It was an accident that I saw it.  A bluebird landed on the birdbath and I thought it a little drab, so I looked it up in the bird book and there it was, the bird yes, but also this sentence:  "Like the blue jay, the bluebird isn't really blue."

              I looked again.  Sure looked blue to me.  In fact, the photographer had taken a pretty good picture of it in my book and it was blue there, too.  So what's up with this, I wondered?

              "Feather colors are determined either by pigments, called pigmented colors, or by light refraction called structural colors. Feathers contain two types of pigments. The melanins are sharply outlined, microscopic particles we see as black, dull yellow, red and brown. The lipochrome pigments are diffused in fat droplets and produce brighter yellows, reds and oranges…When sunlight strikes a bluejay feather, the beam passes through the barb's transparent outer layer to the air-filled cavities that scatter the blue light and absorb the longer red wavelengths. Any transmitted light that remains after passing through the box cells is completely absorbed by the melanin. The blue we perceive is actually enhanced in intensity by the underlying melanin-rich black layer."  (Anita Carpenter, Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine, February 2003.)  Turns out, according to Ms. Carpenter, that blue jays and bluebirds are actually black.

              So, it's a trick of the light, basically, and she also says that the angle from which you look can actually change the blue you see a little bit.  But if you are familiar with the gospels the business about light shouldn't surprise you.

              There are a lot of black-hearted folks out there who do their best to look blue.  Just like the woman in Proverbs 7, they change the word and that keeps it from being sin, they think.  "Let us take our fill of love," she says, when what it is, is "adultery."  In fact, "Making love" in our society can be anything from pure married love to fornication, incest, and homosexuality.  What makes it which?  The light of the Word, that's what.

              ​And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ​For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

            Think about it.  When do most crimes occur?  At night.  What is one thing a lot of people do to deter it?  Leave lights on. 

            The gospel is God's power to salvation, but only for those who will come to its light and repent of their deeds of darkness.  It is no wonder that the Bible is no longer revered in some circles, that it is considered a book of myths, that it is in fact, a book of "Abominable Verses"  (look it up online if you want to see ignorance and lack of context to the nth degree). 
​
            But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:21)  When we are doing right, we don't mind the light.  We know that we will be justified in our works by the Truth of God's Word.  We will in due time become the "light of the world" ourselves when we live by it and the Light personified.

            The light will make our feathers blue, and the black underneath will no longer exist.  It will be washed clean and white.
 
For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” (Acts 13:47)
 

I apologize for that, but I just don’t know what else to call it.  Chloe has a cold.  I never knew a dog could get a cold.  It has been typical of a human cold.  She felt miserable for two or three days, and then she started coming out of it, once again running to greet us when we step outdoors, and racing the couple hundred yards to the gate to meet us when we come home.  And, just like a human cold, the runny nose lingers on.  She never coughed or that would have lingered too, just as Keith’s has for over three months now.

              But this nose thing is almost intolerable.  Let me put it like this:  when a dog blows its nose, you had better stand way back. 

              She comes out every morning trying to clean out her pipes, clearing her throat and spitting, blowing her nose and sneezing--just like her master, except he knows to use a handkerchief.  Chloe on the other hand looks just plain disgusting. 

              I am sure you remember how it was when your toddler had a cold and you couldn’t follow him around all day wiping his nose.  You really did have diapers to wash, and meals to fix, and floors to mop, and on and on, a never ending list.   Suddenly he would come running to share with you a tot-sized marvel, and you would look up and, even if you didn’t say it, you would think, “Gross!” and grab a Kleenex to wipe up what was, um, hanging.  Well, with a dog, multiply that several times--and add a few inches. 

              And just like a child, Chloe most certainly does not appreciate it when you wipe her nose.  She has learned to recognize the restroom variety brown paper towels that hang on the carport, and runs when she sees one in Keith’s hand.  As much as I hate to do it to her, when she flees to me for help, I grab her collar and hold her still so he can indeed, clean up that repulsive little schnozzle.  I found out the hard way what happens if you don’t.  Not only will she sneeze on you, but she will then wipe that nose all by herself--on your hem, or your shirtsleeve, or your jeans, or whatever else she can reach, mixed in with whatever dust or dirt she has lain in.  It is repulsive and the only way it comes off is in the washing machine.

              Are you thoroughly grossed out now?  What do you think when you see a friend with a bad case of sin?  Do you act like it isn’t there?  Are you afraid of losing him to correction?  Do you sympathize with him if anyone does care enough to try to help, joining in your friend’s criticism of their methods, their words, even their motivation—as if you could read minds?  Do you just go along like nothing has happened, like it won’t make any difference to them or you or anyone else?

              Sin is disgusting, especially in someone who claims to live a life of purity.  It will keep him from eternal life just as surely as a nose full of snot will keep a child from breathing well.  It will drip all over him in one disgusting glob and affect the lives of others who see him.  And if you stay too close, it will get on you too.  How can it not?

              Think about that special friend right now.  Everyone has one—someone you love who has lost his way.  Are you going to allow your friend to continue in this revolting situation, or do you love him enough to grab a spiritual paper towel and wipe his nose?
 
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh, Jude 1:20-23.
 
Dene Ward

We had no land when we first moved to the country and were forced to rent a house in the hamlet nearby.  We were only in that big old frame house for 5 months, but I will never forget it.  Uneven flooring, tall drafty ceilings, and, when we moved in, no heat and no running water.  It was January 1st.  We sat around the table in hats and coats eating oatmeal or soup for every meal, and hauling water in buckets.  Eventually the truck company next door let us hook our garden hose to their well spigot.  We pulled the hose through an inch wide gap under the kitchen window and ran it into the sink beneath, which at least made the haul shorter. 

              After about a week the well man came out and fixed the pump, and the gas man filled the tank.  Still it wasn’t warm.  Room-sized gas space heaters in the bathroom, kitchen, and living room did little to mollify the effects of fifteen foot ceilings and cracks between the planks in the floor through which we could see the ground three feet beneath.  It was the coldest winter I remember in this area—but maybe it was just that house.

              When early spring rolled around I remember standing on the back stone steps in the sun—probably for the warmth.  Keith was on his haunches petting the dog, a black and brown mixed breed we had picked up at the pound a year earlier and named Ezekiel.  The boys were standing next to him listening, probably to some daddy advice.  They were 4 and 2, oblivious to our living conditions, and perfectly happy. 

              Suddenly the breeze picked up and over the house something floated down out of the sky and landed across Keith’s shoulders, hanging down on each side of his chest.  It was a snakeskin.  When we figured out what it was, he couldn’t get it off fast enough.  It must have been four feet long, with perfect scale imprints all along its length.  It creeped me out, as the kids say these days.  I still shudder when I think of it.  Maybe that’s why I still remember that house so well.

              I remembered that house and that event again recently when we passed a fifty gallon drum by the woodpile and there lying across it was another perfect snakeskin, three feet long, hanging over each side of the barrel.  They still give me the creeps when I see them, or the heebie jeebs, or whatever you choose to call that horrible feeling that runs down your spine, makes you shiver to your shoes and your hair stand on end.  Maybe it’s because I know that somewhere nearby there is a real snake.  I can’t pretend there aren’t any out there simply because I haven’t seen one lately.

              I’m sure you could make a list of things that give you that feeling.  What worries me is that nowhere on anyone’s list is the three letter word “sin.”  It ought to give us the creeps to be around it, to see its effects on the world, people fulfilling their every lust, their hearts full of hate and envy and covetousness, lying as easily as they breathe.  It ought to make us shiver to hear the Lord’s name taken in vain from nearly every mouth, even children, or the coarse, crude, vulgar language that passes for conversation—and entertainment!-- these days.  Why?  Because you can be positive the Devil is somewhere nearby.  He’s just waiting to drop out of nowhere and drape his arm around your shoulder.  Before you know it, you will be dressing like everyone else, talking like everyone else, and acting like everyone else.  In short, you will be like everyone else, walking around swathed in snakeskin, hugging it to yourself instead of ripping it off in disgust.  

              Don’t think it can’t happen to you, especially if sin doesn’t give you the creeps to begin with. 
 
The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate... Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph…Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good, Prov 8:13; Amos 5:14,15; Rom 12:9.
 
Dene Ward

I’ve heard it all my life:  you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Imagine my surprise to find out you can catch quite a few flies with vinegar after all. 

              I read it in a cooking magazine.  Most gnats are fruitflies.  If you are having trouble with gnats in your kitchen, fill a small dish with vinegar, squeeze a drop of two of dishwashing liquid on it and set it out where you have the most gnats.  What interests a fruitfly is the vinegars formed in the rotten fruit, and that bowl of vinegar spells “rotten fruit” to their little sensory receptors.  Because of the surface tension on water, a fruitfly can land and not sink, but that drop of dishwashing liquid breaks the tension.  They land and sink, drowning immediately.

              I put one of these dishes out one day and an hour later found 18 little black specks lying on the bottom, never to buzz in my house again.  Now, every summer, I have two or three custard cups of apple cider vinegar lying around my house, and far fewer gnats than ever before.

              One of the cups sits on the window sill next to the chair that overlooks the bird feeder.  That bird feeder attracts more than its fair share of gnats in the summer too, and I have a suspicion that most of the gnats in the house sneak through the cracks around that window.  The screen is gone so I can see the birds better and the double window is up a foot so I have a place for my coffee cup on the sill.  That lack of triple protection means they can get in easier than anywhere else in the house except an open door.

              So the other afternoon I sat down to rest a bit after canning a bushel of tomatoes.  Keith was emptying the residual garbage pails of skins and seeds, and dumping the heavy pots of boiling water outside so the house wouldn’t heat up yet more from the steam.  I had just replaced the vinegar in the dish a few minutes before. 

              A gnat suddenly buzzed my face and I shooed it away.  He came back, but this time he headed straight for the window.  “Aha!” I thought.  If I just sat still I could see how it actually happened.  It was a real life lesson.

              He had gotten “wind” of the vinegar somehow and flew over to check it out at a prudent distance of eight or ten inches, which is several thousand times the body length of a gnat I imagine, and was certainly safe.  He flew away, but within a few seconds he was back.  This time he flew a little closer, maybe half the distance he had before.

              That happened several times with the gnat coming in closer and closer on each pass.  Finally, he landed on the window sill a couple of inches from the custard cup.  I could just imagine him sitting there tensed up and waiting for something to happen, then finally relaxing as he discovered that whatever danger he had imagined wasn’t there. 

              He flew again, but not away.  This time he hovered over the cup, doing figure eights two or three inches above the surface of the vinegar.  Then he landed on the lip of the custard cup.  At that point I imagine the fumes from the fresh vinegar were nearly intoxicating.  All that rotten fruit right down there for the taking, and besides, he had never had trouble before landing on a piece of bruised, decaying fruit, and this one was obviously an apple, one of the best.

              So he flew yet again, circling closer and closer to the surface.  “Now,” he must have thought as he landed on what he was sure was a solid chunk of overripe Macintosh, or Jonathan, or Red Rome, and promptly sank into the vinegar.  He didn’t even wiggle—it was over that fast, his drowning in what he thought was safe, in a place where nothing bad had ever happened to him before. 

              It works this way for humans too, you know.  What are you hovering over today?
 
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly: At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder. Proverbs 23:31-32.

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Proverbs 22:5.
 
Dene Ward
 

I have a feeling that some of Bella and Chloe’s playtime might have been a little unsettling to Bella’s youngest master.  Young wild animals learn survival skills through play—how to hunt and how to fight.  Even domesticated animals learn some of these things.  Puppies always engage in rough and tumble play, including baby nips and growls.  Chloe and Bella did the same, and being larger and older, it looked much fiercer.
 
             Teeth bared, growls ferocious, their muzzles tilted back and forth as if trying to find the best place to lock onto one another.  Larger Bella ran at Chloe and broadsided her, sending her rolling, then pounced on top.  In seconds, more experienced Chloe had her legs wrapped around Bella and flipped her over, like a wrestler reversing a pin.  Sometimes they ran headlong into one another like charging bulls and as they met, the saliva flew in all directions.  I learned to stand way back.

              How did I know this wasn’t real, that it was simply an older dog teaching a younger through play?  Because they never drew blood.  If you watched their mouths, neither ever closed tightly on the other dog’s body anywhere.  And when they finished, they stood panting for a few moments, energy spent, both tongues dangling toward the ground, looking at one another.  Often they would touch noses, then walk shoulder to shoulder back to the shade, Chloe under the truck and Bella under a tree—lesson for the day over.

              I remember a time when brethren could discuss things, even differing views on a passage, and each come away having learned something.  They could trust one another, not only to have each other’s best interest at heart, but also to listen and consider fairly, and never to become angry.  Even if voices rose, no blood was drawn, spiritually speaking, respect continued, and both left with more knowledge and insight.

              What has happened to us?  If someone disagrees with me, it makes me mad or it hurts my feelings, and either way I don’t like him any more.  It is no longer about learning and growing—it about winning arguments and putting people down.  Instead of being able to trust a person because he is a brother, one must try to find a brother he can trust, and it isn’t easy.  That’s not just a shame, it’s a tragedy.  If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21

              God meant us to learn and grow together, honing our skills and building one another up.  It might make us occasional sparring partners, but in that sparring we learn how to handle the word more accurately, we learn how to defeat the gainsayers who deny the Lord, and the false teachers who might be after our souls.  And after that sparring match, we “touch gloves” and leave with our love and respect intact.

              At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
 
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
 
Dene Ward

We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly.  By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field.  Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”

              Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property.  Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions.  Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic.  Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.

              It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede.  The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe.  As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head.  In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.

              I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice?  Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure.  Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep.  Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering.  All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.

              When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it?  God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone.  He meant for us to walk it together.  When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
 
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 m. Romans 15:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

A three consecutive-day series.  I hope you will check in all three days!

We are puppysitting for some friends, a four month old chocolate lab named Bella.  She is already taller than our full-grown Australian cattle dog, though not as heavy, a long-legged gangly dog still with a puppy mindset—which means faster is better than slower, all things are meant to be chewed upon, and play time is the only time. 

              Chloe, on the other hand, is middle-aged, 6½, or about 45 in dog years.  To her the best things in the world are a belly scratch, a chewy treat, and a nap, and one of the worst things in the world is a puppy being foisted upon her carefully controlled domain.  She learned quickly that Bella has difficulty getting under the truck—something about all those long knobby leg bones getting in the way—so she spends the vast majority of her day there while Bella roams about being a curious puppy.  Someone I know well has learned not to leave things lying about outside if he doesn’t want them ventilated with puppy-teeth holes, something I consider an unexpected benefit to Bella’s visit.

              Chloe is not a purely sedentary lap dog, though.  She enjoys nosing around some, and will run back and forth to the gate to greet us.  She walks around the property with me and often leaves me in the dust when she spies something interesting in the corner woods.  Bella is walking with us now.  Her nose is always in the air, and her ears cocked for any sounds that might drift our way—one neighbor’s baying bloodhound and the other’s crowing rooster, for example.  But she doesn’t listen long.  As soon as she determines the direction, she is off in a shot while Chloe listens a bit more, making a studied determination about whether the sound needs investigating or not.

              Bella thinks everything is a game.  She has no ability to distinguish when it’s time to be serious.  Chloe will stop for a drink and Bella will be all over her, standing in the water, stepping on the edge of the pan, causing it to tilt and spilling the water everywhere.  When a frog jumps in the old tubs Keith uses to soak his hickory wood for smoking meat, she jumps right in after it, NOT looking before she leaps, landing belly deep with a splash.  Reminds me of the puppy we had once who thought the rattlesnake next to the woodpile was a toy and tried to play with it.  We managed to get him away before he was bitten, but when we left for a camping trip, the neighbor found him one morning with fang marks in his neck.  Lucky for him, the skin there was loose and that’s all the snake got, not the muscle in his neck.

              Yet despite their own preferences, both of these dogs are adapting.  Chloe finally learned to quit running away and stand up for herself.  After a nip or two on the nose, Bella knows who the boss is now and she will actually “bow” before Chloe, lowering her height by crouching on her belly in front of her.  Chloe will now stand nose to nose with her, sniffing, and then suddenly take off in a run, looking behind to make sure Bella is chasing her.  Bella has learned to be a little more discreet and Chloe has learned that fun is still—well, fun, and it’s worth having some once in awhile.

              Older and younger people—older and younger Christians, no matter their physical age—need to learn from one another in the same way.  We teach our children not to go running down the halls, especially among older people who have issues with balance and might be knocked over.  A fall for the elderly could easily lead to a broken bone, and how many broken bones have led to a fatal case of pneumonia?  That’s not something a child would ever think of, which is why the adults must teach them.  In the same way, babes in Christ mustn’t go running helter-skelter down our spiritual halls with no concern about the fragile souls we might encounter.  Yet, the older ones need to learn that we must go out into those halls and encounter those souls, not sit quietly and safely in our pews.

              The younger must learn the need for wisdom and discretion and the value of quiet reverence, but the older must learn that “emotion” is not a four letter word. 

              The younger must learn respect for those they label “nay-sayers.”  They must realize that those old “fuddy-duddy” cautions come from concern for their younger souls’ safety and good, not from cowardice or a lack of faith.  The older must remind themselves that God called them to take a risk, to exercise their faith not to sit in dusty rooms discussing it.

              The younger in the faith and the older in the faith—we learn from each other, but not if we’re too busy putting one another down, refusing to listen to one another, with attitudes full of disrespect and disdain. 
 
The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair, Prov 20:29.
 
Dene Ward

When I was a city girl, nearly forty years ago, I was scared to death of snakes.  I still don’t like them.  The difference is I can tolerate a non-poisonous one on the property now, trusting they will pay their way with all the rodents they keep out of my house; and when a poisonous one comes along I don’t freeze or run around in circles, screaming in hysteria--I just dispose of the thing.

              You know the best way to kill a snake?  Well, it may not actually be the best way, but the city girl in me thinks it’s perfect—a shotgun full of number one shot.  For those of you who are still city folks, that’s a load for large animals, like deer.  We had a rattler once when Keith was at work, and even though I kept from freezing or panicking to the point of uselessness, I still forgot to unload the larger shot and replace it with number four, a load for smaller animals.  That means when I shot that snake with that huge shot, I blew it to smithereens.  As I said, I was extremely satisfied.

              Well—mostly satisfied.  The thing kept right on writhing.  Yes, I know all about their reflexes and that they thrash about after death.  But that thing was flexing and re-flexing entirely too much to suit me.  So I got the .22 pistol and put a few more shots in it.  Then, I was satisfied.  When I picked the thing up with the tines of the rake to throw it into the burn barrel, it hung in chunks connected only with a few strings of skin—and it didn’t wiggle at all.  Best looking rattlesnake I ever saw.  The boys can make fun of me all they want, and laugh about it as they have for the past thirty-something years, but that snake was dead and there was no question about it.

              Some of us don’t make sure the snake is dead.  In fact, we not only leave it writhing, we put it somewhere for safe keeping just in case it isn’t dead after all.  That’s how we treat repentance.  I know I shouldn’t be indulging, so let me put it up on the shelf instead of down here on the counter top where I can see it every day.  I mustn’t be that obvious about it.  No!  Let’s get it out of the house altogether!  Whatever it is.

              It doesn’t have to be a huge sin of the flesh.  It doesn’t have to be a bottle of booze or a stack of pornography.  Sometimes it’s a gossip-fest.  I know that my friend always dishes the dirt, but I still make plans to see her every week.  If for some reason I must see her, then I go with no plan for how to avoid the sin, and yesiree, it pops up and, I just couldn’t help it, Lord.  You know how she talks—and how I listen. 

              Whatever it is, God expects me to kill that snake and make sure it’s dead.  Another one may come my way, but there is really no good reason for the same one to be making an appearance over and over.  If it does, I didn’t use the buckshot--I just shot a BB and missed.

              Don’t cuddle up to a rattlesnake.  Kill the thing, and make sure it’s dead.
 
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:11-14
 
Dene Ward

We had a pleasant surprise this year.  Besides the usual wrens’ nest in every odd place you can imagine, we had two hawks’ nests.  Two!  Hawks are very territorial, but they had set up their nests on opposite sides of the property, one just inside the east fence, and one just inside the west fence, as far from each other as they could possibly be and still be on our property.

              We have learned a lot about these birds and knew when to start listening for baby hawk noises.  Finally one morning we realized the mother was no longer in the east nest.  We peered long with the binoculars and called up to the nest.  Nothing.  A few days later we finally saw the dirty white downy baby head and the big black eyes.               

              After another week the baby sat up tall and we had a clear view for the first time.  It isn’t a hawk—it’s an owl!  A barred owl.  Although they usually have one or two siblings, this one appears to be an only child.  Its mother usually sits nearby on a low branch in a live oak arching over the creek, a two foot high chunky brown and gray bird with a round head and no ear tufts, horizontal bars across its shoulders and vertical streaks running down its chest.  In the evenings she flies to the garden and sits on a tomato post, just as the hawks have done for years now, occasionally swooping down to the ground to find dinner for the nestling. 

              The hawks have hatched now as well, two downy white babies that sit in the nest and peer over at me when I make the trek to the west side of the property to talk with them.  Both of their parents sit nearby when they aren’t out hunting up food, circling above and screaming their distinctive cry.

              We could talk about those parents and the care they give—in fact, I have done that before.  We could talk about the way the father watches over the mother as she sets, bringing her food, then taking his turn to set when she needs a break.  We’ve done that too.  Today, I want to talk about this:  I can’t possibly watch both nests at once.  I have to walk the entire long side of the property to see one, and then back to see the other.  I have often seen the hawks as they first learn to fly.  I may miss that this time around if I am watching the owl learn to fly on the same day.  So?

              Have you ever heard someone say, “I know God has more important things to deal with than my little problems?”  Is this supposed to be an excuse for a poor prayer life?  Is it supposed to be a proclamation of humility?  What it winds up being, if you think about it, is a lack of faith in the ability of God.  I can’t watch two nests, but God can.  Of the sparrows Jesus says, “Not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight,” (Luke 12:10).  Then he adds, “Fear not.  You are of more value than many sparrows.”  Not only does God consider my small problems important, He wants me to tell Him about them.

              The pagans of the world create gods they can understand based upon their own feelings.  The ancient Greek gods were the height of pettiness, malice, and cruelty.  Why?  Because the humans who created them imputed those far too human characteristics to their personalities.   We do exactly the same thing to God when we put Him in the box of our own human understanding.  “I know God has/does/thinks/feels…” is the height of presumptuousness.

              It is not for us to be describing God in any manner in which He does not describe Himself.  “I just know God would never…” may be the most obvious way we limit God, but it is not even the most common.  Even in our zealous attempts to be reverent by inventing words like “omniscient,” we are guilty of limiting Him to our own ability to understand.  God is Eternal—you cannot quantify an Eternal Being because you cannot even comprehend Infinity.  He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” Eph 3:20.

              Simply let His Word describe Him and our (in)ability to comprehend Him.

              Behold God is great and we know him not, Job 36:26.

              "Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven--what can you do? Deeper than Sheol--what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea, Job 11:7-9.

              Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable [immeasurable], Isaiah 40:28.

              For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55:8-9.

              God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things we cannot comprehend, Job 37:5.

              Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" Romans 11:33-34.

              It is not my place to figure out what God is doing or why, or even the possibilities of His power--He says it’s impossible to do so.  It’s not my business to decide whether my problems are big enough to bother Him with—He says to bother Him.  It’s not my business to decide what He might say or not say, do or not do, think or not think.  To do that is to limit Him to my understanding and to be a disrespectful child who thinks he deserves an explanation from a Sovereign Creator.  He has told me everything I need to know.  Reverence means I just accept that.
 
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out, Ecclesiastes 8:16-17.
 
Dene Ward

It's been awhile since we had one, but the other morning as we came in from our last cup of coffee on the porch, we looked uphill toward the gate and saw a wild turkey, a male by his colors, about a head shorter than the fence.  Every so often he stopped his awkward strut and pecked at the ground.  It was still early spring, so pickings were slim out there in the wild.  We assumed he would eventually head toward the bird feeders on the north side of the house and vacuum up the fallen seed as a relative or two of his has in the past.  He was not that patient.

              Suddenly he turned and walked straight at the fence, bouncing off and then standing there in what looked like turkey consternation.  He tried again, this time harder, but still couldn't get through.  So he took a few steps east and tried again.  And again.  Then he backtracked further west and practically ran at the fence, only to be flung backwards like a vertical trampoline, reeling and flapping his wings, the only things that kept him from landing on his turkey fanny.

              First, a little education for city slickers.  Turkeys hate to fly.  In fact, only a relatively short fence, far shorter than ours in fact, will keep them penned up successfully.  They will keep walking around it looking for an opening instead of flying over it.  Pretty much imminent danger, abject terror, or a real need for food are the only things that will make them fly, hence those nice tender turkey wings we love, I suppose.  So our visitor never even tried to get over the fence, he just kept trying to get through it, again and again and again.

              Have you ever known someone who just wouldn't learn the lessons of life and had to get knocked down again and again and again, like someone trying to bull his way through a solid wall?  Have you ever seen a person push back at God, though time and time again God tried to wake him up?  I have, and it is ever more frustrating to see someone find every excuse in the book for not listening.  He is no better than that turkey trying to walk through a fence over and over and over.  It isn't even new.

              Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers (Num 14:20-23)

              Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. (Jer 8:5)

              This evil people…refuse to hear my words [and] stubbornly follow their own... (Jer 13:10)

              They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their necks…(Neh 9:17)

              But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. (Zech 7:11)

              Not a flattering picture, and especially sobering when you realize that those are pictures of God's people over several centuries.  In other words, it happens all the time even to those who have seen God's power and goodness and "steadfast love," that covenant term which they thought as little of as garbage.  That means we, in yet another century, do it, too.

              And just as happened to them so it will to us if we follow their example:  He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing. (Prov 29:1)

              In today's slang we have a word for a fool and a loser, which is what you are when you are told again and again and still don't get it:  a turkey.  From what I saw the other morning, it is an apt term.
 
Thus says the LORD to me, “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, and do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the LORD, and put it around my waist. And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, “Take the loincloth that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “Thus says the LORD: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. (Jer 13:1-10)
 
Dene Ward