We have had some cold this winter, more than in recent years.  Over the holidays we had at least two nights in the low to mid 20s, and have had quite a few in the 30s and 40s.  If you are north of the Florida-Georgia line that may not seem too bad to you, but for us, it's noteworthy.  It means when we go out in the mornings for our third cup of coffee and to throw treats for Chloe, we head for the east fire pit rather than sit on the breezy carport.  Even with layers of shirts, sweaters and coats, and even in sunny Florida, those plastic chairs feel cold to the backside, so we pile on the firewood, usually deadwood gathered from around the property.  If the fire is more smoke than flame, a good piece of fat lighter will usually get it going hot and strong, and a handful of pine straw provides the strong, hot, and immediate blaze our bodies crave for comfort. 
            After a few minutes we are finally warming up, both outside and in.  The hardwoods will begin to coal up and suddenly, though the flames may be lower, the heat is much higher.  I often need to turn a bit to the sides to keep my pants and the legs within them from scorching.  Sometimes we even need to push our chairs back a foot or two, and Chloe suddenly prefers to sit to the side on her pile of carefully raked up pine straw rather than right next to us.  When it gets that hot, all you have to do is look up and even on a perfectly still morning, see the leaves on the branches 30 feet above our heads dancing in the heat waves.  Hot air rises, they taught us in science class, and there is the proof of it.
            The Bible uses "heat" as a metaphor for anger, particularly when referring to God's anger.  He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress…(Ps 78:49).  But the same figure is used of our anger as well.  ​A hot-tempered man stirs up strife…(Prov 15:18).  Before we go too far along with this, we would do well to remember that anger is not necessarily a sin.  Be angry and sin not, Paul says in Eph 4:26.  But too often, that becomes the excuse du jour, a little too handy and too often used.  Still, we are right to be angry about some things.  ​Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law (Ps 119:53), but I fear that too often, our anger has nothing to do with our defense of God, righteousness and justice, but simply of ourselves and what was done to us.
            If a man has a constant problem with anger, the real issue isn't what caused the anger, but the fact that he is simply an angry man.  Anything can raise his hackles at the least provocation, and just like the heat from our morning fire, it will rise to the top, causing turmoil and upset.  It is not just his problem; it affects everyone around him.  As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife (Prov 26:21).  And perhaps worse, Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare (Prov 22:24-25).  An angry man is not a happy man and he had rather no one else be happy either.  It should go without saying that he is no fun to be around.
            Many angry men have the mistaken idea that their anger is a sign of strength.  God says otherwise.  A man with a quick temper is a fool (Prov 14:17; Eccl 7:9)).  He has no understanding (Prov 14:29).  He is weak (16:32), and he has no sense (19:11).  That's what God thinks of him. 
            So when you notice the hot air rising, especially within yourself, take a step backwards and reflect.  Why are you so easily angered?  (It can happen to women as well as men, you know.)  What has gotten so deep inside your heart that you can no longer control it?  No bad day or difficult circumstance can ever excuse it.  For some who are deeply damaged, it might require some professional help, but for the average person, it is a choice he makes when he decides to let anger take the controls.  Other people experience the same difficulties and manage to handle them in a righteous manner, including the Lord when he was on this earth.  With him on your side, so can you.
 
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God (Jas 1:19-20).
 
Dene Ward

One of our favorite parts of camping has always been the food!  Every night we cook over a wood fire—burgers, chops, steaks--everything tastes like it came from a five star gourmet restaurant when you have oak and hickory burning under them.

Keith starts the fire about a half hour before we need it, stacking one inch square split pieces of wood in an open crisscross pattern.  The flame is often three feet high and roaring.  Do you think that is when we cook?  No, not unless you want scorched raw meat.  The fire must burn down to the point that the flames are gone and all that is left are red coals.  Now it’s time to cook.  That inch or two of quiet embers is far hotter than a three foot high roar.
He opens the folding grill over them to burn it clean, and places the meat of the night six to ten inches above the heat, sometimes over to the side if, as is the case with chicken, we need to make sure it gets done all the way through before the outside chars. 

Children look at the two fires and it seems totally counterintuitive to them.  Surely the bright high flames make the hotter fire and the softly glowing embers the coolest.  Then they hold their hands out and discover their mistake.

Babes in the Lord can make the same mistake about the faith of others.  Surely the loud showy faith is the real one.  Surely the person who shouts amen and holds up his hands is more passionate about his love of God than the member who sits and quietly listens or bows his head.  I have lost count of the number of young people I have heard say they admired someone’s faith when it was the former type and not the latter.  The loud faith may well be just as sincere as the quiet, but if that’s all you look for, you will miss some of the best advice, the best encouragement, and the best examples of resilient faith in a life of trial that ever sat in front of you—or behind you, or even right next to you on the pew.

You are smart to look for help and encouragement in another’s faith.  Just be smart about the signs you judge it by.  Loud might just as easily be hot air as roaring fire.
 
Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5:23-24
 
Dene Ward

I’m sitting in my camo-mesh lounge chair in front of a campfire, the flame whirling up in a mini-tornado, the smoke wafting down the hillside away from the tent site.  The sun peeks through the leaf canopy dappling the brown, red, orange, and yellow foliage-strewn ground just enough to moderate the cool air into [long] shirtsleeve weather.  Pieces of crystal blue sky show here and there, grayed occasionally by a patch of camp smoke.  The titmice nag at us from the saplings and bushes at the foot of tall pines, hickory, beeches, and red oak, while a woodpecker alternates his door-knock pecking and his manic laugh.
            The campsite could not have been laid out any better.  A long back-in approach left us plenty of room to unpack boxes, coolers, and suitcases, and still have room to stack firewood and set up tents on a perfect length tent site, something not always easy to find for a 16 x 10 tent.  The table fit nicely inside the screen and the fire ring is far enough from both the tents to avoid sparks.
            The park itself is beautiful, lakes, valleys, mountain tops to hike—no hike longer than three to four hours, some appreciably shorter.  The bathhouses are clean with plenty of hot water and strong sprays from large showerheads.  The campsites afford as much or as little privacy as one wants—take your pick.  It is quiet and peaceful, yet only ten minutes from grocery, gas, and pharmacy.
            We’ve been here six days now—perfect park, perfect campsite, perfect weather.  We haven’t even had our customary day of rain, nor even an overcast morning.  So this is not the trip to test our mettle as campers.  It’s all been way too perfect.  But you know what?  We won’t have many stories to tell from this trip.  Oh wait!  Our forty year old electric blanket did give out on us the first—the coldest—night.  And don’t you see?  That’s the story we’ll be telling—and that’s when we found out we were seasoned campers.  We shrugged our shoulders and snuggled a little closer together in the double sleeping bag.
            Peter tells us that God will test our mettle as His servants.  Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been put to grief in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perishes though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 1 Pet 1:6-7.
            Too often, instead of passing the test, we use it as an excuse.  We say, “I know I didn’t do well, but after all, I was dealing with such difficult circumstances.”  Instead of growing and getting better and stronger, we blow up as usual and then apologize yet again.  If we were really improving, the apologies would become less frequent, and one day, perhaps, unnecessary.  That’s what God expects of us.
            He doesn’t look down and say, “Well, I know they can handle this trial.”  Why should He bother sending it?  Instead, the test comes and after we pass He looks down, as He did on Mt Moriah and says, “Now I know.”
            And it’s those tests that give us the experience to help others and the strength to endure more.  God never promised us perfect lives here on this sin-cursed world.  He did not promise you fame and fortune (no matter what Joel Osteen says).  He did not promise perfect health, perfect families, or even perfect brethren.  What He did promise is a perfect reward after we successfully navigate what amounts to, in the perspective of Eternity, a moment or two of imperfection.
            But only if you have the mettle.
 
When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God, Acts 14:21-22.
 
Dene Ward

It happens all the time in exactly the same way.  Sometimes we are coming out to our own rock-lined fire ring up against the eastern woods.  Other times we are rebuilding in the metal ring of a state park campsite.  Feathery white ashes cover the circle as much as four or five inches deep, the remains of a dead fire from the morning or even the night before.  But lean over and blow on those ashes and red embers glow beneath.  Hold your hands a few inches above and feel the warmth from that earlier fire.
            So we start gathering twigs of all sizes.  First we lay on a handful of pine straw, which almost immediately begins to smoke, followed by twigs the circumference of darning needles, then pencils, then finally some as big around as your thumb.  Usually before we are finished the straw is burning and once we hear the first crackle of wood, we know we have been successful.  If we have it, a sliver of lighter wood will ensure the fire doesn't go out, especially if we must take the time to grab a hatchet or axe and do some log splitting.  Now we're ready to sit back and warm our bones, throwing on another full size log as needed.
            You can learn a lot from a campfire.  For one thing, those tiny darning-needle-sized twigs are just as important as a larger log.  The latter may last much longer and give out more heat, but it would never have caught in the first place without the smaller twigs.  It might smoke and char a bit on the outside, but that's about it.
            For another, you aren't the only thing a good fire warms up.  Sometimes in our zeal for warmth, we stack twigs so high that a few fall off and roll to the back of the ring.  I was watching one on an early cool spring morning, seven or eight inches long, maybe a half inch in diameter, as it stood against the back side of the ring, at least a foot from the flames.  Suddenly, without a spark landing on it and without even smoking first, it burst into flame.  It had been a roaring fire.  We had already backed our chairs away a good two or three feet further, and it was so hot that a twig a good foot or so away had burst into flame without even being in the fire.
            So which piece of wood are you?
            Are you the small, seemingly insignificant twig that catches quickly and then passes its heat on to another and another and yet another?  The one who constantly mentions the Lord in your life and the love and generosity of spirit in your brethren rather than complaining about them?
            Are you the one who burns so hot that anyone nearby catches on fire, too?  The one who brings your friends, who peppers the preacher with questions they have asked you as you try to satisfy their curiosity and teach them the truth?
            Are you the larger log that burns long and hot, leaving embers behind that will help others start yet another fire after you are gone, one that might even burn larger and hotter than anything you ever imagined?  The parents who faithfully teach children who grow up to preach the Word to hundreds, who work long and hard to start a congregation in your area, who hold Bible studies in your home and attend gospel meetings as your Friday night entertainment?
            Campfires:  I have always enjoyed sitting next to one, watching the flames, yellow, orange, red, purple, and even blue, listening to the crackle and hiss, smelling the various smells of burning oak, hickory, and cedar.
            They are also a pretty good place to sit and think…
 
If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.  (Jer 20:9).
 
Dene Ward        

On our recent camping trip we had a lot of wildlife for company.  Yet it was neither frightening nor bothersome.  The only animal we saw besides the usual birds and squirrels that lived in the campground itself was a young raccoon who moseyed up to the woodpile, so interested in the spot where Keith had slung some cold coffee that he didn’t see us until about the same time we saw him.  All of us were startled and he fled for cover.  Yet I am positive we had much more company out in the woods.
            If I did not see them, how do I know?  Because as we hiked the park’s fifteen miles of trails over the next four days, we saw their tracks: the cloven hoof prints of many deer, the tiny handprints of other raccoons, the small padded paws of bobcats, and the deep, heavy prints of wild boars, along with places they had torn up the ground rooting and wallowing.  There were not just a few of these tracks either.  We saw far more animal tracks than people tracks on our daily hikes.
            I bet you believe me now, don’t you?  Yet God’s fingerprints are all over this world of ours and it seems that every year fewer people believe in Him.  They might as well believe that animals don’t exist in the forest; it would make about as much sense. 
            But people have been behaving this way for thousands of years. I am reminded of Moses performing his signs before Pharaoh.  The Egyptian ruler did not want to believe in Jehovah as the one true God.  He had his many magicians replicate Moses’ signs with their tricks.  Finally though, they reached a point where they could not do so. 
            “This,” they said to Pharaoh, “is the finger of God.”
            Would that men would be so honest today.
 
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity; that they may without excuse, because that knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasonings and their senseless heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.  Wherefore God gave them up…Rom 1:20-24.
 
Dene Ward

We discovered Blackwater River State Park well over a decade ago, right after it had been renovated.  It is a small park set on "the last white sand river in the country," situated in the Florida Panhandle a few miles north of I-10, and about 30 miles east of Pensacola.  We have stayed there twice now, both times in the winter, and enjoyed it both times.  While we have had only a few encounters with wildlife in our thirty-five years of camping, one of the most memorable occurred there.

              As usual that night, we left our warm campfire about 10 pm, and headed for the tent and the double sleeping bag—the more body heat the better in the winter, even in Florida.  About 2 am I woke up to a clattering in our screen tent, which we had set up over the picnic table so we would always have a place out of the rain.  I shook Keith awake.  Without his hearing aids he is totally deaf.  He read my lips with the aid of a flashlight, but thought I said there was someone out there, when I said something.  He unzipped the tent and made some sort of macho noise, then pulled on his coat and went out with the flashlight.  Meanwhile I was hearing the noise from the screen tent over the table, as he walked around the truck looking for a person.  I was thinking, "No, no, no--in the screen!"  But even yelling it would not have gotten through to him and would have wakened the entire campground.

              So he came back to our tent and when he stuck his head back in, I mouthed, "In the screen," and pointed, so he went, and sure enough we had forgotten to put our garbage bag in the back of the truck, and it was lying on the ground, torn open.  He knew it was a coon then, and took the bag and put it on top of the truck cab because he had not taken a truck key with him out of the tent, and came back to bed.

              Not five minutes later, I heard ka-whump! clatter, clatter!, and knew that the big, blue, Rubbermaid box that holds our pots and pans had been knocked off the bench of the picnic table, so I whapped Keith again and said, "It's ba-ack."  So he went back out and this time put the garbage bag totally inside the back of the truck before heading to the screen and finding the pot box, upended, but still sealed, on the ground.  He searched all around but saw no coon.  He decided to close up the propane stove because it was possible that some grease had spilled in there and was drawing the coon with the smell, though it had not come any other night.

              We had our biggest pot, a very thin, light aluminum 3 quart pot on top of it from boiling our evening coffee water.  The thing probably did not cost $5.00 thirty years ago, that's how light it was, just a layer or two thicker than aluminum foil.  I think my morning mug of coffee weighs more.  He leaned over and picked up the pot with one hand and closed the stove with the other. Just as he came up on one side of the table, the coon did a chin up on the other side so they were facing one another nose to nose in the starlight.  He was so startled he didn't think at all, just went wham! with that flimsy little pot.  The coon scrambled trying to get a purchase on the table and finally got up and over it, with Keith getting another lick or two in as it got away.  Actually he is lucky.  You will never see anything quite as vicious as a frightened or angry coon. 

               Well, the coon kept going and never did come back that night, but he would have the next if we had stayed a day longer.  It isn’t that coons are all that smart, it's that they are persistent.  My pot now has a perfect impression of a coon head in the bottom of it and we would have been happy to use it again.  It certainly wasn't going to sit flat on the stovetop any longer.
  
            That is exactly how we need to approach Satan.  This is not a game.  This is not some cute, cuddly little animal, but a vicious brute who wants nothing less than your destruction.  I've heard him laughed about too often.  I have seen the world treat him as a myth and anyone who believes in the war between good and evil called a superstitious fool.  Too many times I have seen Christians shamed by their friends in the world into laughing about him too.  It's time to get serious about the Enemy.  He is persistent—he will not stop until you have laid down your pot in either victory or defeat.  Your persistence must match his, chasing him away again and again.

              If you don't have a pot with an impression of Satan's head in it, you haven't been fighting hard enough.  It needs to be hanging on your wall like a trophy, but easy enough to get down and use again.  Giving in is not an option—not if you expect to survive till the morning.
 
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. (1John 3:8-10).
 
Dene Ward

We have a secret for lighting fires in a flash, no pun intended.  It's fat lighter.  It actually isn't much of a secret if you were born in the country or do a lot of camping.  Also known as fatwood, lighter wood, lighter knot, pitch pine etc., it is a resin-rich piece of wood that lights as well, or better, than paper.  Remember all those torches people carry in the old, black and white movies?  That's a piece of fat lighter.

              Whenever a conifer is injured, the resin in it, rushes to the injury site to seal the wound.  That section of the tree then becomes resin-rich.  When the tree is cut up, you will see the difference in the wood, a shiny reddish hue, and you will smell it instantly.  Though there are no chemicals or petroleum in it, that is exactly how it smells.  The resin usually concentrates in the knots and in the base of the tree.  If it is cut down or felled by storm or disease, the remaining stump will usually be full of resin. 

              Living in the piney woods of North Florida, we have an almost endless supply of fat lighter.  Besides what we find on our own property, a neighbor always saves the stumps for us when he clears land.  We can start a fire with a match and a sliver of fat lighter in about 10 seconds, assuming we have the twigs and logs to lay on top ready at hand.  We have at least a ten year supply right now, despite using it profligately just so we can sit by a fire on cool mornings or evenings.  I priced it on Amazon and found 10lbs for $30 plus shipping.  We could finance a year or two of our retirement with the fat lighter lying on our property.

              But not all fat lighter is created equal.  Some is richer (fatter) than others, which became quite apparent a few mornings ago as we sat there shivering in our pjs waiting for the fire to get going. 

               Keith actually used two small pieces.  The first lit immediately with a strong bright blaze.  He set it in the ashes and reached for the second.  It would not light quickly, but took most of a whole match to finally start.  Even then it was a meager flame.  A little exasperated, he lay it next to the first piece and it suddenly shone much brighter.  After a few seconds, he tried to move it away and it immediately began sputtering and smoking, but put it back by the richer piece and it once again burned brightly.  At that point he simply began adding twigs, then limbs, then larger logs.  It had been about five minutes and he moved that second piece of lighter back to the other side of the fire.  Then and only then did the flame keep going and actually start the fire on that end.  As I said, some pieces are richer in resin than others.

               If Jesus were to walk the North Florida woods, he would probably tell a parable about far lighter, and the point might be this.  Some of us are richer in resin than others.  Some of us can burn brightly even when we stand alone.  But others of us need a little help.  Maybe we are followers instead of leaders.  Maybe we are more timid.  Whatever the reason, we do just fine when we are surrounded by our brethren, but when all that support leaves us, we sputter and smoke and maybe the flame goes out completely.

              We must each examine ourselves to know what we are made of.  If you cannot see, and admit, that you might not be as rich in resin as others, you will inevitably put yourself into a position that leaves you weak and alone and unable to shine the light for the Lord.  It takes an awful lot of resin to stand alone day after day after day, especially when you face trials in your life.  Some people have it, but it is no shame to recognize when you do not.  What is a shame is to put your soul in danger.  Maybe someday after you have stood with a strong group for a long while, watching how they do it, learning and growing, you will finally be able to keep the fire going on your own.  In fact, that is probably the case.  God expects, and allows for, growth.

               And if you are good and "fat," then look out for the ones who are not.  Don't leave them sputtering alone in the dark.  Shine the light to show them how.  Stand as close as you need to help that flame get going on its own.  A piece of fat lighter, no matter how rich, is no good to anyone if it doesn't start a fire.
 
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, Phil 2:14-15
 
Dene Ward

One morning on a camping trip to Stone Mountain Park in Georgia, we were awakened by acorn shells gently falling from the tree above us onto the taut surface of our tent.  A squirrel had picked that limb overhead as his breakfast counter.  In the early morning gray of pre-dawn it was mildly irritating—this was supposed to be a vacation, after all, sleeping in was part of the deal—but when you choose an outdoor venue for your vacation, you realize that encounters with nature should be expected.

              I was reminded of that trip this morning.  Our home sits under some monstrous live oaks.  They deliver cooling, and budget-saving, shade in the summer, but in the fall, they provide a handy pantry for the local fauna.  We have done our best to shoo those varmints away for the sake of the aviary we have set up around us, both feeders and houses.  That means more acorns remain to fall on our metal roof.

              About six-thirty, when the morning breezes pick up, the barrage began.  I do not know if it is the metal or if our acorns just happen to be heavier or larger than the average acorn, but it did not sound like pieces of shell gently falling from a limb above—it sounded like a bunch of monkeys throwing coconuts as hard as they could just to see what sort of trouble they could cause.  We were up early on a Saturday morning whether we wanted to be or not.

              I have some brethren like that.  Sometimes things need to be said, granted.  Souls are at stake.  The Word of God must be defended.  But do we have to throw coconuts at six AM?  Does a preacher need to be castigated on the church house doorstep in front of visitors from the community and new converts when we disagree with a sermon?  Do we need to waylay a sister at a potluck where, even in the corner of the room, everyone can see what's going on—especially if she runs out the door crying? 

               When we do what has to be done, some acorn pieces will inevitably fall on the tent roof and wake people up—but that's the point, isn't it?  Waking them up, not beating them down.  If time and opportunity are short we may need to take a deep breath and do what needs to be done no matter what others may think, but hurling coconuts as hard as possible just to cause trouble is a far cry from the empathy that does its best to reach another's heart with as little collateral damage as possible.  That is why so many preachers will dare to remind the wayward children at a funeral, "Your mother wants nothing more than to be with you again in Eternity.  Look at yourself and do what you need to do to make that happen."  Most of the time, the mothers have asked those preachers to say just that.  They are not monkeys with coconuts; they are doing their best to be a squirrel with an acorn.

              So today, ask yourself why you do what you do.  Are you really concerned for souls, or do you just want to be the center of controversy, the one who gets to show that sinner what's what?  Are you quietly eating your acorns, or are you just a monkey throwing coconuts as hard as you can?
 
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Gal 6:1-3
 
Dene Ward

The Environmental Protection Agency was established on December 2, 1970, at the call of President Richard Nixon to seriously address, at a Federal level, the problems arising from factory pollutants, automobile emissions, overuse of pesticides, dangerous practices in waste disposal, and oil spills.  Most of us have benefited from its oversight in areas of which we are not even aware.  But occasionally, they do seem to get a little unreasonable, in the same ways as anyone who tries to make rules in places they have never been and do not understand.

            Campgrounds, for example, have a lot of aggravating rules.  Some of them are just plain ridiculous, obviously made by people who sit behind a desk and have never camped in their lives.  Yet, I understand the problem.  Too many thoughtless people have no concept of picking up after themselves while being careful where they dump things. 

              Most state parks have a place to dump “gray water.”  We aren’t talking about raw sewage.  Gray water, as defined, includes the dishpan of water you washed your dishes in.  Ever carry a couple gallons of water 500 yards in an awkward dishpan you must hold out in front of you, trying not to slosh it all over yourself in the cold?  Nearly impossible.  And who, living in the country, doesn’t know that wash water works wonders on the blueberries and flower beds?  At least the last park we stayed at had dispensed with the gray water rule.

              I think some of these things bother me because, as country people, we are always green.  We are careful what gets dumped where, even if it means having to load it up and cart it off to the landfill ourselves; you don’t want your groundwater polluted, especially uphill from the well.  We rotate crops.  We even rotate garden spots. We use twigs to dissuade cutworms rather than plastic rings or metal nails. We mulch with the leaves from our live oaks, which we then turn under to enrich the ground after the garden is spent.  We dump the ashes from the woodstove into the fallow garden.  I am sure Keith could add even more to this list.

              God expects his people to be “green.”  Good stewardship of his gifts has always been his expectation, from our abilities to the gospel itself.  You can even find sewage disposal rules in the Law.  Cruelty to animals was punished under the Old Covenant.  That same principle of stewardship follows into the New.

              At the same time, God said, “Have dominion over [the earth] and subdue [the animals],” Gen 1:28.  He said to eat of the plants and the animals, 1:29; 9:3.  God meant this to be a place we used for our survival, not a zoological and botanical garden where nothing can be touched.  When we carefully use the resources of the earth, it will continue to furnish us with the things we need.  So we eat sustainable seafood.  We hunt in season, and eat the meat we bring home.  We raise and eat animals fed with garden refuse.  We carefully sow and reap so the ground will continue to be arable.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

              Sometimes, though, the people who claim to be green are no longer flesh-colored (in all its assorted hues).  They care more for animals than people.  I know that is true when I see a “Save the Whales” bumper sticker on the same car touting “The Right to Choose.”  Let’s save the animals, but the babies are fair game.

              Shades of Romans 1--Paul speaks of the Gentiles who had rejected Jehovah throughout the ancient days and eventually arrived at the point that they “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” 1:25.  Our culture has come dangerously close to that.  The environment has become the cause du jour, and while I certainly agree that we should care for the beautiful home God gave us and not be cruel to animals, it is because I am grateful to the God who made them for me, not because I have less regard for humans.  I have always been that way, not just recently, yet I still know that people are more important than sea turtles, and unborn children more so than polar bears.

              So let’s be green, just as God has always expected—but let’s be flesh-colored too, caring about the people, and their souls even more than the animals.  And let us also be as white as snow—an obedient people who worship and serve the God who created it all.
 
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.  The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works, Psa 104:13,14,16-18,21-24,31.
 
Dene Ward
 

Keith was fiddling with the campfire while I stood behind him shivering.  A pile of twigs lay over two slivers of lighter wood to which he held a match.  Black smoke curled up from the charred wood, which flared briefly then died out—over and over and over.  Suddenly one of the twigs caught and began to burn.  A few minutes later the lighter wood beneath finally began to burn, its thick oily flame blazing brightly.

             “Now that’s something,” he muttered, “when the twigs catch faster than the lighter.”

              Not many are familiar with lighter wood any more.  Also known as pitch pine, this wood contains a high concentration of resin.  The smell is often overpowering, as if you had soaked it in lighter fluid.  When you watch one of those old movies, the torches the mob carries are pieces of lighter wood.  You can’t light a piece of wood with a match—not unless it’s lighter wood, which lights up instantly, like a kerosene-soaked corn cob.

              Except the piece Keith was using that morning.  We had left behind the warmth of an electric-blanket-stuffed double sleeping bag and crawled out into a crisp morning breeze on an open mountaintop, the thermometer next to the tent barely brushing the bottom of thirty degrees.  We needed a fire in a hurry, but what should have been reliable wasn’t, what should have been the first to solve the problem had itself become the problem.

              As I pondered that the rest of the day, my first thought was the Jews’ rejection of Christ.  Sometimes we look at Pentecost and think, “Wow!  Three thousand in one day!  Why can’t we have that kind of success?” 

              Success?  I’ve heard estimates of one to two million Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost.  Even if it were the lesser number, out of a specially prepared people, 3000 is only three-tenths of one percent—hardly anyone’s definition of “success.”  Here are people who had heard prophecies for centuries, who then had the preaching of John, and ultimately both the teaching and miracles of Jesus, people who should have caught fire and lit the world.  Instead the apostles had to eventually “turn to the Gentiles” who “received them gladly.”

              And today?  Does the church lead the way, or are we so afraid of doing something wrong that we do absolutely nothing?  Have we consigned Christianity to a meetinghouse?  Do our religious friends out-teach us, out-work us (yes, even those who don’t believe in “works-salvation”), and out-love us?  Do we, who should be setting the world on fire, sit and wait for someone else to help the poor, visit the sick and convert the sinners, then pat ourselves on the back because we didn’t do things the wrong way, while ignoring the fact that we didn’t do anything at all?

              And, even closer to home, do we older Christians lead the way in our zeal for knowing God’s word, standing for the truth, yielding our opinions, and serving others, or must we be shamed into it by excited young Christians who, despite our example, understand that being a Christian is more about what we do than what we say?

              It’s disgraceful when the twigs catch fire before the lighter wood.
 
And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, Heb 10:24.
 
Dene Ward