Wrens are known for building nests in odd places and we have a couple who have proven the point.  They can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to building nests.  And fast?  In less than an hour they are ready to set up housekeeping.   Anything that is left open and alone for that amount of time is fair game.
            We’ve found nests in boxes of empty mason jars in the shed, and on the lawn mower seat under its protective tarp.  We’ve found them on the bristles of the push broom which hangs upside down near the ceiling of the carport.  We’ve found them in roof gutters, and draped plastic sheeting.  We’ve found them in flower pots, tomato vines, and empty buckets.
            We usually buy dog food in 50 lb bags at the feed store and keep it stored in a large plastic garbage can in the shed.  We carry Chloe’s daily allotment in an old three pound coffee can, which we then shove sideways on the handlebars of the old exercise bike until the next day’s feeding.  Last month we found a wren’s nest in that can, obviously built after Chloe had been fed the day before, hanging precariously, rocking in the breeze. 
            Immediately Keith duct-taped it more securely to the handlebars so it couldn’t be blown or jostled off, and found another old can to use for Chloe’s feed.  It has become something of a joke now—remember to put up the [whatever] before the wrens find it.
            This doesn’t happen just once a year.  The mother wren incubates the eggs for about 2 weeks and then both parents feed them until they can fly, about two weeks later.  Often, the last few days of feeding, the father takes over completely so the mother can start another nest.  In our Florida climate, they often build a third nest after that one.  They are like little nest-building machines—wherever they can, whenever then can.
            Isn’t that the way we should be about the gospel?  Too many times we’re out there making judgments about where to sow the seed instead of strewing it about everywhere we can.  We decide who will and who won’t listen and worse, who we deem “worthy” to hear.
            That certainly isn’t what Jesus did.  He taught dishonest businessmen and immoral women.  He taught the upper class and the lowest of the low.  He taught the diseased and the disabled, as well as the hale and hearty blue collar workers.  He taught people who wanted to hear and people who just wanted to make trouble for him.  Shouldn’t we be following his example?
            Too many times we worry about the reception we will get.  When Jesus sent out the seventy, he didn’t say, “If you don’t think they’ll listen, then shake the dust off your feet and go elsewhere.”  What he said was, “If they don’t listen,” which means everyone had a chance to decline if that is what they chose to do.  We can’t seem to stand the possibility of rejection, not an auspicious trait for disciples of the one who was “despised and rejected of men.”
            We should be like wrens, speaking about our faith anywhere, even the most unlikely places, to anyone, even the most unlikely people.  Over and over and over, like we can’t help ourselves, like our lives depended upon it, because maybe they do.
 
Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.  Acts 20:26-27.
 

 

We talked once before about the need to teach facts as well as attitudes.  You have nothing to base your attitudes on if you don't have the facts.  But there is one real problem with facts-only teaching.  You can know the story of the Good Samaritan so well you can quote it, but can you put feet to it?  Can you look at your own life and apply it to your situation?  Over and over I have taught the lives of various women in the Bible only to have an entire class look at me with a blank stare when I ask how it applies to their own lives.  If we want people to learn this skill, we need to start teaching it to them as children. 
            Keith and I are team-teaching a class.  When we went over the Parable of the Sower (or the Soils), by the time we had finished they could tell you about each soil in depth.  So the next class, I wrote descriptions of different people, giving these imaginary people the sort of names their own friends and classmates have to make them seem more real, and asked, "Which soil is she?"  "Which soil is he?"  Once they got the hang of it, they could answer with only a few seconds thought.  Finally I had them do it.  "Tell me how someone would act if he were…" fill in the blank with whichever soil you care to name.  They did very well.  I had to laugh though when we asked, "What would someone look like if he were good soil?" and one of them answered, "Us!"  I hope he is correct, and at least at this point, I think he is.
            This past week we tried something else.  First I had them name various things Jesus taught in short phrases:  love your enemies, let your light shine, enter the narrow door, do unto others etc., and be wise as serpents— you can easily come up with more.  Then I handed each a situation they might someday be facing if not in exact detail, then something similar.  We asked them what they would do in that situation and what thing Jesus taught had led them to that solution.  They gave us good solutions to the problems.  The difficult thing was finding something in Jesus' teaching that would have helped them know what to do.  As we talked together, if we mentioned one they could instantly see how that tenet of teaching informed the situation.  They could also see that sometimes there was more than one right way of handling the situation and not to be judgmental if someone did something else as long as they did not sin.   We will be repeating this activity again and see if things are improving.
            As many times as Keith has visited fallen away members and read passages to them only to be faced with that same blank stare, I wonder if maybe it's time to give us grown-ups a dose of the same medicine.  Don't think for a minute this is kids' stuff, but maybe if we taught our children this way, there wouldn't be so many adults who are clueless about, as we so often have heard prayed, "applying these things to our daily lives."  That is certainly what God expects us to do.
 
For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake (1Cor 9:9-11).                                                                                          
 
Dene Ward

We raised pigs when the boys were growing up.  A pig a year in the freezer went a long way toward making our grocery bill manageable, everything from bacon and sausage in the morning to chops and steaks on the supper table, ribs on the grill, and roasts and hams on our holiday table.  The first time the butcher sent the head home in a clear plastic bag and I opened the freezer to find it staring at me nearly undid me though.  After that Keith made sure to tell them to “keep the head.”
            We bought our pigs from a farmer when they were no more than 30 pounds.  That created a problem that usually the boys and I were the only ones home to deal with.  Once the pigs were over 100 pounds they could no longer root their way under the pen, but those young ones did it with regularity, especially the first week or so when they had not yet learned this was their new home and they could count on being fed.  More than one morning I went out to feed them and found the pen empty, spending the remainder of my morning looking for the pig out in the woods.
            One Wednesday evening when Keith had to work, the boys and I stepped outside to load us and our books into the car for the thirty mile trip to Bible study, only to see the young pig, probably 40 pounds by that time, rooting in the flower beds.  We spent the next forty-five minutes chasing it.  You would think three smart people, two of them young and agile and me not exactly decrepit in those earlier days, could corner a pig and herd him back to the pen.  No, that pig gave chase any time any one of us got within twenty feet of him, and they are much faster than they look.
            You see things in cartoons and laugh at the pratfalls exactly as the cartoonist wanted you to, knowing in your mind that such things never could happen.  When you chase a pig you find out otherwise. 
            Once we did manage to corner the thing between a fencepost and a ditch and Lucas, who was about 12, leapt for him with his arms outstretched.  Somehow that pig managed to move and Lucas landed flat on the ground on his stomach while the pig ended up trotting past all of us on his merry way, wagging his head in what looked like amusement.
            Another time Lucas actually got his arms around the pig’s stomach, but even an un-greased pig is a slippery creature.  Nathan and I never had a chance to grab on ourselves before it was loose again and off we all ran around the property for the umpteenth time, dressed for Bible study by the way, which made the sight much more ridiculous, especially my billowing skirt.
            We never did catch that pig.  He simply got tired and decided to go back into the pen.  I had opened the gate and as he trotted toward it, we all gratefully jogged behind him, winded and filthy and caring not a hoot that it was his idea instead of ours.  Still, he had to have the last word.  Instead of going through the open gate, at the last minute he ran back to where he had gotten out in the first place and slunk under the rooted out segment of the pen.  Then he turned around and looked at us.  “Heh, heh,” I could almost hear with the look he gave us.  We shut the gate, filled in the hole, loaded up the feed trough, and went inside to clean up, arriving at Bible study thirty minutes late and too exhausted and traumatized to learn much that night.
            God is a promise maker.  He has given us so many promises I could never list them all here.  We have a habit of treating those promises like a pig on the loose, like something we can’t really get a good hold of, certainly not a secure one. 
            I grew up in a time when it was considered wrong to say, “I know I am going to Heaven.”  Regardless the fact that John plainly said in his first epistle, “These things I have written that you may know you have eternal life,” (5:13), actually saying such a thing would get you a scolding about pride, and a remonstrance like, “Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall!”  We were too busy fighting false doctrine to lay hold of a hope described as “sure” in Heb 6:19.  
            That word is the same one used in Matt 27:64-66.  The priests and Pharisees implored Pilate to make Jesus’ tomb “sure” so his disciples could not steal the body and claim a resurrection.  He told the guards, “Make it as sure as you can.”  Do you think they would have been careless about it?  Do you think there was anything at all uncertain about the seal on that tomb?  Not if you understand the disciplinary habits of the Roman army.  It is not quite as obvious because of the different translation choice, but the Philippian jailor was given the same order, using the same word, when Paul and Silas were put in prison:  “Charging the jailor to keep them safely [sure],” and he was ready to kill himself when he thought they had escaped.
            That is how sure our hope is--“an anchor…steadfast and sure.”  It isn’t like a pig we have to chase down.  It isn’t going to slip through our fingers if we don’t want it to.  Paul told the Thessalonians that “sure” hope would comfort them, 2 Thes 2:16.  How comforting is it to be fretting all the time about whether or not you’re going to Heaven?  How reassuring is it to picture God as someone who sits up there waiting for you to slip so He can say, “Gotcha!”  That is how we treat Him when we talk about our hope as anything less than certain.
            I never knew what to expect when I stepped out of my door the first few weeks with a new piglet.  If we hadn’t needed it, I would not have put myself through the anxiety and the ordeal.  Why in the world would anyone think that God wants us to feel that way about our salvation?
 
…in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal, Titus 1:2.
 
Dene Ward         

Wrens are known for making their nests in strange places.  On the carport, the old exercise bike has become the place to hang things, including the old coffee can we use to scoop Chloe’s feed from the fifty pound bag, and then shove sideways on one handle bar until the next morning.  One Saturday afternoon, after Keith had used the can in the morning, a wren couple went to work right under our noses and built a nest inside it in less than an hour.  When we discovered it, Keith grabbed some duct tape and ran a piece along the side of the can onto the handlebar to hold it steady.  We both hated the thought of the wind or a jostle by one of us knocking the can to the ground, especially after the eggs were laid.
            We have been checking the nest every few days, bending down with a flashlight to look inside.  That mother is obviously devoted, sitting there staring at us through the beam, not moving a muscle though we are only a few feet away from her.  We try to make our intrusions short and no more than once every other day or so.  Last Saturday we looked in and saw a mouth.  An hour or so later there were three more--a fuzzy gray mound of down and four wide open mouths, swaying back and forth, eagerly searching for whatever we might have brought.  I hated to disappoint them.
            From time to time we see the parents flying back and forth.  They come with a mouthful and leave just a few seconds later—over and over and over.  The only time those tiny mouths are closed is when the babies are asleep.  While they are awake, mama and daddy get no rest for they are never satisfied.  It is never enough.
            That is exactly what God should see from us—wide open mouths.  If you think attending every service and even extra Bible studies makes you one who “hungers and thirsts after righteousness,” you have missed the point.  Certainly we need the nourishment provided when the flock is fed the word of Life, but that isn’t even half of it.  Like newborn infants, long for the spiritual milk that by it you may grow up unto salvation, Peter tells us in his first epistle, 2:2.  The point is the longing for the spiritual instead of the physical; understanding that the point of this life is training for the next.
            Yes, you need a good background in the scriptures.  I am often appalled at how poorly my brethren know them.  But where there is no desire for righteousness there will be no spirituality.  Where there is no longing for God, learning facts will simply be an intellectual exercise.  We must be like baby birds—nothing but a wide open mouth that will not be satisfied until the bread of life has completely filled it. 
            What are you longing for today?  Wealth will not satisfy.  Health will not satisfy.  Status and fame, not even our fifteen minutes’ worth, will satisfy.  The only true satisfaction can come from God. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore…For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water…, Rev 7:16-17.
            The only way to receive that promise—for your hunger and thirst to be filled--is to be hungry and thirsty in the first place. We should all be nothing less than another hungry mouth to feed.
 
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. John  6:57-58.   

Dene Ward                 

I have not completely described our new home to you yet.  We are in the Tampa area, on the eastern edge of Temple Terrace.  In fact, if we walked about three blocks east, we would be in the county.  Our community is small, with tiny lots inside a solid white fence.  We sit on the western perimeter, smack in the middle of the westernmost row of homes.  We are called "Bridgeford Oaks" and many oak trees provide cover throughout.  In fact, our line of houses has one in nearly every yard—except ours.  But enough grow behind and to each side to keep off the blazing sun for a good part of the day.  Our back yard is full shade most all day long.
               The house itself would probably be called small yet, not only is it not the smallest house plan in the neighborhood, it is 150 square feet more than I raised my boys in.  But then they had five acres to play in, so maybe that's not a fair comparison.  Our yard is so small it can be mown in 15 minutes.  The house itself is that color of gray you see everywhere now, the popularity of which I have never understood.  Who wants a house the color of a concrete block?  It looks like a giant cinder block sitting on a pretty green lawn.  Keith says he has never seen a cinder block this color, but that is still what it makes me think of.
               The windows in front look out on a short hedge of schefflera bordered by a row of bright blue evolvulus, aptly named "Blue My Mind," and a desert rose sits out by the front curb.  Two pink tabebuias share space in the tiny front yard, trees grown by our grandson Judah from the seeds of their own tabebuias.  I can hardly wait until they bloom.  Along the north side yard are a rose that blooms almost ferociously, huge beautiful red blooms, a gardenia that is also not bashful about blooming, and yet another schefflera.  It may not be the wealth of bloom and color we had before, but it is not minimal either.
               We are still working on the backyard.  The back door now opens into a tiny corner screened porch, maybe 8 x 8.  Too small for a real porch, so when more money comes along, we will screen in the new 10 x 15 slab we had poured, tearing down the back wall of the other and make one larger L-shaped screened porch.  In view of that future, we planted a long row of fuchsia along the fence.  Keith has also laid enough pavers for a patio right beside the slab that already holds the grill, the portable fire pit, and a couple of chairs.  Once we are finished building back there, more planting will commence in the corners and sides, probably shade tolerant perennials and creeping ground covers.
               For now, my elliptical machine is on that tiny back corner porch of the house.  It takes up about a third of the whole room.  But now that we no longer have big burly men in our house hammering, drilling, sawing, and grunting in various levels of exertion, I am back on the machine trying to keep myself as healthy as possible.  And that is where I was when I heard it.
               We must have been there a good four or five months before he came, sat on the grill lid handle, and started his beautiful loud song.  Even I could see that jaunty little tail sticking up at its unusual angle against the white fence—a wren!  All I had heard before was a hawk that circles the neighborhood from his home over the perimeter fence where a retention pond sits surrounded by yet more oaks. I have heard him several times since then and his sound makes me feel at home once again.  They have wrens in this place!  All is right with the world.
               And the truth is, they have wrens every place in this state.  And somehow, that brought to mind the vision Ezekiel saw in chapter 1.  As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, and a great cloud, with brightness around it, and fire flashing forth continually, and in the midst of the fire…came the likeness of four living creatures…they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot. And they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward, without turning as they went…Wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went…Now as I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them. As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl. And the four had the same likeness, their appearance and construction being as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in any of their four directions without turning as they went. And their rims were tall and awesome, and the rims of all four were full of eyes all around. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels (Ezek 1:4-21).
               I hope you can visualize that at least a little bit.  The whole point is that this whatever-it-is could go anywhere, anytime, at a moment's notice.  That was important for the people to hear.  If you go back to the first couple of verses of the chapter, you see that Ezekiel is in Babylon along with the exiles.  Those people had grown up in a culture which confined God to Jerusalem and, specifically, the Temple.  Here they were, hundreds of miles away from God—or so they thought.  It took Ezekiel several long years and, finally, a messenger recounting the fall of the city and destruction of the Temple, to get them to believe it when he told them God was there in Babylon with them, that God could be anywhere! 
               We have grown up with the idea of an invisible God who is anywhere and everywhere, but sometimes we seem to forget that too.  No matter where we go, He is there.  He hears, He sees—all those eyes on the wheels Ezekiel saw tell us that.  And so, that morning, when I finally heard that little wren, I was reminded, too.  God is here too, just like he was in all those lush green acres of birds and squirrels and foxes and bobcats and possums and raccoons, yes, and even snakes.  He is wherever His people are, whenever they need Him.  If anyone thought we were just dots on a five acre plot and of no importance to God, they might think we would really be lost to Him now, on this tiny postage stamp yard lost among thousands more people than before.  But that just isn't true. 
               And He can find you too, no matter where you are or what you are going through.  He may not send you a grand vision such as Ezekiel's; but maybe He will send you a little wren to remind you that God is always there for His people.  He will never leave them alone.
 
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth (Ps 145:18).
 
Dene Ward

The first few years I only had one catbird at my feeder, a chary fellow who only visited during winter when he couldn’t find anything easily on his own.  He sat clumsily on the suet cage, which was almost too small for him, and pecked away, but it only took a micro-movement from me on the other side of the window to scare him off.
            Although I had read that the catbird got its name from its call, I had never heard him utter a peep.  He quietly came to the square of suet, ate his fill, and left.  The other morning, as I sat by the window he flew into the nearest azalea on the other side of the feeder and I heard it, a “mew” just as clear and sweet as a newborn kitten’s.  And what caused him to mew?  There on the suet perched another catbird--he was jealous.  Suddenly he flew at the interloper and chased him away.   
            Within a week, a third catbird had joined the fray, this one a bit smaller and slimmer, probably a fledgling.  Now they all go at it.  It isn’t enough to chase one away and then eat your fill.  They think they must sit guard and keep the others from getting any of it.  This is not the catbird personality I had always seen before, and I hear that mew more often, too.  Now I know what truly lies beneath those slate gray feathers.
            I have seen it happen with people, too.  You think they are one sort of personality but when circumstances don’t go their way, suddenly they morph into someone you have never met before.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, like quiet mothers who instantly, and fiercely, protect their young, but others times it means we have not really become new creatures, we have just hidden the old one and stress made him rear his ugly head once again.
            Becoming a better person is difficult.  Baptism doesn’t instantly fix the flaws in your character.  They have deep-seated roots from childhood or traumatic experiences in your life.  It takes effort to change yourself.  You have to first realize where the problems lie.  Then you have to prepare yourself to meet those stressful situations with study, prayer and meditation, deciding ahead of time how you will react should the same thing happen again.  You have to learn to accept the help of others, even if it does come in the form of a stern rebuke or disapproving look.  Finally, you have to be on watch.  Most of us just let life happen to us, then wonder why we weren’t able to do better “after all these years,” as if time were the only thing that mattered.  Doing better must come from being better or it won’t last.
            God will not remove the stress from our lives.  He won’t make the trials suddenly disappear.  Any time we convert someone with the promise that all of their problems will now be solved, we are giving them false hopes.  The true hope is that now we have help with our problems--if we use it.  God does not allow trials so we will have an excuse for bad behavior but so we will become stronger and better able to handle those trials. 
            I watch those catbirds and wonder if I have really become a new creature.  Today it’s time to get up out of my chair and work on it.
 
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…Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they have become new. 2 Cor 5:14, 15, 17                                                           

A few mornings ago Chloe and I walked out to Magdi’s grave for a few minutes and saw that the mums we planted there are coming back from the winter’s frost, and the grass around it is greening up as well.  As we headed back to the house, I stopped and listened.  I heard crows, wrens, titmice, cardinals, hawks, woodpeckers, chickadees, blue jays, and sparrows, as well as a few I haven’t yet learned to recognize.  The world seemed completely full of tweets, chirps, whistles, warbles, and trills.  I am hearing God, I thought, just as surely as if He had spoken out loud.  Who else could have created such diverse and beautiful sounds?  Everything else was manmade and ugly—a semi roaring out on the highway, the neighbor’s leaf blower whining, another’s raucous lawn mower spitting and sputtering, and still another’s old pickup truck revving loudly. 

              It made me stop to think of all the other times I have heard God in my life—the incessant pounding of the waves on the beach; the scream of a hawk diving for its prey; the sound of a little boy’s voice who, less than eight years ago, did not exist; my daddy’s final breath as he left for a better place.  Anyone who has not heard God in those things, probably does not hear Him in the place where He speaks plainest—His word, for God does not leave His children wondering just exactly what that metaphysical moment they experienced meant for them to do.  He tells them plainly.

              Remember the Day of Pentecost?  Everyone heard “a sound as of a rushing mighty wind” that “filled all the house,” a sound they all recognized as having come “from heaven,” Acts 2:2.  Yet when did they finally know what God wanted them to do?  Only after the apostles spoke.  “Then when they heard this,” they were told exactly what to do, 2:37. 

              When an angel spoke to Cornelius in a vision—an angel, mind you—he certainly heard God, but he was told to send for Peter who would speak “words whereby you shall be saved” 11:14.

              Paul told the Romans “faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ” 10:17, the same word, the same gospel he proclaimed “the power of God unto salvation” 1:16.

              Yes, it is possible to hear God in the world around you.  If you don’t, you have a remarkably unspiritual mind.  If the roar of the wind and crack of thunder in a storm doesn’t fill you with wonder at the power of an Almighty Creator, you need a few pointed reminders as to the brevity and fragility of life and the temporal nature of the world around you.  But if you really want to know what God wants of you, get out His Word and read it.  Only those who are ready to listen can really hear.
 
Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. John 8:47.
 
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

Magdi 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.
             As she aged, her bones and joints steadily betrayed her.  She drug one hind foot occasionally because it hurt too much to pick it up.  Her knees were swollen and stiff and some days she didn’t even try to get up when we went outside; she simply looked up and gave one floppy tail wag—thump, glad to see you, boss.  She stopped racing to the gate to greet us when we came home, but if we had been away awhile, she would slowly walk until she got there.  I always felt so bad when we closed the gate and started down the drive before she made it.  She had to turn and retrace those several hundred steps, but if we stood and waited at the door, she would 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 stood up even if she did not.  If you bounced it, she rose to her feet, though a bit unsteadily, and stood poised ready to run.  We learned to merely toss it, rather than throwing it as hard and far as we could, and she hobbled after it, all thought of pain and age and weariness abandoned. 
            One 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 had “taken care of” many snakes and lizards over the years, as well as moles, tortoises, armadillos, and possums.  It was her job, and since all these eye surgeries started, she took 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 loved to play, despite her age, who still wanted more than anything to please her masters. At one point I thought she would probably die with a ball in her mouth, trying to bring it back for one last throw. Magdi never dropped the ball for us.  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

It's been awhile since we had one, but the other morning as we came in from our last cup of coffee on the porch, we looked uphill toward the gate and saw a wild turkey, a male by his colors, about a head shorter than the fence.  Every so often he stopped his awkward strut and pecked at the ground.  It was still early spring, so pickings were slim out there in the wild.  We assumed he would eventually head toward the bird feeders on the north side of the house and vacuum up the fallen seed as a relative or two of his has in the past.  He was not that patient.
            Suddenly he turned and walked straight at the fence, bouncing off and then standing there in what looked like turkey consternation.  He tried again, this time harder, but still couldn't get through.  So he took a few steps east and tried again.  And again.  Then he backtracked further west and practically ran at the fence, only to be flung backwards like a vertical trampoline, reeling and flapping his wings, the only things that kept him from landing on his turkey fanny.
            First, a little education for city slickers.  Turkeys hate to fly.  In fact, only a relatively short fence, far shorter than ours in fact, will keep them penned up successfully as long as there is plenty of food.  They will keep walking around it looking for an opening instead of flying over it.  Imminent danger, abject terror, or a real need for food are the only things that will make them fly, hence those nice tender turkey wings we love, I suppose.  So our visitor never even tried to get over the fence, he just kept trying to get through it, again and again and again.
            Have you ever known someone who just wouldn't learn the lessons of life and had to get knocked down again and again and again, like someone trying to bull his way through a solid wall?  Have you ever seen a person push back at God, though time and time again God tried to wake him up?  I have, and it is ever more frustrating to see someone find every excuse in the book for not listening.  He is no better than that turkey trying to walk through a fence over and over and over.  It isn't even new.
            Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers (Num 14:20-23)
            Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. (Jer 8:5)
            This evil people…refuse to hear my words [and] stubbornly follow their own... (Jer 13:10)
            They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their necks…(Neh 9:17)
            But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. (Zech 7:11)
            Not a flattering picture, and especially sobering when you realize that those are pictures of God's people over several centuries.  In other words, it happens all the time even to those who have seen God's power and goodness and "steadfast love," that covenant term which they seemed to think as little of as garbage.  That means we, in yet another century, do it, too.
            And just as happened to them so it will to us if we follow their example:  He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing. (Prov 29:1)
            In today's slang we have a word for a fool and a loser, which is what you are when you are told again and again and still don't get it:  a turkey.  From what I saw the other morning, it is an apt term.
 
Thus says the LORD to me, “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, and do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the LORD, and put it around my waist. And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, “Take the loincloth that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the LORD said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing. Then the word of the LORD came to me: “Thus says the LORD: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. (Jer 13:1-10)