I have three bluebird houses.  I wondered one day what made a bird house a bluebird house and got an education I didn’t expect. 
            Did you know that bluebirds were once on the brink of extinction?  Their habitat was slowly disappearing.  Orchards with carefully pruned trees meant no more cavities in the trunks and branches, their preferred nesting sites.  Pesticides meant fewer insects for them to eat, and many of the bugs that survived were tainted with poison that killed the birds that ate them.  Encroaching civilization meant more house sparrows (which are not true sparrows) and starlings to steal their nests.  Bluebird houses put up by interested people and their careful monitoring of the nests has, almost single-handedly, saved them.
            But still, I wondered, what makes it a bluebird house?  Bluebird houses are built in dimensions bluebirds like, shallow depth of 3½ to 5 inches.  I guess they like it cozy.  A good bluebird house has good drainage and cross ventilation.  It also has no perch outside the entrance, which keeps away predators.  A sparrow-proof bluebird house will have a slot entrance instead of a round hole because sparrows do not like slots, while bluebirds don’t mind them. 
            As for the monitoring, songbirds have a notoriously bad sense of smell, so it is perfectly acceptable to open the houses and check the nest and the fledglings every day for parasites or “squatters.”  Monitors can even rebuild the nest if parasites are found without upsetting the bluebird.  They also know the different types of nests and remove the ones that are not bluebird nests.  After a successful clutch has hatched and flown, they remove the old nest and clean it out for the next. 
            Do you think I can’t get any lessons out of this?  Watch me.
            Too many times we get picky about the people we share the gospel with.  I have heard things like, “We need to convert them.  They’d be a good addition to the church,” a thought based upon the lifestyle and income of the family in question rather than their need for the gospel.  We “sparrow-proof” the church by making it unfriendly and unattractive to the people we don’t want to deal with—who wants people with real problems? 
            We aren’t the only ones with that bad attitude.  The Pharisees thought it terrible that Jesus taught sinners.  At least four times in the book of Luke we see them approaching either him or the disciples asking why he associated with such wicked people, (5:30; 7:39; 15:1,2; 19:7).  They turned their noses up at the very people they should have been trying to save.
            The first Christians were Jewish.  Guess who they did not want the apostles to convert?  Peter had to defend himself after he converted the Gentile Cornelius, Acts 11.  Defend himself, mind you, because he saved souls! 
            Then in James 2 we read of a church that didn’t want poor people among them.  They went out of their way NOT to welcome anyone who was not obviously well-to-do.
            If you have not seen attitudes like these, you are either blessed in the congregation you find yourself a part of, or not very old.  Keith was once chastised for bringing the “wrong class” of people to church.  They came from “the other side of the tracks.”
            The Lord didn’t die just for the bluebirds.  He died for those squawking, brash blue jays too.  He died for those territorial cardinals.  He died for those common, ordinary, dime-a-dozen sparrows.  He even died for those disgusting buzzards.  All those people need salvation too, not just the bluebirds. 
            Jesus told the Pharisees who questioned him three parables.  The last, the lost son, included an older brother who obviously did not want his little brother saved.  Jesus made it plain that the older brother was as much in need of grace as the younger.  It had to be obvious to those Pharisees that his remarks were directed to them.  They are directed to us too, when we try to make his house “for bluebirds only.”
 
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died;  and he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.  From now on therefore we regard no one according to the flesh… 2 Cor 5:14-16.
 
Dene Ward

I looked out the window one spring morning in time to see a cardinal hop from the ground to an azalea limb.  It was a windy, March day and the limb was small as a wire.  The bird may have hopped up to get away from the dangers on the ground, especially Chloe, nosing around under the bushes, but the way that small branch bobbed back and forth under its weight made me wonder how safe the cardinal actually felt.  It must have recognized its relative safety compared to things on the ground because it clung for dear life.  Eventually the wind calmed and the branch stopped swaying, and the cardinal found its way to a stronger branch and eventually to the feeder.

            Becoming a follower of Christ can be a little like that.  You jump up out of the big bad world, expecting safety and peace, only to find your life in an uproar.  Your friends are standoffish and your family actually angry with you.  They take your actions as a judgment against them or a sign of mental instability, or both. 

            Or perhaps you find yourself in a group of God’s people who are themselves in the midst of a crisis.  They are not as spiritually minded as they ought to be, they fuss and fight among themselves and even bicker in the parking lot. 

            Or maybe the group is as faithful and mature a group as you can imagine, actively seeking the lost in the community—that’s how they found you after all.  But some elements of the community are not pleased with their efforts, and so rumors are flying, perhaps labeling them scandalous and frightening names, or simply “spinning” things to sound as bad as possible.

            Whichever is happening, you find yourself on a thin limb blowing about in the winds of trouble.  What do you do?  How do you handle the turmoil? 

            One day when the apostles were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, a strong wind suddenly swirled around them.  These were not inexperienced sailors.  They understood when a wind was dangerous and when it wasn’t.  Luke 8:23 tells us they were “in jeopardy.”  The boat was filling with water.  What boat?  The same boat in which Jesus lay fast asleep on a pillow.  Jesus may have accused them of having little faith, of not realizing yet who he truly was, so amazed were they that he could actually calm the wind, but at least they knew where to go.  They knew that if anyone could do anything, it was he.

            What do we do when the church finds itself in turmoil?  Too many just bail out with the excuse that if this is the church, they don’t want any part of it.  “Fair weather Christians” seems a good description.  Yet it is only in the storms that we can show the Lord, and ourselves, we are truly his disciple. (Gen 22:12)

            That cardinal knew that regardless the wind, being above the ground was safer than being on it.  Do we understand that regardless the problems it may face, being part of Christ’s body is safer than being out there in the world, with the Prince of this World for company?  Do we have enough faith to go to the Lord for help?  Will we ever reach the point that we are no longer frightened by things that should not matter to believers, or would he say to us as well, “Why are you afraid, oh you of little faith?” Matt 8:26.

            When we jump up to that spiritual Branch and find ourselves tossing in the winds of trouble, will we bail or have the faith to hang on tighter and never let go?
 
But you have come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:22,23.
 
Dene Ward

I sat by the window today and marveled at the birds that had come to my feeder—the usual cardinals, titmice and chickadees, plus two kinds of doves, a wren, four catbirds, dozens of sparrows, a small flock of brown-headed cowbirds, a painted bunting, two goldfinch couples, a few pine warblers, a yellow-rumped warbler, new to the group this year, and a hummingbird buzzing above them all at his own special watering hole.  All these on the same day and that’s not all just in the past week.  We even had a ring-nosed gull drop by yesterday.

            What may be the most satisfying is seeing those we can recognize from times past.    Remember the cardinal with the broken wing?  (Check the July 2014 archives.)  He kept coming back for well over a year.  It has only been the past month or so that we haven’t seen him and it may well be he has lived out his lifespan, but he lived it far longer and better for coming here to fill his plate, heal, and grow strong again.  His wing was never quite straight after his mishap, but it grew plenty strong enough to fly him where he needed to go. He wasn’t the first sad and sick bird we have had.  If you have been with me awhile, you may remember the one-legged sparrow, and the brewer’s blackbird that was left behind when her flock flew northwest again—she was too sick to join them.

            I wonder what God sees when He looks out on His “feeder.”  We forget, I’m afraid, what our lives were like when we decided to take Him up on His offer.  It is too easy, when life has taken a good turn and we are so much healthier in spirit, to think it might possibly have been our own doing.  He is the one who comforted our mourning, who gave us a “garland” to replace our “ashes,” who took away our “spirits of heaviness” and gave us the “oil of joy” and a “garment of praise” (Isa 61:2,3) to replace the sackcloth life had thrown on us.

            The Lord came looking for us at the worst time of our lives, and because of that we now live in the best times, no matter what our physical circumstances may be.  We were all bruised reeds, but with tenderness and care He granted us the greatest of gifts, a spiritual healing that is eternal.  It is right to praise Him, to stand in awe, and to marvel.  But once in a while it wouldn’t hurt to remember the broken wings, the near fatal spiritual illnesses, the missing pieces of our hearts that He restored and what it cost.  Maybe our healed wings stay a little bent just to remind us where we were and what might have been without His amazing love.

            And always, we need to look for the others who need Him too.  There is room on the feeder for as many weak, sick, and dying birds as we can bring with us.  And then He can look with satisfaction one day on those who laid their burdens on Him, who allowed Him to care for them, who accepted His offer of love and grace.  And together we can marvel for Eternity.
 
Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth. Isa 42:1-3
 
Dene Ward

Squirrels have distracted me a lot lately.  I am in the middle of folding laundry and suddenly one appears on the bird feeder at the window.  Instantly I am up to scare him off.  The little stinkers are persistent.  Not five minutes later he is back and I am up again.  Over and over all morning we go at it, and a chore that should take 10 minutes has suddenly taken more than a half hour.

            Other times I am walking through the kitchen toward yet another chore—paying bills, making beds, studying for Bible class—and there he sits again, looking right into the window while he munches on the birdseed, almost as if he is taunting me.  So I am off again on this merry-go-round ride and many times I even forget where I was headed in the first place.  More than once I have ended the day with things undone because of those aggravating, bushy-tailed rodents stealing the food right out of my birds’ mouths.

            We do the same thing in our efforts for God.  Some petty, relatively unimportant event can distract us and God’s mission goes undone. 

            What kinds of things?  Usually things that appeal to our pride.  I get my feelings hurt, I become aggravated with an annoyance of life, someone provokes me and that becomes the only thing I can think about.  It takes up my thoughts, my time, and my energy.  Suddenly I am no longer the messenger of God, but the messenger of my own sufferings.  I have to stop and tell everyone else how unfairly I’ve been treated, and what happens with whatever God wanted me to do?  Absolutely nothing.  I am too busy worrying about myself.

            Every righteous person under the Old Covenant was engrossed with God’s plan to send a Messiah.  Every decision they made had to do with fulfilling their part of God’s plan.  Even some of the bad decisions they made came from that good intention.

            Abraham left behind a home in the city and lived in tents for the rest of his life, wandering in a land he never owned.  He and Sarah tried to help God with the servants Eliezer and Hagar when, to their eyes, things were not going well with The Plan.  Abraham and Isaac procured special wives for their sons to help them with their parts in The Plan.  Rebekah deceived her husband because she was afraid he would pass the blessing of God’s purpose on to the wrong son.  Jacob’s blessings on his sons ensured a righteous tribe for the Messiah’s lineage.  The songs of David and Hannah show their own recognition of the redemption of man as God’s ultimate objective. 

            Remember that the people in the Gospels also lived under that old law.  Anna spoke of the infant Jesus “to all who were looking for redemption,” Luke 2:38, evidently more than one or two.  Simeon, a man “looking for the consolation of Israel” had been promised he would see the Christ, and then proclaimed, “Now let me die in peace,” Luke 2:25-29.  He could die happy not because he had gained great wealth, not because he had lived a life of luxury, not because he had succeeded in a prestigious career, but because he had seen that God’s plan had come to pass.

            Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man of the Sanhedrin, was willing to lose it all because he “was looking for the kingdom of God,” Lk 23:51.  Cleopas and another who walked on the road to Emmaus told the stranger they encountered, “But we hoped that it was he (Jesus) who should have redeemed Israel.” 

            Those people lived and breathed the plan of God in their lives.  They were willing to give up everything to see it come about.  Do we think the plan is finished, that now we can just worry about ourselves and our own petty concerns?  Paul actually had to tell the Corinthians that they should be willing to be defrauded to keep from harming the reputation of the church, God’s kingdom here on earth.  We aren’t even willing to give up parking places and favorites pews to visitors whose souls might be saved! 

            It’s time to stop putting ourselves forward and, like our righteous brethren of old, remember the reason for it all—salvation.  If Almighty God can put us first in his thoughts and plans, why are we so presumptuous and arrogant to believe that we don’t have to put His purpose first in our lives?  We are no better than the idolaters who rejected Him when we allow anything to divert us from the object at hand.

            I must stop being distracted by the “squirrels” in my life, and work on the job I have been given today and every day, for as long as I possibly can.
 
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 2 Cor 11:3
 
Dene Ward

I have learned to be careful when I feed the birds.  The feeder is right up against the house next to my “sitting window,” behind the azaleas.  The azaleas run five to ten feet tall so that three foot tall feeder is well hidden, and so am I when I load it up.  As I make my way on the leaf-mulched bed, I watch where I put my feet and also look over to the side down through the twisted limbs where those popular members of the rhododendron family disappear into the ground.  Too many times I have scared away a snake, always the harmless variety—if you don’t count the heart attack they might give you upon spying one that close by—but you never know.  In fact, I have the dogs trained to go into the narrow opening against the house ahead of me to clear the way, good little protectors that they are.

            So I was feeling perfectly safe the other day, when something made me look up to the side.  At eye level, only a foot from my face, a tree snake was lying on an azalea limb, perfectly still and exactly the same color as the limb.  No, I didn’t scream.  I did duck though and get past him a little faster than I ordinarily would have, loaded the feeder and scrambled out of there.  Keith saw it that evening, even closer to the feeder, trying its best to snatch an easy meal off its surface.  He donned a pair of gloves, grabbed him and threw him over the fence.

            Three days later he had not been back, so I was feeling safe again.  I had learned not only to watch the ground, but the limbs between me and the feeder too.  I made it all the way to the feeder, and started loading, edging my way to the end which sits smack up against the old antenna tower, the only reason we have to go the long way around through all those azaleas anyway.  As I made my way back, I looked over my shoulder and there was a garter snake, this time lying on the limb of an azalea at the east end of the bed, well past the point where I had been watching.  When I had my back to it, I was probably not more than three feet from it.

            That evening as we made our after-supper stroll around our place, we spotted him again.  This time he lay right out in the open, a good six feet from the lush, leafy shelter of the azaleas.

            You can think you are safe.  You can think you are watching where you need to be watching.  Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of the evil, the Proverbs writer says.  Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on, Prov 4:14,15.  If I stay out of the bars and away from the bad side of town; if I watch the company I keep, surely I will be safe from sin. 

            And don’t you know that Satan knows that’s how we think?  Who had Judas been with for over three years when he decided to betray the Lord?  What company had Peter been keeping the morning before the evening he denied him?  If anyone could have been safe from sin, strong enough to endure temptation because of their surroundings, surely it would have been those two, who traveled with the Lord himself.  But no, they fell even more catastrophically than the others, who simply ran and stood afar off.

            So are any of us safe?  Am I saying we are all doomed?  No.  I am saying that we need to be careful all the time, no matter where we are, no matter whom we are with.  Jesus once looked at Peter and said, Get behind me, Satan, Matt 16:23.  He understood that temptation can come when you least expect it, even from those you consider your support group.  That doesn’t mean they are out to get you too; it just means they sometimes fail just like you do. 

            Sometimes I am the Satan that gives bad advice, or makes a careless comment.  Sometimes you are.  We must watch all the time.  We must look for that snake on every limb, under every bush, and sometimes right out in the open where you least expect him to be.  As soon as he thinks you aren’t watching, he will sneak up over your shoulder and nab you.

            Do you think I am not two, three, four times more careful when I go out to feed the birds now?  That’s exactly how we need to be every day of our lives.  If you only wore your seat belt on the day you knew you would have an accident, would you go anywhere at all that day?  You need to be on the lookout for temptation every day.  Don’t just avoid the obvious places.  Look in the places where you least expect it. 
 
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one…to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, Eph 6:16,18.
 
Dene Ward

I have been thinking about that old saying the past week.  I think it means that if I don’t want people to think I’m stupid, I should stop acting that way.  I thought about it when that snake came back the fourth time.

            I looked out one afternoon across the birdfeeder built right up against the house to the azalea bushes just beyond it.  One limb looked a little odd. I must have stared at it for ten minutes before Keith noticed, and looked too.  “There’s a garter snake in the bushes,” he said.  I had thought so, but could not see it clearly enough to be sure.  Finally after three years, a snake had figured out that someone had put an all-you-can-eat bird buffet out for him, and he was sitting there just waiting for his meal to light.

            We did not want to hurt the snake.  A near relative of his had lived under the house for a few years and kept our rodent population down to something we could handle.  We hoped he would do the same, but that did not mean he could go after my birds.

            So Keith put on some gloves and knocked him out of the bush.  Magdi was on him before we could stop her, but Keith yelled and took the snake away from her, flinging it over the north fence.  We were not certain it would have survived her vicious shake—she treats them like a bull whip and usually breaks their backs with only a couple of cracks.  Not to worry.  Two days later I looked out and there was the snake again.

            This time Keith went out with an old rake handle and knocked him off the limb.  Magdi knew what was up this time, but despite her increased vigilance, the snake slithered away under the steps and we could not get it to come out.

            Until two days after that.  I was getting ready to leave that morning and looked out to check the feeder and there he was again.  Not being as fearless as Keith, I stood way back and whacked that bush so hard I broke the branches, but once again the snake got away from Magdi.

            The fourth time he did not wait two days.  He was back in one, and I was home alone again.  I grabbed the pole and set off for the bird feeder.  I stood there for several minutes thinking he had left because I could not find him through the limbs.  Suddenly I thought to step back and look up, and there he was about a foot higher in the bush than he had ever been before.  But that meant that when I knocked him out he had farther to fall and must have been a little more addled because Magdi got him before he could crawl away. This time she shook until that snake was a lifeless rubber hose.  I could almost hear his spine cracking as she slung it about.

            I am sorry about that.  I will be sorrier this winter if I have a mouse or two in the house.  But really—how long does it take some snakes to learn? 

            Are we any smarter?  How long does it take for us to learn?  I have seen Christians put themselves in spiritual danger over and over and over all my life.  “I can handle it,” they say, despite the Biblical warnings to flee, to abstain, to be watchful; despite the things God lists in black and white as the biggest dangers to our soul—wealth, power, sexual sins, anger, pride, and the tongue.  We all think we are different; that we won’t be tripped up and fall. 

            I have seen it happen too many times to ever think it could be different for me.  If we choose to defy the odds, sooner or later we will be knocked “out of our tree,” and Satan will jump on us and shake us until our spiritual back is broken and we can no longer stand against him.

            Stupid is as stupid does.
 
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall, 1 Cor 10:11,12..
 
Dene Ward

And now we head east along the final, the north side of the property.  We used to drive in that way, straight down the drive and across the top of the property to the front door. That was before we had a summer so wet we kept getting stuck halfway up our hubcaps.  Somewhere along that north side is a spring that only appears during wet season and a neighbor had to pull us out of it with his tractor several times before we finally cleared a higher road we could count on that comes to the back door instead of the front.  I keep telling people I would never put my washer and dryer in my foyer, but few seem to get it.

            That wet weather helped us discover another problem.  The property directly north of us drained all over us.  We are on a slight grade, one you hardly notice until a summer downpour comes washing down from the neighboring land.  I will never forget the day I stood at the front door and watched a six inch deep torrent rush under the house, then raced to the opposite windows to see it come churning out.  I knew we were in big trouble.  The summer rains had barely begun and we were also in the middle of hurricane season.  In short order we would be washed away.

            We have a law, at least here in Florida, which says you are responsible for what your property does to neighboring property.  One of the neighbors found out the hard way when they did something on their property that left a neighbor in an undrainable, and undrivable, swamp.  The ones who caused the situation refused to fix it.  “It’s not our problem,” they said. The neighbors who could no longer access their home had to call the sheriff, who sent out deputies to make sure they had the mess they made repaired so their neighbors could once again get in and out of their land.

            The owners of the land just north of us, people who had bought it as an investment and did not live there, knew about that law, too.  All we had to do was make a phone call, and they sent out the equipment to dig a ditch along that north side that led straight to the run on the east where we started this walk, so their land could drain around us instead of through us.  Yes, it was a law, but at least we didn’t have to call the sheriff to get them to act.  In fact, they were quite nice about it and did not leave until they were certain we were satisfied.

            God has a law too.  It goes like this:  ​“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. Mark 9:42.  Paul spent a couple of chapters in both Romans (14) and 1 Corinthians (8) telling us the same thing.  Everything we do has an influence on people who see or hear us, whether we know they see or hear us or not. 

            I’ve heard people say things like, “I can do whatever I want to do.  That’s his/her problem.”  No, it isn’t.  It’s your problem when you want to claim to be a disciple of Jesus but do not follow his example.  We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” Rom 15:1-3.

            We influence people for good or ill by what we wear, how we speak, how we react to others, especially the unkindness of others, and any number of other things. God expects us to be aware of how our speech and behavior effects the world, and not only that, to care.

            Wouldn’t it be a shame if they had to call “the Sheriff” on us?
 
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. Rom 14:12-13.
 
Dene Ward

We have reached the northwest corner where the gate opens onto our property and leads guests down a narrow drive, past the wild corner, a shady field, the grapevines, the jasmine, and between two azaleas that stand as sentries to our yard.

            Thirty years ago we didn’t have a gate, or a fence to attach it to.  The titles on the land parcels back here off the highway were not free and clear, except for ours, so our boys grew up wandering over twenty acres in every direction.  They swam in the run and climbed trees in the groves that now stand on other properties.  They hunted and explored, and we cut our Christmas trees from the uninhabited woods around us.

            Then the titles were cleared up and people began buying and moving in.  Suddenly we had to deal with neighboring cows breaking through their fences and wandering our way to find good grass to eat, with pot-bellied pigs rooting in our garden, with donkeys braying loudly outside our windows, and packs of stray dogs terrorizing ours.  So we scraped up the money we had been saving over the years and put in a fence, with the gate at the road we had driven down long before anyone even knew there was a road there.  Now we can protect what is ours from wandering livestock, and the lock on the chain is especially nice during political season.

            The gate is a two-banger.  The larger portion is a standard cow panel, 16 feet wide.  But that isn’t enough space for a tractor pulling a cultivator and sprayer, which an old friend used to plow and treat our garden once a year.  So right next to the larger gate is a smaller one that adds 4 feet and just enough room for the equipment to come through.

            Jesus had some things to say about wide gates and narrow gates.   One thing I have noticed about wider gates.  It isn’t just that more people can get through them.  It’s that they can get through quickly.  Narrow gates stay that way because they are seldom used, and when you see one, the very smallness of it makes you hang back and consider.  Maybe you’ll poke your head through trying to make out what’s down there, but it still takes considerable thought before you will go down a place that not only few go, but they don’t go quickly.

            Wide gates on the other hand?  People go through them in a headlong rush simply because everyone else does.  Someone famous wears a certain color and before two weeks have passed everyone is wearing it.  A celebrity eats at a certain restaurant and the next week there is a line a mile long.  Someone posts a video on facebook and it goes “viral.”  As soon as anything gets approval from a popular source, people can’t get enough fast enough.  It’s a mania, a craze.  Would you look at those words a minute?  No thinking at all involved in those words, unless you classify insanity as a thought process.  Jesus, on the other hand, expects his disciples to be thinkers.

            Star Trek always starts with a prologue ending in these words:  to boldly go where no one has gone before.  Isn’t that what Christianity is supposed to be?  Except for this one, critical, factor:  someone has gone before us.  He tells us that yes, it’s safe, at least in an eternal sense, and yes, you can do it too.  The gate may be narrow and seldom entered, but that is what makes us special, something besides robots in a cookie cutter world. 

            Today take a moment to think before you choose.  A quiet stroll with the Lord in a narrow shady lane may be just what your soul needs. 
 
​“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matt 7:13-14.
 
Dene Ward

About two-thirds of the way across the south side of the property, the path cuts across diagonally to the west side.  This avoids the wooded, tangled corner we have left that way for the wildlife—at least until all the townies moved out.  That corner used to be a habitat for deer, turkeys, quail, foxes, armadillos, and warrens of rabbits, along with a bobcat or two passing through.  The quail and the foxes have disappeared, the rabbits have thinned out—if you can imagine such a thing—and about all we have left are the occasional turkey and deer.  I suppose nothing will ever rid us of the armadillos and possums.

            On the inside of that section where the cut-off turns north to the driveway, stands four live oaks all growing out of the same spot.  I am not certain if it is one huge tree with four large trunks or four smaller trees that have finally grown into one.  Lucas and Nathan called it “the fort.”  Growing up they played in, on, and around it.  You can climb up between the trees on a sort of ledge that hooks them together, and climb my little guys did. 

          The “fort” was not always a fort.  Sometimes it was a castle, sometimes it was a spaceship, sometimes it was a hideout, but it was always a source of imaginative entertainment for little boys who didn’t have a whole lot else except sticks and roots shaped like pistols, rifles, ray guns, phasers, and bazookas—at least to them.

            This past year Silas and Judah finally reached the age that they could enjoy the fort.  Uncle Lucas got them started, showing them how to turn ordinary bark, sticks, and tree knots into weapons, controls, and push buttons.  Now they clamber all over that same clump of giant oak trees, grown even closer together now that they are older, with even more ledges and platforms to stand on and jump off.  It feels good to walk by that old favorite spot of my boys and know that a new generation is enjoying it too.

            This will probably be the last generation of Wards to know the magic of that special spot.  Neither of the boys is in a position to move back to this acreage and we will probably reach a point where we can no longer take care of it before the new generation even grows to adulthood.  We will need the money it brings to buy us a smaller, easier place to live. 

            Think about that the next time you assemble with your brethren.  I don’t mean think about how the next generation will use the building or whether they will understand the sacrifices made to build it, the men who made it their business to watch over the construction, the women who furnished the classrooms and dolled up the restrooms the way men would never even think to.  Think about what goes on in that building.  When all of the older generation is gone, the ones who fought the battles and stood for truth no matter how unpopular it was, will the younger generation even know what that truth is?  Will they understand the thought processes that produced a generation of faithful men and women?     

          Maybe some other family will someday own our land and figure out what that group of live oaks “really” is even with no one to tell them, but somehow I doubt that a generation so used to the here and now of social media and the pizzazz of loud, splashy entertainment that leaves no room for imagination will even have a clue.  Tell them it’s a spaceship and they will likely look at you like you’re nuts.

          Far more important is to be able to tell the next generation of Christians that “this”—whatever this is at the moment—is truth, and have them comprehend its importance.
 
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 2Tim 2:1-2
 
Dene Ward

When we hit the corner we turn right along the south fence, just behind the old pigpen.  We haven’t had pigs since the boys left home—it would take the two of us a couple of years to go through a whole pig, but with teen-aged boys we managed easily in just a few months.  Pork chops, ribs, hams, sausage, bacon, bacon, and more bacon.  They grew up pork lovers and are to this day.
Yes, we named our pigs.  We always called the males Hamlet, and the females Baconette, except the year we had two boys and the extra one we named Ribster.  It reminded us from the beginning why we had them, and trust me—by the time a pig is ready for slaughter it isn’t cute any longer.  It is about as disgusting a creature as you can imagine.  Slaughtering it was never a problem.  The boys understood early on that we needed these animals to survive and respected them for it.

          Just across the south fence and past the pigpen stands a live oak grove, a peaceful shady retreat we often wished had been on our property instead of the neighbor’s.  He has built a fire ring surrounded by several chairs, with a wood rack between two trees.  He planned outings with his children and cook-outs with his friends and quiet evenings with his wife.  He planted some Australian cypresses along the fence and now, after nearly ten years, they finally conceal his leafy sanctuary, a sanctuary he rarely visits any longer because his children are grown and living hundreds of miles away with all of his grandchildren.  I doubt he used his beautiful spot more than half a dozen times.  His wife passed unexpectedly several years ago. He has rebuffed friendly overtures and declined invitations to church.  We seldom see him any longer, and there hasn’t been even a lonely fire in the fire ring for three or four years.  So much for great plans.
           
          Chloe and I walk along that line of cypresses, peeking through the limbs sometimes, but usually watching the bottom of the fence line instead.  Up ahead of me as usual, Chloe will occasionally stop and sniff around and when I reach her, sure enough, there is a depression in the ground where something slid under the fence during the night.  Possums, coons, foxes, terrapins, sometimes we come across them during the day, but usually not.  The depressions are well worn and even if we fill up the hole, it will be back with a couple of days, or a new one will show up just a few feet down the fence line.  Interlopers will always find a way, and I can always tell from Chloe’s attention and sniff pattern whether something more dangerous has slunk under or not.

            That’s exactly why God gave us elders, because “fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” Acts 20:29.  Peter warns about false teachers who will infiltrate with “destructive heresies” 1 Pet 2:1.  Jesus himself warned about “false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” Matt 7:15.  Let me tell you, sheep are just as stupid as pigs are disgusting.  We are too easily led astray, and once they get us away from our shepherds we are just as easily eaten up.

            Our shepherds have a difficult job.  They deserve our respect.  They spend all hours of the day and night protecting us from things we do not even recognize as dangerous.  Like Chloe, they see potential problems we in our ignorance and inexperience miss and all they get for it is accusations about traditionalism, legalism, and cynicism.  We can make their job easier by spending more time in the word so we can recognize false teaching; more time with our brethren so we can share practical knowledge; and more time in safe places instead of hanging around the fence line in the dark of night where the wolves are waiting.
 
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
 
Dene Ward