college auditoriums and in church auditoriums.  I have spoken in lodges and in Bible class rooms.  I have spoken in hotel ballrooms and even in a rented monastery.  One of the church "auditoriums" I spoke in was actually the family room of a house the church was then meeting in.  I will emulate Lydia and meet by the river if we need to.
            It needn't be elaborate.  Sometimes it is an overnight affair in a hotel.  Sometimes it is a morning of two or three sessions followed by a potluck put on by the class members.  Sometimes we all go out to a local restaurant afterward and enjoy a Dutch treat lunch together.  More than once I have shaken everyone's hand as they left and that was that.  See?  Anything goes with these things.  As long as I get to teach I am happy.
            You do not have to scour the landscape looking for other speakers.  Several times I have done the whole day all by myself, as many as three sessions with 10 minute breaks in between.  And I now have a daughter-in-law, a professor, who has begun doing these things as well.  We laughed and said we could do a whole day together and bill ourselves as "Ward Women for the Word!"
            Timing is not that much of an issue.  One time I taught all Saturday morning in one place, then got in the car and taught all Sunday afternoon 200 miles south of there.  I am very flexible and we can work things out.
            You do not have to come up with elaborate themes unless you want to.  I can certainly do a requested topic, but I also have twenty+ years' worth of speeches I can sift through and give you choices from.  Or you can just trust me to know what is needed everywhere, because believe me, people are all the same—except maybe whether or not they like sweet tea or grits.
            And it doesn't matter if I have been there before.  I have been to several areas more than once.
            If you have other questions, please put them in the comments section.  I am sure someone else has the same questions.  And remember, I have no idea how much time I may have.  My eyes are already "living on borrowed time," and I want to help as many as possible before it is too late.  And let's make this the lesson for the day—none of us knows what changes tomorrow may bring to our lives, and none of us knows how much time we have left.  Act today as if you knew there would be no tomorrow, because there might not be.
            Thank you all for your support and the kind messages and comments you often send.  Meanwhile I am praying harder for this notice to have been totally unnecessary.  On the other hand, if I get to meet more of you wonderful sisters sooner, well, maybe it was worth writing.
 
I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my [eyes may] be soon… (2Pet 1:13-14).
 
Dene Ward

"Why do you have to know that stuff anyway?"
            This one I heard after we had studied the Minor Prophets on Wednesday evenings several years ago.  Why should we be studying all these old stuffy hellfire and brimstone preachers when they aren't even talking about us anyway?
            Aren't they?  The biggest mistake we can make is to assume that things in the Bible do not apply to us.  Why in the world do we think God saved them for us?  For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom 15:4).  By studying how God dealt with those people we can learn the character and nature of God.  We can learn what pleases and displeases him.  Sadly, we can learn that we aren't really any different from those people and our nation is going the way of that one.  That makes those passages a warning we need to heed if we hope to survive where they did not.
            But sometimes I hear from young women teaching my own Bible study material in other places that they not only hear that question, they also have people actually becoming upset because things are being taught that they never heard before, and that their old view of a specific Bible event was inaccurate.  Never mind that these "new things" are solidly supported by scripture or other documentation.  If they didn't know it or never heard it, it can't be true or if it is, it can't be important.  That is exactly what our friends and neighbors do when we try to teach them the truth of the Bible.  Any excuse is good enough if it gets us off the hook.
            But why would anyone want to find an excuse not to learn something new?  Yes, it changes a lot of preconceived notions and wrong pictures we have in our heads about Biblical narratives when we do a little study of culture, when we carefully read and reread the scripture and actually find things we have missed all these years.  And that means we have probably been teaching our children wrong things, too.  Check those Bible story pictures we put out for them to color.  A lot of them are just plain wrong!  Don't we want to teach our children correctly?  We had better because God will hold us accountable for what we teach.  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness (Jas 3:1).
            "But it's such a little thing," I often hear about some of the things that I point out.  Well, it may be, but what about the next thing and the next?  As one of my newer students said in class one day, "You keep getting the little things wrong and soon the whole thing is wrong."  As another one put it, "Knowing things like ages [that take time and math to figure out] can help you understand motivations better.  Suddenly it makes sense that Rebekah would follow her husband's instructions about pretending to be his sister when you know he was old enough to be her father and she was very young."  It might not make it right, but you can see how it would happen much more easily.
            And really, how can anyone ever say about the Word of God, "Why do we have to know that stuff anyway?"  Doesn't that display an attitude we should abhor?  There may be deeper things that we can learn over time because they do not affect the "now" urgency of salvation, but that doesn't mean we ignore them forever.  It should mean we are more eager to get to them than ever before.
 
Give instruction to a wise person, and he will become wiser still; ​​​​​​teach a righteous person and he will add to his learning. Prov 9:9
 
Dene Ward

Neighbors are different out in the country.  First of all, they are a whole lot further away.  Instead of zero lot line houses barely five feet apart, they are 5 to 50 acres apart.  You seldom even see one another to wave, except maybe at the lineup of mailboxes out on the highway.  In the country, if you want to see your neighbors, you have to make it happen.
            In the city a good neighbor often boils down to this:  he’s quiet and doesn’t cause any trouble.  There may be a particular neighbor or two you really become friends with, taking turns having one another over for dinner, going fishing together, loaning your lawn mower and babysitting once in a while, but the rest are confined to a nod when you pass one another on the street and a quick word over the backyard fence if you both happen to be out at the same time.
            In the country, because you are so far out of town and away from help, “neighbor” takes on a much larger meaning.  The very lifestyle means you have far more need of one another.  You pull one another’s vehicles out of the mud.  You tag team generators when the power goes out for more than a couple of hours.  You feed one another’s livestock when the other one has to be out of town a few days.  You swap garden tilling for tractor mowing and tomatoes for blueberries.  You help one another shell peas and shuck corn, and then work together one hot afternoon to get it all put up.  You help load sick, but heavy, pets in the pickup for a trip to the vet.  You trade shooting lessons for help wiring the shed.  You loan cars when one is in the shop, or chauffeur a sick neighbor to the doctor if you need it yourself.  If a widow is alone, you load up her woodstove and get it set, ready to light on a cold night.  If a husband is away and there is a household emergency—like the refrigerator door falling off!—you head down the lane immediately and screw it back on.  When a storm passes through and leaves a live oak half out of the ground leaning over a house, all the neighbors drop everything and run with their tractors, chains and chainsaws to help.  There is something a little more primal about being a neighbor in the country.
            We’ve had neighbors like that and we’ve tried to be neighbors like that in return.  I think it’s the sort of thing Jesus had in mind when he told the story of the Good Samaritan.  This isn’t a matter of borrowing a cup of sugar.  It isn’t about keeping the TV low in the wee hours or not parking on someone else’s property.  It’s about real life and death matters, real trials and suffering, and aiding in whatever way you can.
           Maybe the Levite and the priest were used to city neighbors.  This guy on the side of the road certainly wasn’t being a good neighbor to them, causing them all sorts of trouble and a delay in their schedules if they had stopped to help.  But the truth is, you can be a bad neighbor anywhere, country or city, and the Lord expects a whole lot more from us than that.  He expects us to do just as that Samaritan did, helping beyond the expected—just think what a couple night’s lodging would cost today—and yes, for a perfect stranger.  Was he a good guy or a good-for-nothing?  We don’t know and that’s the point.  If someone needs our help, we help, even a stranger and even when we don’t have time to check and see if we are being good stewards of our money.
           “Love thy neighbor as thyself” was recognized by Jews as the second greatest commandment.  Yet they argued long and hard over who exactly their “neighbor” was.  It most cases it boiled down to a good practicing Jew.  We’re big on castigating those Pharisaical Jews who knew the Law but explained it away.  I think we just might have the same problem.
 
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Gal 5:14)
 
Dene Ward

God c[ould], had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic son who let no sigh escape him.  Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane.  Otherwise we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any importance.  We should also have missed the all important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin.  If He had been incarnate in a man of immense natural courage, that w[ould] have been for many of us almost the same as His not being incarnate at all. 

C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper, as quoted in The Eye of the Beholder:  The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage, by Lydia McGrew, DeWard Publishing.
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Every spring we see a lot of birds passing through on their migration back north, kinds we never see otherwise in this warm climate.  Sandhill cranes fly right over us following the same flight path as the jets, helicopters, and blimps, from our southeast corner to our northwest boundary post.  You can hear them coming from miles away.  A couple of goldfinches visit our feeder for two or three days in the spring and fall.  Their bright yellow is hard to miss, even for me.  A painted bunting thrills us with his lightning quick “here and gone” visits.  A blue grosbeak couple spend a few weeks with us every other year or so.  They actually take the time to nest and breed before moving on.
            A few weeks ago we had another two day visitor—a woodcock.  He’s an odd-looking fellow, a foot long or less, with a chunky body, a striped head and a very long and thin bill.  He looks a bit like a bent old man with a cane.  I watched as he walked around the foot of the feeder, poking that bill into the ground again and again like a baker checking for the doneness of her cake.  Suddenly he plunged his beak to the hilt, then began pumping away.  He’s found something, I thought, and sure enough he began to pull up a long black worm.  The worm did its best to hold onto the last clod of dirt, stretching like melted cheese on a pizza, but eventually he popped out and the woodcock downed him in the blink of an eye.  The next day the woodcock was gone too, another sojourner on his way home.
            We sing a song:  “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.”  Is that how we really feel?  Those migrating birds have no problem leaving behind feeders full of seeds that magically replenish themselves.  They’re here and gone without a thought for what’s left behind.  Even the grosbeaks who stay long enough to build a nest and raise a few chicks will up and leave as soon as the task is accomplished.
            And what do we do but spend our time, money, and effort on the temporary with little thought for the eternal.  We don’t just build a nest, we build a monument.  “This is where someone like me ought to be living and this is the type of house I ought to have in the neighborhood I ought to have it.”  Would we spend that much time, money, and effort on a motel room?  Because that’s all this world is.  How about spending that much time, money, and effort on the treasure in heaven?
            You’re just a goldfinch passing though for a couple of days.  Even the birds know where home really is.
 
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Heb 11:13-16)

After teaching an overview of the prophets in my Ladies' Bible Class, I really wanted to do a deeper study of Jeremiah.  But Jeremiah is a daunting book.  Perhaps not as daunting as Zechariah or Revelation, but close.  It does not help that the book is not chronological.  That means that even if you know your Bible history fairly well, you find yourself a bit confused in this book of figures, parables, sermons, and disordered historical events.
            So when I came across this little (just over 200 pages) book by this brother of excellent scholarly reputation, I was anxious to give it a try.  It has certainly delivered.  However, that does not mean this is an easy study.  What the author has done is make a study of Jeremiah as easy as it possibly can be. 
            Brother Mott divides Jeremiah into sections that are easily manageable by someone with limited time, sometimes one chapter more or less, sometimes two.  Each section in turn is divided into smaller sections.  My system went as follows.  I read the introduction to the entire section in the book.  Then I read the first small section in Jeremiah, usually four or five verses.  After that, I read brother Mott's comments on those few verses, plus any other verses he may have referred to.  I kept going in that manner through the section, then at the end, read the larger section one more time through.  The questions I had were largely answered and my confusion about the time-frame straightened out.
            But I am not finished with this book.  Now I want to go through the whole process again, this time with a spiral notebook, making notes as I go so I will have a handy reference of my own in the future.  After that I might even want to teach the women a whole class on Jeremiah.  That's how good this handy guide is.
            Thinking Through Jeremiah is published by DeWard Publishing.

Dene Ward

After two weeks of feeling absolutely horrible, I was beginning to recover.  I could sit up, I could read a book and understand the words, I was even a little hungry.  Then the phone rang, and I received the best medicine there is.  A sweet young man said, "I just wanted to see if you were feeling better, because you're da bomb, Grandma!" 
            I have never been called "da bomb."  Never in my life has anyone else considered me "da bomb."  So, coming from such an expert on the subject, I suddenly felt not a little better, but a whole lot better.  Grandchildren have a way of doing that to us, don't they?  In fact, I can think of only one other source of compliment that might feel any better.
            And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”  (Job 1:8).
            The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 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 18:17-19).
            God complimented both Job and Abraham yet, as nearly as I can tell from reading these passages, neither of them knew anything about it.  Wouldn't it be uplifting to know that God had complimented you to someone?  Wouldn't it make you try even harder to please him?  I am sure it would have done the same to both Abraham and Job.  So why didn't God make sure they knew about it?
            I have a theory about this.  It's not that hard to know if God will compliment you or not.  The Word of God, which we hold in our hands, tells us exactly the sorts of things that please him, and somehow, long before it was written, Job and Abraham knew those things as well.
            Those of crooked heart are an abomination to the LORD, but those of blameless ways are his delight (Prov 11:20).
            His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love (Ps 147:10-11).
            Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight," declares the LORD (Jer 9:23-24).
            Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God (Heb 13:16).
            I could multiply passages like these for pages and pages.  These are the things that "delight" God and "please" him.  If he were in a complimenting mood, the people who live this way would get a compliment on the same order as Job's and Abraham's.  Fear God, hope in him, trust him, truly know him by knowing his Word, live righteously and blamelessly, share with those less fortunate, and love everyone, even your enemies.  Do all those things, and anything else you can find in that Word, and God is giving you a compliment, whether you know it now or not.  Someday, you will hear it yourself.
            "Well done, good and faithful servant."
 
With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ​Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  (Mic 6:6-8).
 
Dene Ward

For their seventh and fourth birthdays, which we celebrated together, we gave our grandsons scooters.  They were small scooters, starter scooters, I called them, about like a skateboard with a handle.  But they were thrilled.  If ever we got a gift right, we seem to have that time.  Before long they were zooming around like little speed demons.
            Of course, four year old Judah was not quite up to his older brother’s antics.  He tried his best to follow him in the same places, at the same speed, and usually wound up losing it on a curve.  Finally he stopped, turned down his little lip and said, “I can’t do it good.”
            Of course he could; he was doing just fine for his age.  He just couldn’t do what his big brother could.  While there isn’t much difference between forty-four and forty-seven, there is a lot of difference between four and seven.
            And too often that’s what we do.  We judge ourselves against people who are older, wiser, and more experienced.  I see this woman handling a life threatening illness like cancer and I can’t even handle the flu without getting grumpy and complaining.  One man sees another teach an outstanding class on Zechariah and he can’t even give a decent five-minute Wednesday night talk.  And both become so depressed they stop doing what they can do.
And if we aren’t careful, instead of gradually growing and learning how, we give up too.  Or we blame it on God for our lack of talent, or on our parents for not making us do our lessons as children, or for not taking us to church, or on the church for not using us as we “ought to be used,” regardless of what we can and cannot do.  Any of those is our handy alibi for sitting down and doing nothing.
            The day that Judah complained was a Sunday.  “Guess what?” I asked him. 
            His big blue eyes turned up to me as he said, “What?”
          “Tomorrow is Monday and Silas will be at school.  That means you can practice your scooter all day if you want to and before long, you will be as good as he is.  And by his age, maybe even better!”
           He gave me a lop-sided grin like he wasn’t sure about that.  “Really?” he asked.
           “Really!”  I said.  And he hasn’t given up.  He knows he needs to work at it, but he also knows that he will get better.  He already has.
           And that’s what we need to remember.  Plus this: God doesn’t compare us to brother or sister Whozit.  He knows what we can and cannot do.  He is the one who decides what we are capable of—not us!  And if we keep on trying, we will “do it good,” good enough to please a gracious Father.
 
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1Pet 2:1-3)