We hadn’t driven that road in years, a narrow county road I used to jog down every morning.  At that time one end was so well wooded that more than once during hunting season I heard bullets whizzing across the road behind me when I jogged.  I learned to sing loudly while I ran. 

The morning of our drive the sunlight came in exactly as it had all those years ago, slanting rays peeking through the trees from the east, clear and bright where they hit the road, a crisp fall morning, the humidity of summer left behind.  Then we came upon them, house after house, places where we had known the people who had lived there, one after the other along the west side of the road, then the north as the road made a ninety degree bend to the left.  We named the people as we rode by, and when we finished we looked at one another and realized that every one of them was dead.

Yet there the houses still stood, some with new families, but most empty, houses those people had built themselves, nice homes mine could fit in twice over, carefully landscaped property, barns, sheds, pools, and other outbuildings—empty.  I thought of the Preacher’s words:   I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself. I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees… Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun, Eccl 2:4-6,11. 

If ever there was a time I understood Ecclesiastes, it was that morning.  All these things people spend their money on, all these things they think will make them happy, none of them really matter because sooner or later you die and leave them behind.

So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil, Eccl 2:17-21.

Maybe, though, the writer overreacted a bit.  Why hate your life?  Why not just change it?  When you learn that you control your happiness, that happiness does not lie in circumstances but within yourself, then you change the emphasis of all you do.  Why not spend your time making other people’s lives better?  Why not spread the good news in whatever way you are still able?  Why leave only an empty house behind when you can leave something far more lasting—an example, words of comfort and encouragement, the Word of God taught in whatever way possible to any and all who will pay attention?

After you are gone, what will people say when they drive past what used to be yours?  Will they merely say, “That’s where so-and-so used to live?”  Or will they say, “Remember that brother and sister?  They were such good people.”  How are you spending the time God has given you?  What will you leave behind?  How much better to leave the memories of a life full of joy and service than an empty building no one will care about anyway.

And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16-21

Dene Ward

Out here in the country, just about every man has a pickup truck.  Most of them are several years old, caked in mud, a little rusty, and dented here and there.  That’s because those trucks are used. 

We have one too.  It’s 15 years old, usually wears a coat of dust, and sports a bed with scrapes, dings, and lines of orange rust.  It has hauled wood for our heat and leaves and pine straw for mulch.  It has carried loads of dirt to landscape the natural rises and dips of our property.  It has toted lawn mowers and tillers to the shop for repair.  It has gone on several dozen camping trips, filled to the brim of its topper with tents, sleeping bags, coolers, suitcases, firewood, and food.

Whenever we go to town, it always amuses me to see a man in a tie get out of a pickup truck, especially if that truck is clean, polished, and less than two years old.  I asked such a man once why he needed his pickup.  “To drive,” he said.  What?  Isn’t that what far more economical cars are for?  He actually took better care of his truck than his car, polishing it to a high enough sheen to blind the driver in the next lane, and vacuuming it almost daily.  Obviously, his pickup was for show.  “A man ought to have a truck after all.”  Why?  Because it makes him a man?

Before you shake your head, consider that this happens with many more things than pickup trucks.  Why do you have the type of car you do?  Not a car, but that particular one.  I know some people who think the brand is the important part, that somehow it says something special about them.  Why do you live where you do in the type of house that you have?  Is it a big house because you have a big family, because you use it to house brethren passing through who need help, because you show hospitality on a regular basis?  Or is it because someone of your stature ought to have a house that size in that neighborhood?

I suppose the saddest thing I have seen is women who have children because “that’s what women do.”  Their careers or homes or status is far more important than the child, who is raised by someone else entirely, with mommy making “quality time” whenever she can spare a moment or two.

The Israelites of the Old Testament had similar problems.  They wanted a king “like the countries round about them.”  Somehow they thought it made them a legitimate nation.  Do we do similar things in the church?

Why do we have a preacher?  I have heard people say we need one to look valid to the denominations around us.  Why do we have a building?  “Because that would make us a real church.”  Neither of those things is wrong to have, but our attitudes show us to be less than spiritual, not to mention less than knowledgeable, when we say such things. 

Why do you have elders?  “Because a church this size ought to.”  That may very well be, but you don’t fix the problem of a church that hasn’t grown enough spiritually to have qualified men by choosing men who are anything but just so you can say you have elders.

A lot of us are just silly boys who think that having a pickup truck makes them real men.  Let’s get to the root of the problem.  What makes you a Christian, what makes a church faithful, is a whole lot like what makes you a man, and outward tokens have nothing to do with it.

"As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, 'Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes--and come it will!--then they will know that a prophet has been among them." Ezekiel 33:30-33

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

I grew up in Central Florida, so I am familiar with houseflies.  We even had them in the winter.  After every annual Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at my grandmother’s house, she pulled all the food to one end of the table, then carefully draped the other end of the tablecloth back over the bowls and platters for anyone who wanted to snack all day.  That way the flies couldn’t use the food as landing pads.

When Keith and I moved to the country, flies became an ordeal.  Even with air conditioning, they manage to zoom in between door openings and closings, especially when, as was the case for several years, not twenty feet outside your back door lies a well-populated cow pasture. 

What I was not ready for were yellow flies.  I had never dealt with a fly that bites.  The first time one landed for a snack, it left me with a hard, sore knot the size of a ping pong ball.  Keith tells me this is not the usual case, that I must be hypersensitive, but whatever is going on, I do my best to stay away from yellow flies.

When I jogged, I always passed one place on the road where one particular yellow fly made it his business to give me grief.  He buzzed my head like a crop duster, and I am sure my pace increased to near world record speeds on that hundred foot stretch of highway every day.  I am also certain I looked pretty funny swinging and swatting away with both hands, but it was the only way to keep myself free of those painful welts.

I thought of that fly chasing me down the road when I read this verse:  But as for you, O man of God…pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and godliness, 1 Tim 6:11.

Most of the time we focus on the things we are supposed to be pursuing in that passage, but did you ever wonder exactly how you should be pursuing them?  Like a yellow fly, as it turns out.

And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Acts 9:4-5

I did a little research into that word “pursue” and those are the verses that popped up.  “Pursue” is translated more than any other English word, more in fact, than all of the choices put together, “persecute,” just as it is in Acts 9.  We are supposed to “persecute” all righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and meekness.  What?!

Just think for a minute about how Saul went about persecuting Christians.  He went from city to city.  He made appointments with the authorities to get what we might think of as warrants in order to put them in prison.  Then he testified against them to make his case.  Many times this persecution was “to the death.”  Once he finished in one place, he moved to the next, and to the next, and to the next.  Persecuting Christians was his life.

How much of our lives do we spend trying to become more righteous, more godly, more loving, and all those other things that Paul says we should pursue?  How much time, how much effort, how much sacrifice do we give to it?  Or do we instead offer excuses for poor behavior we should have mastered years ago, for sins we refuse to overcome?  If we were pursuing righteousness the way Paul pursued—persecuted--Christians, if we spent our lives doing whatever was necessary to learn to love as we ought, if we “buffeted our bodies” to become more godly, if we spent the same amount of time bolstering our faith that we do soothing our egos or building our bank accounts, maybe those things wouldn’t be so difficult to chase down.

When I think about being chased down the road by that pesky, persecuting yellow fly, I instantly understand what I should be doing to become a better disciple of my Lord.  Come out and visit some day and I’ll see if we can’t arrange the same experience for you!

Follow after (pursue, persecute) peace with all men and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord,  Heb 12:14.

Dene Ward

Our piece of property was once a watermelon field on the back side of a family farm, approached by a dirt lane a half mile long.  When we first saw it, the ground was furrowed under the waist high grass and weeds, and a pushed up wind row ran down the length of it parallel to the north property line.  A few volunteer vines wound their way through the weeds, laden with green-striped melons, most of them too small to even consider picking.  What the land had once been was obvious.

It had served other purposes as well.  After we moved onto the property, the power company sent a crew to plant the poles and string the wires that would connect us to the outside world.  One of the young men looked around and said, “I know this place.  I went to school with one of the boys and we’d come back here to hunt rat----.”  Instantly he stopped and muttered, “Well—you don’t need to know that.”  But within a week we knew exactly what he had started to say as the evidence began to pile up.  That first summer we killed four rattlesnakes, the smallest of which was four feet long, two cottonmouths, and several coral snakes.

The snake population has dwindled after all these years, and the only volunteer melons come up in the garden now.  But there is still more evidence of the property’s past. 

When we moved here, our closest neighbor advised us to have the wind row scraped into a raised road so we would always have access, even in wet weather, very good advice as it turned out.  What the tractor left behind was a high, compact, dirt driveway, but it was littered with broken glass.  Someone had tossed quite a few beer bottles into the wind row--those boys were obviously doing more than hunting rattlesnakes on the back forty all those years ago.  That first summer we gave our boys, who were then 6 and 8, a nickel for every piece of glass they picked up, and it was soon safe to drive and walk on.

Yet now, twenty-seven years later, as I walk down the drive with the morning sun shining on the sandy road, I still see it glinting off tiny pieces of glass.  The sand they have been buried in has worn off their sharp edges making them far too smooth to endanger either tires or bare feet.  I usually pick up a couple dozen every summer.  Then the next year, yet more will have worked their way to the top from the simple erosion of wind and rain.

What is hidden beneath will always come out.  No matter how hard you try to hide the ugliness, something will always give it away.  “By their fruits you shall know them,” Jesus said, and, “Out of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 7:20; Luke 6:45.  When we try to hide our character flaws from others, the only person we really manage to hide them from is ourselves.

God will help you overcome the weaknesses that beset you, but he cannot do it until you admit them to yourself, and then to him.  Blaming others, blaming circumstances, blaming “the way I am” will never fix things, any more than me blaming those teenage boys for throwing their beer bottles got rid of the glass in my driveway.  But God can help you mend your heart and correct your ways.  He promises he will always supply a way of escape and strength to endure the times of stress and the simple erosion of life that make those ugly things rise to the surface.

Every year I see those sparkly pieces of glass in the driveway, but their edges have worn smooth and they are no longer a danger.  God can help the same way.  You may feel something inside begin to rise to the surface, but with his help you can keep it under control so that it no longer hurts you or others.  In your surrender to him, the strength you have will multiply beyond anything you have ever experienced, or could ever have imagined.

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  I John 4:4.

Dene Ward

We raised pigs when the boys were growing up.  A pig a year in the freezer went a long way toward making our grocery bill manageable, everything from bacon and sausage in the morning to chops and steaks on the supper table, ribs on the grill, and roasts and hams on our holiday table.  The first time the butcher sent the head home in a clear plastic bag and I opened the freezer to find it staring at me nearly undid me though.  After that Keith made sure to tell them to “keep the head.”

We bought our pigs from a farmer when they were no more than 30 pounds.  That created a problem that usually the boys and I were the only ones home to deal with.  Once the pigs were over 100 pounds they could no longer root their way under the pen, but those young ones did it with regularity, especially the first week or so when they had not yet learned this was their new home and they could count on being fed.  More than one morning I went out to feed them and found the pen empty, spending the remainder of my morning looking for the pig out in the woods.

One Wednesday evening when Keith had to work, the boys and I stepped outside to load us and our books into the car for the thirty mile trip to Bible study, only to see the young pig, probably 40 pounds by that time, rooting in the flower beds.  We spent the next forty-five minutes chasing it.  You would think three smart people, two of them young and agile and me not exactly decrepit in those earlier days, could corner a pig and herd him back to the pen.  No, that pig gave chase any time any one of us got within twenty feet of him, and they are much faster than they look.

You see things in cartoons and laugh at the pratfalls exactly as the cartoonist wanted you to, knowing in your mind that such things never could happen.  When you chase a pig you find out otherwise. 

Once we did manage to corner the thing between a fencepost and a ditch and Lucas, who was about 12, leapt for him with his arms outstretched.  Somehow that pig managed to move and Lucas landed flat on the ground on his stomach while the pig ended up trotting past all of us on his merry way, wagging his head in what looked like amusement.

Another time Lucas actually got his arms around the pig’s stomach, but even an un-greased pig is a slippery creature.  Nathan and I never had a chance to grab on ourselves before it was loose again and off we all ran around the property for the umpteenth time, dressed for Bible study by the way, which made the sight much more ridiculous, especially my billowing skirt.

We never did catch that pig.  He simply got tired and decided to go back into the pen.  I had opened the gate and as he trotted toward it, we all gratefully jogged behind him, winded and filthy and caring not a hoot that it was his idea instead of ours.  Still, he had to have the last word.  Instead of going through the open gate, at the last minute he ran back to where he had gotten out in the first place and slunk under the rooted out segment of the pen.  Then he turned around and looked at us.  “Heh, heh,” I could almost hear with the look he gave us.  We shut the gate, filled in the hole, loaded up the feed trough, and went inside to clean up, arriving at Bible study thirty minutes late and too exhausted and traumatized to learn much that night.

God is a promise maker.  He has given us so many promises I could never list them all here.  We have a habit of treating those promises like a pig on the loose, like something we can’t really get a good hold of, certainly not a secure one. 

I grew up in a time when it was considered wrong to say, “I know I am going to Heaven.”  Regardless the fact that John plainly said in his first epistle, “These things I have written that you may know you have eternal life,” (5:13), actually saying such a thing would get you a scolding about pride, and a remonstrance like, “Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall!”  We were too busy fighting false doctrine to lay hold of a hope described as “sure” in Heb 6:19.  

That word is the same one used in Matt 27:64-66.  The priests and Pharisees implored Pilate to make Jesus’ tomb “sure” so his disciples could not steal the body and claim a resurrection.  He told the guards, “Make it as sure as you can.”  Do you think they would have been careless about it?  Do you think there was anything at all uncertain about the seal on that tomb?  Not if you understand the disciplinary habits of the Roman army.  It is not quite as obvious because of the different translation choice, but the Philippian jailor was given the same order, using the same word, when Paul and Silas were put in prison:  “Charging the jailor to keep them safely [sure],” and he was ready to kill himself when he thought they had escaped.

That is how sure our hope is—“an anchor…steadfast and sure.”  It isn’t like a pig we have to chase down.  It isn’t going to slip through our fingers if we don’t want it to.  Paul told the Thessalonians that “sure” hope would comfort them, 2 Thes 2:16.  How comforting is it to be fretting all the time about whether or not you’re going to Heaven?  How reassuring is it to picture God as someone who sits up there waiting for you to slip so He can say, “Gotcha!”  That is how we treat Him when we talk about our hope as anything less than certain.

I never knew what to expect when I stepped out of my door the first few weeks with every new piglet.  If we hadn’t needed it, I would not have put myself through the anxiety and the ordeal.  Why in the world would anyone think that God wants us to feel that way about our salvation?

…in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal, Titus 1:2.

Dene Ward           

I wonder if it means as much to us.  I wonder if it would have even gotten our attention.  We take so much for granted, so many things people have not always had access to, things they would marvel at were they alive today. 

Noon on a hot, dusty day saw a thirsty man sitting by a well after a long walk.  A woman trudged up, not during the normal hours of drawing water; a woman, we would later discover, who was on the fringes of her society, a society that was on the fringes itself, especially to people like this man, who sat where she had hoped to find no one.      To her utter amazement, he asked her for a drink.  It was not just that she was from a hated caste, but she was a woman, and men seldom talked to women in public, especially not one with her background.  And not only that, but he offered her something wonderful--she would never have to come draw water from this well again.  She was so excited she ran to tell the others in the town, even the ones who before would not speak to her because of her questionable morals. 

He stayed for two days, teaching about this miraculous water, water they eventually realized was not wet or even real, as the world counts reality, but far more real in the dawning light of a spiritual kingdom that would accept them all, not just those other people who hated them.  Soon, everyone would have this living water available, and no one in that kingdom would be considered “second class.”

I wonder if Jesus would have gotten my attention with this talk?  I don’t have to draw water from a well in the heat of the day—enough water to clean, bathe, cook, and stay alive.  But one day, 30 years ago, that little story meant a whole lot more to me than it ever had before.

We came home from a trip to discover that our well had collapsed.  We did not have the several hundred dollars it would have cost at the time to fix it.  Keith had to dig a new well himself.  For a month, every night after he finished the studying and home classes he conducted as a preacher, he worked on that well, even in the cold January rain, even running a fever. 

A farmer neighbor filled and carted a five hundred gallon tank outside our door.  That tank had held things not good for human consumption, so we used that water to carry in five gallon buckets for flushes, and pressure canners full for bathing.  Every morning I went to another neighbor’s house to fill up gallon jugs for the water we used to brush teeth, make tea and coffee, and wash dishes.  The boys were 5 and 3, way too little to help cart water.  I learned the value of carrying a bucket in each hand—balance was everything if you wanted to slosh as little as possible all over your carpets.

We learned to conserve water without even thinking about it—no more water running in the lavatory while brushing teeth, shaving, or putting in contact lenses!  Suddenly, carrying water was a time-consuming, back-breaking job. Modern homes are simply not geared to anything but running water.  It would have been much simpler to have had an outhouse in the backyard, and a pump handle in the kitchen.  The amount of water that needed hauling would have been cut in half.

And after a month of that, I understood what this woman must have thought, what a luxury the concept must have seemed to her hot, weary body.  Do we feel that way about “living water?”  Is salvation such a luxury that we marvel at it and run to tell others?  Or do we take it for granted like running water in our kitchens and bathrooms?  I would not wish the month we endured on anyone else, but you know what?  I think it was good for all of us.

Therefore with joy shall we draw water out of the wells of salvation.  And in that day shall you say, Give thanks unto Jehovah, call upon his name, declare his doings among the peoples, make mention that his name is exalted, Isaiah 12:3,4      

Dene Ward

While I was teaching music I was a member of several professional organizations.  My favorite was the local group which met seven times a year in members’ homes for business, some high-spirited performances, and a potluck lunch.  Once we met in a house just off the highway, down a lime rock road.  In the middle of the meeting, a rain came up—not just any rain, but one we around here call a “toad strangler,” several inches in less than an hour—they happen all the time in Florida. 

The rain had stopped when it was time to leave and we took off down the dirt road shortcut in a caravan of cars headed to our various studios to meet the students for the day.  Suddenly, the cars ahead of me came to a halt, and ladies started climbing out, gathering together and peering up ahead.  I turned off the engine and joined the milling crowd at the head of the line. 

Water had run across the road.  It had not cut a deep rut, and in fact, was a nice shallow-looking, easily fordable stream, but we had all lived in the country long enough to know you don’t just drive through water running across an unpaved road.  “Someone needs to walk out there and check the road,” was the consensus. 

Have I mentioned that at 35 I was the youngest in the group by about thirty years?  Instantly, all heads turned toward me.  Having been silently elected, I slipped off my shoes and started across the newly created waterway.  I took five firm steps only to have to grab my skirt and hike it up over my knees as I sank exactly that deep on the sixth.  Instantly I had visions of those jungle movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons as a kid, where the first one in the safari line sinks in the quicksand because, in spite of everyone telling him to be still, he wiggles and squirms and sinks before anyone can even think to cut a vine and use it to pull him out—or if some bright fellow does think of it, twenty people on the other end cannot out-pull the suction of a big mud puddle.. 

A good minute later it dawned on me that my name was being called, and I still had not sunk any farther.  My feet had found a solid layer of hardpan about two feet below the surface so Tarzan swinging to the rescue was totally unnecessary.  I made my way back to the group with the most unladylike thwock, thwock, thwock noises as the suction released with each step.  We all carefully backed our cars down the one lane road, turned around in the driveway from where we had started and went the long way home, down the paved state highway.

Hopelessness in the scriptures is often pictured as “sinking.”  Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon will sink and shall not rise again because of the evil I will bring upon her, 51:64.  Amos warns Israel that they are in for the same punishment: they shall sink again like the River of Egypt, 8:8; 9:5.  And all because of sin.  Even Peter, when he tried to walk on water, began to sink because of little faith and doubt, Matt 14:31.  And truly, just like sinking in the quicksand (at least in the old grade B movies), there is nothing we can do but hope a savior happens along.  Praise God, he has!

The Psalmist pleads in 22:8 Commit yourself to Jehovah, let him deliver you; let him rescue you, seeing he delights in you.  In spite of the fact that, like an ignorant city slicker, we walked out into that mud on purpose, in spite of the fact that we ignored warning after warning, and kept right on wiggling and squirming, and even when we have been pulled out before, but keep stepping right back into the same pool of quicksand, Jesus is ready to hold out a hand and save us. 

Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink… Let not the waterflood overwhelm me and swallow me up…Answer me, oh Jehovah, for your lovingkindness is good.  According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me; and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly. Psa 69:14-17

Dene Ward

Living in the country has meant adapting.  In many ways it has been good for me.  The city girl found out she could learn and change, even though change is a thing I have never liked.  I love routine.  Now, after 32 years, it isn’t change, it’s just a new routine, and that helps when I have had many more changes in the past few years, and see more coming.

One of the things I learned quickly was to make sure I had everything I needed to get by for the week.  A sixty to eighty mile round trip, depending upon which side of town what I need is on and how many other places I have to stop as well, doesn’t happen more than once a week even if you did forget the bread or run out of milk.  You learn to do without. You don’t change your mind about the menu unless you already have on hand the things the preferred dish needs.  When an unexpected guest arrives and you want to offer a meal, you put another potato in the pot, double the biscuit recipe, and get out another package of frozen garden corn, and if you didn’t plan dessert that night, you put the home-canned jellies and jams on the table.  So far, no one has complained.

I have learned to be organized.  I do everything in one visit, and usually that coincides with a doctor appointment or a women’s Bible class.  I keep track of everything I run out of, or run low on, as the week progresses, and buy it all in the order that uses the least gas.  I keep staples well stocked.

I have also learned that I don’t have to have everything I think I do.  The only store close to us is a tire store, about three miles down the country highway.  The man has been in business for 40 years.  Our children went to school with his, and somehow he has made a good living selling tires in the smallest county in Florida just outside a village that might have a population of 100 if you count the dogs.   But as far as shopping, it doesn’t do much for me.  You can’t try tires on, they don’t do much for the home décor, and window shopping is the pits.  So I don’t “shop.”

Sometimes we become slaves to our culture.  We think we must wear certain things, go certain places and do things in a certain way because everyone else does.  We shop and buy because everyone does, not because we need it.  We go see the movies that “everyone” has seen.  We buy a cell phone because “everyone” has one nowadays—“it’s a necessity.”  We run down to the store every time we run out of something instead of carefully making a list of what we need and taking care of it in one, or at most two trips a week, wasting precious time and costing ourselves more money than we realize.  Everyone does, we say.  Maybe we should stop and think about that.

Why?  First, because it never crosses our minds to be different than everyone.  Is it sinful?  Maybe not, but then why does something have to be sinful before I am willing to look at it and decide whether it is best for me and my situation?  Why am I so afraid to be different?  A Christian should have a mindset that is always looking at things in different ways than the rest of the world.  If I decide this is the best way to live (and not sinful), then fine, but I should, at the least, think about it.  Christians who always act without thinking will eventually do something wrong some time in the future. 

Second, we are to be good stewards of everything God gives us, including time and money.  If we saved a little time, could we use it in service to God?  Could we offer help to someone in distress?  Would we have more time for visiting the sick and studying with neighbors?  If we saved those few dollars every week, could we give more to the Lord?  Could we help someone in need more often?  Could we be the ones who take a bag of groceries to a family in distress because that day we could buy for them instead of running to the store for yet something else we forgot?

But we aren’t really talking about running down to the store here.  We’re talking about attitude and priorities—about doing the best we can for our Master in more than a haphazard way.  Paul says we are to “purpose,” or plan, our giving.  I have no doubt that doing so ensures a larger donation than merely waiting till the last minute to see what’s left in the bank or the wallet.  The same thing will be true if we plan our prayer time, study time, and service time.  Instead of running out of time for any of it, we will find ourselves making a habit of the things God expects of us.

In a parable Jesus praised the steward who was “a faithful and wise manager,” who was always working, always serving, and able to get the appropriate things done at the appropriate time (Luke 12:42).  Those servants, he goes on to say, are always ready for the master’s return.  Are we ready, serving and working as many hours a day as possible as faithful stewards, or are we so disorganized that judgment day will find us at the checkout for the fifth time in a week, just to pick up a bottle of ketchup?

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies--in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1Pe 4:10-11)

Dene Ward

I live in rural north central Florida.  Snakes are a fact of life.  Poisonous snakes are a big fact of life.  You learn to take precautions, but even then, if you have not seen one in awhile, you become careless.  Last summer we were reminded of where we live.

One morning I was walking the mown path around our property, as I do every day, six laps for 3 ½ miles.  Suddenly the weeds to the left of me buzzed.  If you have ever heard a rattlesnake in person, you know it does not sound exactly like the ones on TV.  It sounds like an angry June bug, a really big, really angry June bug.  I leapt sideways about 10 feet—in fact, if sideways leaping were an Olympic event, I would have won the gold medal that day. 

We never found that one, but not ten days later, the dog alerted us to one in the yard, which Keith shot.  Four days later, she found a cottonmouth which escaped her by flattening itself enough to get under the house.  Keith had to crawl under there with a flashlight and a pistol for that one.  A week later another rattler in the yard met him as he returned from the neighbor’s.  Four days later a black racer crossed my running path about thirty feet ahead.  Two days after that a coachwhip met me at the fence behind the old pigpen when I walked.  This was beginning to get eerie.  We had never had this many snakes in this short a time, not even the first summer we set up house in this old watermelon field in the piney woods, half a mile off the highway. 

Five days later I was folding clothes in the family room and happened to look out the window right next to me.  Not five feet from my face, a racer was winding itself up around the TV tower.  No, racers are not poisonous.  Yes, it was outside and I was inside with not one, but two, glass panes between me and it.  But something about that one sent chills up my spine.  It was almost more than I could do to go outside that day at all.  Somehow I expected to see dozens of snakes slithering up the porch steps and clinging to the screen just waiting to strike when I opened the back door. 

But when it was time to walk, I took a deep breath, got the .22 rifle loaded with number 12 shot, leaned it against the tree and set off, with my trusty canine bodyguards bounding up ahead of me to sniff out the critters and, more important, scare away the snakes.  Still, I was a lot more alert than usual. 

This was a good spiritual reminder as well.  We live in a stable society.  No natives on the warpath.  No marauders on the borders.  No wars fought on our home ground.  Have we forgotten to be careful?  There is still an enemy out there who is REAL, and he will kill our souls if we are not alert.  Are we to be so afraid that we shut ourselves away from the world?  No, for how could our lights shine and our faith be told?  But being cautious never hurt anyone. 

When you go out there today, pay attention, stay safe, and when you see the lion, who at least once has masqueraded as a serpent, either shoot him down right there or run!

Be sober, be watchful, your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour; withstand him, steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brothers who are in the world.  And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, establish and strengthen you.  1 Pet 5:7-10

Dene Ward