My mother moved into a one bedroom apartment recently and that meant some serious downsizing.  We have been going through her things, pricing them for a yard sale, and the memories come flooding back as I handle them. 

            I can tell you what she served in every one of her serving dishes and which casseroles bubbled away in which pans.  I pulled a few things out for myself and last week I cooked a pot roast in her Magnalite roasting pan, used her pale blue plastic shaker to mix flour and water for the gravy, and then poured that gravy into her small blue bowl, just like she did for us Sunday after Sunday for years.  And I remember the Sunday, under her compassionate direction, we carted all that food to a neighbor whose husband had been killed in an automobile accident the night before.

              I emptied a file cabinet that held a folder for every major appliance in the house, plus its manual and even the sales slip with either her or my daddy’s signature on the bottom.  I found a letter sorter with “Gulf Oil” etched on it, a tape dispenser with “Gulf Credit Union” and its phone number taped to the side, and even a Gulf Oil hardhat with “Gerald Ayers” on the front of it.  And I remember the people at that company who learned to respect a man who was honest in everything and whose language was pristine.

              I found a recipe card collection that I remember from my early teens, which contains some of my favorite recipes.  Some are printed cards with color pictures, but others are handwritten, including one for “Rice with Backbone.”  Tell me where you will ever find that recipe anywhere else.  In fact, tell me where you will find backbone!  And I remembered all the recipes she made for company who graced our table, family, brethren, college students who loved having a home cooked meal, and the showers she hosted, the gospel sings, and the meeting preachers.

              And that’s not the half of it.  I found myself tearing up again and again as the memories flooded back, memories of a loving family and an extremely blessed childhood.  How many times have I thanked God for the parents who raised me, who taught me right from wrong, who turned me into a responsible adult, and most of all, who taught me about God.  And here is the fruit of it all:

              My parents raised two daughters.  Each of those girls married a godly man.  Between them they raised 9 grandchildren, all of whom are Christians.  Of the three married grandchildren, all married Christians as well.  And now six great-grandchildren are being taught the same way we were.  My parents’ progeny speaks well for them.

              They were not famous.  They were not influential in worldly ways.  But each one of us carry memories of them that keep us on the right track, memories that inspire us and make us want to be like them.  No, they were not perfect.  Show me anyone who is.  But they did what was necessary to raise us in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to teach our children and those children teach theirs what they need to know to serve God. 

              You are creating memories for your children.  One day, they will go through your things.  What will mean the most to them?  What will they think of when they see your signature, when they read a letter you wrote, when they pick up a bowl or a mug or even a wood-cased thermometer that used to hang in your shed by a piece of green twisted wire?  What have you taught them about serving God?  You have taught them something, whether you intended to or not.  Maybe it’s time to spend a little more time on the eternal things.
 
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children-- Deut 4:9
 
Dene Ward

I told you yesterday that I had googled “reasons for abortion” and had found a couple of articles, but in that post I only told you about one of them.  I also found one of the most self-serving articles I have ever read with a title so long I won’t bother now to type it out, but it started, “Ten Reasons I am Pro-Abortion,” and the author is Valerie Tarico.  Let’s just go over some of her statements today.

              1.  Abortion is “fundamental to female empowerment and equality.”  What is this world all about any more except me and my rights?  We fight this in the church all the time, just as Paul fought it in the first century.  We are to be willing to “suffer wrong,” actually yielding our rights for the sake of others--I Cor 6,8, Rom 14, Phil 2—need I go on?  The whole mentality is the opposite of being Christlike.  Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Rom 15:1-3.  Yielding our rights and subjecting ourselves to one another, whether male or female, is what Christianity is all about.

              2.  Taking pregnancy “as it happens” instead of planning it, and by inference removing what is unplanned, “trivializes pregnancy.”  On the contrary, treating pregnancy like something listed on a schedule trivializes it.  Babies are not some kind of item we need to remember to pick up at the market before we get home, or can toss in the trash if we don’t want them.  Even when it just “happens,” the people of God have always considered …children a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:3

              3.  “Real people” are more important than a fetus.  And there you have the perennial justification.  A fetus is not a person.  God says otherwise, period.  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jer 1:5.  But our society no longer has any respect for God or his Word, and with that perspective it can justify anything.  This woman even compared an unborn child to a hamster, and the hamster came out ahead.

              4 and 5.  Abortion can “fix our mistakes” or “fix tragic accidents.”  We now live in a society that blames our mistakes on others, or that thinks we should bear no consequences from them.  Unfortunately life is not like that and trying to pretend that it ought to be is foolish.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7.  Indeed this argument is not about fixing mistakes or accidents, but about making me unaccountable for my sin.  There we go again—sin, a horribly old-fashioned word for something that no longer exists anyway, not to a godless society.

              6.  Abortion is “good economics.”  And by that of course, we are talking about having the money to raise a child.  I am so happy for her that she is part of a family that can eventually reach a point where they can “afford” a child.  If we had waited till we could have afforded them, we would never have had children at all.  Is she saying in all her wisdom that poor people should be neutered?  My children survived on hand-me-downs and happiness.  I do not believe either one of them feels deprived.  ​“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ​Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matt 6:25-30.

              7 and 8.  Abortion is “a way to form a family of your own choosing,” and not having access to legal abortion would be “a violation of our values.”  Let me be clear that I am not against contraceptive measures being used by a married couple.  I am not against choosing the number of children you want to have as far as you can control with those contraceptive measures.  Medical science has made that possible today without the killing of conceived infants.  However, notice the attitude in these two statements.  It’s all about me and what I think, not about the eternal principles of right and wrong.  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! Isa 5:20-21.

            9 and 10.  Abortion is for the sake of the “happiness of the unborn” and to “give them a healthier start.”  What we’re talking about here is aborting defective babies.  As someone who was born with a birth defect, let me tell you exactly how angry this one makes me.  Does this writer think I am not happy?  Does she think I was not loved and cared for like a “perfect” child?  How dare she make those judgments for me and intimate that it would have been better for me if I had not been born!  How dare she say that I was not worth the trouble and expense to my parents or society!

            But folks, we will never win this argument because as Christians we will never come at it from the perspective of selfishness, materialism, and irreverence.  And we have no hope against someone who claims that her views on abortion prove that she “believes in mercy, grace, and compassion.”  We obviously do not even speak the same language.
   
            At some point, our task becomes one of keeping ourselves from being infected by this insidious attitude.  We must avoid anything that smacks of selfishness.  We must treat all things spiritual as the priority in our lives.  We must hold God and His Word in reverence, obeying every command and living a life of holiness and righteousness.  We may never change the minds of the godless, but we can keep our own hearts pure, and our actions and attitudes mirror images of the Lord’s. 
 
 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:11-12
 
Dene Ward

It was my ten year high school reunion, the only one I have ever attended.  I graduated in a class of 800 so I wasn’t exactly pining to see a lot of close, old friends.  I did manage to find four I had known fairly well, but even that turned into a bit of a fiasco.  That sweet girl, someone I thought of as like-minded in her dress, speech, and actions, whose boyfriend became a West Point cadet, both of whom were decidedly to the right in their politics, was now, ten years later, an abortion clinic nurse.  I was absolutely flabbergasted and physically ached when I heard it.

              So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of.  He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé.  She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating.  “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.

              “An abortion,” she immediately replied.  “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it?  Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child?  And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments?  Her life will be ruined.”

              All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch.  “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.

              Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly.  I did.  One article listed these:  poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think.  There it is in a nutshell:  Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was.  And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.      

           And where would we all be because, congratulations!  You just murdered the Messiah. 

               Aren’t we glad she did not?
 
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago, some young parents we knew had a child whom they discovered was legally blind.  It was possible that nothing could be done for that child, even with glasses or lenses, to correct his vision.  Because I was a child who was visually disabled myself, I wrote this letter to them.  I thought it might also be a help to you or someone you know who has a child who is disabled in any way.  Feel free to share it with anyone it might possibly help.

We were so sorry to hear about your little one’s condition.  When your child is hurt, there is nothing quite like the pain in your heart.  Any loving parent would instantly trade places to spare him.  We will continue to think of you and especially to pray for your comfort, and that your precious little one gets the help he needs, and perhaps even less disability than you have been told.  Our God can indeed work wonders.

            But for now, may I please be so bold as to offer you a little advice?  My current vision problem did not just suddenly start—I was born with it, but no one realized it, not even my parents.  In those days children were not checked as often or as completely as they are today.  As a result, my parents treated me exactly like they would have any child.  The first four years of my life I saw nothing but a blur of color, but I was the only one who knew that, and of course, I thought everyone was that way and did not complain.  I was, in fact, legally blind, yet I still learned to feed and dress myself.  They were able to potty train me.  I memorized quickly because I couldn’t see, and that has stuck with me, at least until now when age has affected it some.  Still I probably remember things better than most people my age.

            Even after they realized something was wrong, the doctor himself did not recognize exactly what the problem was, just that “she has really bad vision.”  You probably know something about magnification in lenses.  My magnification was +17.25 and that only got me to 20/40 on a good day, and that was not even the worst of my issues.  Yet I still learned to function.  When you can’t see well you notice things that other people don’t. 

            Even with correction I couldn’t see faces across a lawn or a parking lot or even a large room.  But I knew people by their walks and hand gestures.  If I had seen them earlier in the day, I remembered what they wore.  I couldn’t read street signs, but I knew there was a tree on that corner, or a pothole just before the turn.  You adapt when your survival, whether life and death or simply getting along in society, depends on it.

            Even if I eventually lose it all, which is probable, I still plan to be independent as long as possible.  I will probably be a widow someday, but I do not want to live with anyone, or in some care facility, until it is absolutely necessary.  I feel that way because of how I was raised.

            You need to give your child that same spirit of independence.  One thing is good and I say this from experience:  since he was born this way, he will not know what he is missing.  Don’t you make him miserable by treating him like there is something missing.  The best gift you can give him is the one my parents gave me, even if it was accidental:  treat him like a normal child.  He is normal; normal for him!  Help him learn how to get along.  Push him.  Tell him he can do it, even when you aren’t sure he can.  You’d be surprised what can be accomplished simply because a person thinks he can.  This is the loving thing for parents in your position to do.  Babying him is not.  I will be forever grateful that I was not babied—it has made me strong and able to bear far more than most.

            Now comes the hard part:  don’t let anyone baby him, and that includes grandparents.  You may have to put your foot down once in a while.  Do not be afraid to tell them, “No.”  You can do it kindly and with respect, but you have to be the one who stands up for your child against anyone’s misguided attempts to shelter him.  He is your child and God will hold you accountable for his care.  You might need to remind them of that once in a while. 

            Treating him as a normal child will also mean disciplining him that way.  It is hard enough to scold or spank the little hands of a perfectly healthy child.  You must be strong enough to do this.  Your child is counting on you to turn him into a faithful child of God and save his soul.  If you let him have his way because of his “problem,” you are only creating more problems for him to overcome—you are not loving him like you think you are.  I am forever grateful to my parents for not turning me into a selfish, and self-absorbed, adult.

            God has a purpose for all of his children, and your little one will grow up better able to serve those who have disabilities than those who have none ever could.  He will understand and sympathize and think of things that other people do not—another thing that Keith and I have discovered as our disabilities have increased.  No one even thinks to consider what we can or cannot hear, can or cannot see.  Only the disabled give us that consideration. And thus the disabled are enabled to help others.  But he won’t perform that service if you raise him to think that he is the center of the universe because of his disability.

            Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.  Do not be too proud to use Blind Services or anything else offered to you.  It is not sinful to take help.  It will be nice to know that someone who really deserves our tax money is making use of it.  And do not be afraid to ask for whatever help you need from your brothers and sisters in the Lord, including us.  That’s why God put us here.

            We are praying for you as you take this journey.  It will be hard at times, but other times it will bring you even more joy than the parents of the perfectly healthy children.  Just you wait and see!
 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

Read any book on parenting and you will probably see a line like this:  Never tell your children they must obey “because I said so.”  God broke that “rule” constantly, and that is precisely why, as a parent, I chose to break it myself.  How else do you teach authority?

            Yes, when there is a good reason for something you tell them to do, and when they are capable of understanding that reason, give your children the reason.  But they must eventually come to the understanding that obedience has nothing to do with the reason, but with the authority who requires it.  If they never learn this lesson, they will disobey whenever it suits them, whether it is you they disobey, or their teachers, or their employers, or the law of the land—or God.

            Look at Lev 18 and 19.  God punctuates every command with a declaration of who he is. 
            My ordinances shall you do, and my statutes shall you keep, to walk therein: I am Jehovah your God.         
            You shall therefore keep my statutes, and mine ordinances; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am Jehovah.

            That’s just two verses.  Keep right on reading for the next page or so.  “I am Jehovah,” meant, “I have the right to rule over you.”  It meant exactly what we say when we tell our children, “Because I am your father (or mother), that’s why!”  It is the exclamation point that says, “I mean it!”

            Read through those passages some time today.  Some of them may open your eyes to areas in which our culture has failed significantly.

            You shall fear every man his mother, and his father…  I am Jehovah your God.
            You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God: I am Jehovah.
            You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am Jehovah.
            You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am Jehovah, 19:3,12,16,32.

            I have read that this was part of the covenant ritual, and as such, we are required to do our part in order to receive God’s part—his blessings in this life, and ultimately salvation.  If we won’t obey “because he said so,” we won’t enjoy eternal life with that Father, the Ultimate Authority Figure. 

            Remind yourself today of that lesson you learned long ago about exclamation points.  They are used for emphasis and to express strong feelings.  God has perhaps his strongest feelings against those who disobey.  “Because I said so,” should be good enough for any who claim to be his children, whether we understand or not.
 
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:3-6.
 
Dene Ward

Two year old Silas has a funny way of asking us to put him down.  “Oh the down,” he says wistfully with a sigh that communicates far beyond his years.  If we don’t do it fast enough, he squirms to the point that we put him down in self-defense.  At nearly thirty pounds now, he is getting a little too heavy for this grandma to handle without his cooperation.  The eye surgeon probably wouldn’t be too happy either.

            I would hold him longer if he would let me.  I would hold him all day and all night.  I can’t get enough of holding him, in fact, but I don’t want to make him stay in my arms.  Holding a prisoner is not the same as holding a cherished grandchild.

            Too many folks have the wrong idea about the security of the believer.

            My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, John 10:27-29.

            As long as we stay in God’s hand, we are safe.  He will not allow us to be tempted more than we can stand.  He will give grace that not only forgives our sins, but helps us through the storms of life.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God, Paul reminds the Romans in 8:39.  There is your security of the believer.

            But God will hold no prisoners.  As soon as we start squirming, as soon as we wistfully sigh, “Oh the down,” he will let us go.  Unlike aging grandparents, he could hold on to us, but God wants a child who wants to be in his arms, not one who kicks and screams and begs to be let go. We will have no one to blame but ourselves if we lose our souls. 

            For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 2 Pet 2:20.
            You know what?  Many times after I put him down, Silas comes running back.  “Grandma!” he says with arms held up high, and I will pick him up gladly, even if my back does complain a bit.  There is yet another bit of security.  God will pick us up when we come back, eager to be held again in his loving arms.  It is entirely up to us whether we stay there.
 
Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet 1:5.
 
Dene Ward

I remember visiting our children in Tampa once when Silas was still a toddler.  He was in the family room, around the corner through the kitchen. Instead of turning right through the kitchen, Keith headed straight ahead into the living room.  At 17 months, Silas finally seemed to recognize and remember us.  As soon as he heard his grandfather’s distinctive Arkansas drawl, he came running.  Deaf as he is, Keith didn’t hear him and kept going at first, while small towheaded Silas kept toddling behind, a huge grin on his face, until finally Granddad turned around and saw him.

            Have you ever followed anyone that way?  The people who followed Jesus did. And [Jesus and the apostles] went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. Mark 6:32,33. They dropped what they were doing and left their work and their homes because they recognized that what he was teaching was different, that he spoke “as one having authority,” yet with a compassion for them that none of their other religious leaders showed.  He drew crowds wherever he went, people so interested in hearing him that the practicality of it all didn’t daunt them.  They followed regardless the inconvenience and sacrifice, even of necessities–like food for the day—so he even met that need for them more than once.

            Would we recognize his voice if he were walking among us today?  Could we tell that though the things he said sounded different than “what we’d always heard,” (Matt 5) it was the simple truth?  In fact, what sort of traditions might he discredit among us?  Would we keep following him even though it angered our own leaders?  Would we follow when our social and economic lives were threatened?  Many of them were thrown out of the synagogues for their belief.

            If he walked among us today, would we follow everywhere as eagerly as Silas followed his granddad that afternoon, with a huge grin and an eager expression, hoping he would turn around and see us and welcome us into his open arms?  Or would we be so satisfied with where we are, or so caught up in things of this world that we would never even notice?
 
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand, John 10:27,28.
 
Dene Ward

It’s fun watching them gradually realize that Grandma is Daddy’s Mom and that Gran-gran is Daddy’s Grandma, that Uncle is Daddy’s big brother and Grandma is Gran-gran’s little girl.  Silas is beginning to figure it out, but Judah still gets a funny look on his face when you try to explain it.  He raises those little eyebrows, cuts his eyes around and purses those lips—“And what have you been drinking?” he seems to think—except he wouldn’t understand that either.

We want them to know who family is because family matters.  We want them to understand that Silas’s middle name may be the name of an apostle, but it is also the name of one of his great-great-grandfathers; that Judah’s middle name may be the name of a great prophet, priest, and judge but it is the name of another great-great-grandfather as well.  Even if they never knew those men, there is a connection.

Just look at the book of Obadiah.  By the time it was written, few, if any, of the Edomites knew the Jews personally, but it still mattered to God that a long time before Jacob and Esau had been brothers.  He expected those two nations to treat each other like brothers.

Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. ​On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them. But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin; do not boast in the day of distress. ​Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity; do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. ​Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. Obadiah 1:10-14.

Because they did not help, because they “gloated” over their brothers’ misfortune, because they actively stood in the way to prevent escape, God judged the Edomites and destroyed them.  Their relationship with Israel was many generations removed, their people’s knowledge of one another socially was small if at all, yet they were still expected to act like brothers.

So what does God think about siblings who argue over estates?  About grudges that are held for decades?  About bad feelings that are passed down to the next generation instead of being hid out of shame that such a thing exists in their hearts?  God expects better of families, and why?  Because that is the model for His people, the church.

The church is often described as “the household (family) of God,” and that makes us brothers and sisters.  God expects us to act like flesh and blood brothers and sisters.  He expects us to love one another because we are spiritually related—family.  He expects us to forgive, to forbear, to help, to encourage and yes, even to admonish just as an older brother or sister would a younger one.  And it does not matter whether we “know” one another or not.

Let’s add this quickly because someone is thinking it—yes, God even expects us to put His spiritual family ahead of our physical families; but assuming that is not an issue, my family life, even with the most distant of relatives, had better be a good one.  How else will I know how to treat my brothers and sisters in Christ?
 
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. 1Tim 5:1-2
 
Dene Ward

The kids were on the way that day.  Most important of all, Silas was.  Keith did not want me to wear myself out before he even got here so he said, “Don’t do anything--rest.  You have a grandson coming.  Besides, he’ll just make a mess anyway, so why bother spending time cleaning up?”

            Pondering that, I realized that God didn’t think that way.  He made a beautiful garden for his children.  He made everything perfect.  It was all “very good.”  What if he had said, “They’re only going to make a mess of it anyway, so why should I bother?”

            He bothered for the same reason I did—love.  He wanted his children (and grandchildren) to walk with him in a clean and pretty place, a place they would enjoy being and maybe want to stay just a little longer. 

            So I did spend some time sweeping floors, putting up breakables, setting out the little wooden rocking horse, stuffed animals, and crayons, and filling the cookie jar with homemade cookies. 

            God did all of that for us too, in a metaphorical sense, hoping we would like the place so much that we would want to stay as long as possible.  Yes, I know.  He had a plan just in case we made a mess, but I keep a broom and a mop too.  So?

            Sometimes looking at how God might view things in the same way we might look at them helps us to see how he feels.  Sometimes knowing the pain we might have felt if we were on the receiving end of selfish children can make us be just a little bit better.  Knowing the trouble we go to because we love our children and grandchildren so much shows us just how much we can hurt an All-Powerful Being.  That’s what makes the true God so different from the gods of myth.  He is willing to be hurt by us.  He will make himself vulnerable on our behalf.  The next time you go out of your way for special guests in your home, and it is neither noticed or appreciated, remember how God feels when you do the same to him.          

            Today, enjoy the special things God has made for you, and be sure to thank him.  Someday he wants to walk with us again in that perfect place he has prepared “from the foundation of the world,” and this time there won’t be any messes to clean up.
 
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Matt 7:7-11.
 
Dene Ward

As Keith says, we are so typical it’s embarrassing.  Be that as it may, let me tell you about my grandson.

            He just turned two.  As he sat there in his high chair licking the frosting off his cupcake he quite deliberately read the letters on his Happy Birthday sign, the one that used to hang over our dining room windows when his father and uncle had a birthday, “H-A-P-P-Y,” all the way through to the end, never missing a letter.  Then he told us what colors the letters were, each one different.  Before that he had recited the alphabet, not sung it mind you, but recited it.  Then he had counted to nearly 20 and recognized all the numbers.  All day he had been pointing out shapes, including “oval.”

            Shortly after we had arrived, his granddad had read him a book.  “See the fish?” he said.

            ”Dolphin,” two year old Silas instantly corrected.

            His parents told us about a time a couple months before when a friend from church had come walking through the restaurant where they sat.  “Hi Mark,” they said, and suddenly my 22 month old grandson was reciting, “Luke, John, Acts, Romans,” taking up right where he thought his parents had left off. 

            Isn’t it normal for parents and grandparents to brag on their kids?  Do you think God doesn’t have the same feelings we do?  When I brag on my grandson, when I say he is the cutest, smartest little boy in the whole world, I am simply living up to the image in which I was created.  “Have you considered my servant Job?” God asked Satan.  “There is none like him in all the earth.”

            At least twice God spoke from Heaven about his Son, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.”  Don’t you know God loved saying that?

            When God made Israel his chosen people, his children, he had every right to expect them to behave like His children should.  Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, Ex 19:5,6. 

            When they didn’t He was just as devastated as we would be if our children did not behave themselves well. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the LORD, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen, Jer 13:11.

            In a Messianic passage, Isaiah speaks of the coming kingdom, the church.  You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her…for the LORD delights in you, Isa 62:3,4.  Just as Old Testament Israel had the chance to make God proud of them, we have that chance today. 

            What would people think about your Father if they saw your behavior and heard you speak?  What would they think if they saw how you treated the poor, the sick and the weak?  What would they think if they saw how you drive, how you dress, how you work for your employer?  All some people will ever know about God is what they see in you.

            Make your Heavenly Father proud enough to brag about you today.  “Have you seen my child?  There is none like him in all the earth.”

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire, 2 Pet 1:3,4.
 
Dene Ward