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 animal 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 running, 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 to 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 me. Romans 15:1-3.

Dene Ward

We were standing on the carport one evening when I saw movement out of
the corner of my eye.  I turned just in time to push Keith out of the path of a garter snake determinedly chugging his way up the slope to the concrete slab. 
We called the dogs off and allowed him to meander under the mower and off
the edge of the pad to the cool darkness under the porch.  A few days later he made another appearance and we discovered his home when he wriggled away—the hollow pipes supporting the metal roofing of the carport.

I have come a long way in 35 years--from a city girl who screamed and ran from a foot long, pencil-thin, bright green garden snake to a country woman who understands the value of a snake on the property—God’s original mousetrap.  I will never be a snake lover.  I went out one afternoon and found him stretched out at the foot of my lounge chair. I got the broom and shooed him back into his pipe.  My dogs can sit at my feet and have their heads scratched, but with Mr. Snake it is only a matter of “live and let live.”

Too many times we take that attitude with Satan. Yes, he is out there every day. Sometimes we even bump elbows in passing, but we don’t have to stop and politely say, “Excuse me.”  Don’t give him a cool spot on the carport and an idle belly rub with your bare toes.

If this garter snake were one of the four poisonous varieties we have in
this area—all of which we have seen on our land—he would not be tolerated.  Although my guys may tell funny stories about me and snakes, they cannot deny that I know how to make like Annie Oakley when a bad one comes along.  I have killed them with a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a .22 pistol.  I have killed them with rat shot and buckshot.  When necessary I have used a shovel.  I have lost count of how many poisonous snakes I have killed.  They get fewer every year.

How are we doing with Satan?  Does he think his presence is tolerated, even welcome?  Or does he know that it’s dangerous to be around us?  He is fighting a losing battle and he knows it, but that won’t keep his poison from killing us if we allow him to get too close.

Do not give opportunity to the Devil, Eph 4:27.

Dene Ward


 

My floor is finished. I am thrilled to have my house back to myself after three weeks of sharing it with the installer.  He was a nice guy.  My dogs loved him.  He brought them stale doughnuts every morning.
             
The morning after he finished I stepped outside to an empty carport and
the sound of silence where there should have been the click of claws and pad of paws on concrete, rushing to greet me.  I started up the drive and there they were—sitting next to the gate, gazing down the road, obviously pining for the man and his doughnuts.  
          
I called them back.  Chloe came more or less eagerly, but Magdi stopped every ten feet or so and looked over her shoulder toward the gate.  I had to call and clap my hands every so often to keep her coming my way.  
 
This has happened for several mornings now.  I may pet her, and do it often, but I don’t give her doughnuts.  She has sold her soul to a new master just for a doughnut!

What do we sell ours for?  We may even think we have not.  Magdi still lives on our property.  She still comes when we call.  She still allows us to medicate and feed her the healthy stuff, but all the time she is looking over her shoulder toward the gate, yearning for a doughnut.

Are we still showing up at the right places, saying the right things, even acting the right way most of the time, but secretly looking over our shoulders, longing for something else?  We needn’t even bother trying.  No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God; remember Lot’s wife, Luke 9:62; 17:32.

I cannot explain to the dogs that if they lived on a steady diet of doughnuts they would actually die of malnutrition, not to mention the woes that come with obesity.  They just know that a nice man gave them something that tasted
good.

We should be smarter than a couple of dogs.  We should have the sense to know that the things we sell our souls for are not worth the end result—not wealth, not power, not social acceptance, not a physical high that only lasts a moment, not the satisfaction that comes with vengeance or simply putting someone in his place.  
 
Whatever it is we are selling ourselves for, however smart it may appear
to the world, however good it may feel, it might as well be doughnuts.  

Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever will save his life shall lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.  For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matt 16:24-26.

Dene Ward

Until we got Chloe, we had always practiced what pet owners know as “self-feeding.”  You fill up the feed pan and a few days later, when you notice that it is finally empty, you fill it up again.  Magdi always just ate what she needed to eat and no more, like most animals do.  In spite of the fact that she was an athlete who worked off an incredible number of calories every day, she was never tempted to overeat.

Then came Chloe.  We kept up with the “self-feeding” once she started eating adult food because we wanted to make sure she got enough.  Magdi had a tendency to claim the feed pan as hers and guard it whether she was eating or not.  But we should have realized when we stood over Chloe and looked down that she was getting plenty to eat.  Instead of a straight line from her shoulders to her hind quarters, there was a significant bulge on each side.  When we took her to the vet, the doctor strongly recommended a low calorie diet.  Self-feeding does not work with Miss Piggy dining in the doghouse.

In just a couple of weeks of measured daily feeding she slimmed down. She was much more active, running with Magdi across the fields as they played, and tearing up the ground to greet Keith at the gate when he came home.  She even leapt into the air chasing a bee a few weeks afterward and managed to get all four feet off the ground a foot or more.  We no longer have a piglet with a cold wet black nose and a wagging tail.

God practices a sort of spiritual self-feeding.  His word is available to us any time we want it.  He has given us elders, wise leaders who see to our more formal spiritual meals, and who take that responsibility seriously.  But we can reach into the “pantry” any time we want and snack to our hearts’ content.  In fact, the shame is that instead of looking pleasantly plump in a spiritual sense, too many of us look like we have been on a fast.  When I have labored over a meal for several hours and hardly anyone comes to the dinner table, and those few just pick at their meals, I get a little miffed.  Don’t you suppose God does, too?

Now, more than any other time in history, and here, more than any other place in the world, we can study the Bible any time we want to.  Where is our appreciation of the providence of God?  Where is our hunger for the meat of the word?  Have we filled ourselves up with the empty calories of pop culture and the simple carbs of modern philosophy to the point that we have no room for real food? 

Take a moment today to examine what you are taking into your spirit, what you are filling your soul with, and determine to make a change in your spiritual diet.  Jesus called himself the Bread of Life.  Aren’t we interested in that life at all?

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread out of Heaven to eat.  Jesus therefore said unto them, Amen and amen, I say unto you, It was not Moses who gave you bread out of Heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of Heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down out of Heaven, and gives life to the world.  They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.  Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes on me shall never thirst, John 6:31-35.

Dene Ward

            Until we got Chloe, we had always practiced what pet owners know as “self-feeding.”  You fill up the feed pan and a few days later, when you notice that it is finally empty, you fill it up again.  Magdi always just ate what she needed to eat and no more, like most animals do.  In spite of the fact that she was an athlete who worked off an incredible number of calories every day, she was never tempted to overeat.

            Then came Chloe.  We kept up with the “self-feeding” once she started eating adult food because we wanted to make sure she got enough.  Magdi had a tendency to claim the feed pan as hers and guard it whether she was eating or not.  But we should have realized when we stood over Chloe and looked down that she was getting plenty to eat.  Instead of a straight line from her shoulders to her hind quarters, there was a significant bulge on each side.  When we took her to the vet, the doctor strongly recommended a low calorie diet.  Self-feeding does not work with Miss Piggy dining in the doghouse.

            In just a couple of weeks of measured daily feeding she slimmed down. She was much more active, running with Magdi across the fields as they played, and tearing up the ground to greet Keith at the gate when he came home.  She even leapt into the air chasing a bee a few weeks afterward and managed to get all four feet off the ground a foot or more.  We no longer have a piglet with a cold wet black nose and a wagging tail.

            God practices a sort of spiritual self-feeding.  His word is available to us any time we want it.  He has given us elders, wise leaders who see to our more formal spiritual meals, and who take that responsibility seriously.  But we can reach into the “pantry” any time we want and snack to our hearts’ content.  In fact, the shame is that instead of looking pleasantly plump in a spiritual sense, too many of us look like we have been on a fast.  When I have labored over a meal for several hours and hardly anyone comes to the dinner table, and those few just pick at their meals, I get a little miffed.  Don’t you suppose God does, too?

            Now, more than any other time in history, and here, more than any other place in the world, we can study the Bible any time we want to.  Where is our appreciation of the providence of God?  Where is our hunger for the meat of the word?  Have we filled ourselves up with the empty calories of pop culture and the simple carbs of modern philosophy to the point that we have no room for real food? 

            Take a moment today to examine what you are taking into your spirit, what you are filling your soul with, and determine to make a change in your spiritual diet.  Jesus called himself the Bread of Life.  Aren’t we interested in that life at all?

Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written, He gave them bread out of Heaven to eat.  Jesus therefore said unto them, Amen and amen, I say unto you, It was not Moses who gave you bread out of Heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of Heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down out of Heaven, and gives life to the world.  They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.  Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes on me shall never thirst, John 6:31-35.

Dene Ward

Every time I go outside Chloe comes running, tail wagging, waiting for me to scratch her head.  If my hands are full, she butts the back of my leg with her nose until I manage to free my arms, bend over and scratch her head. If I am taking a load somewhere, she follows along, and I feel that little round nudge constantly all the way until FINALLY  (I am sure she is thinking) she gets
that longed for scratch on the head.  
 
This morning I suddenly wondered if I do that with God.  Am I so anxious for His attention that every morning I can hardly wait to talk with Him? Or do I just leave Him in the back of my mind until I can find a spare minute, and if He is lucky,  I might actually have a whole minute?

Yes, Chloe is making a little pest of herself to get my attention, but do you know what?  It doesn’t bother me a bit.  In fact, I find myself hurrying to put down my armload so I can pat her even sooner. It’s endearing to have a little creature want you so much.  Some days I go outside just to see her run up to me with that swishing tail, and actually sit down and spend a few minutes with her for no other reason  than to be with her.  I guess that’s what happens when your children grow up and the dogs are all you have around to dote on.

What was it Jesus said?  If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Matt 7:11.  I don’t for a minute pretend to understand how God feels about things, but Jesus gives us a hint here.  If I, an imperfect person who sometimes still allows sin into my life, can love my
children enough to give them good gifts, if I can still care enough about a
small animal to want to satisfy its desire for attention, what will God not do
for me? If that small child’s pestering endears him to me because it makes me know he wants to be with me, certainly if it can happen with an animal’s little nose bumping my leg, won’t my pestering do the same for God?  
 
And to the other side of the question, if I act like God’s attention means little to me, why should He give me any of it when I decide I could use it?  My mother always says, “If I say to God, ‘I’m too busy for you right now,’ what’s to keep Him from saying that to me?”  I think she has a point there.

And he spoke a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came often to him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for awhile: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says.  And shall not God avenge his elect that cry to him day and night and yet he is longsuffering over them? I say unto you, that he will avenge them speedily.  Luke 18:1-8.
 
Dene Ward

Lucas bought me a bird book for Mother’s Day one year.  This was not your average Audubon Society coffee table slab.  On the side of the book is a speaker, a push button and a tiny screen.  Each page in the book pictures a North American songbird with the usual blurb about its range, habits, and call.  Under the bird is a number.  When you put the correct number on the screen then push the button, you will hear that particular bird, actual recordings taken by the ornithology lab at Cornell University. 

I’ve heard the ugly squawk of blue jays all my life.  It seems fitting for this thug of a bird which bullies smaller birds and steals nests.  I’d been hearing a bird with a clear wooden whistle call for years.  I was positive it was a cuckoo, based solely on the cuckoo clocks I have heard, but as soon as I checked the cuckoo’s sound in my book, I knew I was mistaken.  On a whim one day, I punched in the blue jay’s number, wondering why in the world it was considered a songbird.  Suddenly a wooden whistle came floating out of the speakers.  This was a blue jay?  This was the sound I had become so enamored with?  It had never dawned on me that a bird could make more than one sound.

So blue jays were not the kindest birds in the forest.  I loved hearing that loud, clear call of theirs, and the fact that a blue jay could make such a lovely sound was strangely uplifting. I knew I would miss it if suddenly it disappeared.

How many times do we let our judgment of people, especially people we disagree with or have dealt with in less than ideal circumstances, keep us from seeing anything good about them?  How many times do we filter our views, not through the rose-colored glasses of kindness, but through a specialty lens we grind ourselves, one of malice that blocks out the good and magnifies the bad?  Ounce for ounce, hummingbirds are among the most vicious creatures on earth, actually attempting to impale one another on those long, sword-like beaks as they fight over the feeders we humans put out, yet we ooh and aah over them.  I really don’t think that the people with whom I have personality conflicts are actually out to murder me, so why can’t I see any of the pluses in their characters?

Isn’t there a human blue jay in your life?  Find that person today and take off the blinders.  Do something kind; say something kind.  Instead of pushing the button that releases a squawk, push the button that brings beautiful music.  Give him a chance to show his good side.  Isn’t that what you wish he would do for you?

The wicked one craves evil; his neighbor gets no mercy from him, Prov 21:10.

Love suffers long and is kind…does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not provoked, does not keep track of evil…bears all things, believes all things, and hopes all things…love never fails, 1 Cor 13:4-7. 

Dene Ward

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 and makes you shiver to your shoes.  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 of 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

            
We had never heard of Australian Cattle Dogs until a neighbor gave us a
puppy nearly thirteen years ago. We were so happy with Magdi, we got another one, Chloe, who is now six years old.  This breed is one of the newest in existence.  As you might guess, they originated in Australia and have wild dingo, Welsh heeler, Australian kelpie, Dalmatian, smooth collie, and bull terrier in their bloodlines. The breed standard was finally set and approved in 1903. That means they will breed true both physically and temperamentally, which is what makes a breed a breed.
             
What exactly are they bred to do? Herd cattle, of course. They do this by nipping at the cattle’s heels, and thus their other name, heelers.  As the breed was being developed this caused a few problems. Some mixes made dogs that did not just nip, but bit down and wouldn’t let go.  Others nipped, but then just stood there and had their heads kicked in by the cattle’s hooves. Finally they got the combination that produced a dog smart enough to nip and duck!
             
Our dogs do their best to herd, in spite of the fact that we have no cows. Magdi started trying to herd the two of us when she was just a few months old. As we walked around the property, she would cut across in front of us trying to turn us in the direction she wanted us to go. We had to be careful not to trip over her. Then whenever we stood still she would lie across our feet so we couldn’t go anywhere. Chloe tries to herd Magdi.  She nips at her heels all the time until Magdi gets her fill of it and snaps at her. The two of them chase any vehicle that comes down the drive, nipping at its “heels,” the back tires.  And together they try to herd squirrels. Whenever a squirrel runs up a tree, they are truly mystified—this is not the way it is supposed to work.
             
You know what we are “born and bred” to do? Worship God.  He has set
eternity in our hearts, Eccl 3:11; he has made his existence obvious through his creation, Psalm 19, Rom 1:19,20.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes concluded, Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole of man, 12:13.  The fact that people ignore all this and refuse to worship just shows that they are blind, rebellious fools according to Jeremiah 5:21-29.
             
Australian cattle dogs are not house dogs. They are not even yard dogs in today’s version of a backyard that takes about fifteen minutes to mow.  These animals need to run.  They need property and owners who exercise them more than a walk in the park every day. They are bred for prolonged activity daily. They are also bred to be fiercely loyal to and protective of their masters for life—they cannot be adopted by a new family once they have reached adulthood. Their loyalty will always be to their first family. If you take away their place to run and the masters they love, they will be miserable.
             
Have you noticed how miserable people seem today? Have you seen the perpetual anger that shows itself in road rage, domestic violence, and even the verbal abuse of waitresses and clerks in restaurants and stores? Have you seen how crime is not only growing but blamed on anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the criminal?  People are not doing what they were “born and bred” to do—serve God and each other.  Haven’t we seen enough insanely wealthy people satisfying their every desire who are still
miserable?  When will we ever catch on?  
             
They say that an Australian cattle dog is one of the most intelligent breeds there is, “capable of making decisions regarding himself, his owner and
family, his job, and his home territory,” according to the American Kennel
Club.  Sounds to me like they might be smarter than most humans.

But ask now the beasts and they shall teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and they shall tell you; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto you.  Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind, Job 12:7-10.
 
Dene Ward