A couple of months ago we met Nathan and his family at a restaurant about 15 miles south of here.  It has always been one of his favorites, primarily for their signature dish:  The Stogie, a one pound hamburger that is indeed one of the best I have ever eaten out.

            Having arrived early, we sat where we could see the street, so we did not miss their vehicle as it passed by the front windows.  Keith went out to help them unload and before long two little boys came running in with smiles, hugs, and kisses.  Judah, in fact, climbed right into my lap and did not leave it the whole time.  Trying to eat even half of my Stogie around him was an adventure, but do you think for one minute I would have told him he needed to leave my lap?  Not this grandma.  I did have to be careful not to drip hamburger grease on his shirt, or drop a tomato or pickle slice on his little head.  But Judah did not think about any of those things.   He just assumed he was safe in grandma’s lap.

            A few months earlier the boys stayed here for several days instead of just a few hours.  They immediately picked up words, phrases, and songs.  When one of them popped up that first night, I reminded myself then to be extra careful.  Aren’t I careful all the time?  Of course, but these little souls were learning from me even when I didn’t think I was teaching!  And what was dropping into their hearts and minds was a whole lot more important than a drop of mustard on their heads.

            If you are acting in any capacity as a teacher in the Lord’s household, the same is true of you.  Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers,  Paul told Timothy in 1 Tim 4:16.  First look to yourself, for it is often said that a person learns more from a sermon seen than one heard.  Make sure your life matches what you teach in every particular.  It is too easy to blind ourselves to things that are obvious to others. 

Then make sure over and over that what you teach is correct.  Do not ever give an answer you are unsure of.  Never be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but I will find out.”  Never speak off the top of your head if you are at all uncertain.  Make sure the student knows if something is an opinion only.  I can tell you from experience that people will take things to heart you meant as a side note of no importance and they will repeat your words more than once to others, not out of spite but out of respect—they think you know what you are talking about, even when you don’t.

And it may not be a class situation.  There may be someone out there who watches you with admiration.  Maybe in the past you said something kind to them.  Maybe they saw you do a good deed.  Maybe someone else they respect told them about you.  You are being watched whether you know it or not—every one of you!  Take heed to yourself!

It isn’t just the little ears you have to worry about out there.  And just like a grandchild implicitly trusts that his grandparents would never teach him anything wrong whether by word or example, there may be others out there who believe the same of you.  What you do and say may indeed save them—and maybe not.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned…Titus 2:7,8.

Dene Ward

            The little girl stuck her head inside the door.  Yep.  It was empty.  Stepping inside, she shut the door, turning the cast iron doorknob—nearly as big as her head—as quietly as she could.

            She panned the room slowly, her brown pixie-cut hair shining in the sunlight that shone through the tiny window near the ceiling.  It did look different now.  She shoved the thick glasses higher up on her pert nose and looked harder.  Now she could see the dust balls atop the army green footlocker, the dirt clods clinging to the ramshackle plow, straw poking out of the stacked crates, ropes looped over rusty nails jutting out of the wall, dark gray lines netting the sides of clanky buckets like veins, the ridges circling the cane fishing pole leaning against the wall, empty dust-frosted preserve jars lining the rickety shelves, the delicate weave of her grandmother’s flower basket sitting empty on the bottom shelf of a drawered table.

            She shuffled across the concrete floor, listening to the grit scrape with every step.  Stopping, she leaned over and studied it.  It glinted in the slanted sunlight like little slivers of glass.  A black ant crept up to one and shoved it along like a tiny bulldozer.  At first she was startled; she had never seen an ant before, but now…  She shoved her glasses up again.  A whole bunch of ants darted crazily around the center pole of the old garage.  She skipped over but it was only an old dead roach lying on its back, so she sauntered back to the corner.

            For a while she roamed around with her head up, gazing at the pine rafters and silvery spiderwebs until she tripped over an old footlocker and sprawled over the top on her poochy stomach.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way down her face.

            With the footlocker before her, she had found a new interest.  The lock hung open and she took it off and lifted the metal latch.  Her grandmother’s lace garden hat lay on top, a pair of gloves under its floppy brim.  Red and yellow flowered aprons with gnarled strings, a caramel colored walking cane, a yellow-stained baptismal robe, a pair of steel rimmed spectacles wrapped in a once-white lace handkerchief; she fished beneath all these before she found what she wanted—a huge rusty cowbell whose clang sounded more like a clonk.  She held it up to her ear and listened two times, three and another just for good measure.  Then she held it up over her head and watched the clapper swing from side to side.  So that’s how it worked!  She knew there was a metal jobbie in there but how it made the clonk was beyond the comprehension of her four year old mind—until now.

            She closed the top of the locker and set the bell on top.  Taking a step back to gaze at it, her heel landed on the rake tines and the handle slammed against the back of her head.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way around her head, too.

            She set it up against the wall and looked at the floor.  It was really dirty.  And that big, hairy janitor’s broom leaned against the opposite wall just itching to sweep some.

            She took it by the middle of the handle and lugged it across the floor to the back corner.  It was longer than she was and she had to stand on her toes to reach the end of the handle, but when she pulled it down the broom end slid out so-o-o far in front of her.  After a half dozen pushes, she was worn out.  She yanked up her striped tee shirt and wiped the sweat off her face, sticking her finger up under the bridge of her glasses to get to her nose.  It was too bad glasses had to sit on her nose.  She brushed her hands off on her red corduroy pants and reached up for another swoosh.  That pile of dustballs, dirt, sawdust, and spider webs wasn’t big enough for her to quit just yet, even though a big red blister was rising on the inside of her thumb.

            But she only had time for three more swooshes before she had to stop and listen.

            “Denie!” came the call again.

            Oh well, she had just as soon stop anyway.  Something else needed tending to.  She had seen lines in her grandmother’s face.

 

I wrote that when I was 17.  It won a couple of prizes, but that’s not why I have posted it today.

I doubt that as a four year old I had any sense of other people’s troubles, but as a 17 year old I must have begun to see one of the biggest problems a trial in your life can give you—an inability to see the pain others are going through.  All you can see is your own.  All you can feel is your own.  All you care about is your own.

Contrast that to our Lord.  He led a difficult life, a poor man with no belongings, ridiculed by others and in danger more than once, yet all he did was serve anyone who needed him.  As he anticipated what was coming the night before his death, he taught his disciples, concerned about how they would handle what lay ahead.  As he hung on a cross in hideous pain, he worried about his mother, seeing to her care. 

How do we do when we are suffering?  Is it all about us?  Can we even tolerate hearing that someone else might be going through something even worse?  Believe it or not, I have seen people become angry when the attention shifts to someone else who is suffering, perhaps even more.  Is that how a follower of Christ, one who walks in his footsteps behaves?  Of course it’s difficult.  Of course you are in need of help and service.  But an attitude of selfishness that denies others the same help they themselves crave is inexcusable. 

My new glasses helped me see more than a blur of moving colors for the first time in my four years of life, yet, as the story shows, they had their limitations.  You could only see what was right in front of you.  “It’s too bad they don’t---“ fill in the blank, I have thought all my life.  Now I think, it’s too bad glasses don’t help us look inside our own hearts too.

 

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

            Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.

            So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”

            Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.

            Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”

            Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.

            And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.

            And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 

            What are you afraid of this morning?

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, Isa 8:12-13.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, (Matt 10:28.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,” Isa 51:7-8.

​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.

Dene Ward

Keith had to have some fairly serious surgery last year and since he is 90% deaf, the doctor arranged for me to be in his hospital room as his caregiver 24/7.  He does read lips fairly well, but lip reading is not the perfect solution to the problem.  He must “fill in the blanks,” so to speak, as his mind tries to interpret the sounds his ears miss, which is most of them.  It takes a lot of concentration, and when he is tired or does not feel well, he simply cannot hear at all.  But over the years I have learned how to communicate in all the various ways, from hand signals to pantomime to pointing at people or things to carefully wording without overdoing the mouth movements or using too many words. 

            So for six days we were both away from home and wouldn’t you know it, it was the height of garden season.  When we came home I had to do it all because he couldn’t even lift more than 10 pounds for two months, let alone bend over to pick vegetables or drag hoses.  That first week was the worst.  I picked every morning, sprayed the whole garden twice, (we’re talking an 80 x 80 garden here), pulled cucumber vines covered with blight, chopped out and hauled away the old corn stalks, placed folded newspapers under 50 cantaloupes so they wouldn’t rot on the ground (a very thin-skinned variety), cleaned out weed-choked flower beds, put up both dill and red cinnamon pickles, and picked and tossed 8 five gallon buckets of squash and cucumbers that did not have the grace to stop growing while we were in the hospital!

            Of course we all know that is not going to happen.  The plants continue to grow, the blossoms continue to set, and the fruit grows far larger than you ever imagined it could.  The back field looked like a marching band had gone through throwing out big yellow saxophones as they passed.

            It works that way with children too.  I can think of dozens of things we planned to do with our boys when they were little—things we never got to.  Sometimes it was a case of no money, but sometimes we just let life get in the way.  I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything we planned that we actually accomplished at all!  But just like gardens, children keep on growing.  They don’t stop to wait until you have more time to spend with them, or more resources to spend on them.  They won’t wait till you get a bigger house or an easier job or a raise.  They won’t wait until your life is exactly like you want it.  If that’s what you are waiting for, it will never happen.  You have to set your own priorities and make it happen.

            Every summer I made my boys a chore list.  I am sure they remember it fondly!  No, probably not, but on that list was this:  “Play a game with mom.”  Guess which “chore” they never skipped?  Sometimes it was checkers, sometimes it was monopoly, sometimes it was even pinochle, a game they learned with some of their dad’s commentaries set up on the table to hide their hands because they were too small to hold all the cards at once.  Sometimes it was one of the board games I made to help them with their Bible knowledge.  And every day we had Bible study of some kind, whether just talking about things between the bean rows as we picked together or a formal sit down study. 

            These are just some ideas to help you along.  We have all heard the old poem “Children Don’t Wait.”  It’s true, and last summer I thought about that even more as I looked out over the overgrown garden.  Maybe my grandsons will reap a little from the repeat of a lesson that is never taught enough.

And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life...Deut 32:46-47.

Dene Ward

Silas and Judah stayed with us for nearly a week this past month, and boy, do I have some tales to tell—and their ultimate lessons to share.

            The first morning we gathered up swimsuits, towels and water toys for a trip to their great-grandmother’s (“Gran-Gran”) in a subdivision with a pool at the community center.  We nabbed the pool pass off her wall and headed down the shady lane with mounting excitement only to find a sign posted on the gate to the pool:  “The pool is temporarily closed due to health concerns.”

            They did as well as they could, for a five-year-old and a two-year-old, at hiding their disappointment, but on the trip home Keith and I were desperately trying to come up with a solution.  Finally we hit upon one.  Our neighbor owns a veterinary supply business.  Many of his products come in bright blue plastic barrels slightly larger than 55 gallon drums, which he empties as he fills smaller bottles for his customers.  He often gives us the empties which we wash out and use for all sorts of things.  We happened to have two that were cut down to about two feet deep.

            Granddad rolled those tubs out to the yard in the shade of the huge live oaks on the west side of the house and filled them with water.  Then we divvied up plastic cups and water guns and plopped a little boy in each tub along with all the paraphernalia.  As children will, especially kids as bright as these, they soon had a good game or two going, and we grandparents managed to stay out of the way of most of the water, if not all of it, especially those extra long squirts from the water guns.

            Then Silas, the older boy, came up with the best game, the one that splashed the most water and got him the wettest.  He stood up as tall as he could, and to the cry of “Cowabunga!” lifted both feet in a big jump and landed on his seat in the tub.  The water displacement alone was awesome, especially for such a skinny little boy.  He usually wound up with his head barely above the water, even choking on it occasionally.  Good thing those tubs were well-washed.

            Judah adores his big brother.  If Silas does it, he does it.  If Silas says it, he says it too.  Or at least tries.  But he is not without at least some measure of caution.  I watched as he considered his brother’s maniacal call and monumental splash.  He seemed to weigh things for a moment and then finally came to a decision.  “Cowabunda!” he cried, which was a little easier to say, then jumped up in the air, landing on his feet and squatting carefully in his own little blue tub.  Even being several inches shorter, more of him stayed out of the water and the splash was much less.  He may have imitated his brother’s actions, but he had not made the same commitment.

            And that is often where our Christianity stops.  We make a good show of it, but the heart isn’t there.  When the time of sacrifice comes, when we might end up floundering in deep water, it’s asking too much.  Which is exactly what the Lord does ask for—everything.

            In those classic commitment passages of Luke 9 and 14, he makes it plain that nothing can be more important to you than he is.  Not comfort and convenience (9:57,58); not family (9:59,60; 14:20); not business (14:18); not possessions (14:19); nothing can get in the way.  Then we have one that I had a hard time figuring out.

            Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”  Luke 9:61.  We already have several references to family relationships, especially when you add “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” and the like.  Then I remembered the call of Elisha.  He too asked Elijah if he could go home and kiss his parents goodbye, and yes, Elijah allowed him to not only do that, but to prepare a feast with the very oxen he had been plowing with at his call (1 Kgs 19:19-21).  Surely Jesus was referring to this well-known bit of Jewish history when he said, “No, you cannot go home and say goodbye.”

            So perhaps it means, “I am even more important than a great prophet like Elijah,” the one most Jews considered the greatest prophet of all.  To make such an assertion was astounding, and to follow Jesus as he required meant one accepted that claim too.  Yes, Jesus asked for it all, even placing your social and religious life on the line by accepting his teaching and claims.

            You can’t dip your toes in the water and claim to be his disciple.  You have to take the plunge, even if it means landing hard and choking on the water when you do.  If you’re scared of making waves in your little blue tub of a world, chances are you have never made the commitment you should have.

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels, Luke 9:23-26.

Dene Ward

            We stayed with our young grandsons a couple of months back, and one evening two year old Judah found three small bins, about the size of the largest coffee cans these days, and summarily emptied them one by one.  Small figurines, farm animals, blocks and other toys covered the family room floor.  He stood there looking around with obvious satisfaction, lifted his hands in the air and, with a big grin on his face, proclaimed, “I made a mess!”

            Then, surprising us both, he began to pick up each and every tiny toy and place them in the back of his dump truck, the big one he can sit on and push with his feet, until every toy was off the floor.

            “What a good boy!” I exclaimed.  Naively, as it turned out because he immediately knelt before the truck and began tossing the toys over his shoulders with both hands until once again they were scattered everywhere.  Again he looked on his work with satisfaction, then began picking them up and starting over.   This must have occurred five or six times before it began to bore him, but for a while there, “Making a Mess” was the game of the hour and he was quite good at it.

            Do you know any mess makers in the church?  You know, the ones who ask questions in class that are deliberately designed to foil the teacher’s carefully laid out lesson and confuse the newcomers; the ones who enjoy starting a discussion they know will end in arguments; the ones who delight in pulling people aside, especially teachers and preachers, and “setting them straight” about some detail that doesn’t even matter; the ones who pride themselves on taking the opposing view, not because it is the right one, but because they enjoy a stir.  They might as well stand in the middle of the room with my two year old grandson and proclaim, “I made a mess.”

            What does Paul say about them?  They “quarrel about words to no profit.”  They participate in “irreverent babble.”  They engage in “foolish and ignorant controversies.”  They have “an unhealthy craving for controversy”—indeed they can hardly control themselves when they see certain subjects coming up.  That lack of self-control comes because they are “depraved in mind.”  In short, these people thrive on making messes.  They live to cause trouble.  They even brag about their tendency to do these things. 

            And why is it so bad?  Their actions “subvert souls.”  They “lead people to more and more ungodliness.”  Their foolishness “eats like a gangrene.”  It “genders strife.”  It serves only to “produce envy, dissension, slander, suspicion…and constant friction.”  It troubles the new Christians and “unsettles minds.”

            At least my two year old grandson’s activity did not hurt anyone.  It was entirely appropriate for a child his age.  What excuse does a middle-aged mess-maker have?  He might as well go play with the babies.

 

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.  Titus 3:9-11

(Passages quoted in the body of the article:  1 Tim 6:4,5; 2 Tim 2:14,16,23; Acts 15:25.)

 

Dene Ward

Recently someone asked me how I keep from being depressed in my situation.  I was so shocked I stumbled a bit in my answer, finally saying, “Well it certainly wouldn’t help things, so why would I want to do that?”  I got a strange look.  I suppose most people think of “depressed” as something you are, not something you do, but that never has made sense to me.  All those books, TV shows, and movies revolving around people who fall apart after some sort of shocking revelation, never have made sense to me. So a bad thing has happened.  You know what?  The laundry still needs washing, the bills still need paying, and the dog still has an appointment at the vet for her rabies shot.  I guess I am just a little too practical.

But I remember once, many years ago, when I was unable to keep a tear from leaking out in front of my little boy.  We were preparing to move, and after several days of packing and cleaning, and saying good-bye to yet another good friend, it just got away from me.  He asked what was wrong.  

I never tried to hide things from my children.  I told them what I thought they could understand at the time they asked.  He would not have understood about the other problems of a move, but he had little friends himself that I knew he would miss, so I said, “It’s just sad to leave your friends.”

He put his arms around my neck and patted my back.  “It’s all right, mama.  You will always have Jesus.”

That nearly undid me for good, but I managed to smile and say, “You are right.  And so will you.”  Then we went on with the task of packing, and managed a laugh or two before long.

As I think back on that now, I believe he had the answer I should have given this friend.  Somehow a four year old understood that no matter what happens, we are never alone.  What he did not say, but which struck me right between the eyes when I thought about it, was that when we allow ourselves to be depressed over this life, we are being singularly ungrateful to Christ for what He did for us.  If this life were all there was, then we ought to be depressed.  "If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable" 1 Cor 15:19.  But He gave up a lot so we could have hope for the next life.  I will not slap Him in the face by acting like anything in this life is important enough to take away the joy I have in a relationship with Him.

That does not mean that some days are not difficult, especially when the pain is worse or the vision is obviously less.  But I do not wallow like a pig in the muddy misery.  I choose not to, in part because a four year old reminded me not to.

From now on, when someone asks, I think I will just use my little boy’s answer—which I hope he has not forgotten either.  How can I be depressed when I have a Savior who loves me?

For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Heb 2:10,11.

Dene Ward