Country Life - Dene's Blog

Ultimate Croquet

12/19/2014 2 Comments

A long time ago we gave the boys a croquet set. At first they seemed a little disappointed—croquet? How boring. Then we actually started playing and they discovered strategy, like whacking your opponent completely out of bounds with one of your free shots. Now that was fun.
   We have settled down to annual games during the holidays whenever we get together. It is the perfect way to let the turkey digest, and we usually wind up playing two or three times. But that time of year means a less than clear playing field on what is already a rollercoaster lawn. Our yard, you see, isn’t exactly a lawn. It’s an old watermelon field, and though the rows have settled somewhat after thirty years, we still have low spots, gopher holes, ant hills, and armadillo mounds. But in the fall we also have sycamore leaves the size of paper plates, pine cones, piles of Spanish moss, and cast off twigs from the windy fronts that come through every few days between October and March. You cannot keep it cleaned up if you want to do something besides yard work with your life. So when you swing your mallet, no matter how carefully you have aimed, you never really know where your ball will end up. We call it “ultimate croquet.” Anyone who is used to a tabletop green lawn would be easy pickings for one of us—even me, the perennial loser.
   All those “hazards” make for an interesting game of croquet, but let me tell you something. I have learned the hard way that an interesting life is not that great. I have dug ditches in a flooding rainstorm, cowered over my children during a tornado, prayed all night during a hurricane, climbed out of a totaled car, followed an ambulance all the way to the hospital, hugged a seizing baby in my lap as we drove ninety down country roads to the doctor’s office, bandaged bullet wounds, hauled drinking water and bath water for a month, signed my life away before experimental surgeries—well, you get the picture. Give me dull and routine any day.
   Dull and routine is exactly what Paul told Timothy to pray for. I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:1-5.
   Did you catch that? Pray that our leaders will do what is necessary for us to have a “tranquil and quiet life” so that all men can “come to a knowledge of the truth.” God’s ministers cannot preach the gospel in a country where everyone is in hiding or running in terror from the enemy, where you never have enough security to sit down with a man and discuss something spiritual for an hour or so, where you wonder how you will feed your family that night, let alone the next day. The Pax Romana was one of the reasons the gospel could spread—peace in the known world. That along with the ease of travel because every country was part of the same empire and a worldwide language made the first century “the fullness of times” predicted in the prophets.
   I don’t have much sympathy for people who are easily bored, who seem to think that life must always be exciting or it isn’t worth living. I am here to tell you that excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And God gave us plenty to do during those dull, routine times. It’s called serving others and spreading the Word. If you want some excitement, try that. It’s even better than Ultimate Croquet.

Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 1 Thes 4:9-11.

Dene Ward

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Cobwebs

12/10/2014 0 Comments

I have a hard time seeing cobwebs. Every so often, Keith will grab a broom, wrap an old rag around it and go around sweeping my ceilings, especially in the corners. He always ends up with a rag covered in lacy, pale gray webs that had hung from the white ceilings, hidden from my less than perfect vision.

    A few weeks ago, after returning from a ten day trip that combined family visits with a speaking engagement, I was exercising on the porch steps and happened to look at the screen door. Maybe because I was concentrating on my repetitious step routine instead of simply going in and out, I saw a thick layer of cobwebs wrapped around the automatic door closer. I looked a little higher and more hung from the hinges. Yet a little higher and both corners were strung with white.

    These were not small cobwebs. They were several inches in diameter and so thick the black metal door looked as if someone had splashed white paint on it. This is what I’m saying: they were easy to see and had been there quite awhile yet I had missed seeing them.

    Here’s a question for you. If cobwebs were dangerous in some way, poisonous perhaps, which would be the most dangerous, the ones you can’t see, or the ones you can?

    Let me make that a little easier for you. Those cobwebs that Keith gets down for me? Before he retired I might not have seen them, but I knew they were there—cobwebs always hang from the ceiling. When any special company was on the calendar, I always got the broom and brushed them down myself. I knew where to brush whether I could see them there or not. The cobwebs that hang all over the screen door as clear as day? Those I never see because I never look for them.

    When we raised our boys we taught them several ways to avoid poisonous snakes. One was to stay away from places they could hide, like wood piles and thick brush. We also taught them to look for odd shapes and movement in the grass—the only way to see past their natural camouflage. But on a cold sunny day, those things won’t be in some dark place, they’ll be right out in the open, basking on a sun-warmed rock or lying in the sun-baked field. Which ones do you think are the hardest to see, simply because you aren’t looking for them?

    Now think about the dangers in your spiritual life. Which temptations are the most perilous, the ones you know to look for or the ones you don’t bother to look for? Which of your faults are the most dangerous? The ones you are trying to work on, or the ones you refuse to see?

    What’s the moral of the story? Always be looking. Don’t fool yourself with that psychological trick called denial. It won’t make the snakes disappear. It won’t make the poison less venomous. You have an enemy who isn’t stupid. He has great camouflage. Sometimes he looks like a friend, sometimes he looks like a blessing, sometimes he even looks like you.

    Do a daily character exam. Look for the cobwebs in your soul. Look where you see them and where you don’t. Or get someone with better eyesight to do it for you, and then listen to them. “That’s just how I am,” may be the biggest lie anyone ever got you to believe. Blindness is not an excuse for sin.

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds, 2 Cor 11:13,14.

Dene Ward

The Oscillating Fan

10/8/2014 0 Comments

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   Since Keith has retired we sit on the carport nearly every morning with a final cup of coffee, talking and tossing treats to Chloe, watching the hummingbirds dogfight, listen to the squeaky whine of titmice fussing over the feeders, counting blooms on the Mexican petunias, and trying to decide if the clouds bode well or ill for the day. Even in the summer, we enjoy our time, but in the summer one thing changes—the quiet of the country becomes the roar of the big shop fan. That fan makes it comfortable enough, as it blows away the gnats and mosquitoes, and turns the early morning humidity into a cool breeze instead of a heavy and suffocating blanket.

   As a born and bred Florida girl, fans were a large part of my childhood. We did not have air conditioning until I was a teenager, and central air did not come along until Keith and I had been married three years. Not that it wasn’t invented, but it had not yet reached our income level.

   I remember summer afternoons at my grandmother’s house, sitting on the porch under the shade of oaks and chinaberries, listening to the soft whir and tick-tick-tick-tick as her old oscillating fan swept back and forth across us, evaporating the sheen of sweat and cooling us in the process. That fan felt wonderful. In an air conditioned world, I doubt many but my generation have known that feeling.

   This morning I came across Genesis 3:8 and saw a margin note I had never noticed before.

   And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

   Did you know that word “cool” can also be translated “wind” or “breath?” God created everything, including the cooling effects of wind and, thus, an evening breeze to cool of His earth. So the perfect garden must have become a bit warm during the “heat of the day.” Surely God had already created the ability to perspire, as well, since that is essential to the function of the body. Man, as he worked in the garden (Gen 2:15), must have become warm and must have sweated. Then God sent the evening breezes to cool him off. It wasn’t until after he sinned that the work became difficult and the heat and the sweat became intolerable, just as it wasn’t until after then that conception, which I view as the whole of the female condition, became painful.

   You can find that word again in Prov 17:27: He who spares his words has knowledge, and he that is of a cool spirit has understanding. “Spirit” is “wind” is “cool.” So now I have fans and breezes and dispositions in my mind, and it all came out this way:

   If I have a hot nature, I need the cooling effects of the Spirit, and what better way than to read the word he “breathed” to cool me off?

   Many of us are foolish enough to put ourselves in situations where we know we will be tempted to anger, where we know we will be pushed and prodded and even shoved right in its path. Why?! We tell our children to avoid situations of temptation. We tell them it’s downright stupid to go certain places and not expect trouble. But we sometimes even contrive them, almost as if to flaunt our freedom to do so. Then we shout out, “That shouldn’t have been so hard,” as we fall, flailing our arms for some sort of lifeline that isn’t there. We decided we didn’t need it.

   This might be more motivating: Not only can God cool us, but with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked, Isa 11:4. One word seems to say it from every angle, just as the old oscillating fan hit from every angle. Cool yourself off with the Word of God, and don’t go near the torrid zones.

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city, Prov 16:32.

Good sense makes one slow to anger… Prov 19:11.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools, Eccl 7:9.

Dene Ward

The Light Fixture

9/10/2014 0 Comments

            We had people coming for lunch and Keith was helping me clean the house, particularly the heavier work. As he walked past the dining table he happened to look at the fixture there, six of those candle-flame shaped bulbs surrounded by twelve rectangular glass plates etched with flowers. “Looks a little dusty,” he said, and proceeded to clean them one at a time.

            After he finished he turned on the light and I nearly grabbed my sunglasses. I had not known the fixture was so dirty. Those glass plates didn’t look that bad, hanging up above my head. Boy, was I wrong. The thing sparkles like it hasn’t in years.   Since I use that table for most of my Bible studies, maybe I won’t have so many headaches now.

            It’s not like I didn’t know it was there. Certainly I understood the fixture could become dirty. I have lived here for thirty years now and I know how much dust settles. On the other hand, it is far above my head. Like the top of the refrigerator, I never notice how dirty it has become. I simply take the light for granted—after all, I can still see.

            Have you ever picked up something written by a skeptic or talked to one about the scriptures? How they see the Bible will amaze you. “What?” I have thought many times. “Where did they come up with that?   How did they get that out of that passage?” It isn’t just the ignorant taking bits and pieces out of context. It is their way of thinking that skews their viewpoint. Of course a “free-thinking, free-loving intellectual” will see the morality of a Christian as a prison. It takes a man who understands the integrity of temperance to see that other lifestyle as enslavement to self-indulgence. “I will not be mastered by anything,” Paul says, and we who practice that understand the true liberty found in Christ.

            So how do we clean off the dust and see the light? Peter, in speaking about the prophecies of Christ, makes a powerful point when he calls the word of God a light to which “you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” 1 Pet 1:19. We live in the country. The first comment most of our city-dwelling visitors make after an overnight is, “It sure is dark out here.” We have learned to see in the starlight, but after hearing them bump around in the night so often, we now lay a small penlight on the bedside table in their room. The dark can be dangerous—anyone can trip and fall.

            The Word does for us what that light does for our guests. It opens our minds to the Truth; it helps us see things as they really are, not as the Prince of Darkness would have us think. It shows us first and foremost our leader and his example. “I am the light of the world,” Jesus said (John 8:12). “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”

            But having the advantage of that light places obligations on us.

            For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light, Eph 5:8-13.

            You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do [men] light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shines to all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:14-16.

            Do all things without murmurings and questionings: that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life…Phil 2:14-16a.

            Look at your light this morning. Is it dimmed with the dust and film of everyday life? It is easy to take for granted the life we live in the Lord, to be satisfied with our lack of “big, bad sins.” We may not be associating with the “unfruitful works of darkness,” but are we “reproving them?” We may not be doing wrong, but are we doing right? We may not forget to study our Bibles, but are we “holding forth the word?”

            Maybe it’s time to do a little cleaning. I wonder if your neighbors will need their sunglasses when you do.

Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father…Matt 13:43.

Dene Ward

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The Detritus of Life

8/28/2014 0 Comments

            The torn plastic label from a 2-liter bottle, several scraps of both black and white plastic trash bags, the label from a jug of pesticide, the plastic top to a convenience store 44-oz cup, the corner of a corrugated cardboard box, a cracked, black plastic nursery pot, a Wal-Mart bag, a ramen noodle wrapper, a Hershey bar wrapper, a Tootsie Roll wrapper, a Starburst wrapper, a Rice Krispies cereal bar wrapper, a sunflower seed wrapper, six hunks of white batting from some sort of cushion, a Fritos bag, a Subway sandwich bag, a paper Wendy’s hamburger wrap, a Krispy Kreme carton, three Little Debbie oatmeal pie wrappers, an empty gallon bleach jug, a used napkin, the Styrofoam from a raw meat package, and a piece of a used disposable diaper.

            All that is what I picked up on the west side of our property one morning last week, blown over the fence from the neighbors’ since my last pick-up two weeks before. You would think their place would look a little better after losing all that, but it didn’t even make a dent. I have mentioned them before. These folks must believe that life comes with a built-in maid service. If it does, theirs needs to be fired. Whatever it is they believe, they don’t believe they have the responsibility to clean up their own messes.

            As much as we like to think we are so much better than that, we often are not. We may not litter the landscape with fast food wrappers and everyday rubbish, but we often leave spiritual and emotional messes in our wake. Broken trust, tattered relationships, bitter disappointments and battered feelings can mark our paths when sin affects our lives. A few unguarded words can hurt instead of heal.   A self-centered attitude can trample a heavy heart. Self-righteousness, because of its exaggerated sense of absolutes and conviction in its own virtue, can mercilessly beat a weak soul into giving up the fight.

            My neighbors never seem to notice the mess they leave, the cumulative effect of dropping whatever is in hand simply because that is the convenient way to take care of it. I am even worse when, in my headlong rush to please myself or pass judgment, I fail to take the time to stop and look behind. The pieces of souls marking my path should wake me up. They are far more damning than a whole dumpster full of Twinkie wrappers.

What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Wash yourself, make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow… Turn to your God: keep kindness and justice, and wait for your God continually... If you had known what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. Isa 1:11,12,16,17; Hos 12:6; Matt 12:7.

Dene Ward

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Automatic Atomizers

8/26/2014 0 Comments

In the country you deal with insects on a regular basis, especially the flying kind. Living in the middle of cow pastures, chicken and pig farms, with road kill scattered every couple hundred feet down the rural highway, you don’t even want to think about what that fly might have last sat on as it heads straight for the cookies cooling on your countertop.

            We found a remedy for this problem many years ago when Keith preached a gospel meeting in a small Arkansas town. It sat right in the middle of rice country where they could have sold mosquitoes by the ton if there had been a market for them. As we ate our breakfasts in the restaurant of the motel the church had put us up in, we saw three or four small wooden ledges in various places around the room, a foot below the ceiling. A small white box on each of them puffed every fifteen minutes. Finally we asked one of the waitresses and she told us they were automatic insecticide sprayers, and yes, they did work.

            So when we got home we bought one. It is rigged to spray once every thirty minutes for the twelve hours of daylight, and it works like a charm. No more gnats hovering in clouds around the lamps or buzzing our eyes, and no more flies wandering the kitchen looking for tasty landing strips.

            Though it is not silent, we never even hear this thing spraying any longer. We are so used to it that it is just a part of the surroundings. When we suddenly start seeing gnats or flies again, we know it has either run out of spray or the battery is dead. Right now I do not remember the last time I heard it spray, but I know it must be working because I do not have any problem with bugs swarming this monitor.

            I am afraid we get the same way with God’s blessings. Which ones do you notice? Just the big ones, the ones that you especially prayed about yesterday or last week? Does that mean you have not received any today at all? Of course not; it just means that you are so used to all the daily blessings you receive that you no longer even recognize them.

            When someone tells me to quit complaining and count my blessings, it usually makes me angry. Maybe that is because I must shamefully admit that I have reached the point of the Pharisees, who seemed to think that they earned their blessings. If anything bad happens, God has let me down. I have been so good and faithful, why did this problem happen to me? When the truth of the matter is, I have sinned too, so why not me? In fact, why do I receive any blessings at all because I don’t deserve a single one? I have forgotten just how bad sin is, and so I minimize it and maximize my goodness, which Isaiah tells me is no more than “filthy rags,” when compared to the holiness of God (64:6).

            Because it is so plentiful and so “automatic,” I never even notice the good that God sends my way on a daily basis, and gripe and complain because He does not send more or does not send the specific good I want the most as quickly as I want it. If someone looked at a gift I gave him and complained because it was not the brand he wanted or he didn’t like the color, I would probably never give him anything else ever again. Think about that for a moment.

            It may be trite, but make a list today of all the blessings you take for granted. God sprays them around profligately and we never even notice.

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly, Job 1:20-22.

Dene Ward

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Picking Blackberries

8/7/2014 0 Comments

            For the past few years wild blackberries have been rare. The vines are there, full of their painful and aggravatingly sticky thorns, but the fruit dries up before it can fully ripen. First the drought of the late 90’s, and then the following dry years of this regular weather cycle of wet and dry have meant that when the time is right, usually early to mid-June, there is nothing to pick. The few that might have survived are devoured quickly by the birds.

            This year Lucas found some on a nearby service road, and Keith picked enough for one cobbler for the first time in years. Probably because it has been awhile, I think that was the best blackberry cobbler we ever had. Maybe next year I can make jelly too.

            Blackberries are a lot of trouble. The thorns seem like they reach out and grab you. I have often come home with bloody hands and torn clothing—you never wear anything you might wear elsewhere when you pick blackberries. But that is not the half of it.

            You must also spray yourself and your long-sleeved shirt prodigiously with an insect repellent, and tuck the cuffs of your long pants into your socks. No matter how hot the weather, you must be covered. Without these measures chiggers will find their way in and you will be revisiting your time in the woods far longer and in more unpleasant ways than you wish. Ticks are also a problem. Make sure you pick with someone you don’t mind checking you over after you get back home, especially your hair. More than once I have had a tick crawl out of my mop of curls several hours later.

            Finally, you must always carry a big stick or a pistol. I prefer pistols because you don’t have to get quite as close to the snake to kill it. Birds love blackberries, and snakes like birds, so they often sit coiled under the canes waiting for their meals to fly in. Keith has killed more than one rattlesnake while picking wild blackberries.

            Because of all this, since I have Keith, I seldom pick blackberries any more—I let him do it for both of us. Especially since I stand for hours in a hot kitchen afterward, it seems a fair division of labor. When I am making jelly, straining that hot juice through cheesecloth to catch the plenteous seeds and ladling that hot syrupy liquid into hot jars isn’t much easier than picking them. But wild blackberries are worth all the trouble. Their scent is sweet and heady and their taste, especially in homemade jellies, almost exotic. The purple hands, teeth, and tongue blackberry lovers wind up with are worth it too. If all you have ever had is commercially grown blackberries and store bought blackberry jelly, you really don’t know what they taste like.

            Why is it that I can make myself go to all this trouble for something good to eat, and then throw away something far more valuable because “it’s not worth it?” Why does teasing my taste buds matter more to me than saving my soul? How many spiritual delicacies have I missed out on because it wasn’t worth the trouble?

            Serious Bible study can be tedious, but isn’t having the Word of God coming instantly to mind when I really need it worth it? When I have taken the time to explore deeply instead of the superficial knowledge most have, isn’t it great in the middle of a sermon or Bible class, to suddenly have another passage spring to life right before my mental eyes? “So that’s what that means!” is a eureka moment that is nearly incomparable. And while increased knowledge does not necessarily mean increased faith, faith without knowledge is a sham. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Rom 10:17. The more scripture you know, the stronger your faith because the more you know about what God has done for us, the more you appreciate it and want to show that appreciation by the service you willingly give.

            So many other things we miss out on because we don’t want to go to the trouble—cultivating an active prayer life, socializing with brothers and sisters in the faith, helping a new Christian grow, serving the community we live in simply because we care--while at the same time we go to all sorts of trouble for earthly pleasures—sitting in the hot sun on a hard bench amid crude, rowdy people to watch a ball game; searching for a parking space for hours then walking ten blocks in high heels for a favorite meal at a downtown restaurant; standing in long lines at an amusement park, while someone else’s ice cream melts on your shirt, and at the same time juggling your own handfuls of fast food, cameras, and tickets, and trying to keep up with rambunctious children. All these things are “worth it.” Did you ever ask yourself, “Worth what?” And how long did that pleasure, or whatever your answer is, last?

            I would never go to the same amount of trouble for rhubarb that I do for blackberries. That doesn’t mean I don’t like rhubarb—I make a pretty good strawberry rhubarb cobbler. But rhubarb cannot match blackberries. Spiritually, we too often settle for rhubarb instead of blackberries. You can always tell the ones who don’t “settle”—the “purple” fingers from handling the Word of God, and the “purple” teeth and tongues from taking it in on a daily basis and living a life as His servant, give them away.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life, 1 Tim 6:17-19..

Dene Ward

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Refreshment

7/10/2014 2 Comments

We worked our boys hard when they were growing up, weeding and picking the garden in the heat of a Florida summer, standing in a hot kitchen working the assembly line of produce canning and freezing, mowing an acre’s worth of our five with a push mower—not a walk-behind, but a push mower—splitting and stacking wood for the wood stove, hauling brush, raking leaves, and dumping them for mulch. After hours of hard labor and buckets of sweat, nothing thrilled them more on a hot summer afternoon than a refreshing dip in a nearby spring.

            Springs, even in Florida, are cold. It is almost painful to step into one--they will literally take your breath away. I was one who gradually eased my way in to avoid the shock, but the boys wanted to “get it over with,” and usually jumped off the pier, the floating dock, or the rope swing, whatever that particular spring had as a point of entry, and if I was standing too close I “got it over with” too.

            One of their favorites was Ichetucknee, probably because that one took up most of a day as we rented tubes and floated down the river from the spring head, leaving the water three hours later when we reached the picnic pavilions. Even by that point in the float, the river was still close enough to the spring that we could chill a homegrown watermelon in its cool shallows while we ate tomato sandwiches and leftover fried chicken; and we never had to worry about snakes or alligators.

            We were always the only ones around clothed from our necks to our knees so we got a lot of strange looks. The clothes did not help a bit with the cold. They were for modesty only. Nothing about a freezing wet shirt sticking to your body will keep you warm, even in a patch of sunlight. Yet when I finally got wet enough that a mere splash did not make me squeal, the water was a refreshing respite from the sauna we call summer down here.

            Peter told the people of Jerusalem that if they repented they would receive “seasons of refreshing” in Acts 3:19. I am told that the word actually means “breathing,” as in catching one’s breath after hard labor or exercise. That indicates to me that God is not promising us a life of ease. Yes, we have blessings that others do not have, and that only those who are spiritually minded can even recognize and enjoy, but we will still experience heartache, persecution, illness, and other trials of life. We are expected to wear ourselves out with service to any in need, as long as there is life in us. God has no truck with laziness.

            But we have this promise—as surely as ice cold spring water lapping against an overheated body can refresh and renew, we will have refreshment from above that soothes our aches and heals our hurts, that rests our souls with the peace of fellowship with God, and that bestows grace on our tortured spirits. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord; and that he may send the Christ who has been appointed for you, Jesus, Acts 3:19,20.

Dene Ward

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Stuck in the Mud

6/11/2014 0 Comments

We live on a slope. The grade is gradual, so gradual you don’t really see it until it rains one of those sub-tropical downpours for which Florida is famous. When four inches comes down in less than an hour, the property becomes a river one or two inches deep flowing downhill to the run just past the property line.

            After the rain stops, the draining continues, though it slows to three or four tributaries and eventually two larger “rivers.” One runs through the front yard, between the bird feeders, down around the house, across the septic drain field and off the property. Another slants southeast through the PVC pipe culvert Keith installed under the road twenty-nine years ago, down the berm on the top edge of the garden and on east.

            Usually within a couple of hours most of the water has drained, but puddles still fill a few low areas, and you learn where and how to walk for the next day or two. On sandy land, the puddles dry up quickly, unless it’s the second weekend in a row with a four inch toad strangler.

            We learned early on to avoid those low spots for several days. We first met one of our neighbors when we asked him to pull our car out of the mud with his tractor at least three times in one week. Two months ago, for the first time in many years, he had to come down and do it again. I knew what had happened when, after two deluges in one week, I heard that truck engine roar and looked out the window to see the back tires spinning and mud flying ten feet behind them.

            When you are stuck in the mud, you can’t move. The wheels may rotate but all you do is dig ruts and uproot grass. The harder you press the accelerator, the deeper the ruts and the less you move. Even rocking the truck back and forth becomes impossible.

            Sometimes we get stuck in the spiritual mud. It comes first with complacency. We are happy with what we know and where we are, so we sit down, clasp our hands, and contentedly lean back with our feet up on the desk. Proverbs speaks of the results of being a complacent “sluggard.” Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall your poverty come as a robber, and your want as an armed man, 24:33,34. Tell me the same thing won’t happen when we stop working on our spirituality.

            It isn’t just a matter of continuing to learn, though that is important. An older woman in one of my classes has expressed appreciation for the new things I teach her. “At my age it’s hard to find something new,” she said, “but you have given me that and it’s wonderful.” Yes, the older you are, the more difficult it should be to find something new to learn, so you certainly cannot sit back and fold your hands in slumber—you must work even harder to find those things and they will be even deeper than the “first principles,” and require yet more thought and labor.

            But it is also a matter of progress. I see people who haven’t changed one whit in thirty years, who still fight the same battles, who still fail the same way again and again. I see people who still gossip, who still judge unfairly, who are still oversensitive and too easily offended. I see people who still have their priorities upside down instead of finally learning the higher value of the spiritual over the carnal. I see people who have come no closer to mastering self-control than when they were young and foolish—they just become too weary to go at it in their old age and that is all that has moderated their passions.

            So today, check to see where you stand—or wallow. Are you stuck in the mud of worldliness and pleasure? Are you glued in the mire of wealth and possessions and financial security? Are you floundering in the quagmire of man’s philosophy and false theology? Pull yourself out and start moving again. If you cannot do it alone, call a neighbor to help. That’s why God put us all here together.

            And when the storms come into your life again, use your head—stay away from the low spots. Find the high ground of spirituality and keep on climbing.

I waited patiently for Jehovah; And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: Many shall see it, and fear, And shall trust in Jehovah. Psalms 40:1-3.

Dene Ward

Finding the Smooth Way

4/18/2014 0 Comments

It happens every time Keith and I walk the property. Suddenly I find myself pushed into the rough while he walks the path. I learned a long time ago to just push back and he immediately realizes what he is doing.

            Keith was raised in the Ozarks, born in a farmhouse in the back country, down a rocky lane and across from a cow field lined with wild blackberries, a steep hill rising straight from the back porch. As a boy he walked the woods, his feet naturally finding the easy way among all the stones, limbs, and golf ball sized black walnut hulls and acorns as he gazed upward into the trees. If he doesn’t actively think about what he is doing, his feet still do that from long ingrained habit. He’s always embarrassed and aggravated with himself when he realizes what he’s done to me, and he appreciates the nudges when I find myself knee high in briars.

            Life is a little like that. Most of us live everyday muddling through as best we can, oblivious to anything but our own cares, our own needs, trying to make things run as smoothly as possible. What makes “a bad day” for us? When things don’t go smoothly—a malfunctioning coffee pot, a stubborn zipper, a flat tire on the way to work, a traffic jam that makes us late when we had left in plenty of time, a spouse or toddler who had the ill grace to wake up in as foul a temper as we did.

            It takes active thought to control your selfish impulses and consider others. It takes effort to accomplish the difficult—self-control, self-improvement, compassion for people who, like us, don’t deserve it. But that’s exactly what our Lord expects of us. This is exactly the example he left us.

            Even under a weight of responsibility none of us can imagine, he gave his disciples his careful attention and encouragement. Even in tension-filled situations he showed compassion to both the sick and the sinner. Even in tremendous pain and weakness, he remembered his mother and forgave the pawns of a murderous mob.

            If Jesus had looked for the smooth way, none of us would ever have hope of one. But if all we look for now is the smooth way, we may as well enjoy it while we can. It’s the only smooth way we will ever have.

Enter in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. Matt 7:13,14.

Dene Ward

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