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 the color 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, or too proud, 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
 

On September 2 this year, I posted a piece on the blog called "Misleading Pictures."  It was meant to caution us all to read our Bibles carefully before we teach our children, and especially before we hand out coloring pages—or even choose workbooks—to make sure they are accurate.  I listed several things that are often incorrectly portrayed and some of my readers, both on the blog and on the Flight Paths Facebook page, listed more.  The general consensus was that yes, we need to be much more careful about these things.
            But it is not fair to complain without offering solutions, so let's see if we can come up with some today.  I hope you will join in the discussion if you have ideas to offer, too.
            First, one of the readers on the earlier post suggested going over the pictures with the young students.  I think this is an excellent idea.  Even first graders, and possibly kindergarteners, can listen to the story being told and then pick out things in the picture that are wrong.  Sesame Street does this all the time.  "Which of these things doesn't belong?"  You will need to carefully say the correct things, stressing them several times.  For example, tell of the shepherds arriving the night Jesus was born, then stress that they were in a house sometime later when the wise men arrived.  If they are old enough to understand time, you can also talk about Herod having the children two and under killed, but I am not sure 4 and 5 year olds will catch on since "years" may not be meaningful.  Simply stressing "the first night at the stable" and then "the house later on" should do it.  Then ask them, what is wrong with this picture—a typical nativity scene with both the shepherds and the wise men in attendance at the manger.  Have them circle the wise men, or, perhaps, X them out before coloring the page.
            I did something similar for the middle school class I usually taught.  I told them that their first order of business was to read the scripture citations in the Bible before reading the workbook, and then find all the mistakes in the workbook.  No matter how good the workbooks, you will always find some.  Probably because we all have a little bit of rebel in us at that age, they loved that assignment!  They came to class with their lists and we covered them first every week.  Do you think maybe they got the message not to believe everything you read, except the Bible?  And I never had trouble getting them to do their lessons either.
            And finally, if you are an artist, or if one attends your congregation, ask them to read the passages and draw correct pictures for your classes, especially for the little ones who spend time coloring.  It would be a great way to involve other people in the teaching program.  Please note though:  you will want to carefully spell out the details that you want to be shown correctly.  You might, or might not, be surprised at how many adults learned these details wrong themselves.  Or maybe there is a person out there who could come up with a whole book of accurate coloring sheets for us to buy and use in our Bible classes.  I know several people who can draw circles and squares and triangles around me, and really, we are not looking for Rembrandt, just recognizable drawings, true to the facts of the Bible.
            As I said, if you have other ideas, please share them with us.  We hold our children's souls in our hands when we teach those classes.  Let's help each other do it right.
 
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth (2Tim 2:15). HCSB
 
Dene Ward
 

I have been griping about it for years, and it used to be that several of my brothers and sisters did the same.  Nowadays, most people don't even see the problem.
            All those pictures we give our children to color in Bible classes to finish out the last five minutes or start the first five while we wait for latecomers to make it are usually inaccurate.  Why does it matter, you ask?  Because those pictures stay in your head and color everything about the Biblical narratives you read for the rest of your life, and that causes you to miss many others things as well.  Then there is the simple matter of being careless with the Bible.  How can you expect your friends and neighbors to trust you if they catch you in an obvious mistake?  It isn't "just being picky" if Jesus used the tense of a verb (Matt 22:31,32) to prove a Biblical point and the apostle Paul used the number of a noun (Gal 3:16) to do it as well.
            So which picture am I talking about, you ask.  Oh, if only it were one.  Let's start with the stable where Jesus was born.  Recent discoveries have shown that our Western idea of a stable was probably not at all what the Oriental writers had in mind.  And please—Jesus was not born in a manger, he was laid in one after his birth.  Can any of you women imagine giving birth in a box smaller than even a twin bed?  But besides that, when you see the wise men show up on Jesus' night of birth, along with the shepherds, you know someone has not read Matthew 2 often enough.  The wise men went to "a house," and Jesus had been born long enough, based on their first sighting of the star, that Herod ordered all babies two years old and younger to be killed.  I am sure he stretched things so he would not miss the one he wanted, but that still means that Jesus could have been 12-18 months old, I think, not a newborn.  Those wise men simply do not belong in the usual nativity scenes.  If we fail to make connections in something as simple as that, what else, perhaps more important, have we missed?
            Let's head to the Old Testament now, where probably the majority of these errors occur.  Every picture you see of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away depicts Hagar with a sweet little boy no more than 8 or 9.  Read Genesis.  Ishmael was 14 when Isaac was born.  He and his mother were not sent away until after Isaac's weaning celebration, which would not have been until he was between 3 and 5, all my cultural sources tell me.  Add that to 14 and Ishmael would have been a strapping young man between 17 and 19 at the least!  Yes, the verses afterward picture him as weak and helpless.  Now you have the task of figuring out why that was.  Did he gallantly give his mother all the water while he did without?  You can probably come up with other scenarios.  We simply do not know, but don't paint an obvious lie by using a picture that is inaccurate.
            Now let's look at Isaac himself.  Again, every picture shows a young Isaac, perhaps 8 to 10, carrying a few sticks of wood up Mt Moriah with his father.  As someone who has heated their home with wood for four decades now, let me tell you that wood is heavy.  My boys could not have carried enough wood to burn that wet a sacrifice, much less carry it up hill, until they were older teenagers, say 18 at least.  And that adds to our understanding that this was also a test of Isaac.  At some point, he surely must have figured out what was going on, yet he did not run. He did not overpower his aged father and leave.  He trusted him, just as Abraham trusted God.  Do your children trust you that much?  And has your example taught them to trust God that much?  Do you see the lessons we miss when we are not accurate about even the tiniest things?
            How about the ark?  You know, that ubiquitous travesty of a picture with the giraffe's head sticking out the top of it.  You certainly don't grasp the size of the thing and the incredible task Noah and his three sons had before them when they built it when you see that.  In the first place, an "ark" was a box, not a boat.  In fact, in Latin "arca" means "chest."  Think the Ark of the Covenant.  Noah probably built a giant box, and that is exactly what it should look like.  And none of the animals was as tall as it was, not even a giraffe!  No wonder everyone {probably} thought Noah was nuts.  Not only was that ark monumental, so was the strength of his faith to build it!
            I could go on and on, but here is one that knocks people's socks off.  When Jacob first met Rachel, we automatically think of a hormone-influenced young man falling madly in love at first sight.  Actually, Jacob should have known better by then because, you see, he was 77 years old!  And how do I know that?  You have to start from his age when he goes to Egypt.  Then you carefully back up, subtracting years, and trust me, if you read those last 20 chapters of Genesis, you will reach the same conclusion.  If I get enough requests for it, I will tell you the passages, but I still want you to do the work.  It will be good for you, and maybe, just maybe, you will get the point. 
         Don't be careless with the Word of God--especially when you are teaching our children!  No, not knowing Ishmael's age at Isaac's birth or his weaning probably won't cost you your soul, but an attitude that simply thinks it too trivial to care just might.  If God made it possible to figure it out, just maybe that is exactly what He wants us to care enough to do.
 
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts (Jer 15:16).
 
Dene Ward
 

I spend very little time on Facebook, just enough to check on my children and some close friends and run the Facebook page for this blog, maybe a half hour a day total, some days much less.  Occasionally a link someone has posted will catch my eye and I will take a quick look.  After all, I am always hoping someone will link my blog posts, even the ones I don't link myself, so I am willing to spend a little time looking at others.
            The other day I caught one that caused an almost visceral reaction.  I wasn't expecting that from the title—something about raising kids.  I don't even remember who wrote it or who posted it, but I do remember the phrase that sent my heart racing and the blood pounding in my ears:  "the drudgery of raising children."  Surely the writer didn't mean that, I thought.  Then I remembered half a dozen posts by several young mothers who bemoaned their lot in life—"Stuck in the house with these kids, is this all there is?"
            Let me quickly add some reality to the mix.  I know what it is like to be a mom.  I have had to find ways to do housework, laundry, and cooking around the sleeping (or not) schedule of an infant.  I realize what it is like to have more than one in diapers at the same time.  I know what it is like to hang those diapers up in the steam bath of a Florida summer, sweat running out of your hair and dripping off your nose, hoping those flapping white squares will dry out before you use the last clean one.  I comprehend having to practically pack for a trip whenever you go anywhere for even thirty minutes, lugging diaper bags, extra clothes, books and toys, and baby himself, while hanging onto a purse and the hand of yet another all-but-baby.  I know the terror of holding a seizing child while your husband races down the highway at 90, wondering if that little one will ever open those big blue eyes again.  I appreciate what it's like to wonder if you and your husband will ever again have an evening out or a night alone—for us it was eight years before that happened after the first one was born.  I know what it is like to sit next to a small hospital bed, trying to sleep in a straight chair, jumping up every time your child whimpers, doing your best not to let him see you cry.  I understand the months and months without a good night's sleep and the utter exhaustion that causes you to simply pass out on the arm of the sofa in the middle of folding clothes while your toddler runs toy trucks and cars up and down your arms.  Being a mother is hard.  I get it.
            But all it takes is a look into those sparkling eyes, a hug that nearly strangles you, and a precious little voice calling out, "Mommy!" to make it all worthwhile.  When you see in your child the image of the God who made him, you know that the work you do is anything but drudgery.  It is, as is said so often it has become hokey, the most important work in the world.  You have been given a soul to save.  You have been entrusted with a mission that will determine the eternal destiny of a human being.  Do you see that word?  God trusts you to get the job done.
            When we allow it to become drudgery we have spent too much time making ourselves the center of the universe.  It is not about "Me."  It never should have been for a disciple of a Lord who gave up everything for others and expects his followers to do the same.  His work was always his focus.  If he had been as selfish as I am sometimes, he would have never left Heaven, never "emptied himself" of Deity, in the first place.  I am forever grateful that he did.
            And so I am forever trying to do what I can, not to repay him, for when we have done all we can "we are still unprofitable servants," but to pass along that gift to others, especially the ones he created inside this body of mine and gave me the privilege of molding into a person "fit for the Master's use."
 He never told me life would be easy, but he did tell me that Heaven would be.  I want to be there with my children—forever.  I am sure you do too, and don't you ever forget it.
 
​Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” (Prov 31:25-29)
 
Dene Ward

The last time we went to visit, four year old Judah made up a game.  He had a pile of "buddies" (mainly stuffed animals) and picked up two.  These he carefully carried behind his back as he walked across the floor.  As he reached what must have been a predetermined point in his little mind, he suddenly dropped the two buddies, one at a time. 
            "Drop one, drop two," he said.  Then he turned around and looked.  Number two was placed in a "keep" pile, while number one was discarded across the room.  Then he picked up two more and did it again.  Before long he had two piles, each half the size of the one he began with.  Then he started the process all over again with the "keep" pile, adding yet more to the discard pile and leaving a smaller "keep" pile.  He did this several times until he had finally whittled it down to two buddies.  When he finished, he looked at the buddy who had "won" the game—the final "drop two" buddy.  He was not entirely pleased, so he gathered all the buddies from both piles together and started over again.
            This time, instead of carrying the buddies behind his back where, I suppose, he couldn't always remember which hand held what, he carried them in front of him.  He could see exactly who he was dropping when.  Occasionally he even hesitated before deciding which to drop first, the buddy which would then be discarded altogether.  Because he could see what he was doing, he was happy with the end result, which was Lucky the Tiger, his favorite.  Obviously, he had rigged the game.
            I began thinking about how he had made his choices.  If one was his brother's buddy and the other was his, his brother's was the first to go to the discard pile.  If one were a newer buddy, and the other an old favorite, the newer one fell victim to "Drop one."  Once he had culled it down to only his old favorites, life became a little more difficult.  In fact, the third time through the game, Leo the blankie actually displaced Lucky the Tiger.
            Now let's put feet on this little story.  Do we ever do the same thing?  Yes, we adults have been known to determine Truth not by what the scripture says but by who says it.  Did Brother Big Name Preacher say this, or some poor old nobody you never heard of?  Did my best friend in the congregation take this side and the guy I can hardly tolerate take the other?  Is this the view my blood family takes while someone I am not related to takes that one?
            Or maybe we make our choices based on how it affects us.  Would this view mean I need to admit wrong and change my life and that other one leave me to live as I want to?  Would it mean that my parents died in sin and I just can't bear to think such a thing?  Would it mean I need to disfellowship my good friends?  Would it mean my children are no longer considered faithful Christians, so I just won't consider the possibility that this scripture actually means that at all.  I've known more than one preacher whose views on divorce and remarriage changed when family was suddenly involved.  Honestly considering the scriptures with rational, logical thought had nothing to do with it.
            Our first allegiance is supposed to be to God and His revealed Word, not family, not best friends, not famous people or those with more wealth or status.  We are not four years old.  We are supposed to have matured enough to make the hard decisions regardless the fallout.  "Drop one, drop two" is not a meaningless game with God.  He watches who and what you drop and why.  He knows how to play the game too, and He will not let His love for sinners influence His decisions about who to drop first if they refuse the Truth.
 
​Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matt 10:37)

​If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

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

For their seventh and fourth birthdays, which we celebrated together, we gave our grandsons scooters.  They were small scooters, starter scooters, I called them, about like a skateboard with a handle.  But they were thrilled.  If ever we got a gift right, we seem to have that time.  Before long they were zooming around like little speed demons.
            Of course, four year old Judah was not quite up to his older brother’s antics.  He tried his best to follow him in the same places, at the same speed, and usually wound up losing it on a curve.  Finally he stopped, turned down his little lip and said, “I can’t do it good.”
            Of course he could; he was doing just fine for his age.  He just couldn’t do what his big brother could.  While there isn’t much difference between forty-four and forty-seven, there is a lot of difference between four and seven.
            And too often that’s what we do.  We judge ourselves against people who are older, wiser, and more experienced.  I see this woman handling a life threatening illness like cancer and I can’t even handle the flu without getting grumpy and complaining.  One man sees another teach an outstanding class on Zechariah and he can’t even give a decent five-minute Wednesday night talk.  And both become so depressed they stop doing what they can do.
And if we aren’t careful, instead of gradually growing and learning how, we give up too.  Or we blame it on God for our lack of talent, or on our parents for not making us do our lessons as children, or for not taking us to church, or on the church for not using us as we “ought to be used,” regardless of what we can and cannot do.  Any of those is our handy alibi for sitting down and doing nothing.
            The day that Judah complained was a Sunday.  “Guess what?” I asked him. 
            His big blue eyes turned up to me as he said, “What?”
          “Tomorrow is Monday and Silas will be at school.  That means you can practice your scooter all day if you want to and before long, you will be as good as he is.  And by his age, maybe even better!”
           He gave me a lop-sided grin like he wasn’t sure about that.  “Really?” he asked.
           “Really!”  I said.  And he hasn’t given up.  He knows he needs to work at it, but he also knows that he will get better.  He already has.
           And that’s what we need to remember.  Plus this: God doesn’t compare us to brother or sister Whozit.  He knows what we can and cannot do.  He is the one who decides what we are capable of—not us!  And if we keep on trying, we will “do it good,” good enough to please a gracious Father.
 
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1Pet 2:1-3)
           

I bet if I were to ask you which king set the standard for evil in Israel, without hesitation you would answer, “Ahab,” along with his Sidonian wife, Jezebel.  Certainly the two of them accomplished a heap of wickedness in their rule of the northern kingdom, everything from idolatry and murder to all sorts of immorality; but you might be surprised at the one who is mentioned most often as a comparison of evil in the scriptures.
            Jeroboam was the first king of the northern half of the divided nation.  He feared that he would lose the support of the people and they would turn back to the Davidic dynasty in the south, regardless of the fact that God promised him, if you will hearken to all that I command you, and walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, that I will be with you, and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you, 1 Kgs 11:38.  Because he did not have faith in that promise, he changed the pattern of worship as set forth in the Law, 1 Kgs 12:25-33. 
            He made a new feast day, v 32-33, so the people would not be traveling to Jerusalem with all the southerners to worship together, v 27.  He began making priests of other tribes than Levi, v 31.  He made two new places of worship, Dan and Bethel, conveniently located at both ends of the country, so the people would not feel compelled to travel to Jerusalem—anything to keep them at home and happy.  It is important to note, too, that the calves he built were not idols to be worshipped, but graven images by which the people were to worship Jehovah—something Amos and Hosea make more apparent than 1 Kings.  This was not rampant idolatry; it was just a change in the pattern of worshipping Jehovah.
            So what is the problem?  They still worship Jehovah.  They still keep feasts to Jehovah, and make sacrifices under the leadership of a priesthood.  Yet these were things devised of his own heart, v 33, not things that God had ordained.  This is the difference:  God said through the prophet Ahijah in 14:14-16, Jehovah will raise up a king who will cut off the house of Jeroboam…For Jehovah will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River…and he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and in which he made Israel to sin.  From the point of the northern kingdom’s first king, God had decided their fate—they would not stand for the Law, so he would not stand for them.
            Now take a few minutes and read these passages:  1 Kgs 15:3, 29, 30; 16:25,26, 31; 22:51,52; 2 Kgs 3:1-3; 10:29-31; 13:1-3, 10, 11; 14:23,24; 15:8,9,17,18,23,24; 17:20-23.  What do they have in common?  A phrase similar to this: and he walked in the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat in which he made Israel to sin.  Five times a king is said to have done evil “like Ahab,” but sixteen times the honor goes to Jeroboam.  Jeroboam single-handedly caused the destruction of the northern kingdom, and set the standard for evil among all her kings.  How?  By disrespecting the Law of God.  That is the legacy of Jeroboam.
            Whether we like it or not, we are all leaving a legacy.  It may not affect a kingdom, but it will affect our children, and theirs, and theirs, till before you know it, we have affected hundreds.  The greatest legacy we can leave is to follow God’s pattern for marriage, raising children, worship, and social conduct.  If your children are small, now is the time to become conscious of the legacy you are leaving, before it’s too late.  The frightening thing about legacies is, they cannot be undone!
 
But when that generation was gathered to their fathers, there arose a generation that knew not God…Judges 2:10.  Don’t let it be your children’s generation.
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago when Judah was about 2, we went down for a visit.  He had only become comfortable with me and Granddad the visit before and I did not know how much he would remember, whether it would take a "warm-up" period or not before that comfort would return.  Silas, who was 5, was occupied with his uncle and Mario Kart, and scarcely noticed when we walked in, but Judah came right up to me, grabbed my hand and said, "C'mon Grandma.  Let's go play."  My heart swelled so that it's a wonder it didn't pop right out of my chest.  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing with his toy cars and Granddad had to empty the car by himself.
            Let me ask you, if your toddler grandchild came up to you and grabbed your hand, asking you to come play with him, would you have done otherwise?  Especially since we were not sure how much he would remember us—we live over 2 hours away and only see them every 3 or 4 months—how in the world would I ever turn away from something that caused me such great joy?
            God felt that way about His children.  Notice these verses this morning:
            …Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son (Exod 4:22).
           …You have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son… (Deut 1:31).
           He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. ​Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, ​the LORD alone guided him…(Deut 32:10-12).
            When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ​The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. ​I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (Hos 11:1-4).
            In that last passage we see just how much God loved His people.  Even when they had scorned him, disobeyed him, betrayed him, and forsaken him for idols, it hurt him to do what he had to do to punish them.  But punish them he did.
            We call God our Father today, and he loves us every bit as much as he loved them.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:14-15).
            But just as those people had to show their love by their obedience, so do we.  What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, ​and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2Cor 6:16-18).
            Did you notice the condition in that promise?  Just as this Grandma was thrilled to have that tiny hand in hers, to have that little child want to be with her, God wants that from us too.  But we must understand the conditions a whole lot better than those faithless children of old did.  As long as things went well, they had no place in their lives for him.  What kind of place does he have in ours? 
            God walks in the door every day of our lives.  How will we greet him?  Or do we even care if he came?
 
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1Pet 1:14-19).
 
Dene Ward