I have always spent a lot of time planning my family’s meals.  In the first place, I had a limited budget.  In the second place, I had to use what we grew, and here in Florida that, too, is somewhat limited.  The climate may be warm, but for some things it is too warm, and too humid, and too buggy.  Root cellars, for example, don’t work, not just because of the heat, but because the ground water lies only three or four feet below the topsoil.
            I did my best to provide nutritious meals with the resources I had and that often meant several hours a week combing through recipes and grocery ads, clipping coupons and sorting them while not falling into the coupon traps, and keeping an eye on the pantry and freezer.  After awhile you develop a working knowledge of which store has which brands and their everyday price.  If I buy this piece of meat this week while it’s on sale, I can divide it and freeze half for another week.  At the same time I have something left from a few weeks ago that I bought extra then.  This recipe makes enough for two nights, and I can get away with very little meat in that one because of the [beans, cheese, etc] it also uses.  I should buy the milk at that store this week because it’s on sale there, while that brand is not available at the other store and I also have a coupon that makes it a dollar cheaper.  Some days I feel like I have put in a full day’s work when I pack the coupon box, throw away the clippings, and stow my precious list in my bag.  I don’t know what the boys would say about the meals they grew up on, but they turned out healthy so I must have done all right. 
            We did have dessert often, but we didn’t have ooey-gooey Mississippi Mud Cake every night, nor Elvis’s [hyper-fat, artery-clogging] brownies, nor any of the other super-rich desserts.  Those were for special occasions.  More often it was a blueberry pie, or an apple pie, a homemade chocolate pudding (made with skim milk), or a dish of on-sale ice cream.  Even dessert was a tempered affair.
            We didn’t eat much in the way of junk food and hardly any processed food at all.  I bake from scratch.  I cook with fresh food or food I put up from my own garden, blueberry patch, grape arbor, apple trees, or wild blackberry thickets.  Even those canned soup casseroles were few and far between.  (But they did come in handy and were not banned completely.)  I was careful what I fed my family.
            I am a little worried about some younger Christians these days, who seem to feed their souls on things besides the Word of God.  The same women who almost arrogantly boast that their families never touch anything with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated vegetable oil in it, will swallow whole a book of spiritual marshmallow fluff.  Sometimes “inspirational” writings are nothing more than junk food, processed with so much spiritual salt and sugar in them that we develop a taste for them and use them not with the Bible, but instead of the Bible.  I know that’s the case when the Bible way of doing things is considered “too harsh.”  When something sounds saccharin sweet, it’s easy to indulge.  When it’s warm and fuzzy, you want to cuddle right up, not realizing it’s a wolf about to make you his dinner.
            What does God say about all this?  The wisdom of the world cannot “know God” (1 Cor 1:21; 2:6-10).  The wisdom of the world will “take you captive” (Col 2:8).  The wise men of the world have “their foolish hearts darkened” (Rom 1:21,22).  Even what I am writing can do these things if I am not telling you what the Bible says accurately.  It’s your business not to gobble something up just because it tastes good--even my “something.”  I have a category of book reviews to help you with this, but be careful even there!
            Some of the stuff out there is good and wholesome and may well help you live your life.  But a lot of it is junk food.  It will not only cause you spiritual health problems, it will fill you up so that you cannot take in the real nutrition you need.  Stop and read the ingredient label before you buy it—develop critical thinking skills instead of just blindly slurping up the syrup.  Don’t fall head over heels for the writings of men who are handsome and have a way with words, or women who make you laugh or bring a tear to your eye, especially if they are not even following the Lord accurately in their own lives.
            Watch your spiritual diet and avoid the junk.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," 1 Corinthians 3:18-19.
 
Dene Ward

Tarragon is a difficult herb.  It’s even hard to find at the local garden shops.  You have to go to the independent, specialty shops where everything costs twice as much.  Then when you get it, it’s hard to grow.  Not only is the flavor delicate, so is the plant.  I have killed more than my share of these fragile babies. 
            But speaking of delicate flavor, it is almost paradoxical that something so delicate is also so distinctive.  Like cilantro, you know when a dish has even a hint of tarragon in it, but at the same time it won’t take over.  Tarragon in a chicken salad makes it a main event, and I have a pork chop recipe with tarragon cream sauce that turns that mundane diner staple into fine dining.  (See the recipe page if you are interested.)
            As I said, I usually wind up killing whatever tarragon plants I manage to find.  I always thought it was the heat, but maybe it’s me.  Somehow, last year’s plant survived until frost.  Then I got another wonderful surprise.  This spring it came back from the root.  I didn’t believe it at first.  It looked like tarragon, and it was in the same spot as the plant last summer, but I still didn’t believe it—not until I pinched off a leaf and smelled it.  Yesssss!  This year I don’t have to comb the garden shops looking for another one to kill.  It’s right there in my herb bed, waiting for its execution day.
            Speaking of these sorts of things, I find it bewildering that people get themselves so wrought up over whether or not the Lord’s church existed somewhere in hiding in the Middle Ages.  Maybe it did; maybe it didn’t.  Maybe there actually was a spell when no one alive even bothered trying to follow the New Testament pattern.  Why should that affect my faith?  The seed is the Word of God, Luke 8:11.  We still have that seed.  We can still plant it and it will produce after its own kind, just as God ordained for every seed from the moment He created the first one. 
            Sometimes we keep leftover seeds in the freezer.  If we had a bumper crop and I put up way too much corn, I may not plant any the next year, or even the next.  But when I get that seed out, as I did a few weeks ago, we can plant it again, and lo and behold there is now corn growing in the garden, a few silks already turning brown. It will happen every time we plant that seed, no matter how long it’s been since the last time we planted it.  The same will happen when we plant the Word of God, the seed that produces Christians.
            And what’s more, we still have the Root, and that’s even better.  As long as the gospel exists and we can preach about that Root, the one who came to earth, lived as we do, died, and rose again, faith will spring up from that Root, and the Lord’s body will once again exist. 
            Why is this so surprising?  Why indeed should it bother me one way or the other if I trust God?  He ordained this rule.  Who could ever undo it?  And Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. (Rom 4:3).  Do you believe Him?
 
And again Isaiah says, "The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:12-13
 
Dene Ward

Everyone who cooks on a budget knows what filler is.  If you called things by the relative amount of their ingredients, I served my family dumplings and chicken, spaghetti with sauce and meat, and potato and beef stew.  At times it should probably have been called loaf meat instead of meat loaf.  Even now the two of us split a chicken breast between us or share one pork chop, then load the plate with “filler.”  Filler is the cheap stuff, the stuff that costs a minuscule amount of the protein on the plate, but fills up the eater twice as fast—potatoes, rice, noodles, bread. 
            Sometimes we treat certain verses in the Bible as filler.  We skim the genealogies and miss relationships and facts that would open up the ‘more interesting” parts.  We treat the addresses and farewells in the epistles the same way.
            All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all, Titus 3:15. 
            I was working on some class material on faith when I read that passage and nearly skipped over it as useless.  Then I found an alternate translation, one of those I seldom look at because they are just a bit too loose, but it opened my mind to the possibilities in this verse.  Greetings to you from everyone here. Greet all of our friends who share in our faith. I pray that the Lord will be kind to all of you! (Contemporary English Version)
            Look at that middle sentence:  Greet all of our friends who share in our faith.  Now read the other one again. Greet those who love us in the faith.
            How many of your friends and neighbors will tell you that you can be a Christian without participating in what they sneeringly call “organized religion?”  What they mean by that is they can have faith in God without having to worry about being members of a church, answering to the ordained authority in that church, or being obligated to serve anyone else in that church.  Yet Paul told Titus that part of being in the faith was recognizing (greeting) the others who share that faith with you, those who, because of that shared faith, love you. 
            Those friends will tell you, “Of course I love people,” but John said, Let us not love in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth 1 John 3:18.  You can’t sit at home in your easy chair and love anyone.
            The New Testament tells us in passage after passage that our lives are judged by how we treat “one another.”  Love one another, we are told.  Be at peace with one another.  Welcome one another.  Instruct one another.  Wait for one another.  Care for one another.  Comfort one another.  Agree with one another.  Serve one another.  Bear one another’s burdens. Be kind to one another and forgive one another.  Bear with one another.  Submit to one another.  Encourage one another.  Show hospitality to one another.  Confess your faults to one another.  Consider one another.  Exhort one another.  Do good to one another.  I defy anyone to do these things outside the fellowship of a group of people.
            And I pity anyone who has not experienced the joy of bumping into a brother or sister as you run your daily errands, who has not felt instant camaraderie with people you have never met before when you walk into a meetinghouse in an unfamiliar city, the absolute sense of haven and relief that spreads through you simply because you and someone else are bound by the grace of God.  As Paul seems to imply in that “filler” of a verse, it cannot help but affect your faith.
 
…and the Lord added to the church daily such as were being saved, Acts 2:47.
 
Dene Ward

I just put a pear pie in the oven, one with a cheddar streusel crust.  I also flavored it with ginger, which seems to have a natural affinity for pears.  If it had been an apple pie, I would have used cinnamon while a cherry pie would have called for almond flavoring.  Some flavors just go well together.  Chocolate and caramel, chocolate and mint, tomatoes and basil, onions and peppers.  A chicken salad does well with tarragon while tuna salad needs dill.  They are natural pairings and any cook of even small experience will soon pick up on them.
            I think as Christians we should have a natural affinity for certain things too.  I would never be comfortable in a bar. I am even a little uncomfortable when a neighbor invites us over for a gathering when I know they will serve alcohol.  I am uncomfortable around people whose language is inappropriate.  I am uncomfortable around people whose dress is less than modest.  It is not that I think myself better than the people who do these things.  Would those same people be comfortable in a gathering of Christians who, after enjoying a potluck meal together, gathered up some hymnals and began to sing?  Of course they wouldn't, but does that mean they would think themselves better than those people?  Then why should that same accusation be made of Christians?
            Romans 8 tells us that we should have a spiritual mindset rather than a carnal one (8:5-8—bear in mind that the capital S there was put in by the translators and could just as well be a lower case s).  If a person's mind is set on spiritual things, he will have a natural affinity for spiritual things.  And, of course, the opposite is true as well.  The mindset we choose is up to us.  Repentance can change that mindset, but, just like a new cook needs time to learn flavor combinations that work well, it will probably take a while to reap the benefits of the new natural pairings of a spiritual mind.  Gradually, it should become easier until it reaches the point that it seems natural.
            Ask yourself today what things you are uncomfortable with.  Is there anything at all?  A Christian with a carnal mindset is an oxymoron.  You might as well slather a beautiful red velvet cake with garlic frosting.
 
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:1-3).
 
Dene Ward

I have never been artistic.  The best portrait I ever drew was a stick man.  I could make him happy or sad or mad.  I could make him hold a shepherd’s staff, fish off a pier, or kneel to pray.  But I couldn’t give him anything more than sticks for arms and legs no matter how hard I tried.
            I could never decorate a house.  I have friends who can walk into a store, look at a picture or wall hanging and say, “That would look great over the table in the foyer.”  Would it?  I have no idea.  Good thing we never had a foyer.
            The same is true for my cooking.  I could never make anything look like the picture.  In fact, my boys learned to judge the taste of things by how ugly they were.  If it fell apart on the plate when I served it, they shouted, “Oh boy!  This is going to be good!”  Food stylists?  People who actually make a living making food look artistic?  The mere thought of it just confuses me.
            I am just as happy to have naturally curly hair.  It will only do what it wants to.  Saves me a lot of trouble trying to figure out what sort of hairdo would “enhance” my features.  Which brings me to the point of all this—true beauty.  When a people become so wealthy they can spend thousands on plastic surgery, worry about whether their teeth are white enough, and spend so much time making a plate look “pretty” that the food gets cold, we have become just a little too worried about things that don’t really matter.
            I came across the passage, One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of Jehovah, And to inquire in his temple. (Psa 27:4)  So I wondered, what is “the beauty of Jehovah?”  It obviously has nothing to do with white teeth, high cheekbones, and hour glass figures.  (Hurray!)
            It only took a little cross-referencing to find Psalm 63:2-5.  Jehovah’s power, his glory, and his lovingkindness make him beautiful.  Surely there are many other traits, but those certainly stand out from the various “gods” of the people around the Israelites.  Petty, tyrannical, cruel, and terrifying well describe the idols the Gentiles worshipped, then and even into the first century.  Read the mythology of the Greek gods and you will find the most loathsome characteristics ever attributed to a deity.  How could anyone even think of worshipping such things?  Yet they did, and actively resisted Jehovah, a God of beautiful character who was not unknown to them.
            It makes sense then that his people would be judged by similar things.  Deut 4:6-8 tells us that Israel would be judged as a wise and understanding people, whose God was near them and whose laws were righteous.  Are we a “beautiful,” a people whom God would be pleased to call his own?  Are we wise and understanding?  Are we righteous?  Is God near us, or do we keep him as far away as possible except when we need him?  Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they were worried more about the outside than the inside—they made pretty plates, but had ugly insides (Matt 23:25,26). 
            In general the world is blind to true beauty, whether in a picture, on a plate, or in a person.  It makes sense that they would not consider the gospel beautiful either.  “Foolishness” Paul says they call it.  Just as it takes a hungry man to see the true beauty of a plate of good food, it takes a hungry soul to see the beauty of the gospel.  As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" Paul quotes Isaiah in Rom 10:15.  Is that what appeals to you?  Or does it have to be some feel good piece of fluff that makes you laugh a lot before it’s worth listening to?
            One of these days we will see the beauty of Jehovah, His glory and power.  I wonder how many will still think it isn’t beautiful, but horrifying instead, and only because they never desired to see it in the first place.
 
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4:3-4.

Dene Ward
 

I recently provided the cookies for a family event.  I wanted several kinds because you never know who will like what.  You would think everyone would go nuts over a super-rich Triple Chocolate, but it has only been a few years since I encountered someone who doesn't like chocolate!  Hard to believe, I know. 

For variety's sake, and because I know that my younger grandson adores them, I added Unbelievable Peanut Butter Cookies.  Chocolate and peanut butter at least cover the bases with the younger set, I thought.  But I also thought a few "adult" cookies might be nice as well, so I whipped up a batch of Ultimate Ginger Cookies.  Between the molasses and the chopped crystalized ginger, I was certain they would not appeal to the children at all, so I only made one two-dozen batch.  So much for presumptions.  My older grandson and his good friend fell in love with those things.  These were not small cookies, but they ate three each, then begged for the leftovers!

And that reminded me of the times my blogpost file has gotten thin and, despite a complete lack of inspiration, I made myself sit down and come up with something, however mediocre it seemed to me.  Then, lo and behold, when I posted it, I received more than one comment, many in private messages, saying how that particular message was exactly what they needed that particular day.  And here I thought it was just filler.

We should never be so arrogant as to presume that we know God's mind or exactly how He will use us in this life.  He never explained anything to Job, for example, He just expected Job to trust Him.  Some of the roles we fill (wife, mother, child, neighbor) may have innate purposes specified in God's Word, but our own unique and individual purpose is never identified with the rare exception of a few like John the Baptist.  So what do we do?  How do we even know what to do?

I would never have known my grandson's new favorite cookie if I had not chosen to serve the family by baking them.  I would never have helped those blog readers if I had not made myself write when it was difficult to do so.

I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with...I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live (Eccl 3:10,12).

This is how we fulfill our purpose.  We live with the joy we have based upon the hope Peter mentions (1 Pet 3:15), and we do whatever good we have opportunity to do for as long as we live.  Then we trust God to use our meager efforts to accomplish His grand design.  That's what faith is—trusting God, even if in this life we never know the results.  Our God is so powerful He can use the smallest efforts to accomplish the largest things.

Bake your cookies.  Write your blogposts.  Serve your neighbor.  Take care of those little ones—day after day after sometimes tedious day.  Do whatever God puts in front of you that day to do.  Then let God take care of the rest.
 
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always (1Thess 5:15-16).
 
Dene Ward
 
You can find the recipes for Unbelievable Peanut Butter Cookies and Ultimate Ginger Cookies on the recipe page.
 

Some have called eggs the perfect food with their own perfect container.  I recently heard a TV cook say they are “hermetically sealed.”  Eggshells themselves are stronger than their reputation says.  After all, birds sit on them for days, and it takes a good deal of effort for a baby bird to peck its way out of one.
            However, it doesn’t take more than one instance of carelessness to discover just how easily they will break.  Mine usually make it home from the grocery store in one piece, in spite of being placed in a cooler with a couple of bags of groceries and an ice block, and then traveling thirty miles, the last half mile over a bumpy lime rock lane.  Only once in nearly 30 years have I opened my cooler to find eggs that have tumbled out and cracked all over the other groceries.
            You must also be careful where you put them on the counter.  Most recipes require ingredients at room temperature, so I take the butter and eggs out a half hour or more before I plan to use them.  I quickly learned to put them in a small bowl so they couldn’t possibly roll off the countertop onto the floor, even if I did think I had them safely corralled by other ingredients.  Somehow they only roll when you turn your back.  As I recall, that recipe required a lot of eggs, and suddenly I was short a couple.
            Because of their relative fragility, we have developed the idiom “walking on eggshells.”  When the situation is tricky, when someone is already on a short fuse, we tread carefully with our words, as if we were walking carefully, trying not to break the eggshells under our feet.  Sometimes that is a good thing.  No one wants to hurt a person who has just experienced a tragedy.  No one wants to carelessly bring up a topic that might hinder the growth of a babe in Christ.  Certainly no one wants to put out a spark of interest in the gospel.  But sometimes the need to walk on eggshells is a shame, especially when the wrong people have to walk on them.
            I suppose every congregation has one of those members who gives everyone pause; one who has hot buttons you do your best not to push;  one who seems to take offense at the most innocuous statements or actions.  The shame of it is this:  in nearly every case I can remember, that person is over 50, and most over 60.  “You know old brother so-and-so,” everyone will tell newcomers.  “You have to be careful what you say around him.”  Why is it that younger Christians must negotiate minefields around an older Christian who should have grown in wisdom and forbearance?
            Do you think God has nothing to say about people like this? 
            The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult. Pro 12:16
            Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. Pro 10:12
            Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Pro 19:11
            Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Cor 13:7
            Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet 4:8.
            Now let’s put that all together.  A person who is quick to take offense, who is easily set off when a certain topic arises, who seems to make a career out of hurt feelings is a fool, imprudent, full of hate instead of love, divisive, and lacking good sense.  That’s what God says about the matter.  He didn’t walk on eggshells.
            On the other hand, the person who overlooks insults, who doesn’t take everything the worst possible way, who makes allowances for others’ foibles, especially verbal ones, and who doesn’t tell everyone how hurt or insulted he is, is wise, prudent, sensible, and full of love.  Shouldn’t that describe any older Christian, especially one who has been at if for thirty or forty years?
            So, let’s take a good look at ourselves.  Do people avoid me?  Am I defensive, and quick to assume bad motives?   Do I find myself insulted or hurt several times a week?  Do I keep thinking that everyone is out to get me in every arena of life?  Maybe I need to realize that I am not the one that everyone always has in mind when they speak or act.  I am not, after all, the center of the universe.  Maybe it’s time I acted the spiritual age I claim to be.
            Maybe I need to sweep up a few eggshells.
 
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Col 3:12-14.
 
 

When Nathan married, he and his bride asked for my cheesy potato recipe.  It is nothing fancy.  A lot of people make it or something similar and call it funeral potatoes or hash brown casserole.  This one might be a little cheesier than those, though, which accounts for its name.
            My daughter-in-law took it to one of her first potlucks as a bride.  Half a dozen people must have asked her for the recipe.  But nearly every one of them said something like this when they saw the recipe: "But I don't like garlic.  Would it be okay without it?"
            Excuse me, I thought.  You just ate it with the garlic in it and liked it so much you asked for the recipe.  You didn't even realize it contained garlic.  And no, it would not be the same recipe if you changed it.  That's what the word "change" means.  This is all logic, but people don't seem to get it because of personal preference.
            But why should I be so surprised?  People do this all the time with God's Word.  They see how we live—with joy and peace no matter what comes, and they want it.  But when we show them the recipe?  "I don't like that part.  Would it be the same without it?"  No, it would not.  All those various parts enable us to live with joy and peace, even when troubles come our way.  And besides that, it's God's recipe.  I wouldn't want to have the arrogance to tell him that part of it doesn't appeal to me!
            In the beginning I said that I knew of other potato recipes that were similar to mine.  Notice that:  similar, not the same.  There is a reason Nathan likes mine, and now Brooke's, the best.  And there is a reason that God prefers His way of doing things.  You don't have to use my recipe.  But you had better think twice about ignoring His.
 
​There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Prov 14:12).
 
Dene Ward

Of all the disappointments in our new home, the range had to be one of the biggest.  I am a cook.  Not necessarily a good cook, but someone who likes to cook.  An adventurous cook who will try things that no one else will either because it is too complicated, takes too long, or has strange ingredients or procedures.  So I walked into this house and found a 21 year old glass top econo-model that didn't even have a light in the oven.  Despite being that old, it still had the new "safety feature" that automatically turned off the elements when it decided it was on too high.  Do you know how hard it is to boil water with those things?  And I nearly ruined the Christmas fudge because it wouldn't come to boil in a timely fashion and I wound up having to judge it by looks alone, long after I would have been finished with my old electric coil-top.  It turned out edible but too soft.
            And the oven?  I put a thermometer in there and told it to heat up to 220.  It preheated up to 278, and then dropped to 176 before it turned back on, heating itself back up to 260 before kicking off again!  No wonder my Thanksgiving dinner was a bit off.  The apple pie, which looked gorgeous on top, had a completely raw bottom crust. That has never happened to me in nearly 50 years!  This thing had to go!
            So we talked to our wonderful appliance store brothers (church family, that is) and were told that even the new coil tops had that awful "safety feature" and they no longer recommended them.  It seemed that the only choice that was really a choice was either gas or induction.  Down here in Florida, gas stoves heat up the kitchen way too much.  And then there is all that political nonsense going on about them too.  So we opted for the induction.
            The first thing we found out when they gave us a magnet to take home to test all of our cookware, was that we had to chuck practically every item in the cabinet and buy a completely new set—which raised the already too expensive price of the range even more. 
            Then the oven came—three weeks later!  (The microwave still hasn't shown up.)  The young men who delivered it, gave a quick rundown of how it worked and I thought, "Well, that's not bad."  Then I sat down and read the manual and nearly cried I was so overwhelmed.  I would have to learn to cook all over again, and a lot of hard-earned knowledge would be useless.  Well, it's been a few weeks now and I am doing better, but it's not easy to have to cook with a user's manual in one hand and a recipe in the other.  Then after dinner I must make copious notes on each recipe.  But maybe by next Thanksgiving I will be able to bake a decent apple pie again.
            My husband has been very patient as I learn.  No complaints if something is a little over done or takes longer than expected.  He knows what I am dealing with and he knows that at our ages, change and learning new things is much more difficult.
            Sometimes we forget that with our new brothers and sisters.  It seems the baptistery waters have hardly stopped sloshing when we expect them to know things automatically.  Too many times a Bible class teacher will say something like, "We won't go over that part because we all know it."   (I have had new converts complain about this—they feel purposely left in the dark.)  And we expect their usual behavior to change immediately as if a switch has been turned on.  It doesn't work like that.  How long did it take me to learn what I know?  And if I hadn't been raised to know what not to do, how long would it take me to break a bad habit?    Even Heb 5:12 says that these things are learned by "constant practice."  Just how long is "constant?"  Longer than some of us seem to think.
            Let no man despise your youth, 1 Tim 4:12, Paul told Timothy.  He might have meant his chronological age in that passage, but tell me it cannot apply to a Christian age too.  Think about all those passages about children in the gospels.  See that you despise not one of these little ones…, Matt 18:18.  When Jesus spoke these words, he also said, But whoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea (Matt 18:6).  Did you notice that"  "One of these little ones who believe."   "Children" is simply a metaphor for newer believers.
            Sometimes new Christians catch on easily.  Maybe they had a good family with good morals when they were growing up.  But some did not.  Some are making changes as large as night and day.  Some never held a Bible in their lives until they ran into a Christian who taught them.  Remember the last time you had to learn something brand new.  Be as patient as you expected others to be with you.  Computers, smart phones, and now this induction range are all big changes for me, things I am not a natural at and have to work hard to use.  But my children and my husband are patiently teaching and helping. 
Don't give up on the babes.  If you find it difficult to be patient, just think about that millstone.  While they are learning the basics, you can learn a little longsuffering.  Perhaps that is a brand new concept for you!
 
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).
 
Dene Ward

Keith said it not long ago and I know he is right.  When you take a cake to a potluck, no matter how small you cut the pieces, a woman will come along and cut one of those tiny smidgens in half.
            Once I took a large cake to a gathering.  It was a decidedly rich cake.  I knew that, so I carefully cut half inch slices, which tapered to veritably nothing in the middle.  Sure enough, along came a woman who stood there trying her best to cut one of those slices in half vertically.  What did she do?  She backed up the line for one thing because it took her well over five minutes, and all she ended up with was a pile of mush.  A three layer cake with frosting and filling will simply not hold together in a quarter inch slice.  I am strongly tempted to try that the next time and see if someone attempts to cut a quarter inch slice in half as well!  Can I suggest that it would be easier to take a whole slice and share with someone else, or wrap up the other half and take it home?
            But of course, the point today is a spiritual one.  How many times have you seen someone doing their best to get as little spirituality into their lives as possible?  What else can be the reason behind such questions as, "Do I have to attend on Wednesday nights?"  Or how about comments like, "I would love to go to that class, but they expect so much work out of you in between classes."  Or, "That class is too deep for me."  Those are just the ones having to do with Bible study.  One wonders how much is too much when it comes to living a Christlike life.  I have heard comments about drawing a line in their commitment that make me wonder if the person even understands the word at all.
            Stop cutting the cake in half.  Stop cutting the brownies that were already one inch square into quarter inch crumbs.  While it is true that there is more depth in even a half inch of God's Word than any other book ever written, He expects us to want to pig out on it, not get as little as possible!  And He expects our lives to be as full as the cup of blessings He gives us every day—full and running over.  Wouldn't you hate for Him to cut that in half?
 
What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people (Ps 116:12-14).
 
Dene Ward