We did some more babysitting last month, and the first afternoon that we picked up Silas from kindergarten, he came rushing out to the car shouting, “I got purple!  I got purple!”

 In his school every child starts the day on green, and his behavior moves him either up the color chart to blue and ultimately purple, or down the chart to yellow, orange, or red.  Red means mom and dad have to come in for a serious talk.  Usually all the obedient, well-behaved students end up on blue, and everyone is perfectly satisfied with it.  But purple?  Purple takes something extra-special.  It is the height of achievement for a student.  No wonder he came out running, shouting, and grinning a smile as wide as our windshield as we watched him through it.

 Why is it that I can’t have the same glee, the same sense of accomplishment and exhilaration when I overcome a temptation or grow out of a bad attitude?  Why don’t we all come running to share the good news with one another?  I’ll tell you why—because we are a bunch of judgmental grumps, that’s why.  Two things are going to happen if anyone opens his mouth about these things.

 First, someone is going to gasp and whisper to another, “You mean he has trouble with that sin?”  We can’t share our accomplishments when we are afraid people will look down on us, will lose respect for us, and will probably gossip about us at the first chance they get.  “Did you hear about so-and-so?  Did you know he has these problems?”

 Second, someone else will puff out his chest and say, “Tsk, tsk.  Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall!”  We can’t share our successes without someone thinking they have to knock us down a peg because of our “pride,” as they so hastily judge it. 

 In both of these cases, shame, shame, shame on us!  Those are unscriptural, even sinful attitudes.  Gossip, which is nothing less than slander, is included in that horrible list of sins at the end of Romans 1.  And what in the world do we think it means to “Encourage one another?”  It means when a pat on the back has been earned, give it!  Don’t hoard it with the self-righteous notion that we are doing what is best for the person’s soul—“wouldn’t want him to get the big head.”  Would you do that with your children?  Would you never praise them for their successes, but only criticize their mistakes? 

 AA doesn’t do it, and God doesn’t do that either.  And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”  Job 1:8.

 The Psalms are full of statements by people of God who know they have done right.  The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight, Psalm 18:20-24.

 Don’t tell me it’s because the Old Testament people did not understand grace and were all about “earning” their salvation by keeping the Law.  “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart…Deut 9:4,5.  O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy, Dan 9:18.

 Those people knew they had not earned God’s love and mercy, but they also knew when they had done well in keeping His commandments.  Why do we think it’s a sin to recognize that?  The apostles didn’t.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2 Tim 4:7,8.

 When my grandson came running out that day I could easily have told the difference between arrogance and joy.  Why can’t we tell the same thing about one another?  Why can’t we share victories over Satan and expect others will be just as happy about it as we are?  God wanted us to know we are saved; he wanted us to be confident in our destiny. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life, 1 John 5:13.

 I’ll tell you this, if we are going to “become as little children” and so inherit the kingdom of heaven, we had better stop acting like peevish, petty grown-ups.  With that sort of behavior we will never be able to run down the streets of Heaven shouting, “I got purple!”

Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favor my righteous cause: Yea, let them say continually, Jehovah be magnified, Who hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant,Psalm 35:27.

 Dene Ward

Remember Pete the cat?  When anything bad happens to Pete he says, “Oh no!”, and now that is one of Judah’s favorite phrases, with his special little two year old inflection.  The last time we visited, we must have heard it a hundred times.

 When he found one of his toys in the wrong place, “Oh no!”  When his Mr Happy figure fell over, “Oh no!”  When he dropped his cookie, “Oh no!”  When a bean fell off his spoon, when his shoelace came untied, when his wind-up toy train stopped chugging along—all of these merited a loud and pained, “Oh no!”  Everything was a catastrophe for little Mr. Drama King.  But at least he paid attention to his world and he cared what happened in it.  Can we say the same thing about our spiritual world any more? 

 I remember when every member of the church could quote scriptures.  I remember when we all knew the basic Bible stories.  I remember when we understood that Truth was absolute and that our acceptance of and obedience to it determined our eternal destiny.  I even remember when you converted other people by showing them that their denomination’s practices and beliefs were not Biblical.  They would do their best to prove you wrong.  Now no one cares.  They don’t have a clue what they are supposed to believe, and neither do we.

 Now anyone who has questions about a statement from the pulpit, about a teaching in a Bible class, about the words of a new song is judged as having his knickers in a knot, as if it were something of no importance. His upset is inappropriate and unwelcome. He needs to “just calm down.”  He finds himself the object of scorn and ridicule, his concerns swept aside as the foolish rantings of a crochety, usually older, narrow-minded alarmist.  Never mind that this older person has seen things like this before and their inevitable results.  Never mind that he has the wisdom of perspective that the younger not only do not have but cannot have.  He—or she--is not respected, and never listened to.  His “Oh no!” has become the expected song for him to sing and so goes in one ear and out the other.

 God told the prophet Ezekiel that he was to be a watchman for his people.  He was to sound the alarm when he saw the enemy approaching.  Those people thought Ezekiel was crazy too.  After all, who else but a lunatic would lie on his side and dig in the sand, depicting the siege of Jerusalem for day after day after day?  Who else would not speak a word unless it was given him from God for week after week after week?  Who else would pull out a handful of hair, throw some of it to the wind, tie some in his robe, and then stand hacking at the rest of it with a sword?  None of that wacky behavior made what he said false.  God told him that when the people wouldn’t listen—and He knew they wouldn’t--their blood was on their own heads. 

 Maybe it’s time we listened to a few alarmists.  Maybe the alarm is legitimate.  At least they are paying attention while we often go along accepting anything anyone says (or sings) just to avoid trouble.  Maybe someone needs to holler, “Oh no!” once in awhile.  And maybe we need to care as much as they do.

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith…For there are many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers…whose mouths must be stopped; men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not… 1 Tim 1:3,4; Titus 1:10,11.  

Today's post is by guest writer Joanne Beckley, regarding one particular adventure while she lived in South Africa.

In deep dark Africa just south of the great green greasy Limpopo River, a sunny day began with pure shock and ended in happiness with, yes, a lump in my throat. Living in a foreign land requires unexpected adjustments of every kind in having to adapt to a different culture that works just fine for this part of the world yet can take us sojourners totally unaware. But these surprises actually mean adventures! And often,joy.

Last night my husband received a phone call reminding two forgetful people that what had been planned last month -- was tomorrow! So Dave rearranged his Saturday schedule in order to be prepared when the teen boys arrived for an all-day Bible class. I prudently made plans just in case any teen girls also came.

Morning arrived, with breakfast nearly over, when suddenly we heard a taxi (a large van) hoot at our gate. The taxi doors opened and out poured 26 LITTLE people! As the children poured through the front door, David had the audacity to whisper, "I believe this is your day!" Somebody lost a minor tidbit in that phone call.

Fortunately the 26 children (ages 5 to 14) and their Bible class teacher passed through the front door and right out the opposite door where they assembled on the lawn under a large tree in our back garden. I went straight to my workroom to regroup. Thankfully, African children are well trained to sit quietly and respond respectfully even to teachers that are in shock, so I knew I would survive. What I didn't realize though was how blessed the day would become.

The teaching day began at 7.30am (please note the time). Armed with five teaching projects, I began, using their teacher Violet Tshikhudo to translate. I don't remember much about the first hour. I think it was because I was still recovering from being told they would be sharing my day until 5pm. That is when the taxi was scheduled to take them all back home. The day was hot and muggy and sticky the WHOLE DAY LONG.

I noticed Dave was hovering, checking on me, smoothing my way in whatever manner he could. He even served the morning tea and washed the dishes afterwards. What a husband! What did I teach? I began with a paper exercise using a very simple time line to help me assess just how much Bible knowledge they had. We were able to scrounge up 10 pencils/pens and five pairs of scissors so the exercise went swimmingly, with everyone working on the tile floor. One hour later (that's one down!) the older children helped the younger ones clean up, and we went on to revise the hand motions for the Bible time periods. Violet had remembered what the Smith family had taught during their visit to South Africa, and she enjoyed the revision. In fact, she stopped me early on and coined the phrases in vha Venda and we all dropped the English.

Because, the children had not had any breakfast, we had a short break for bread and hot tea, their usual fare. Then it was back to the dining  room. I picked up my hand-drawn picture cards to prompt them telling me of Bible stories that contained whatever item was being portrayed. This worked beautifully. It was a nice way to revise with a group that has been well taught. (With each new exercise, I would ask the children why we were using visual aids -- especially to impress on Violet the wisdom of using eye, hand, and ear to increase learning. I have learned that using visual aids is a totally foreign concept to South African teachers, even in the public schools. Therefore, I try to only use items that THEY can reproduce.)

THEN I had them each draw a fish, color it, attached a paper clip, and then write averse on other side. I took them all outside to the "pond" (picnic table) and we fished with a magnet hanging from a stick/string affair to attract the paper-clipped fish,reciting the verse each time a fish was caught. I do believe they would have been willing to continue fishing the entire day, but I was ready to stop after the 15th fish was caught and every verse was recited by each child.

THEN we returned to the dining room floor and I used a lesson from my old 52-lesson booklets that I had made up for our boys back, waaay back, and then had translated. By now the heat was telling on me and I was so thankful that Violet was happy to keep on teaching, using these booklets on the Sermon on the Mount -- while I escaped to the bedroom and Dave turned on the fan.

30 minutes later I was informed it is now time for lunch. Their tea hadn't stuck to anyone’s ribs. Everyone retrieved their knapsacks, dug out their lunches, and retired to the big backyard tree. (I LIKE that tree!)

After lunch I also took them to the kitchen and placed four mixing bowls on the counter and we all made play-dough (flour, salt,water). Choosing the items Jesus referred to in His sermon, we fashioned lamps,altars, eyeballs with a log in one and a speck in the other, wolves and then covered them with a “sheepskin”, and last of all, two houses each. Amidst the laughter and chatter I found it fascinating to see how they visualized making each one of these items, although the lamp and altar had to be demonstrated. Toward the end of this activity, Violet just couldn't stand being on the sidelines any longer and she grabbed a chunk to make her own two houses. She rolled a piece between her hands and curved it over to stand on the counter -- and called it her house. Sure, why not, as they all were reared in round thatched houses. 

Now, came the best part. That afternoon, the children told me they had rehearsed two short plays to present as their gift to me and we all trouped out to the back yard.(Are you still with me?) With running commentary from Violet, I had a delightful time watching 26 children interpret two Bible stories: Samson and Delilah and the Prodigal Son. 

I want to describe the Prodigal Son as interpreted within their cultural understanding. For example, when the son went to demand his inheritance from the father, he knelt down to speak to his father. When the son gathered his fair-weather friends (8 of them) to spend his money, he took them to the shop (manned by four girls) to buy food. The food was placed on the tin plates they had brought with them and my drinking glasses. Then they went to the side to eat the food and afterwards returned the dinnerware to the shop. What had me giggling was their repetition of the phrase, "Keep the change." My laughter turned into understanding when Violet said this is how they understand what wasting your money means. Then the boy and his friends laid down to sleep and one of the friends dipped into the boy’s pocket and shared out the stolen money with his friends. The following morning -- no money and no friends. Seeing a pig farmer with all his pigs (15 little ones) lined up as if to a trough, he went to ask for a job. Taking my old bucket he slopped those pigs well,amidst such a racket of snorting! When the boy tried to also eat from the bucket, one pig pushed him out of the way. Returning home he went to his father who ran to welcome him. The father had his servant place the items on the son who then went to get two of those famous "pigs" for the feast. All the children chimed in whenever scripture was quoted which of course was an impressive amount. Truly a wonderful effort. 

By then it was 3pm (only??) and the children entertained themselves outside with a nice variety of made-up group activities while I taught Violet how to make unleavened bread using a thin aluminum pot on the stove. We used only the typical utensils that she has on hand in her home, and simulated her outdoor cooking fire. I never did convince her to handle the dough lightly, but we did get it rolled out very thin and scored so that it cooked crisp enough to break easily. Sampling afterwards, she pronounced the effort a success and very tasty to boot.

The last hour was spent with The Jungle Book video (they all liked the snake) and then the taxi was hooting at the gate. But wait, they had planned to sing a good-bye song to me before they left. So after each one ran to the taxi and then back to hug me and then back to the taxi, they sat and sang all four verses of "God Be with You"but to a different tune than you are familiar with. I thanked the driver for his patience and waved them off until they were out of sight. (Dave told me later that the driver had charged FULL fare for all those little bodies -- he had made a killing for sure! It caused me to pause and reflect on the sacrifice each family had made just so their children could come to me.)

I now have some wonderful new friends. Let's see, there was Tshinakaho, Rotondwa,Rudzani, Mulamuleli, Shumani, Khathutshelo, Ofhani . . . no, I didn't manage to learn them all. I asked Violet to write their names out for me and then later I read off their names to see who these funny sounds belonged to. And like the rest of us they loved hearing their names spoken.

When David returned (from his afternoon teaching at the prison), he very graciously took me out to eat. Oh, yes, and it rained big time AFTER everyone left. Now that’s a thanksgiving note!I hope you survived the telling. It was a very special day for me.

Joanne Beckley

When we kept our grandsons last spring, twenty-month-old Judah usually climbed into my lap every evening as we sat at the table for a final cup of coffee.  It took me a minute the first time his little hand reached out in the air, but finally I realized he was trying to catch the steam wafting over my mug, and was completely mystified when it disappeared between his chubby little fingers.
  A lot of people spend their lives trying to catch the steam, vapors that seem solid but disintegrate in their grasping hands.  They do it in all sorts of ways, and all of them are useless. 
  Do they really think they can stop time?  Over 11,000,000 surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in this country in 2013, and we aren’t talking medically necessary procedures.  The top five were liposuctions, breast augmentations, eyelid surgeries, tummy tucks, and nose surgeries.*
  Then there are the folks chasing wealth and security.  Didn’t the recent Great Recession, as it is now called, teach them anything?  Others are striving to make a name for themselves.  These are usually the same folks who tell Christians how pathetic we are to believe that some Higher Power would ever notice we even exist on this puny blue dot in the universe.  Yet there they all go looking for fame, fortune, notoriety, beauty, or even their version of eternal life.  All of it is nothing more than a dream.  It will disappear, if not in a natural disaster or an economic meltdown, then the day they die—and they will die no matter how hard they try not to.  They are the ones grasping at dreams which are only a vapor that disappears in a flash.
  Our dream isn’t a dream at all.  It is a hope, which in the Biblical sense means it is all but realized.  Sin and death have been conquered by a force we can only try to comprehend, by a love we can never repay, and by a will we can but do our best to imitate.  Yet there it is, not a wisp of white floating over a warm porcelain mug, but a solid foundation upon which we base our faith.  Heb 6:19 calls it “an anchor.”  Have you ever seen a real anchor?  If there is anything the opposite of a wisp of steam, that’s it—solid and strong, able to hold us steady in the worst winds of life.  Tell me how a pert nose and a full bank account can do that!
   The world thinks it knows what is real while we sit like a toddler grasping at steam.  When eternity comes, they will finally see that they are wrong.  Spiritual things are the only things that last, the only real things at all.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:6-8.

*Information from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

 On January 23. 1874, Prince Alfred, the son of Queen Victoria, married Marie Alexandrovna, the daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia.  The marriage is pictured as a political one, an attempt to calm relations between Great Britain and Russia after the Crimean War, even though the couple had met when she was 15 and fell in love immediately.  Unfortunately, the couple's own developing friction between themselves began to undo those initial feelings and kept much from being accomplished politically.  The continued tensions in Asia and other realms, didn't help much either.  If ever there was an example it's this—what began as a passionate love affair ended with a philandering, and possibly polygamous, husband, and a princess-wife who was a spoiled Daddy's girl" who had absolutely no one in her new family or country who liked her  They stopped trying to please each other and spent their time pleasing themselves.  Even ropes of precious jewels, royal title after royal title, and crowns in her carefully done hair did not give this lonely woman a happy life.  Her oldest son eventually committed suicide and her unfaithful husband died one month after a diagnosis of throat cancer.

 But the rest of the world got something pretty nice from this affair.  For the wedding, two bakers, James Peek and George Hender Frean created the Marie biscuit in her honor.  "Biscuit" in England is what we Americans call a cookie.  (Our "biscuit" is what they call a "scone," simplistically speaking.)  This particular "biscuit" is lightly sweetened and crisp and became an instant hit.  They are still eaten today, even in other countries than England.  Spain has its own special version called Maria cookies.  We have friends from Zimbabwe who have them at tea most afternoons.  If you care to look, you will find recipes all over the internet. So this couple did not leave much of a dent in history, but their cookie did.  It might be a small legacy, but it is keeping their names alive, especially hers.

 What kind of a legacy are you leaving?  Will people still talk about you after you are gone?  I am old enough to have lost quite a few friends to death.  They certainly live on in my memory, but they also live on in the memory of others.  In our women's class we still talk about a widow who spent her last years putting things in order in the meetinghouse every Monday and Thursday.  Lesson plans and bulletin boards were carefully filed, and new letters for those same boards cut out when old ones had finally become too soft and raggedy to use again.  Even a couple of years after her death, we were finding notes she had left on walls and in the storage room about where to put what and how to use those letters without sticking holes in them with tacks!  Another good sister's name always came up when we were coordinating meal lists for the sick and bereaved.  We missed the dishes she always brought, and that made us stand and talk about our favorites of hers for a few more minutes.

 After both of my parents died, people came up to me again and again as we traveled, or sent me notes or emails when they heard the news, telling me about the wonderful things they had done.  I had grown up watching them serve, of course, but I never heard about the things they did in later years after the money crunch eased up some.  They bought pews and hymnals for small churches.  They would walk up to a preacher who had minimal support that he could lose with hardly any notice, and hand him a check "for something special."  They were the first to donate when a need arose.  And when my Daddy was dying, a hospice worker came to check on him one day, commenting on the big shop fan he had in his garage.  "Wish I had one of those," she said.  "Our air conditioner is out."  When she left that day, he insisted she take the fan.

 My mother passed 8 years after he did.  When I was writing her obituary, it suddenly dawned on me that every one of her children, grandchildren, and their spouses were all faithful Christians.  If ever there was a legacy that speaks on for years afterward, it's that one.

 So what are you leaving behind you?  It doesn't matter that you are still young.  When do you think my parents started working on their legacy?  It certainly wasn't a last minute chore.  Those legacies took years to create, and those years pass far more quickly than you will ever believe—until it happens to you.

 If my children and grandchildren remember my cookies, that's fine but I hope they remember the love that baked them.  And I certainly hope you and I both have a far better legacy to leave the world than a tea biscuit.

“Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.Deut4:9

Dene Ward

     I will always remember the day my two year old had a seizure.  His temperature had risen like a rocket and the next time I looked at him, he was obviously in distress.  The first thing I thought was, "My baby is dying."  And the first thing I did?  Nothing.  I just stood there stunned and unable to move.  It took my husband saying, "Go put him in the tub," in a sharp voice to wake me up and get me moving.  After that I was fine.  I undressed him while the tub water ran and laid him down in it, pouring water on him to cool off his little body.  It's a wonder steam didn't come off him.  By then, the doctor had returned our call, told us to wrap him up and head into town.  We found out our old car would do just fine going 90 down those nearly empty country roads, and within minutes of our arrival, the little guy sat up on the examining table with a funny look on his face, wondering I am sure, "How did I get here?"  He doesn't and never will remember my arms around him and my kisses on his forehead, nor my murmuring in his ear, "Mommy loves you, Mommy loves you," again and again.

     I hope I am better now in a crisis.  We have certainly been through enough of them in our lives, but I see others who have the same trouble spiritually.  Grief can put you into a state pf spiritual paralysis, where all you can think about is your loss, reliving terrible things over and over.  Certainly there is a time for grief, and some losses are more difficult to recover from than others.  You will never "get over" them, but at some point we must rouse ourselves to get past them so we can not only serve God again, but serve others, especially those who are going through the same thing and need the help only a fellow sufferer can give.  Isn't this what our Lord did?  (Heb 2:18)

     Sorrow over one's sin can paralyze.  Is it right to sorrow?  Of course it is.  Godly sorrow is a part of real repentance.  Yet when we allow that sorrow to invade our thoughts constantly, refusing to forgive ourselves or worrying whether God really has, both a way of doubting His promises, we may not actually be working for the devil but he is just as happy because we aren't serving God either.  Sometime today, read through Psalm 51, David's first psalm of repentance, and then Psalm 32, a psalm which came a little while later.  You can see the transformation from a man who is practically wallowing in sorrow, to man who has come to not only recognize his forgiveness, but who also has gone back to serving the Lord with a renewed zeal.

     I am sure we can add to this list of things which stop us in our tracks and ultimately keep us from serving God.  Whenever you find yourself in that place, remember: there is nothing healthy about paralysis.  Quadriplegics generally do not live as long as healthier people.  We may need time to recover from a blow, but then we must return, ready to use what we have learned to serve God by serving others, just as we should have been doing all that time before.

O the blessedness of a man,  To whom Jehovah does not impute iniquity,  And in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I have kept silence, my bones have become old, Through my roaring all the day. When by day and by night Your hand is heavy on me,  My moisture has been changed into the droughts of summer. Selah. I cause You to know my sin,  And I have not covered my iniquity. I have said, “I confess to Jehovah concerning My transgressions,”  And You have taken away the iniquity of my sin. Selah. For every saintly one prays this to You,  In the time to find You.  Surely at an overflowing of many waters, They do not come to him. You are a hiding place for me, You keep me from distress, Surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah  Ps32:2-7

Dene Ward

When we kept our grandsons last spring, twenty-month-old Judah usually climbed into my lap every evening as we sat at the table for a final cup of coffee.  It took me a minute the first time his little hand reached out in the air, but finally I realized he was trying to catch the steam wafting over my mug, and was completely mystified when it disappeared between his chubby little fingers.
               A lot of people spend their lives trying to catch the steam, vapors that seem solid but disintegrate in their grasping hands.  They do it in all sorts of ways, and all of them are useless. 
               Do they really think they can stop time?  Over 11,000,000 surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in this country in 2013, and we aren’t talking medically necessary procedures.  The top five were liposuctions, breast augmentations, eyelid surgeries, tummy tucks, and nose surgeries.*
               Then there are the folks chasing wealth and security.  Didn’t the recent Great Recession, as it is now called, teach them anything?  Others are striving to make a name for themselves.  These are usually the same folks who tell Christians how pathetic we are to believe that some Higher Power would ever notice we even exist on this puny blue dot in the universe.  Yet there they all go looking for fame, fortune, notoriety, beauty, or even their version of eternal life.  All of it is nothing more than a dream.  It will disappear, if not in a natural disaster or an economic meltdown, then the day they die—and they will die no matter how hard they try not to.  They are the ones grasping at dreams which are only a vapor that disappears in a flash.
               Our dream isn’t a dream at all.  It is a hope, which in the Biblical sense means it is all but realized.  Sin and death have been conquered by a force we can only try to comprehend, by a love we can never repay, and by a will we can but do our best to imitate.  Yet there it is, not a wisp of white floating over a warm porcelain mug, but a solid foundation upon which we base our faith.  Heb 6:19 calls it “an anchor.”  Have you ever seen a real anchor?  If there is anything the opposite of a wisp of steam, that’s it—solid and strong, able to hold us steady in the worst winds of life.  Tell me how a pert nose and a full bank account can do that!
               The world thinks it knows what is real while we sit like a toddler grasping at steam.  When eternity comes, they will finally see that they are wrong.  Spiritual things are the only things that last, the only real things at all.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:6-8.

*Information from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Dene Ward

            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