If you have ever tried to take care of an infant’s stuffy nose with one of those rubber ball suction devices, you—and your child—know the importance of the day he actually learns to blow his nose, even if you do have to hold the Kleenex for him. 

Lucas must have been about 18 months old when he learned.  He was so thrilled he could not get enough of it.  I caught him grabbing a hanging bath towel at the hem, which was the only place he could reach, and blowing his nose on it.  Then he came running to me, for hugs and kisses I assumed; but no, as soon as I picked him up, he grabbed my shirt and blew his nose on it.  When I finally realized what was up, I caught him just as he made a beeline for a clean pile of laundry waiting to be folded, and caught him before he could jump into the basket and blow his nose all over everything.  It was suppertime, though, when I realized that teaching him nose-blowing etiquette was of paramount importance.  I sat him in the high chair and he promptly reached out and blew his nose on—no, not his napkin—his biscuit!

Now when I have a cold I am glad I can blow my nose, but it’s no big deal.  Lucas, on the other hand, had learned something new.  It made his life so much easier and he was excited to practice it.  Now where am I going with this one?

Two people walk into the meetinghouse on Sunday morning.  One comes in with a ho-hum expression, sits near the back, tries not to fall asleep, and leaves looking much as he did when he arrived.  Another comes in smiling, hugs everyone in sight, sits near the front taking copious notes, asks questions in class, and even stays afterward with more questions.  Which is the “mature” Christian and which is the babe in Christ?  Isn’t it sad that we all know the answer to that one? 

Why have we “mature” Christians—or should I just say “old” converts?--lost our enthusiasm?  Why is it that we need to learn from the babes the joy of salvation, the diligence of study, and the satisfaction of serving others, when we should be giving them the example?  Why is it that the ones who should least understand the importance of salvation are the ones who appreciate it the most?  Have we forgotten what we know, or are we just bored with it?  Are we, like the Pharisees, so enamored with our own sense of righteousness that we actually think we have saved ourselves?

Unfortunately for the babes, many will learn from our example and become just like us.  Let’s rekindle the fire.  There is a reason for the term “revival,” and it is not an unscriptural word.  Let’s start behaving like mature Christians ought to behave, like children of God who live lives of joy and are thrilled to be able to call God their Father and Jesus their older brother.  Isn’t that amazing?

Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause your indignation toward us to cease.  Will you be angry with us forever?  Will you draw out your anger to all generations?  Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?  Show us your lovingkindness, O Jehovah, and grant us your salvation.  Psa 85:5-7

Dene Ward

(This will make a lot of more sense to you if you go to http://flightpaths.weebly.com/2/post/2012/08/bussenwuddy.html, and read it first.)

I told you awhile back about our first overnight with our grandson Silas.  It was fun, it was sweet, it was exhilarating, and it was a little frustrating at times when we weren’t sure what he wanted. 

The “bussenwuddy” nearly got us.  Luckily I had cared enough to listen to the things he talked about to recognize “Buzz” and “Woody” from the Toy Story DVD.  Good thing I was the one listening.  Buzz and Woody could have been next door neighbors as far as Keith was concerned.  When you are profoundly deaf, you don’t casually pick up on bits and pieces of conversation or those things “everyone knows.”  You don’t immediately recognize words for all that.  No wonder he was lost.

How well do you hear God?  Even if you recognize the words, do you know enough to make the correct associations and figure things out?  I know people do not know their Bible enough to be familiar with apocalyptic language when they turn the beautiful promises of the book of Revelation into some futuristic Armageddon between political nations (which, have you noticed, change with every generation’s “interpretation,” which ought to tell them something).  I know they don’t care enough to study carefully the entire communication God gave to us when they come up with ideas a real disciple can shoot holes through with half a dozen scriptures off the tip of his tongue.

But how are we doing?  I hear more faulty exegesis from brethren these days than I do from my neighbors.  Taking things literally that are obviously hyperboles simply because they cannot comprehend a Lord who cared enough to come as one of us, speaking as one of us, including the use of hyperboles and humorous comparisons; refusing to see the obvious parallels between elements of the new covenant and those of the old because they have decided that “nailed to the cross” means don’t ever even look at the Old Testament again, much less study it; spending so much time fighting the heresies of mainstream denominationalism that they miss the important fundamentals of a sure hope and a grace beyond measure—these are just a few of the problems.

What do you think of when you read “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col 1:27?  Does the Shekinah even cross your mind, that physical manifestation of God’s glory that dwelt over the mercy seat?  Or is it just another “bussenwuddy” that eludes you, and robs you of a greater, more magnificent promise than you ever imagined?  I could go on.

Knowing God’s word, not just superficially, but deeply, can lead to a greater understanding and a more heartfelt faith.  Facts may seem cold, but without them you are missing a lot.  You cannot make connections.  You cannot take your understanding to a deeper level.  You cannot see parallels and applications that will make your life more acceptable to your Father.

Take the time to learn those facts.  How do you think you will ever come to a better knowledge of God if you don’t know what He said?  All it will be is a “bussenwuddy” on deaf ears.

For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:11-14

Dene Ward

Have you seen the commercial where the father is playing hide and seek and finds his little boy up near the ceiling as his mother says, “We have a climber?”  I have one too.

Lucas, my older son, climbs.  If there is anything around taller than he is, he is on it without even conscious thought.  When he was a teenager, I would hear him call from outside.  When I got there, I could not see him anywhere.  Finally I would hear laughter coming from above me—way above me.  If there is a tree on our property he has not climbed, it was just not big enough to hold him.  I should have known. 

When he was about 8 months old and had just started pulling up on things and walking around them while hanging on (four weeks later he let go!), I had a cake sitting on my countertop, freshly frosted and ready for a potluck.  The kitchen I had at the time was a horseshoe shape, with a lower eating bar on the side of the counter that faced the family room.  I just turned around toward the oopposite leg of the counter for two minutes, wiping up crumbs.  Someone had left a chair pulled out (we won’t say who is guilty of never pushing his chair in).  Lucas pulled up on the chair, lifted a little leg, climbed into it, pulled himself up on the bar, then up onto the countertop and was literally two inches from planting his little fist in the cake as he crawled across the countertop when I turned around, gasped, and grabbed him. 

If you had seen an 8 month old baby, still crawling on the floor, and the height of the countertop, you would have thought the cake was safe too.  There was no way he would ever get near it, especially not that fast.  But for him, there was no way he could not get to it if he wanted it badly enough.

Too many times we give up without trying.  We look at the difficulty ahead of us and say, “I can’t.”  We excuse our faults by blaming God, “I’m only human.  I can’t help it.”  You know what that translates to?  “God made me this way.  It’s His fault I can’t do any better.”  What way exactly did God makes us?  And God created man in His own image, in the image of God did he make him. Gen 1:27.  Seems like a pretty good way to be made to me.  Every excuse we can come up with is just as baseless as this one.

“I can’t handle this, God.  You’re asking too much.”  Which means God is not faithful.  He will ask more than I can bear.  There has no temptation taken you but such as man can bear; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able… 1 Cor 10:13.

“How can you allow this to happen, God?”  Which means God can be tempted with evil, and he does tempt us.  Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no man.  James 1:13

“Every day I have to fight this battle.  It’s just too hard for me.”  Which means you can sin with impunity?  Watch, stand fast in the faith, behave like men! Be strong.  1 Cor 16:13.

“I quit.  I just can’t do it.”  Oh?  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  Phil 4:13.

There was a little baby once who was just old enough to recognize a cake when he saw it.  It did not matter that it was up three or four times higher than his head.  It did not matter that he had to work hard to get there.  It did not matter that it was dangerous going.  He could have fallen and hurt himself badly at any time.  Did he care?  No, he wanted that cake and was determined to have it. 

Isn’t Heaven a little more important than a piece of cake?

Dene Ward

We got the call on a Sunday morning at 5:32.  We were on the road as soon as we could be, but Silas’s little brother Judah beat us there by half an hour.  Mommy and Daddy had waited as long as they could, their three year old sitting big-eyed and quiet in the labor room, but ultimately had to call a church couple to take him.

About 1:00 those helpful people brought Silas back to the hospital, where we sat in the room with Brooke and Nathan, new baby Judah lying in a special bed under a warming light.  It took far longer than it should have to get that baby’s body temperature to an appropriate number. 

Silas, still a bit confused, and very tired, ran straight to his parents.  Nathan lifted him into his arms and carried him over to the little bed.  He looked down at his four hour old, wrinkly red baby brother, his tiny head still misshapen from his passage into the world, and said, “What’s that?”

I couldn’t help it.  A bubble of laughter escaped me at his innocent honesty.  When we told him this was his little brother Judah, the one who had been in Mommy’s tummy, his little head swung back and forth between his mommy and the figure in the clear, plastic bed, his eyes full of skepticism.  This was not what he expected.

It took a couple of weeks for him to really come around, but who could blame him?  He was expecting a brother like the brothers and sisters his little friends had, and probably just as big.  He was expecting a playmate, but every time he shared his toys, the little interloper simply lay there and slept.  Where is the fun in that?  But children are nothing if not adaptable, and his little brother is growing on him.

I fear some people look on their lives as Christians with the same skepticism with which Silas first viewed Judah.  Freedom, they were promised, but all they see are rules.  Joy, they were promised, yet they still suffer the same trials, illnesses, and financial problems as everyone else, even the same ones as before they were converted.  They’ve lost friends, and rifts in the family are worse than ever.  They expected people to come running at their every beck and call, yet every Sunday the preacher, an elder, a Bible class teacher—or maybe all three!!—tells them they have to serve others.

Jesus dealt with the same problem among his followers.  Some came expecting to be entertained (Luke 7:32; 23:8).  Some came expecting to be fed (John 6:26).  Some came expecting to be part of a victorious army and a glorious kingdom here on the earth (Luke 19:11).  Very few “came around,” changing their expectations to match his offered reality.  He never changed his offer—if they wouldn’t accept it, he simply sent them away.  He drove off far more than ever accepted him (John 6:43-67).

Sometimes we have to do the same.  We cannot change the church the Lord bought with His own blood to suit the carnal nature of an unspiritual world—we don’t have that right.  Be careful what you offer your friends and neighbors. God didn’t promise lives of ease, health and wealth, or even a church family that always behaves itself.  The test of faith comes when things are difficult, not when they are easy.

The church wasn’t what the Jews expected.  As a result most of them missed out on the promised kingdom.  Examine your own expectations.  Make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. Romans 14:17-18

Dene Ward

On a recent camping trip, we had one full day of rain. Twenty-three hours in a tent went faster than we had expected since we had taken books to read, crossword puzzles to do, and a Boggle game. But at supper time we needed more room and a table to cook on, so we carried our food and our propane stove under the shelter of an umbrella through the steady drizzle and down to the pavilion in that State Park to prepare our meal.

A nine year old girl pulled her bike into the shelter as the rain picked up. She talked for a few minutes, and then we asked her name.

“Grace,” she replied.

“”Hmmm,” began Keith, “that means full of mercy and compassion. Is that you?”

She gave a wry grin beyond her years and said, “I don’t think so.”

We talked awhile longer, and then she politely excused herself. Later I thought, “How incredibly honest.” Could I look at myself and give such an assessment without making qualifications and rationalizations? I doubt it. And woe to anyone who tries to do it for me. No grace to him!

But here is the irony—as an innocent child, this little girl Grace is a whole lot closer to the ideal of grace than I am. Yet as a child of the God who gives grace abundantly, I must strive the harder to emulate my Heavenly Father, giving grace to all I meet just as He does for us—even though, as the very definition of the word states, we do not deserve it.

Today let us all remember to be as generous as our Father, giving grace where none is due.

By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Eph 2:8

Above all things be fervent in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins…minister among yourselves as good stewards of the grace of God. I Pet 4:8, 10

Dene Ward

While my students did win solo awards in piano solo, art song, and musical theater, our specialty seemed to be piano ensembles.  The point of an ensemble is not just to play the right notes at the right time, but to make a piano duet sound like one person with four hands and a trio like one person with six.  Not an easy thing to do when one partner plays with a heavy hand and the other with light finger work, one with the ebb and flow of rubato and the other the steadiness of a machine.

My teacher friends laughed at me when they saw all my students make a point to approach the piano together, sit at the same time, put their hands on and off the keys at the same time, then stand together and leave together.  I guess they never thought about whose students were bringing back trophies and whose weren’t.  The point of all that togetherness was to infuse oneness into them.  Your performance starts from the moment your names are called; that single four- or six-handed creature acted as one from then till they hit their seats in the audience afterward.

The performance aspects were trickier.  Who has the melody?  Does the partner have a counter-melody or an oom-pah-pah chordal accompaniment?  Does the partner enter with the same melody a few bars later?  How can the one with the steady underlying rhythm make it stable enough to help the syncopated partner, without overpowering him?  Are the dynamics terraced or interlaced?  How each partner plays his part depends upon the answer to all those questions.  What a lot to remember and listen for. 

I had one duo that excelled at all of this.  They played together for ten years and by the time the older graduated from high school, I was positive they were even breathing in sync while they performed.  They played pieces where one partner got up, walked around the piano and sat down to play again; then later in the piece got up and went back to his original position, all without stopping, without errors, and without one of them falling off the bench!  They played pieces where the one higher on the keyboard picked up his hand and put it between the other’s two hands and then continued playing, without a hitch.  If you were not watching, you would not know anything had happened.  Once they played a piece where one’s left hand was on the black keys above the other’s right hand on the white keys, and they never once got in each other’s way.  Now that’s teamwork.  (Did I mention that Nathan was one of the partners?)

Perfecting the piece was not enough for them.  They even created entrances, with both walking down opposite aisles exactly together and approaching the judges’ bench from opposite directions with a flourish precisely at the same time in the middle of the front row.  At the end of the piece they each crossed the outside hand to bounce off the last note with the inside hand, and held their hands up for exactly the same three count—non-verbally.  They simply knew each other that well.

And I remember my baby duet.  A little stepbrother and -sister act in the Primary 1 category performing “O Susanna.”  When one had the melody the other played softer; when the other came in with the melody, the first one pulled her tone way down almost instinctively, and then back up again when it was her turn.  These were 8 year olds, mind you, and it was flawless, seamless, and so amazing the judges looked at each other as soon as it happened.  I knew then we had it, and sure enough, we did.

That is what teamwork is all about.  You know that old coach’s saying, “There is no I in team?”  Unfortunately, many people still manage to spell “me,” and the team is never as unified as it could be.  Teamwork means doing what is best for the group.  It means constantly putting someone else ahead of me.  It means making an objective judgment of what is most important at a given time and not forcing my issues to the forefront if they are less critical than another’s.  It means not complaining if I don’t have the lead and trying to horn my way in anyway.  It means not whining when I don’t get the praise I think I deserve.  If one of my students had said, “I don’t care if I don’t have the melody.  I am just as important as her, so I’m playing my chords just as loudly,” they would have never won anything.  In fact, they would never have gotten a superior at the district level and not made it to the state competition.  What’s best for me will very often ruin it for everyone else.  And we all need to have that feeling.   If we do, no one feels left out or unappreciated. 

Why is it that we cannot see these things when we are the ones involved?  Are we really so dense?  Is it pride?  Is it arrogance?  Is it our rights-oriented society?  Whatever it is, we need to get over it, so the church can once again make known the manifold wisdom of God, Eph 3:10, and we, through our unity, can cause the world to believe, John 17:21.

Doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself, not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.  Phil 2:3,4     

Dene Ward

I mentioned once before a certain fifth grade class I taught, and the lesson we had on 2 Peter 1:5-7.  In trying to explain these characteristics, the requirements of being a Christian as they preferred to call them, I did a lot of word study.  Three of those words, and the way the children chose to make applications of them, have especially stuck with me after all these years.

Look up “virtue” in a Greek dictionary or lexicon and you are likely to find the phrase “moral excellence,” but this does not do a thing for a ten-year-old or for many adults either.  I finally came up with “doing right because it is right, not because someone is watching or you are afraid of the consequences.”  Or as the children put it, “Virtue is when you want to be good.”  They easily came up with example after example.  Probably my favorite was, “It isn’t virtue when you slow down to the speed limit because you see a police car.”  Children can be brutal!

Another word we looked up was “knowledge.”  We all feel so lacking here.  It was such a relief to discover that this use of the word signifies an active searching and desire for the truth—something even the newest Christian can have—and very often has more of than the one who has been sitting on his pew for forty years.  The children understood right away that this word was not a measure of knowledge but of devotion, and came up with examples even more easily than they had for “virtue.”  Just how often do we sit down for some real study, not just a read-through?  Do we spend more time in front of the TV than we do with our Bibles?  Are our Bible class lessons done as faithfully as our “homework?”

Then there was godliness.  How many times have I heard this defined as “a short form of godlikeness?”  Children these days are so worldly wise that even they understood that you cannot make an argument based on the construction of an English word when the word was originally written in Greek!  Godliness means my entire life is focused toward God.  Everything I say, think, or do must put Him first.  If I make any decision in life without first asking how it will affect my service to God, I am not godly. 

The children’s example?  If deciding to buy a new car means I cannot give as I should to the Lord, then I should not buy a new car!  Simplistic, you say?  Too much “this world?”  Well, they were only children after all, but doesn’t their example clearly show how godliness should pervade our everyday lives?  And isn’t that exactly what we adults have the most trouble with—applying spiritual principles to specific circumstances in our everyday lives, even when it hurts? 

Virtue, knowledge, and godliness:  hard to define?  Not to a ten-year-old.  Hard to do?  That depends on us.

Virtue: Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill, doing service as unto the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, the same shall he receive from the Lord… Eph 6:5-8.

Knowledge: Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes long for mother’s milk, you long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that you may grow thereby unto salvation.  1 Peter 2:1,2

Godliness:  For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit.  For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace.  Rom 8:5,6

Dene Ward

The last time Silas came to visit, shortly before his third birthday, Chloe scared him to death.  What did she do?  Nothing.  Our sweet-faced red heeler simply existed and Silas wasn’t too keen on being in the same yard with her, not even a five acre yard.
           
Then he discovered that Chloe was even more afraid of him.  She would cautiously creep out from under the porch when we all went outside, but always made sure I was between her and that frightening little human.  What had Silas done to her?  Nothing.  He couldn’t get close enough to do anything to her. 

When he finally understood, he thoroughly enjoyed his time outdoors.  He picked flowers for his mommy.  He loaded the bird feeder.  He looked for big hunks of bark that had fallen off the sycamore, broke them into three pieces—one for granddad, one for grandma, and one for himself—and led a countdown: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1—whee!—at which point we all threw our hunks of paper-thin bark into the air, over and over and over until there wasn’t a piece of bark bigger than a quarter to be found anywhere.

Then he walked around to the side of the house and found the two old bathtubs Keith soaks his smoker wood in.  “Oh!” he cried.  “A pool!”

First, he simply stood there splashing the water.  Then he eyed an old coffee can and some plastic flower pots, and began dipping into the tub and pouring the water back in and, in the process, all over himself. 

Then he eyed Chloe, the dog that no longer scared him.  You could almost see the wheels turning.  He dipped again into the tub and sat the can on its edge.  “Chlo-eeeee,” he called in a singsong voice.  “I have something fooooooor yooooooooou.”  He picked up the can and headed straight for the dog, sloshing water with every step.

I knew exactly what he was going to do, and so did Chloe.  She took off running.

Funny how one simple piece of knowledge was so empowering.  When Silas learned that Chloe was so afraid of him, he was no longer afraid of her.  But it isn’t just the knowing; it’s the believing.

How many times do we fail because we simply don’t believe what we’ve been promised?

With every temptation there is a way of escape, 1 Cor 10:13.  We are equipped with armor that will enable us to stand against the Devil, Eph 6:11-20.  We are guarded by the power of God unto a salvation that is ready and waiting, 1 Pet 1:5.  Our faith stands in the power of God, 1 Cor 2:5.  We are supported in our afflictions by the power of God, 2 Cor 6:7.  His power works in us, and we are strengthened by it, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, Eph 3:16,20.

Do you think Satan isn’t afraid of you?  The devils believe also, and tremble, James says, 2:19.  Since it is Christ’s power that rests on you and not your own, 2 Cor 12:9, what makes you think you aren’t a fearsome entity as well?  The only thing that would hinder it is disbelief in the promises of God.

Our weapons are mighty, 2 Cor 10:4,5, far more so than a bucket of water in the hand of a toddler, and we should be ready and willing to use them.  Yes, we should face the devil with care, just as we would a rattlesnake, but his fate is already sealed.  All we have to do is believe it.

…we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Colossians 1:9-12

Dene Ward

Three year old Silas has learned to pray, and often sits at the table, eagerly clasping his little hands together, looking back and forth at his parents, hoping they will ask him to say the blessing. 

“Do you want to say the prayer?” his daddy asks, as if it weren’t obvious, and he gets a big nod and off we go.  It’s never about the meal.  To him it’s about talking to God and saying thank you for something, for anything, for whatever happens to be on his mind.

“Hey God!”  Read that the way an excited child would greet his grandparents, not the way a New Yorker would yell, “Hey Mac!”

“Thank you for sisters,” although he has none, but one of his little friends does, so he wants to mention it.

“Thank you for blue, and red, and yellow,” the colors of the containers he puts his blocks in.  He doesn’t complain about having to pick up his toys.  He thanks God for something to put them in, and that’s the one that really made me think.

I wonder how many of our complaints could be expressed as thanks with just a little thought.  Dealing with rush hour traffic?  Thank God you have a car to drive through it in.  Complaining about the stack of ironing?  Thank God you have that many clothes to wear.  Griping a little about picking up your husband’s shoes?  Thank God he is alive and well enough to leave them in the middle of the floor.

I thought about this again yesterday when I was blowing off the carport.  We didn’t have one for years, and sometimes I think that all getting one did for me was give me something else to keep clean.  But last week when one of our usual summer gully washers came through, I could unload the groceries and stay dry. 

Then I came in and heaved a sigh at the extra dirty floor.  That happened because we saved enough money to buy a new vanity for the bathroom and the plumber tracked in sand going in and out. 

Stop and think today about the things you complain about.  How many are caused by blessings you could have thanked God for instead?  How many extra chores do you have because God has provided you a home and a family?  I never had to wash diapers until I had babies.  Do you think for one minute I would have given them back? 

If ever anyone had something to grumble about, it was Daniel when the other two presidents and the 120 satraps tricked the king into making the law against praying to anyone other than him.  How did he react instead?  And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Daniel 6:10.  Surely if Daniel could say thank you at a time like that, we can in this relatively easy time in history.

God is patient with us as we daily grumble our way through a life He has blessed in thousands of ways.  You have to go to work?  These days especially, be grateful for a job.  Gas prices too high?  You’re still buying it, aren’t you? 

Maybe we should be a little more like a three year old.  “Hey God!  (I’m so excited to talk to you!)  Thank you for all you have done for me, for the things you have given me that I don’t deserve and forget to be grateful for.  For all those extra chores, because they mean you have blessed me beyond measure.  For all my pet peeves, because it means I am able to be up and around and go to those places where they happen.  For the fact that I have to work so hard to lose weight, because it means I have plenty to eat.  For people who get on my nerves, because it means I have friends and family and neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ—I am not alone.”

Today look at everything you gripe about and find the blessing.  You will be amazed--and probably a little ashamed.  And maybe those gripes will go away, for at least a little awhile.

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1 Thes 5:18.

Dene Ward

We had our first opportunity for an overnight with Silas a few months ago.  It was better than a trip to Disneyworld, better than a vacation in an exotic place, better than dinner in a five star restaurant, better than just about anything you could possibly think of.  Do I sound like a doting grandmother yet?

When he woke the next morning, he remembered that it was the two of us who put him in the crib the night before and he called out, “Granddad!  Grandma!”  And there was that smiling face and those big blue eyes under a head full of tousled blond curls. 

My one concern that weekend was understanding what he was saying.  He has been talking since he was one, but sometimes in a language we can’t quite figure out.  It sounds for all the world like a real tongue.  It comes complete with hand motions and facial expressions and he is quite fluent in it.  Unfortunately, we aren’t.

The last year he has gained more English and less of his personal argot.  For two years old, as he was then, he had quite a vocabulary.  We were looking at a book about shapes, and he pointed to one and said, “That’s an oval.”  I hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of that when he added, “And that’s a rhombus.”  I quickly flipped through my own mental file card, trying to remember that one from high school math classes. 

That morning after we got him out of bed, he turned to me and said, “Can I have bussenwuddy?”

I was stumped.  Maybe I didn’t hear right, I thought.  So I asked, “Bussenwuddy?”

His little eyes brightened and he started jumping in my lap.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy!”

Okay, now what?  Bussenwuddy...  I flipped through those file cards in my mind once again.  What have I heard him talking about that sounds like bussenwuddy?

Finally it came to me.  “Buzz and Woody?” 

Another excited little bounce.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy.  Can I?”  He wanted to watch the Toy Story DVD.  I felt like a successful grandmother--I had figured out what my two year old grandchild wanted.  Do you think anyone but a grandparent would have tried so hard?

God is trying to talk to us every day.  He has put it down in black and white.  All we have to do is pick it up and read it.  Some of us won’t even be bothered with that.  Then there are the ones that will pick it up, but then put it back down in frustration.  “I can’t understand this.”  Well, how hard are you willing to try?

I have had women leave my classes because “They’re too much work.”  Keith has had people complain about his classes because, “They’re too deep.”  Really?  I would be embarrassed to say such a thing if I had been a Christian for two decades or more. 

Don’t I care enough about my Father in Heaven to put a little effort into it?  It isn’t that He expects us all to be scholars, who love to put our noses in books for hours on end.  But He does expect us to care enough to spend a little time at it.  He expects us to be willing to push ourselves some. 

No, it isn’t all as simple as, “Do this,” or “Do that.”  Sometimes He throws a bussenwuddy in there (Matt 13:10-13; 2 Pet 3:16).  But if you really care about communicating with your Father, if talking to Him really excites you, if He is the most important thing in your life, then you will exercise that file card memory of yours and flip through it occasionally, striving (a word that denotes effort, by the way) to learn what He expects of you. 

You don’t have to be a genius with a photographic memory, but you do have to love your Father enough to be willing to work at building a relationship with Him.  Pick up your Bible today, and show Him how much He means to you.

And he said to me, "Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel-- not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

Ezekiel 3:4-7

Dene Ward