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            I sat on the carport today since the spring breeze is still cool, and relatively dry.  I was working on Proverbs with my trusty bodyguards lying at my feet, tails occasionally swishing sand across the concrete.  When we first moved here, twenty-nine years ago now, it was the quietest place we had ever lived.  No neighbors revving up engines of various kinds, no traffic on the highway, certainly no sirens wailing in the air.  In the past two or three weeks alone, I have heard sirens three times, which is about as many times as I heard them the whole 29 years before.  People are moving here to have what we have, and in the process, destroying it.

            But that morning I was suddenly struck by how quiet it was—not exactly like all those years ago, but close.  I sat still and really listened; half a dozen different birds sounds, chirps, tweets, squawks, caws, shrieks, and crows; wings flapping in the oaks; a June bug buzzing over our heads in the sycamore,  two planes droning overhead, one a jet and the other a single-engine prop; hummingbirds humming and squeaking at the feeder; a semi roaring faintly down the highway to the west beyond the woods, hitting the speed bumps a good half mile away with a rhythmic brrrrump—brrrrump--brump, brump, brump. 

            Even the dogs seemed to realize how quiet things were, and they sat there with me, watching and listening.  Amazing things happen when you sit quietly and just listen.  A limb, evidently weakened by age and a recent wind, suddenly cracked and fell just up the driveway, a little flock of sparrows landed barely two feet off the concrete slab, hopping around on the ground as if totally unaware that a human and two dogs were nearby; a pileated woodpecker suddenly swooped down across the drive and landed on the water oak trunk and began pecking for his lunch; a lizard crept out onto the steps and puffed out his red balloon of a throat when he suddenly realized we were there, and a black and yellow swallowtail butterfly landed on an azalea limb close enough for me to see its spots.

            I have heard that Abraham Lincoln was fond of saying, “Better to be quiet and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”  I didn’t realize that he was paraphrasing one of the proverbs:  Even a fool when he holds his peace is counted as wise; when he shuts his lips, he is esteemed as prudent, 17:28.  I suppose Lincoln’s version was a bit more colorful, but you get the point.  Amazing things can happen when you keep your mouth shut.  People may actually think you are wise!

            Someone else has also noted that when your mouth is open, your ears stop working, which is just a cute way of saying that when you are talking you can’t listen, and most of us need to do much more listening than talking.  I would guess that the majority of times we find ourselves in hot water it is because we talked when we should have been quiet.  Is there a problem in the home?  At work?  With a neighbor?  Look back in your mind and ‘listen’ to what happened.  Amazing things can happen when you listen.   You will probably see that it all began with a word NOT fitly spoken.  As James said:  Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God, 1:19,20.

            Listening is also a good way to serve others.  Don’t be so quick to give advice unless it is specifically asked for.  Don’t be so quick to take over the conversation with how you handled something similar.  Amazing things can happen when you listen.  By having a sympathetic listener, many people can figure their way out of problems on their own, and they will be so grateful for your “help.” 

            Ahem, men—she doesn’t want you to fix it, she just wants you to listen.  You will become her hero.  Truly amazing things can happen if you just listen.

            And always listen to God.  Too many times we are explaining ourselves to him instead.  Imagine that.  This is God we are talking about and we feel the need to explain something to him?  Listen instead.  Maybe the problem is we don’t want to hear what he has to say to us.  So if you do answer back, listen to that too.  You might realize your error and repent.  

            Amazing things can happen when you sit quietly and listen.

And Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.  You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.  And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people, Acts 3:22,23.

Dene Ward

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          A few years after we moved to this spot of country, I was startled one morning by a low rumbling that, over the next few minutes, grew louder and louder.  It seemed to come from above, but could not be a plane, I reasoned, because it was taking so long to pass by.  I stepped outside and there, to my amazement, flew the Budweiser blimp, so low over our field I felt like I could hold a conversation with the pilot. 

            We must be on a regular flight path because we have seen that blimp several times, along with all sorts of planes from props to airliners, and helicopters galore.  The military also uses our area for drills of some sort, sometimes in groups and other times a lone pilot putting his jet through the routine loops, leaving a tangled skein of contrails behind.  Except for the military planes, they all follow the same southerly course across our field, almost as if there were lane markings in the sky.

            I have spent a lot of time sitting on the shaded carport, itself in the deep shade of live oaks, killing time, day after day, waiting to see if this latest surgery has worked, and knowing that even if it has it will only last a couple of years.  This disease has a regular flight path, just like all those flying machines that pass over us.  The optic nerve in the left eye is now 60% destroyed.  Once gone, those nerve endings can never come back. That led me to contemplate the notion of fate or, as theologians call it, predestination.

            Despite what the majority say, the Bible does not teach that God has already decided which of us He will save, and is now resting easy in His recliner watching the show He set in motion.  But one thing has been predetermined for a couple of thousand years now—the victory has already been won.  It is up to me to follow the flight path that my Savior created, that will inevitably lead me to share in His glory.  I must not be detoured by this world, either its pleasures or its problems.  Either one could lead to a crash landing far short of the goal.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, that are left till the coming of the Lord, shall in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord, 1 Thes 4:15-17

Dene Ward

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            Keith grew up in an old farmhouse on a hill in the Ozarks--no running water, a light bulb dangling in each room, and for heat, a woodstove in the kitchen and a fireplace in the living room.  The kids slept in the unfinished (and un-insulated) attic.  In the winter they shoved the foot of each bed against the brick chimney that rose through the attic to the roof so they could get whatever warmth might seep out, and they always made sure they were comfortable before his mother laid on the quilts.  She piled so many on he couldn’t move from the weight of them afterward.  So he knows a lot more about getting the heat out of a fire than I do. 

            We had a fireplace once in our married life, three years which were also our worst financial span.  We used that fireplace as much for heat as beauty and atmosphere, and to keep the winter fuel bill down. 

            One especially cold evening he stood two large oak logs on end behind the fire, something he remembered from his childhood.  Immediately the heat began pouring into the room instead of shooting up the chimney, and within an hour those logs had coaled up on their fronts, radiating yet more warmth, like the coils of an electric heater.  Because they weren’t actually in the fire, they stood all night long without burning up, and we were much warmer than before.  Backlogs, he called them, reflectors of the heat in front of them, and eventually of the heat they had absorbed.

            We began using them when camping too, once the boys left home and we were no longer consigned to summer camping only.  In October the temperature can drop precipitously in the mountains and even in Florida in January.

            Paul says, Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4:6.  He and the other apostles reflected the glory of God to their listeners.  He called it “a treasure in our earthen vessels…of God and not from ourselves,” v 7.  God must have seen in those men a clean and shining surface to reflect His glory or He never would have chosen them.

            Earlier in the chapter Paul speaks about people who are so blinded by “the god of this world” that they cannot see the light.  Do you think God can be reflected in people who are materialistic and unspiritual?  Do you think His love will be emanated by those who are unkind and impatient, unforgiving and lacking in compassion?  Can we mirror His glory when we are tarnished by an impure lifestyle?

            The back logs we used did nothing in an empty fireplace or fire ring.  They only functioned when they stood behind the fire, soaking up its heat, turning the same colors as the coals themselves, and exuding their warmth from all they had absorbed.  We will never truly be “the image of God” if we are not standing next to Him, soaking up His word and the glory it reveals about Him. 

            We must become back logs, reflecting God’s glory just as those apostles did, realizing it is not we who shine, but He who shines forth from us.  Like those logs, we should eventually change, so that the reflection becomes truer and the image clearer in every word and every deed, and in every place.

 
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:18.                                                                                          
Dene Ward

            It was one of those recuperating days I have had so many of the past few years, so I sat in my lounger outside, the early morning autumn breeze ruffling my hair, a sweet little dog snuffling for a pat at my side, looking out over our domain, such as it is.  The east sun was filtering through the woods fifty yards in front of me, not yet high enough to cause me any trouble. 

            I had carried a pair of binoculars to do a little bird-watching, but saw on the northeast corner of the property what looked like a giant orange bloom.  So I lifted those heavy lenses and got a surprise.  The bloom did not really exist.  What I saw was the sun shining on a clump of dried out pine straw hanging on a low, dead limb.  I pulled down the binoculars and looked again.  I much preferred the big orange bloom.

            Then I started looking around and saw some more.  The dull green leaves near the top of the tree glinted like small mirrors in the few rays of sun that had pierced through to them.  Even the gray Spanish moss resembled icicles.  I knew in a few minutes the effect would all be gone.  The sun would have risen high enough not to perform these magic tricks.  Still, it reminded me of something important.

            All by myself I am nothing, I can do nothing, and I have nothing to hope for.  But the light of the gospel changes everything.  Through that light, we are able to see the glory of Christ and believe (2 Cor 4:3-6.)  When we are raised from the waters of baptism, God’s glory gives us the power to walk “in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).  We transform ourselves into the image of His Son by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2, 8:29).  When the glory of the Lord shines on us through our submission to his gospel, what looks plain and ordinary becomes beautiful, what looks dead and repulsive becomes glorious.  That’s us we’re talking about—you and me.  We can be beautiful.

            Look at your life today.  Would someone see a beautiful bloom, a sparkling mirror, a glittering icicle?  They only will if you have allowed that light inside you, if you have let it have its way, transforming you into the person God meant you to be from the beginning.  Some will not do this.  They fight it, and offer excuses of all sorts.  “I’m only human after all.”  “No one is perfect.”  “Someone has to have common sense around here and not be such an innocent babe!” “It’s my right after all.”  None of those will give anyone a beautiful view of a child of God.

            Peter reminds us, 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." 1 Peter 1:14-16.  If we are not submissive to his will, we will never be transformed to his image.  We will look like nothing but dried out pine straw on a dead limb, and all the excuses in the world will never change it. 

            “What would Jesus do?” may be an old denominational catch-phrase, but is it any different than, “Be ye holy as I am holy?”  God desires nothing more than for us to be exactly like Christ, “conformed to the image of his son” Rom 8:29, “that you might follow in his steps” 1 Pet 2:21.  If you find yourself looking through the world’s binoculars and seeing nothing but your old self, the light of the gospel has not reached your heart.

            Conform yourself today.  In every aspect of your life, in every action you take, and every word you speak, “be ye holy in all your conduct.”  You can do it, or God wouldn’t have asked it of you.

But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. 2 Cor 3:18.

Dene Ward

            When we first moved here, the land was a pristine wilderness.  We were the only ones back here in the woods, half a mile off the highway.  People often asked, “How in the world did you even find this spot?”  If it hadn’t been for the sign on the highway, we never would have.

            Fast forward to the last few years.  The deeds on the rest of the parcels of acreage are finally clear and others have bought and moved in.  Oh, for the money to have bought it all way back then…

            As you come down our drive now, you pass one plot in particular where you wonder if you missed the “Junkyard” sign.  Empty fertilizer sacks, empty feed sacks, broken buckets with all their pieces, torn potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers, shattered plastic milk jugs, toys in various states of disrepair, gardening tools, rusty tractor parts and old horse trailers, torn screen segments, pieces of hose draped over fences, broken down appliances, seldom- or no longer-driven vehicles including a burnt-out semi tractor, and piles of pure garbage dot the landscape.  I knew we were in trouble the first week these folks moved in, when a used disposable diaper sat in the yard for days, and then they mowed over it, scattering it to the winds. 

            When you say anything to them, the standard reply is, “This is our land.  We can do with it what we want.  It’s no business of yours.”

            But it is, and do you know why?  Because every time the wind blows I must go around with a trash bag and pick up the litter than blows over or through the fence onto our property.  Every time a strong rain comes, more is washed down around the gate.  And should we ever decide to sell, the mere fact that any prospective buyer must go past that mess to get to us, will lower our property value.  Keith explained this last fact to them one day, and they said, “Huh?  Why?”

            Do you know what?  Sometimes I also fail to see how my life is anyone else’s business.  It’s easy to say, “This doesn’t hurt anyone, so why can’t I do it?” or, “Why does it matter how I let my attitude show?  They can just ignore me.”  In real life, that is impossible.  I do affect everyone who comes into contact with me.  I can make their days better or worse.  I can say something that will help or hinder.  I can do something that comforts or hurts.  What I cannot do is something that has no affect at all—it is simply impossible.

            My trashy neighbors have actually done me a lot of good.  I find myself thinking about these things more and more, wondering whom I am affecting every day, and hoping it is for the good.  I hope hearing about them will help you today too.

Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.  For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, 1 Cor 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

I married a firebug and raised two more.  All the camping we have done, I am sure, was just an excuse to build and sit around campfires, and since we moved to the country we have had a fire pit from the beginning.  Once the weather began to turn, we kept the hot dog and marshmallow industries in business almost single-handedly, sometimes with all the trimmings—chili, beans, slaw—other times with just a bag of chips on the side.  After the boys went away to college, any weekend they came home, they expected a hot dog roast at least once.  From October to April my grocery list always included those all-American sausages, “Nathan’s” hot dogs, of course.

Now that the boys are gone, Keith still likes to build a fire on cool nights.  Our partially wooded property always produces enough deadfall to keep the fires going, and even here in Florida, the weather is cool enough to make a fire pleasant, rotating yourself like a rotisserie, warming each side in turn. 

Keith will often throw a carefully collected and dried pile of Spanish moss on the flame.  At first the fire appears smothered, but the heat gradually burns through, producing thick billows of gray smoke that seem almost tactile, finally burning clear and shooting sparks and cinders up toward the sky.  We lean our heads on the lawn chair backs to see which will travel highest and glow longest before burning out in the cold blackness above the treetops.

Do you realize that is all an atheist believes life is? We are cinders in a bonfire.  Some of us simply dissolve in the fire.  Others rise on the updraft, some burning higher, larger, and longer than others, but burning out nonetheless, just like everyone else.  How can they survive believing this is all there is to it?  Some use that as an excuse to do whatever they want, regardless of who it hurts and the harm it causes.  Even then, as they grow older and realize the brevity of life, the pointlessness of it all takes its toll.  When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing, Prov 11:7.

But children of God know better. We are not just nameless cinders in the updraft of a brief blaze.  We have not only an eternal existence to look forward to, but a purpose here as well.  Very few of us will rise high enough and burn long enough for many to notice and fewer to remember, but we can all give warmth and light in a cold, dark world.  Maybe working so hard that we dissolve in the flame without ever rising above it is the better end.  How much warmth and light did you ever get out of a single spark anyway?

What are your plans for today?  Are you so busy you get tired just thinking about it?  And at what?  Is it something that will warm someone’s heart and light their way?  Even things that don’t seem likely can be made into an opportunity to do good.  If they cannot, maybe we should think twice about doing them.  We are all sparks in the fire, or else we are just trying to put it out.

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 a bushel, but on the stand, and it shines unto all who 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.

Dene Ward

I suppose it’s because of our age.  Or maybe it’s because Keith recently lost his mother, and it has only been two years since I lost my father. Between us we have only one parent left.  Suddenly, we are the ones at the top of the escalator.  No one stands between us and eternity and it is indeed sobering.  All things being equal, we will be next to step off on the upper floor.

Maybe that’s why we have spent a lot of time lately looking through old photographs.  What did we find?  Dogs and cats from puppy- and kitten-hood to grizzled muzzles and bent old bodies, baseball teams, science projects, birthday parties, and Christmas presents; old friends and their young children, who are now grown up like ours; school pictures of the boys, all the way to college graduation; even a few pictures of a couple of kids in 70s polyester, freshly married and far skinnier than I remember.  Occasionally we looked at a faded picture of a toddler and said, “Are you sure that isn’t Silas?  Or Judah?”  Those always made us smile.

We also found pictures of this place of ours from back when we first arrived.  A before and after picture probably wouldn’t do justice to the monumental amount of work we have done.  We have turned an old watermelon field into a homestead.  Sometimes I wonder what will happen thirty or forty years from now.  Will someone else enjoy my jasmine vines and eat my muscadines?  Will they exclaim over the profusion of volunteer black-eyed Susans and the heat-hearty crepe myrtles?  Will they build a better house up under the oak grove in the middle of the property, just west of the fire pit?  I used to dream of the time we could do that ourselves, but it will obviously never happen.

One thing that surprised us the most was the live oaks.  When you see something every day you don’t notice how much it grows.  I have always thought of those trees as huge, but now they are twice the size around they were 28 years ago, and many feet taller.  If I hadn’t looked at those pictures, I might never have noticed.

Sometimes we do that to our brethren.  We tar them with a brush based upon their behavior decades before and never give them any credit for improving.  Can there be anything more discouraging to a brother in Christ? 

Think today of your various brethren and how you would describe them to someone else.  What exactly are you basing that description on?  Something that happened yesterday, or something that happened twenty years ago?  Are you giving them any credit for growth?  “Judge righteous judgment,” Jesus reminded his disciples in John 7:24.  This poor judgment isn’t just a careless mistake of no consequence; it’s a matter of righteousness. 

Maybe today would be a good time to reassess our opinions of our brethren.  Throw out the old photographs and take a new one.  Maybe—just maybe—they will do the same for us.

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous:  both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah, Prov 17:15.

Dene Ward

We found this plot of land only because Keith drove down the highway one day and saw a sign pointing off to the east: 5 ACRES FOR SALE BY OWNER. When he stopped he could barely tell that a trail led off the highway, over a shallow rise and on into the woods beyond. Being in the market for a place to put our home, we followed it one day, driving carefully over a bumpy track and eventually onto a grassy downhill slope, hoping we would not bottom out in an unseen gopher hole or mushy spring. Half a mile later, we stood under some big old live oaks draped with Spanish moss, knee deep in grass and weeds, with an open field just over the pushed-up fence row. About a month later, this became home.

When you move onto unimproved land, you discover quickly the value of roads. Roads are built above the general lay of the land, usually ditched on the sides. A new neighbor, who has become a good friend, suggested that we have the septic tank man scrape down the fence row behind the house, which left a path several feet above the rest of the land. We did not use it, instead driving across the top of the property on the grass to the front door. The summer rains began shortly after we moved in, followed by a nearby hurricane, and after having another neighbor pull the car out of the mud with his tractor at least three times, we began using the raised fence row as our driveway. That is why to this day, you pull up to the back of the house instead of the front.

Another problem lay just a couple hundred feet off the highway—a low spot you never noticed until it rained four or five inches. Overnight the land around it drained and made a pond between us and the road. There was no way to go around because of the neighbor’s fences, and the low spot was a bowl that could not empty. For a couple of months in August and September, we parked by the highway, waded through the pond, and walked the rest of the half mile to the house.

Sundays were particularly interesting. We all dressed the top half of ourselves, then put on shorts, and carried towels. After walking to the offending body of water, we waded through slowly, careful not to splash mud on the Sunday clothes above our waists, then got into the car, dried off, and finished dressing. When we came home, we reversed the process. Returning from evening services was particularly thrilling, hoping nothing deadly swam by us in the knee deep water and using flashlights to make sure we didn’t step on any snakes as we trudged to the house in the dark, with buzzing mosquitoes for company.

Keith worked for years on that spot. An acquaintance did roofing and often had piles of old gravel that needed to be hauled off. Keith would stop by his work site in the evenings, load gravel into his pickup bed with a shovel he always had, bring it home and unload it before coming back to the house. There must be a good three feet of gravel beneath the dirt there now, for fifty feet along that low spot. Eventually he dug a ditch off to the side all the way to the highway, using nothing but a shovel, a two hundred foot long ditch, in places hip-deep, so the water would drain. Finally, we could count on getting through, regardless how much it rained. The people who have moved in have no idea how much they owe him.

I remember thinking, especially as I struggled to put on pantyhose in the front seat of the car, or as I fearfully followed the bouncing beam of a flashlight through the north Florida woods at night, that I had better not ever hear anyone else’s excuses for not assembling with their brethren.

But I also remember this—not a single time did we even see (or hear) a snake on those scary evenings. Before that, when we could drive through, we saw several, even rattlesnakes and cottonmouths, but nothing on any pedestrian return trip from evening services.

Not a single time did we have to make that half mile walk in the rain. Certainly it had rained beforehand or the pond would not have been there, and often it rained more after we returned home, but we never got wet on our walks. Yes, that was a trying time, but it could have been worse. God knew what we could handle and He expected us to do just that—handle it. In return, He took care of us and never allowed it to be more of a burden than we could overcome.

Too many times we view our troubles from the wrong side and fail to see God’s helping hand. Even when we think otherwise, He is there, guiding us and making things bearable. Sometimes we won’t realize that till long after the trial is over. Remember that the next time a difficulty arises. I guarantee that as long as you are faithful, God is too, and one of these days you will see that as clearly as through a newly cleaned window.

We have had many difficulties since then, but I find myself looking back on what now seems minor compared to our more recent problems. If we had not waded through the water, if we had not followed a flashlight through the woods, could we have made it through what came after? Probably not, and a wise Father knew that. I find myself thinking, God, can I please have another pond to wade through? But the days of puddles are past. Rivers lie ahead, and we know we can get across them now, in part because of a muddy pond twenty-five years ago.

Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have; for He has said, I will in no way fail you, nor in anyway forsake you. So with good courage we say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what shall man do to me? Heb 13:5,6.

Dene Ward

I’ve heard it all my life: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Imagine my surprise to find out you can catch quite a few flies with vinegar after all.  
  
I read it in a cooking magazine. Most gnats are fruitflies. If you are having trouble with gnats in your kitchen, fill a small dish with vinegar, squeeze a drop of two of dishwashing liquid on it and set it out where you have the most gnats. What interests a fruitfly is the vinegars formed in the rotten fruit, and that bowl of vinegar spells “rotten fruit” to their little sensory receptors. Because of the surface tension on water, a fruitfly can land and not sink, but that drop of dishwashing liquid breaks the tension. They land and sink, drowning immediately. 
 
I put one of these dishes out one day and an hour later found 18 little black specks lying on the bottom, never to buzz in my house again. Now, every
summer, I have two or three custard cups of apple cider vinegar lying around my house, and far fewer gnats than ever before. 
 
One of the cups sits on the window sill next to the chair that overlooks the bird feeder. That bird feeder attracts more than its fair share of gnats in the summer too, and I have a suspicion that most of the gnats in the house sneak through the cracks around that window. The screen is gone so I can see the birds better and the double window is up a foot so I have a place for my coffee cup on the sill. That lack of triple protection means they can get in easier than anywhere else in the house except an open door. 
 
So the other afternoon I sat down to rest a bit after canning a bushel of tomatoes. Keith was emptying the residual garbage pails of  skins and seeds, and dumping the heavy pots of boiling water outside so the house wouldn’t heat up yet more from the steam. I had just replaced the vinegar in the dish a few minutes before. 
  
A gnat suddenly buzzed my face and I shooed it away. He came back, but
this time he headed straight for the window. “Aha!” I thought. If I just sat still I could see how it actually happened. It was a real life lesson. 
  
He had gotten “wind” of the vinegar somehow and flew over to check it out at a prudent distance of eight or ten inches, which is several thousand times the body length of a gnat I imagine, and was certainly safe. He flew away, but within a few seconds he was back. This time he flew a little closer, maybe  half the distance he had before. 
 
That happened several times with the gnat coming in closer and closer on each pass. Finally, he landed on the window sill a couple of inches from the custard cup. I could just imagine him sitting there tensed up and waiting for something to happen, then finally relaxing as he discovered that whatever danger he had imagined wasn’t there.  
  
He flew again, but not away. This time he hovered over the cup, doing figure eights two or three inches above the surface of the vinegar. Then he landed on the lip of the custard cup. At that point I imagine the fumes from the fresh vinegar were nearly intoxicating. All that rotten fruit right down there for the taking, and besides, he had never had trouble before landing on a piece of bruised, decaying fruit, and this one was obviously an apple, one of the best. 
 
So he flew yet again, circling closer and closer to the  surface. “Now,” he must have thought as he landed on what he was sure was a solid chunk of overripe Macintosh, or Jonathan, or Red Rome, and promptly sank into the vinegar. He didn’t even wiggle—it was over that fast, his drowning in what he thought was safe, in a place where nothing bad had ever happened to him before.  
  
It works this way for humans too, you know. What are you hovering over today? 
 
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly: At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder. Proverbs 23:31-32. 

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Proverbs 22:5. 

Dene Ward

I used to jog.  As my vision has decreased, my exercise regimen has changed as well.  The jog became a walk, then a walk with trekking poles as support, and now an indoor elliptical machine.  But I miss that outdoor time---six laps of a ½ mile plus each.  No, I did not get bored walking around in circles every day.  I have learned more about wildflowers, trees, and birds than ever before, and my dog and I have a game we play that I am positive she has made up rules for.  The walk is also an excellent time for prayer and meditation. 

About the only thing I did not like about the path was the occasional spider web, especially when I was surprised by a face full of one.  Like all predatory traps, they are practically invisible.  If I were a fly instead of a human, I would have been snared and eaten a long time ago.

One morning as I came east across the north end of the property, I passed through a shaft of sunlight shining on a web ahead of me, turning it into spun gold.  Just in time I was able to stop, grab a twig from the ground, and wipe the web out of my path.

Satan is never called a spider, but his traps are exactly like those spider webs.  They are invisible.  Unless you shine the light of God’s word on them, you will walk right into them.  They may even look attractive, like the beautifully intricate web I saw that day.  We must never forget that they are as deadly to us as a spider web is to a fly.

The opening of your word gives light;
            It gives understanding to the simple.
I opened wide my mouth and panted,
            For I longed for your commandments.
Turn unto me and have mercy on me,
            As you do to those who love your name.
Establish my footsteps in your word,
            And let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Psalm 119:130-133

Dene Ward