Keith has mown a path for me, as safe as a path can be for someone with my eyesight, so I can walk Chloe at least one lap every day with the trekking poles for balance and stability.  Elliptical machines are great for low impact aerobics, but you don’t get any fresh air and the scenery never changes.  With this path I get the best of both.  Let me take you for a stroll this morning, and every morning this week, beginning with the east side.

            When I come out and slip on my walking shoes, Chloe, always waiting expectantly under the porch, bounces out and sits impatiently on the steps, her ears tall and her eyes never leaving me.  “Just a minute,” I tell her, and she seems to have grown to recognize those sounds.  She knows I will indeed be outside shortly, but I wonder if her doggy brain wonders about people having to put on their feet before they come outside?  Sometimes she cannot abide the wait, especially if I have to do more than put on my shoes—like spot Keith as he lifts weights on the other end of the porch—so she gives just a tiny little whine, so anxious she shimmies across the boards on her rear end. 

            As soon as I open the door she is halfway through it.  We cannot go anywhere or do anything until she gets a pat on the head.  Then I say, “Let’s go walk,” and she heads toward the morning sun peeking through the woods, dappling the ground where we walk.  Often she has to stop and wait for me to catch up, but as soon as I round that first corner she is off again, inspecting every mound of dirt, every dew-heavy hanging shrub, every disturbed pile of leaves at the fence bottom.

           Occasionally she will stop and stare through the fence to the property on the other side, heavily wooded, vines snaking up and through the oaks, pines, maples, and wild cherries.  Just over the fence lies the run.  We thought it was a creek when we first moved here, a shallow one but water always sat in the bottom, slowly draining to the south.  Then we went through the drought of the nineties and learned differently.  It’s a run.  Whenever rain comes through, the land on all sides of us for at least a half mile in every direction, runs into that narrow, deep channel and heads for the swamp a mile to the south.  After a typical summer afternoon downpour the water will rush loudly, white water at the bends and at every drop, carrying with it leaves and limbs shed by the overhanging branches. 

          You do not realize how powerful water moving downhill can be until you see the aftermath.  We came out one morning to find the trash can washed up against the south fence, the run itself clear of all debris, and the pigs in the southeastern pigpen a pinky white they hadn’t been since they were born.  Only a small circle in the center of their backs remained black and muddy.  Good thing they managed to find a high spot so they could get their noses up out of the rushing water that had gushed through the fence and cut the southeast corner.  We had no idea the water could rise that high.

          The power of water is a constant theme in the Bible.  We completely misunderstand 1 Pet 3:20,21, especially when we read the newer translations that make water not something that saves, but something to be saved from.  Leave your new version a moment and look at the old ASV translation:   …the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism…  The waters of the flood saved Noah by bringing him and his family safely out of a world of sin, into a new world, one that was washed pure and clean.  Baptism does the same for us.  It saves us from the world of sin we live in, raising us to a new life free from sin—a chance to start over, this time with help from above.  It also washes away the detritus of our old lives, if we let it, if we are willing to let go of the baggage and surrender all to the Lord.

           Water had saved the Israelites in a similar way.  They were “baptized” in the cloud and in the sea, walls of water on the side, a roof of vapor overhead. And then with a whoosh of water, God destroyed their enemies and set them in a new world, one where He and they were to enjoy a covenant relationship, 1 Cor 10:1ff.
         
          Amos uses water to symbolize the power found in justice and righteousness.  Israel thought that multiplying sacrifices and feasts and other religious observances was all that mattered.  God would be pleased, especially if the prescribed rites were even more elaborate than commanded.  Then their lives during the rest of the week wouldn’t count against them.  The prophet told them differently, “Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream,” 5:24.
          That is just a small sample of the passages using water as a symbol.  Spend some time today, as I did on my walk with Chloe, meditating on the simplest drink known to man.
 
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for Jehovah, even Jehovah, is my strength and song; and he is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall ye say, Give thanks unto Jehovah…Isa 12:2-4
 
Dene Ward

The first time this city girl had to deal with mice in the house was when we moved to rural Illinois and our house sat right next to a cornfield.  We discovered we had mice the morning I found that the dog had had a playmate all night, and it was lying right in the doorway to the kitchen, all “played” out.

            So we set out traps, especially in the large walk-in pantry/laundry area.  If anything would attract the mice we figured it would be the warmth from the water heater and the food on the shelves.

            The pantry shared a wall with the dining area.  One frigid morning we were eating breakfast when we suddenly heard a sharp snap, followed by a thump on that wall’s other side, then squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, and a scrambling of tiny feet.  I didn’t think this was the way mousetraps were supposed to work, but what did I know?  Before that fall, I had never even seen one except on cartoons.

            Keith walked around, peered into the pantry, and started laughing.  When we had set the trap inside the door, we had pushed it in with the peanut butter side against the wall and the spring on the side toward the door.  Evidently the mouse had climbed onto the spring and when he started nibbling on the peanut butter, it had snapped, catapulting him into the wall.  Having survived the trap, he had run away unscathed except, perhaps, for a nasty bump on the head.

            That night we reset the trap, this time pushing it in the other way around.  Sure enough, as we were eating breakfast the next morning we heard the snap, followed by a deathly quiet.  Keith disposed of the interloper after we finished eating.

            That mouse thought he had found a way around the trap.  That dumb animal thought he was safe because one time he had had a nibble without it killing him.  If mice could think such things, I can just imagine, “It won’t happen to me,” coming out of his mouth, just like a few dumb humans I know of.  It isn’t enough to stay out of the trap—you have to stay completely away from it.  Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Prov 22:5.

            Job pictures the life of the wicked as nothing but snares, 18:8-10.  Jeremiah says they lay snares for the righteous, 5:26.  How do they do that?  By their very lifestyles.  We look, and we want, and we wish, and suddenly we do—just like they do.  God warned the Israelites not to even covet the gold and silver covering the idols, lest you be snared therein, Deut 7:25.  It is not enough to just want their lives and “not do the sins they do—I know better than that!”  How can we not eventually fall into the same things they did?  Because, like that mouse, we think we have found a way to nibble on one side and not be caught by the other.

            The Proverb writer says we are often ensnared “with the words of our own mouths,” 6:2.  We say we abhor sin, we say we don’t want to do bad things, but with the same mouth we idolize people who live without morals, without integrity, and without self-control, people who care nothing at all about God.  They may even wear crosses around their necks and thank the Lord in public, but they turn right around and profane Him with their lives.  And we think we wouldn’t be trapped by sin the same way they are?  How foolish, how immature can we be?

            Don’t glamorize sin.  Don’t worship those who do.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can sit on one side of the mousetrap and have a bite of something good, and a fun, and an exciting ride to boot.  The next time you nibble, someone may very well have turned the mousetrap around.
 
But my eyes are toward you, O GOD, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!
Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers!  Psalm 141:8,9.
 
Dene Ward

Recently Keith’s sister came to visit and we took her to the Butterfly Rainforest at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida.  We have lived here since before the exhibit even opened and never managed to get there.  When we went in, we saw what we have been missing.

 In the first place you cannot go inside with anything that cannot be closed properly, which means I had to leave my purse behind—it has a snap across the top, but is not sealed with a zipper.  Then you enter one door and cannot open the second until the first door has closed.  When you leave, you go through the same process—through one door, wait, close the door, then through the second door—but with an added precaution:  you check each other over for hitchhikers.  The butterflies will land on you, especially, it seemed from our experience that day, if you have on bright colors or large floral prints.  They will also land on your bare head and arms.  You must walk the paths carefully so as not to trod upon one that has landed there.  You sit on benches only after inspecting them.  But mainly, you just look and look and look, up and over and around.  They are everywhere.

 The colors and patterns are breathtaking.  Scarlet and black, Halloween orange and black, an intricate black and white that looks for all the world like a tatted doily; olive and black, chartreuse and black, emerald green and aqua; pale blue, royal blue, teal and blue violet; solid brown, spotted brown, banded brown, and a brown design that looks like it belongs on the walls of ancient Aztec ruins—and that’s not the half of it.

Many of these beauties were brought from other places as pupae, and as they hatch are let go every day while the visitors watch.  It was a wonderful couple of hours.  And after I got home I started wondering if there were any butterflies in the Bible.  Well, yes, in a way.

First of all I found that back in the early days, the butterfly symbolized the resurrection of Jesus and later the resurrection of his saints.  That makes a certain amount of sense.  The caterpillar spins its pupa, which hangs there looking dead for a couple of weeks.  Then suddenly the adult emerges, alive again, or so it appears.

But it seems to me that the better Biblical image comes from Romans 12:2:    Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Just as the caterpillar is transformed into something completely different, we should be too.  I am, in the words of 2 Cor 5:17, “a new creature.”  Those butterflies were beautiful, but when we walked the exhibits in the halls outside their “rainforest,” the pupa on display there were mottled gray-brown and just plain ugly.

I looked up that word “transformed” and guess what the Greek word is?  Metamorphoo.  I would be surprised if you haven’t heard that in a sermon sometime in your life, but maybe you have never really thought about the change that insect makes from worm to butterfly.  Looking at those beautiful things that morning, and then seeing those ugly pupae hanging by the score really brought the message home to me.  I am not just to change a little bit; I am to change drastically.  That may be difficult for you to comprehend if you were “brought up in the church” as we are prone to say, and have never really done any “big bad sins” as we tend to define them.  Yet it is my obligation to find the things that need changing. 

I may not read pornography, but I might become insensitive to the sin around me, especially when our culture deems it “appropriate” for television.  I may not steal, but my selfishness can rob others of any time or service they might need from me.  I may not commit idolatry, but I can become so celebrity-conscious that what those people say, do and wear becomes my model instead of Christ.  I may not murder, but I commit character assassination every time I call, text, or post.

Those butterflies we saw that day were almost too pretty for this sin-sick, ugly world.  That’s what people should be thinking about us.  We are not like the world, and we don’t like the world.  There is a better place coming, a “Butterfly Rainforest” for all those who have transformed their lives to be like their Lord.  Don’t land on the coat of a passerby and allow yourself to be removed from that hope.
 
…put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and…be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and…put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:22-24.
 
Dene Ward

I came across an interesting proverb the other day:  As a madman who casts firebrands, arrows and death, so is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “Am I not in sport?” Proverbs 26:18, 19.
 
           My understanding of that proverb is that a man who vents his malice toward his neighbor with all sorts of slanderous accusations is like a man who is so enraged he just shoots at everything, and then claims he was only joking and didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

            I know you’ve seen it happen--someone makes a snide comment, then when it becomes obvious that his words will get him into trouble, he smiles and says, “I was only teasing.”  But anyone close to the situation, who knows it well, knows that it was anything but teasing.  We women have a special word for remarks like that:  “catty.”  They are instantly recognizable and, in our embarrassed silence, those of us within earshot become complicit because no one wants to make a scene.  It would just embarrass the victim further, we rationalize.  But doesn’t that just reward the miscreant so that he continues on to hurt others?  I wonder sometimes if a woman shouldn’t say to the smug little tabby cat, “That was an ugly thing to say;” if an honorable man shouldn’t stand up to the smirking tom in question and say, “That isn’t funny—you have crossed a line.” Would it really cause more embarrassment than has been forced on everyone already?

            God wants a joyful people.  He wants people who enjoy their lives here as much as possible, and who enjoy each other as well, even joking and teasing one another.  Jesus, with his hilarious metaphors—running around with a log sticking out of your eye, or straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel--showed us that a sense of humor is not sinful, that we do not have to live with a sober, serious look on our faces all the time.  Sometimes a sense of humor is the only thing that gets us through a difficult situation—perhaps that is one reason God gave us one, as a defense against Satan and the trials of life.  To use it maliciously seems, well, irreverent somehow. 

            Today I will be especially careful to watch my tongue and how I use that wonderful sense God gave me.  All you have to do is look at a hippopotamus to know that He has it too.
 
Behold this is the joy of his way; and out of the earth shall others spring.  He will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouting.  They that hate you shall be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked shall be no more.  Job 8:19,21,22
 
Dene Ward

We have had several dogs of several different breeds, usually several different breeds in one dog.  But Chloe, a full-blooded Australian cattle dog, is the first to actually chase her tail.  I always thought that was just something people said until one day there was a commotion at my feet, and I looked down and spotted her doing exactly that—revolving like a top, chasing her tail. 

            She looked ridiculous.  Around and around she went, stirring up dust and creating a depression in the sand.  Usually she lost her balance and fell over on her side, or, when she tried to stand up afterward, reeled like a drunk and sprawled on the ground, all thoughts of dignity abandoned.  It was so much fun, who cared how silly she looked?

            One day she actually caught her tail, and plopped down with it between her two front paws and started chewing.  After just a few minutes, though, reality checked in and she let it go.  It may have been fun to chase, but actually eating it was another matter entirely.  Even Little Miss Butterball, who loves to eat, was not about to endure the pain.

            For some reason, we often lack that good sense.  I have seen married couples carp and bicker, criticize and complain, even in front of others, to the point that you check the legal column the next morning to see if a divorce decree was filed the night before.  Anyone with sense, we think, would see how such words and actions would eat away at the bonds of their union.  Indeed, marriage takes constant maintenance to insure that those bonds remain intact.  They certainly won’t survive such destructive behavior, but people continue to behave that way, impervious to the embarrassment they cause anyone with earshot, and heedless to the effect on their relationship. 

            We sometimes treat the body of Christ the same way.  One person has a disagreement with another, about most anything, and that one is his target from then on.  All he can see is the bad, never the good.  All he can hear are the things that rankle, never the things that help and encourage, and so he is certain his behavior is justified.  Not only does he chase his tail in a fruitless circle, but he gathers as many as he can to join the pursuit.  In some cases, he actually catches the other person—because he now has so many on his “side” and they, too, are so dizzy from running in circles that their vision is skewed—and so he takes a big chomp and chews to his heart’s content, passing it on for others to share in as well.  Ah, what a grand meal—yum, yum, yum! 

            His distorted vision keeps him from seeing the harm he is causing the body of the Lord by his arrogant, self-centered attitude, and the good that might have been accomplished in spreading the gospel in the community is put on the back burner for the sake of “winning,” even when the contest is petty and of no spiritual value.  It also keeps him from seeing exactly how foolish he looks as he destroys the things he claims to be trying to save.

            Do you know what an anthropophagus is?  It is a cannibal, perhaps one of the worst things we can imagine being, especially in our enlightened and civilized age.  Yet the Bible says that is exactly what we are when we reach this point.  Take a look at the relationships you have in your family and in the kingdom today.  Make sure you are not partaking of a meal that God would consider abominable.
 
For you, brethren, were called for freedom, only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this:  you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  But if you bite and devour one another, make sure you be not consumed one of another, Gal 5:13-15
           
Dene Ward

Keith noticed it first, a dove that sat quiet and almost still on the ground beneath one of the hanging bird feeders.  While other doves and a bevy of cardinals hopped around him pecking at the ground, then flying up and down from the feeder, he barely moved a foot in two hours, and always one small, hesitant hop at a time.  By early evening most of the other birds were gone, finished with their free supper and off to find a good roosting place for the night, but he still sat there.
           
            By then I was a little worried.  I grabbed the binoculars for a closer look.  He had puffed himself up twice his size as birds will do in the winter to keep warm.  But it was still early September and the humid evening air hovered in the upper 80s.  Suddenly his head popped up, stretching out his neck just a bit, and then immediately back into the folds of feathers around his shoulders.  As I continued to watch I noticed it every five minutes or so.  It almost looked like he had hiccups, but somehow I did not think that was the problem.  Something worse was happening.

            Near dusk he suddenly flew straight up to the feeder itself.  Instead of perching on the outer rung designed for a bird to curl its feet around and be able to lean forward to eat from the small trough that ran around the bottom of the feeder, he flew into the trough itself, hunched down, and leaned against the clear plastic walls of the feeder.  Then he became completely still—no more twitching or bouncing.  I watched until it was too dark to see any longer. 

            The next morning I went out with my pail of birdseed to refill all the feeders around the house.  There beneath the feeder lay the now much smaller body of the dove.  Sometime in the night he had died and fallen off the feeder.  We carefully disposed of the small body for the sake of the other birds and our Chloe just in case it had carried a contagious illness.  It was a sad moment.  I couldn’t help but think, “You weren’t alone, little guy.  We watched you and we cared.”

            We weren’t the only ones watching.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father, Matt 10:29.  God notices when every little bird falls to the ground.  And never forget the lesson Jesus draws from that:  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows, Matt 10:30-31.

            Dying alone has become a metaphor for a purposeless existence. “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone,” (Orson Welles).

            It’s used to depict life and death as a beginning and end that you cannot effect one way or the other.  “Don’t expect anyone to stick around.  You were born alone and you will die alone,” (Anonymous).

            It’s used as a desperate pitiful plea for someone to care:  “I just don’t want to die alone, that’s all.  That’s not too much to ask for, is it?  It would be nice to have someone care for me, for who I am, not about my wallet,” (Richard Pryor).

            It’s used to show the meaninglessness of life:  “At the end, we all die alone,” (Anonymous).

            Is it any wonder that skeptics and atheists commit suicide?  None of these things is true for a Christian. 

            For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever… Ps 37:28.

            Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you, Heb 13:5.

            Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go, Josh 1:9.

            Sometimes we can quote passages like these until we are blue in the face, but when the hour of trial comes, any sort of trial, and no one stands with us, we allow the physical eye to fool us into believing we are alone.  We need to learn to see with spiritual eyes like our Lord did:  Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me, John 16:32.  We are the only ones who can take that promise away—when we don’t believe it.  With God a believer is never alone no matter how much vacant space surrounds him.

            If God promised to watch for every fallen bird, He will watch for me.  Even if some day I breathe my last breath in an otherwise empty room, I can know that Someone cares enough to be nearby, watching and waiting to take me home.
 
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints, Ps 116:15.
And I will gather you to your fathers…2 Chron 34:28.
 
Dene Ward

            Retirement is a wonderful thing.  No more rushing around every morning, swallowing a quick breakfast whole, throwing on an outfit, and rushing out the door after a quick peck on your wife’s cheek.  At least that’s the way it was for Keith for several decades. 

            Now it’s a leisurely breakfast in your pajamas with a second cup of coffee, and then a third out on the carport, watching the birds swoop down in front of us to the bird feeder, hummingbirds battling over their feeder like tiny pilots in fighter planes, and Chloe sitting next to us, her tail swishing sparkly grains of sand over the concrete. 

We have a little ritual with her—three or four doggie treats that Keith sails out toward the flower bed one at a time with her tearing after them, sniffing around in the grass until she finds the morsel, then rolling in the dew wet grass in doggy euphoria before returning to her post at our feet, or even under our chairs—the better to garner a belly rub.

            He always throws the treats in the same direction, slightly south of east, and makes the same whistle like a missile falling to the earth, and she has become habituated to the whole routine.  We did not realize how much until one morning he threw it north of east instead of south.  Even though she watched him do it, she still ran southeast and sniffed the ground in ever widening circles, becoming more and more frustrated when she could not find the treat.  Finally he had to get up and walk in the direction he threw it and call her over.  Eventually her nose found it, but you would have thought we had punished her as she dragged herself back without her customary cheerfulness, her tail sagging almost between her legs.  She was not happy again until he had thrown the next treat in the right direction—translation:  the one she expected.
            Have you ever shown a friend a scripture that teaches something obvious, only to have him say, “I can’t see that?”  Have you ever had her read something out loud only to answer your unspoken comment with, “But I don’t believe it that way?”  Almost unbelievable, isn’t it?  Don’t think for a minute that you are immune to the same failing.  What you can see, what you do believe, depends a whole lot on what you are looking for. 

The worst thing you can do in your Bible study is go searching for something to back up what you already think.  In fact, I often tell brand new classes, “The biggest hindrance to learning is what you think you already know.”  I have had students who were intelligent and sincere look at something everyone else could see but not see it, and nearly every time it is because of some preconceived notion they grew up with or heard somewhere a long time ago and have not been able to let go.  Even something as plain as the nose on their faces.

What you already know will also raise a stop sign in your learning path.  As soon as you find what you thought was there, you will stop looking, when just a little more study and uninhibited consideration would have shown you something brand new.  The same thing happens when you rely on old notes.  You will never see anything new until you rid yourself of old ideas.  You will never find a deeper understanding if you think you have already dredged as far as you can go.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,” John 9:39.  He was not talking to unbelievers.  He was not talking to pagans.  He was talking to people who thought they knew God’s word inside out, who could quote whole books, who kept the law in the minutest detail, proud of how exact they were—even beyond exact—and the fact that they were children of Abraham.  Guess who that translates to today? 

When was the last time you learned anything new?  Thought any new thoughts?  Discovered any new connections in the scriptures?  When was the last time you changed your mind about something?  Can you see it if it’s thrown in a direction you never thought of before, or are you as blind as those people who were sure they knew what their Messiah would look like and how he would act?  When he came out of left field, they were lost.  How about you?
 
…and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself…? Rom 2:19-21.
 
Dene Ward
 

This morning I sat outside by the remains of last night’s fire, drinking my last cup of coffee and petting the dogs.  Suddenly I heard the hawk in a tree just across the drive.  This was the closest he had come in awhile.  I do not know if it was the first hawk that grew up on our property, or his son or grandson, but it was one of those I had talked to as he sat in his nest as a baby.  He would never have gotten that close to me otherwise.

            No other bird would have talked to me that way either.  He didn’t call out with the loud, echoing cry of a mature hawk, but with the baby sounds he used to make way up in his nest as I talked to him, the same sounds he always greeted his parents with when they brought him food during the day.  This was intimate hawk talk, not formal hawk talk.  He still recognized me from his baby days, and knew I was a friend.  He knew he could let down his guard and be that little baby hawk one more time.

            Sometimes I get tired of being grown up.  I get tired of being the mature one who is always supposed to know what to say and how to say it.  Sometimes I want to be the little kid who can run to a great big grown-up, spill my heart, and have him tell me everything is going to be all right.

            That is exactly what we can do with God.  Job said, My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul, 10:1.  Job said he could tell God everything, no holding back—“free course.”  David said, I pour out my complaint before Him, I show Him my trouble, Psa 142:2.  Both of these strong men of God had moments when they let it all out, just like little children who are afraid and don’t understand.  Why do I think I need to be any better than they?

            My children used to come to me with their troubles, usually small, inconsequential things.  But to them, those things were HUGE.  I never acted like they were silly to worry over them, but did my best to comfort them, and even fix the things I could fix for them.  Most of the things we find ourselves going to God with are inconsequential in His grand scheme of things, but He still treats them as important because they are important to His children.  He will listen to even the smallest concern, the pettiest, even the selfish ones, as so many turn out to be. 

            We never need to hold back with God, especially now, because we have a Mediator who understands how those small things can seem so large. We can run to God any time we need to, and talk as a child to a Father who listens and who cares.  It’s okay to have a little baby talk with God.

For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one who has been in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help in time of need, Heb 4:15,16.

Dene Ward

Due to the huge number of college football games seen in my home, that commercial in which cows turn on lights, parachute onto a football field, and stand on top of a car pestering the little boy in the back seat has evidently made an impression on me.  A survey company called the other day. A long time ago I made a few dollars doing phone surveys and appreciated anyone who did not slam the phone down, so I answered their questions. “Which fast food chain comes to mind first?”  I answered immediately, not with any of the hamburger, pizza, sandwich, or taco joints; but the chicken place with the name I never knew how to pronounce until I was grown.

            Those commercials stand out to me for a reason—those are dairy cows!  They don’t need to worry about becoming someone’s hamburger. 

            Does it make a difference?  Only to purists, I suppose.  The commercials certainly do what they are designed to do as evidenced by my quick answer to the survey question.

            But for some things it does make a difference.  Jesus warned that blind leaders will cause others to fall into the ditch too; God wasn’t going to save them because someone led them the wrong way.  John tells us in the fourth chapter of his first epistle that God expects us to “prove the spirits” because many false ones have gone out into the world.  Paul marveled in chapter one that the Galatians had been fooled so soon after their conversion.  None of them told us not to worry, that God would save us if we were tricked into believing something that wasn’t so.

            A long time ago, a prophet was sent to warn King Jeroboam about his sinful ways.  God told that prophet not to stop anywhere on his way home.  An older prophet sent word for him to come by for dinner.  When the younger prophet told him he could not, the older prophet lied, saying, “God said it was all right for you to eat with me.”  Instead of checking with God first, the younger prophet stopped by the older prophet’s home.  Before they had finished their meal God came to him and told him he would be punished for his disobedience, and, sure enough, on the way home he was killed by a lion (1 Kings 13).

            Not knowing the difference between what God said and what this man had said, even a prophet of God, cut his life short.  God expected that young man to check with Him when he heard a command other than the original.  God expects the same of you and me.  And even though this young prophet probably thought he could rely on one of his own, one older and supposedly wiser as well, that didn’t mean the message was correct. 

            One cow is not the same as the other, no matter what it looks like, or what we think about it.  Believe me, you could tell the difference between steaks cut from dairy cattle and those cut from beef cattle.  And the first time you tried to milk a steer would definitely be the last.  Believing a false message, no matter who tells you and no matter what you want to believe, will not make that message true, and the results will be much more serious than a tough steak or even a kick in the head. .

But evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you abide in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them, 2 Tim 3:13,14.

Dene Ward

This is an old one, but the lesson is always current--for someone out there.

            Magdi is now eleven years old.  She was the first dog we ever had that would not only chase a ball and bring it back, but catch it in the air like a fly ball, or chase a ball on the bounce, leaping four feet into the air to catch it.  If you said, “Bring me a ball,” she ran to the nearest one, picked it up, and brought it to you.  If you said, “Give it to me,” she would drop it on the ground next to your feet or place it in your hands if you bent over.  It was almost as if she really understood English.

            She also loved to play “soccer,” chasing a soccer ball around the field, then guarding it when one of us ran up as if to take it away, and take off again after she caught her breath, even balancing it on her shoulders or head or nose as she ran.  She had a large exercise ball, nearly a foot higher than her shoulders, that she would treat the same way.  Once in awhile, it rolled so fast that as she tried to jump up to grab it, it threw her over the top.  She would simply get up and go again.

             Her bones and joints have steadily betrayed her this last year.  She drags one hind foot occasionally because it hurts too much to pick it up.  Her knees are swollen and stiff and some days she doesn’t even try to get up when we go outside; she simply looks up and gives one floppy tail wag—thump, glad to see you, boss.  She has stopped racing to the gate to greet us when we come home, but if we have been away awhile, she will slowly walk until she gets there.  I always feel so bad when we get the gate closed and start down the drive before she makes it.  She has to turn and retrace those several hundred steps, but if we stand and wait at the door, she will eventually make it for a pat on the head and the words she wants most to hear, “Good dog.”

            Pick up a ball, though, and her ears stand up even if she does not.  If you bounce it, she will rise to her feet, though a bit unsteadily, and stand poised ready to run.  We have learned to merely toss it now, rather than throwing it as hard and far as we can, and she hobbles after it, all thought of pain and age and weariness abandoned. 

            The other day Keith blew off the roof, leaving piles of leaves around the house, and wads of moss clinging in the topmost branches of the azaleas.  I spent the next morning trying to “rake” it down to the ground.  Magdi thought I had something--something that might be interesting, like a snake or a lizard--and she was up instantly, running from bush to bush, even standing precariously on her aching hind legs, trying to help me get whatever it was I didn’t want in those bushes.  She has “taken care of” many snakes and lizards over the years, as well as moles, tortoises, armadillos, and possums.  It’s her job, and since all these surgeries started, she has taken her duty as my protector much more seriously.  Despite her creaking joints she was ready to work and if necessary, rescue me from whatever monster lurked in the azaleas.

            I have been reading through the Old Testament laws concerning the elderly lately for some classes I have been teaching.  What has become most apparent is how carefully God made arrangements for those and other equally helpless people like orphans and strangers, to be taken care of.  Did you know that the penalty for oppressing a widow or orphan was death (Ex 22:22-24)?  Did you know that sin is listed in the same category as adultery and witchcraft (Mal 3:5)?  Truly we need to take this more to heart than we usually do.

            But I also noticed God’s expectations for those same people themselves.  The older men and women are to train the younger (Titus 2).  In times of struggle they should be fonts of wisdom, not buckets of bitter resentments and regrets.  In the midst of fiery disputes they should be sources of temperance and cooling thoughts not fanners of the flame.

            As to the widows indeed, widows with no family who had met certain qualifications and were still able-bodied, they were to pledge themselves to work for the church in return for monetary support.  All those women were over sixty mind you, yet God said if they could still work for Him, they should, (1 Tim 5:9-12).

            What about Anna?  She stayed at the temple, prophesying every day.  She might possibly have been one of those women who worked there (Ex 38:8), even though she was over eighty.

            Simeon, who was also elderly, was still actively searching for the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple that first time.  The Spirit sent him that special day not only to see the answer to his many prayers, but to testify to the identity of the young babe.

            People of God work for God and serve Him as long as they possibly can.  Working for God takes one’s mind off himself, off her own problems and pains.  As long as I can, I should do what I can, perhaps adapting to new circumstances, but never sitting back and saying, “Well that’s it, I’m done.”  I have known mortally ill Christians who were still talking with people who needed help, still holding the hands of those who came to visit and cheering them up instead, while only days from death. 

            I know an old dog who still loves to play, who still wants more than anything to please her masters.  I think she will probably die with a ball in her mouth, trying to bring it back for one last throw.  I hope I never drop the ball for the Lord.

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of Jehovah; they shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and green to show that Jehovah is upright; He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him, Psalm 92:12-15.

Dene Ward