When our boys were small, on summer days when a soft, warm rain fell, they often asked if they could go outside and play in it.  I was reminded of those sweet days last spring when our grandson Silas did the same thing. 

            He put on his swimming trunks and headed outside, first just running a few steps out, then racing back in under the carport.  Gradually he ran further and further, eventually out to the old water oak stump some thirty feet from the house, stood there a minute hopping up and down, holding his arms out to present the most skin to the sky, and laughing uproariously. 

            He must have gone at it for ten minutes, running back to the carport and excitedly jabbering, “It’s wet!  It’s cold!  It’s fun!” then running back out into the rain even further, eventually to the swing hanging from the live oak limb out past the well.         

            But it was still spring and his little chin began to quiver, and all too soon we had to take him in and dry him off.

            Do you know what started all this?  Pure, unadulterated joy.  He and his little brother had been with us for five days while Mommy and Daddy were out of town, and although we had a great time, when they drove up that afternoon, it was clear who were most important in his young life.  They were back and before long they would take him in his own car seat in his own “blue car” to his own home and his own room where he could sleep in his own bed.  I know the feeling.

            But life may have made me forget that feeling of pure joy. 

            Despite the troubles of life we always have real reason for joy, and God expects us to show it.  David had that joy, and he expressed it before the people of Israel as they brought the Ark of the Covenant to his newly captured capital city. But he was married to someone who didn’t have it, and who did not understand.  She scolded him and received this reply:

            [It was] before Jehovah, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me prince over the people of Jehovah, over Israel: therefore will I play before Jehovah, 2 Sam 6:21.

            .Do you see the word “play?”  David was out there “leaping and dancing before Jehovah.”  That’s how he was playing.  That Hebrew word is found in Job 40:20, “the beasts play in the field.”  You will find it in Prov 8:30 and 31 where it is translated “rejoicing,” and in Job 5:12 where it is “laugh.”  The same attitude that had Silas laughing and playing in the rain had David playing before Jehovah--joy.             

            When was the last time you felt that way about God and your relationship with Him?  I think we are a little like Michal—too embarrassed to act like God means that much to us.  We are too conscious of ourselves and how we look, and far too worried about what other people think.

            If I am too embarrassed to show the Lord how much He means to me, I wonder, on the day He comes to pick us up and take us home, if He might be too embarrassed to act like we mean that much to Him.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, I Pet 1:8.

We live under a couple of huge live oaks, trees so big it would take half a dozen people holding stretched out hands to reach around them.  That means when I planted a flower bed on the west side of the house under one of those trees, the lee side so to speak, I had to be careful what I put there.  Anything with a “full sun” tag wouldn’t make it.  But it also means that I can grow things outside that others might need to take inside on a frosty morning.  The tree protects them with both the extra degree or two of heat it gives off and its shelter from the settling dew that crisps into frost on a winter morning.

            Isn’t that how we raise our children, on the sheltered side of life, and even on the sheltered side of the church?  That is as it should be.  Children shouldn’t need to worry about where their next meal is coming from.  They shouldn’t be concerned with the office politics their parents must put up with.  They certainly shouldn’t hear about church squabbles.  Your job as a parent is to protect them from those things. 

            But you can’t do that forever.  Sooner or later they need to learn about people, about their imperfections, maybe even the danger they pose to others.  That’s why we teach them that no one should touch them in certain places, that they should never get in the car with a stranger, or accept candy, or look for lost puppies.  It’s unfortunate, but we do it because we love our children.

            I am afraid we are not that smart about teaching our children about problems among brethren.  It isn’t just the false teaching wolves we need to teach them about, though more of that would be helpful.  We seem to have raised a generation that thinks everyone out there is harmless and means well because they speak in syrupy tones and sentimental mush-mouth.  No, the thing we must be most careful about is how they see us handling the disappointments with our brethren.  What they see us do and say can make or break their spiritual survival.

            When Keith was preaching full time, we saw people who claimed to be Christians acting in every way but that.  We saw couples at each other’s throats.  We saw family cliques.  We received physical threats.  We were tossed out on our ears more than once for his preaching the truth.  It may be that the only thing that kept us both faithful was realizing how these things might affect our children if we didn’t handle them carefully. 

            When they were old enough to understand what was happening, we never blamed the church.  We never blamed God.  We told them that sometimes people were not perfect, even good people--sometimes they just made a mistake.  I was NOT going to let what those people had done to us cost my children their souls.  They were what mattered. 

            As they grew older, we talked often about being faithful to God, not to a place or a group.  We reminded them about Judas.  What would have happened if the other apostles had let Judas’s monumental failure run them off?  What about Peter, their erstwhile leader?  If everyone had given up because of his denial there would have been nothing for him to return to upon his repentance.  The mission of the church depended upon those men staying faithful regardless.  God was counting on them.  We told them over and over, you never let what someone else does determine your faithfulness.  God expects you to do the right thing no matter what those people do.  I had to learn to control my depression and discouragement and not give my children cause to leave the Lord. 

            We planted our children on the sheltered side of the house, but then we moved them slowly one foot at a time to a place where the sun would beat down on them and the cold would leave frost on their leaves.  Finally they were as inured as possible from the effects of other people’s failures, including our own.  If they ever fall away, they know better than to blame someone else.

            Be careful what your children hear you say about your brethren.  Be careful what they see in your actions and attitudes.  Sooner or later they will need to stand the heat of the noonday sun and the bitter cold of a spiritual winter.  Don’t give them an easy excuse not to.

For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you 

1 Corinthians 11:19

Dene Ward

As we brought four-year-old Silas home with us for Vacation Bible School one summer, he squirmed a bit in his booster seat, eying the long crowded highway ahead of us and the “boring” scenery of rolling green pastureland in Florida horse farm country. 

            “How long will it be?” he asked, the perennial question of travelers.

            “It will be awhile,” I said, “but if you were to fall asleep, the trip would be over in a flash.  Suddenly you would wake up and we’re there!”

            He lifted an eyebrow and gave me a skeptical look.  “But I don’t like naps,” he firmly stated, with his little arms crossed.

            “Well,” I said with one of those what-do-you-do sighs, “that’s your choice.  Either a long wait or a nap.”

            He thought a minute and finally, categorically stated with a firm nod on each word “I choose a long wait.”

            Five minutes later he was asleep.  He never has been able to stay awake in a car, something I hope will change by the time he turns 16 and starts driving.

            I couldn’t help wondering how many of us look at the choices set before us and stubbornly make the wrong one.  God tells us how dangerous the world is.  He warns against deception and trickery.  He tells us our salvation is our own responsibility so be careful who you follow.  Yet even when we look at the choices side by side, we seem so drawn to the wrong ones.  They are immediate.  They are tangible.  They are pleasant.  The idea of something far superior in the future seems to be pie in the sky.  “A bird in the hand…” the old saying goes, and we fall for it nearly every time.

            It would be so much easier if God made the choice for us, if he made the sleep overwhelm us involuntarily so the trip would be over in an instant, but where is the glory in a creature who cannot choose? 

            The idea that God did not give us a choice is, of course, a fairly common theological doctrine.  Yet it limits God in ability and creativity.  It makes Him a respecter of persons.  It makes Him unsympathetic and unapproachable, a tyrant who makes arbitrary decisions, playing with the eternal souls of people as if they were plastic action figures.  That is not the God of the Bible.  There are too many heart-rending pleas for us to return.  There are too many passages giving options to people in all sorts of situations, including whether or not they will serve Him, for that to be true.

            He gave me a choice; he gave you a choice.  Make the right one.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed, Deut 30:19.

Dene Ward

Buttons! Buttons! Read the buttons!” and so for the fortieth time that week I sit down with my two year old grandson Judah and read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  And every time we reach the page where Pete loses his last button but doesn’t let it get him down because “buttons come and buttons go,” and where Pete looks down at his buttonless shirt hanging open and the author asks, “what does he see?” Judah springs up, holds his little arms high over his head with a big grin on his face and says, “His bel-ly but-ton!” with exactly the same amount of glee and excitement as the first time he ever heard the book read.

            He loves that book and the other two Pete the Cat books he has, as well as the one called Click, Clack, Boo, plus the one based on Ezekiel 37 called Dem Bones.  That week we babysat we learned by the third day to be careful what we said or it would remind him of one of those books and he would toddle off to find it and ask for it to be read not once again, but three, four, five times again.

            Yet here we sit with a shelf full of Bibles, every version you can imagine, amplified and not, written in and bare, paragraphed and versed, and now even some in large print, and do we ever have the same amount of desire to read it as a two year old who can’t even read it to himself yet?  He knows those “Pete” books so well you can leave off a word and he will fill it in.  You can say the wrong word and he will shout, “No! No! It’s ______!”  You can mention one word completely out of context and he will immediately think of that book and go looking for it. 

            Yet we seem loathe to pick up what is supposed to be our spiritual food and drink, the lamp that lights our way in the dark, and the weapon to fight our spiritual battles.  We moan over daily reading programs, especially when we get to Leviticus or the genealogies.  We complain when the scripture reading at church is longer than 5 verses, especially if we are one of those congregations that, like the people in Nehemiah, stand at the reading of God’s Word.  We gripe when the Bible class teacher asks us to read more than one chapter before next week’s class.  What in the world is wrong with us?

            This little two-year-old puts us to shame.  Just from hearing it read, he can quote practically a whole book, several of them, in fact.  His whole face lights up when you read it to him yet again.  I have to admit, Keith and I would occasionally try to hide those books by the end of a day.  We may not do that with God’s Word, at least not literally, but leaving it to sit on the shelf and gather dust isn’t much different.

I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil. I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules. Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble, Psalms 119:162-165.

Dene Ward

Let's consider a basic tenet of breaking a bad habit or becoming a better person.  What does it take for me to finally wake up and repent, or just examine myself for faults that need correcting, and then get to work fixing them? Facing the consequences.  No consequences equals no motivation and therefore, no change.  

            Raising children and now, interacting with our grandchildren, reminds us of the same thing.  A child’s attention span is short, and the younger he is, the more important the timing.  Even a child younger than one can quickly learn what “No-no” means when it is accompanied by consistent motivation—by consequences for his action. 

            But are we any better?  Peter tells us that when God delays judgment for sin out of longsuffering and patience but we don’t respond, that we “willfully forget” (2 Pet 3:5-10).  Paul says that when God forbears yet we do not repent, we are “despising his goodness” (Rom 2:4).  It isn’t that we have the attention span of a toddler—we’re just plain stubborn.

            Is that any more mature than a toddler?  We have all seen children who understand the consequences and take them anyway.  We cluck at their lack of common sense, their apparent unwillingness to learn any way but the hard way.  We wonder what sort of adults they will become.

            But you really don’t have to wonder.  You are surrounded by them.  Or, are you one of them, too?

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11.

Dene Ward

            I could hardly believe it when Silas reached kindergarten age.  How in the world had that happened so quickly?  When he found out he had to go back the second week, he said, “You mean I have to go again?!”

            “Yes,” his mother told him, “there is a lot to learn.”

            “But I already learned,” he said, sure that now he would get to stay home with her and his little brother.  Of course, he found out otherwise quickly.

            I know that no one would say it out loud, but sometimes I get the feeling some of my brothers and sisters have the same attitude.  “I already learned!” which is supposed to justify their never studying for a Bible class, never attending an extra Bible study, never darkening the meetinghouse doors for anything but the Lord’s Supper, as if it were a magic potion that would save them that week regardless of anything else they did.  What they have “learned” are usually the pet scriptures, the catchphrases, the simplistic theories that try to explain away the profound depth of the Scriptures—all those things that smack so much of a denominational mindset.

            I have amazing women in my Bible classes, and let me tell you, most of them are neither young nor new Christians.  These are women of a certain age, as we often say, who have sat on pews for longer than many others have been alive, yet they see the value in learning still more. 

            And that does not necessarily mean learning something new.  Sometimes the learning has more to do with a deeper comprehension, uncovering another level of wisdom, or an additional way of applying a fact to one’s life, leading to a changed behavior or attitude.  When I see someone in their later years actually change their lives because of a discovery made in Bible class, I am reminded yet again of the power of the Word.  The most amazing thing about this living and active Word, is that if you are not blinded by self-satisfaction, every time you study it you can see something new.  It’s like peeling an onion—you keep finding another layer underneath.

            You may have “already learned” a great many things, but if that is your attitude, you will never grow beyond the boundaries you have placed upon yourself with that notion.  Like a kindergartner who has learned his letters and numbers, you will be stuck in the basics, the “first principles,” and never come to a fuller comprehension of the magnitude of God’s wisdom and His plan for you.  If you are still deciding how long to keep a preacher based upon how much you “enjoy” his preaching and how many times he visited you in the hospital, if you are mouthing things like “I never heard of such a thing” or “I am (or am not) comfortable with that,” with not a scripture reference in sight, you still have a long way to go. 

            God wants meat-eaters at His banquet.  That means you need to chew a little harder and longer.  Yes, it takes time away from recess to sit in class and learn some more.  Yes, you have to process some new information which may not be as comfortable as you are used to.  Your brain may even ache a little, but that is how you learn, by stretching those mental muscles instead of vegetating on the pew.

            You may think you have “already learned,” but I bet you even my kindergartner grandson figured out very shortly that there was a whole lot more he needed to know.  He’s a pretty smart kid.  How about you?

Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk…Isa 28:9.

Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on unto perfection…Heb 6:1.

    If you have been with me for a while, you know that I like birds.  If there is one thing I miss, it's all the feeders we had put out and the many varieties of bird we have seen in the years since.  Here, in Tampa, they do have birds, but our yard is so tiny, there is no place to put feeders without opening an all-you-can-eat Squirrel Buffet.  You simply cannot get far enough away from a tree or a fence but what they can jump over to any feeder you put out.  I toyed with the idea of one of those feeders that sends the interlopers on a tilt-a-whirl ride until the finally go flying, but as I said, the houses and the fences are too close.  All we would hear all day long is thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.  Then there would be the problem of punch-drunk squirrels reeling across the yard.

     Our neighbor has a couple of very tall oak trees.  With a tall stepladder, he has fastened two long strings to branches a good fifteen feet high with a feeder hanging from each.  A squirrel cannot go down the long string, nor can he jump far enough—at least not yet.  Finally, we have a few more birds around us.  We also have Muscovy Ducks in our neighborhood and they have begun flocking to the feeders to eat the fallen seed—a whole "raft" of ducks, which I have discovered is the collective noun for ducks in the water.  If you are not familiar with them, Muscovy Ducks are the Ugly Ducklings of the species—actually the ducklings look much better than the adults.  Those cute little yellow ducklings grow into a wide range of coloring from all black to all white with various mixes of pattern in between, but their distinguishing characteristic is a large, fleshy, red patch around the base of the bill and eyes called a caruncle.  If you see red, you are seeing a Muscovy Duck.

     These ducks are excellent at pest control.  They will eat the bugs out of your lawn and also do a number on flying insects like flies, gnats, and mosquitoes.  We have seen them at work, in fact, as they cross our front lawn to get to the fallout from the neighbor's feeder.  Sometimes a couple of them will even stay in our lawn while the others go on to the neighbor's.  For every bug they eat, that's less pesticide our lawn needs and the more comfortable we are when we sit on the patio.

     They began laying eggs in the spring.  Brooke and Nathan had a couple of clutches between their driveway and the front door—18 eggs in all.  Mama discovered quickly that she needed to move the babies as soon as she could because she was about a foot from a rising garage door and a couple of fat car tires.  All she left behind were empty shells.

     We had our first encounter with the ducklings as they came down the south side of our house one morning while we were sitting on the back porch, the west side, drinking coffee.  Mama did not realize that she had found a dead end street.  The subdivision fence walls our backyard, and the north side of the yard has no outlet thanks to the neighbor's fence.  We sat and waited until finally, here she came with her babies behind her, cautiously peering at us as she came back around the back porch.  She kept turning back every foot or two, realizing she was in a bad situation with no escape.  Keith had to go as far as possible on the porch so it would seem like he was behind her, then bang on the porch wall in order to encourage Mama to keep going.  Meanwhile, I sat as still as possible so I wouldn't scare her.  As she turned on the west side of the porch, she picked up the pace and her ducklings waddled as fast as their short little webbed feet would go.  Soon she was back on the south side headed the correct way to the neighbor's fallen seed.

     Pay attention, parents.  Those ducklings went wherever Mama led them.  They had no idea if it was a safe place or a dangerous place.  They didn't care whether there were big, bad monsters there or nice people who just liked to watch ducklings.  They didn't even know if there would be food there or not.  All they knew was that where Mama went was where they wanted to be. 

     I watched another Mama and her ducklings yesterday.  When Mama was finished eating, she left.  So did her babies.  She walked across the only straightaway in our neighborhood where some of the neighbors hit 45 on this narrow street lined with parked cars and where human children also play.  Some neighbors don't care about anything but getting from one place to another as quickly as they can.  Keith has been known to go out into the street when the other neighbor's children are playing to wave the speeders down.  But he wasn't home that day as Mama Duck led her babies across the street.  I held my breath until they were all safe across.

     It seems to me that some parents have no idea where they are leading their children.  It seems that some believe they can let them run wild and they will somehow miraculously become kind, generous, polite, self-disciplined adults at some magic age in the future.  They won't.   They will be just as poorly behaved, ill-mannered, and undisciplined as adults.  If you shield them from all the consequences of their misbehavior, they will be shocked when society makes them pay.  Oh, but my husband could tell you stories for hours of the young people who wound up on probation but somehow thought they didn't have to follow the rules and eventually wound up in prison.  Yes, it can be exactly that serious—kids who came from good families in good neighborhoods and who went to private schools and sometimes church, but who were never taught to behave, to respect the rights of others, and the simple fact that you cannot do everything you want to do, not in real life.

     I watched ducklings leave a meal because Mama was finished.  Whatever Mama does, whatever Daddy does, whatever they allow, that is what your children will do.  Remember that.

Take these commands to heart and keep them in mind, tying them as reminders on your arm and as bands on your forehead.  Teach them to your children, talking about them while sitting in your house, walking on the road, or when you are about to lie down or get up.  Also write them upon the doorposts of your house and gates  so that you and your children may live long on the land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors—as long as the sky remains above the earth Deut 11:18-21.

            We do a lot of grandbaby-sitting, not that I am complaining.  With this set of grandparents, that always includes some Bible study time.

            On one of those occasions, Silas and I sat at the table and made a sheepfold full of sheep with construction paper, cotton balls, markers, and glue.  The lesson, of course, was “Jesus is the Good Shepherd,” so we also included a shepherd-Jesus and a wolf-Satan.  On the tabletop we acted out Jesus protecting the sheep from the wolf.

            Not only was I dealing with a four year old, but a four year old boy.  As soon as we disposed of the Devil, Silas exclaimed, “Raise him from the dead so Jesus can kill him again!”  On that afternoon, the Devil died at least a dozen times. Eventually he stayed dead, but if nothing else, Silas will remember that Jesus can protect us from the Devil.  I just hope he also learns when fighting is appropriate and when it isn’t, and that the war a Christian engages in is spiritual in nature.

            Some of us have as little discretion as a four year old.  God has furnished us with a formidable sword, His Word (Eph 4:17; Heb 4:12).  But like Peter, we often wield the wrong sword.  While we know better than to hack people to pieces with a real weapon, we stab our interested neighbors in the hearts with brutal barbs and verbally assault the newborn Christians who haven’t had the time to learn everything we think they should have in ten seconds flat.  We slash the weak because they are easy prey and instead of sowing the seed among the sinners who need it most, we skewer them with sarcasm and roast them over the coals of a threatened Hell, expecting the Lord to pin a medal of valor on our zealous chests.

            Yes, there is a time to swing the sword of the Spirit, especially when the weak and innocent are threatened or when the Lord Himself is affronted, but when we fight just for the sake of fighting, the Devil is winning instead of losing.  “Put up your sword into its place,” Jesus told Peter, “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

            Be strong and courageous.  Take up the sword and fight.  But don’t wield the wrong sword at the wrong time for the wrong reason.

And the Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, in meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will. 2 Timothy 2:24-26.