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
 

We have a secret for lighting fires in a flash, no pun intended.  It's fat lighter.  It actually isn't much of a secret if you were born in the country or do a lot of camping.  Also known as fatwood, lighter wood, lighter knot, pitch pine etc., it is a resin-rich piece of wood that lights as well, or better, than paper.  Remember all those torches people carry in the old, black and white movies?  That's a piece of fat lighter.

              Whenever a conifer is injured, the resin in it, rushes to the injury site to seal the wound.  That section of the tree then becomes resin-rich.  When the tree is cut up, you will see the difference in the wood, a shiny reddish hue, and you will smell it instantly.  Though there are no chemicals or petroleum in it, that is exactly how it smells.  The resin usually concentrates in the knots and in the base of the tree.  If it is cut down or felled by storm or disease, the remaining stump will usually be full of resin. 

              Living in the piney woods of North Florida, we have an almost endless supply of fat lighter.  Besides what we find on our own property, a neighbor always saves the stumps for us when he clears land.  We can start a fire with a match and a sliver of fat lighter in about 10 seconds, assuming we have the twigs and logs to lay on top ready at hand.  We have at least a ten year supply right now, despite using it profligately just so we can sit by a fire on cool mornings or evenings.  I priced it on Amazon and found 10lbs for $30 plus shipping.  We could finance a year or two of our retirement with the fat lighter lying on our property.

              But not all fat lighter is created equal.  Some is richer (fatter) than others, which became quite apparent a few mornings ago as we sat there shivering in our pjs waiting for the fire to get going. 

               Keith actually used two small pieces.  The first lit immediately with a strong bright blaze.  He set it in the ashes and reached for the second.  It would not light quickly, but took most of a whole match to finally start.  Even then it was a meager flame.  A little exasperated, he lay it next to the first piece and it suddenly shone much brighter.  After a few seconds, he tried to move it away and it immediately began sputtering and smoking, but put it back by the richer piece and it once again burned brightly.  At that point he simply began adding twigs, then limbs, then larger logs.  It had been about five minutes and he moved that second piece of lighter back to the other side of the fire.  Then and only then did the flame keep going and actually start the fire on that end.  As I said, some pieces are richer in resin than others.

               If Jesus were to walk the North Florida woods, he would probably tell a parable about far lighter, and the point might be this.  Some of us are richer in resin than others.  Some of us can burn brightly even when we stand alone.  But others of us need a little help.  Maybe we are followers instead of leaders.  Maybe we are more timid.  Whatever the reason, we do just fine when we are surrounded by our brethren, but when all that support leaves us, we sputter and smoke and maybe the flame goes out completely.

              We must each examine ourselves to know what we are made of.  If you cannot see, and admit, that you might not be as rich in resin as others, you will inevitably put yourself into a position that leaves you weak and alone and unable to shine the light for the Lord.  It takes an awful lot of resin to stand alone day after day after day, especially when you face trials in your life.  Some people have it, but it is no shame to recognize when you do not.  What is a shame is to put your soul in danger.  Maybe someday after you have stood with a strong group for a long while, watching how they do it, learning and growing, you will finally be able to keep the fire going on your own.  In fact, that is probably the case.  God expects, and allows for, growth.

               And if you are good and "fat," then look out for the ones who are not.  Don't leave them sputtering alone in the dark.  Shine the light to show them how.  Stand as close as you need to help that flame get going on its own.  A piece of fat lighter, no matter how rich, is no good to anyone if it doesn't start a fire.
 
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, Phil 2:14-15
 
Dene Ward

It has been 2 or 3 years or maybe longer, so it was a little surprising.  Keith was headed for the equipment shed, the one furthest from the house.  We had a cold spell and now, two or three days after the coldest temperatures, the sky was ice blue but the surrounding air relatively mild, warming in the day, as long as you stayed in the sunlight.  Which is exactly what attracted that cottonmouth.  There he lay at the front of the shed, half in and half out of the sun.

             Keith returned to the house and picked up his .22 rifle, loaded with "rat" shot.  Usually one straight to the head leaves them so dead they don't even do their customary postmortem writhe, but this one turned around and headed to the shelter of the inner shed.  Keith was sure he had not missed.  After changing to his steel-toed work boots and clanging loudly around the riding mower which stood square between him and the direction the snake had crawled, he climbed aboard, started it and backed out.  There it was—right up against the back wall.  Another shot to the center of his body and it barely raised its head.  A final one to the head for the coup de grace. 

              A Florida winter is not bad by northern standards.  Even here in north Florida where we might have several frosts and freezes a year and occasional snow flurries, we still see Northern transplants in shirtsleeves, especially in the warmer afternoons, while we natives are still shivering in sweaters or windbreakers.  The cold-blooded reptiles feel the same way about it we do. 

               We always told our boys they could go out in the woods if the temperature was 50 or under—they would be safe from the snakes.  Any warmer made things much more dangerous.  Cold air makes snakes sluggish.  A bright sun is a much friendlier atmosphere for them.  They will crawl out of their holes to try to warm up their blood.  An open sunny field in the winter is much more dangerous to walk in than the cooler shadows.

              Have you noticed that Satan doesn't have to hide anymore?  Our culture has become much friendlier and hospitable to him than ever before.  Things that used to be hidden because everyone knew they were wrong, are done right out in the open.  Just turn on your television.  All you have to watch are the commercials to see Satan reigning everywhere.  No longer do you have to go to "the wrong side of town" or down dark alleys.  He is everywhere and everyone welcomes him like a long lost brother.  Maybe that's exactly what he is to our culture.  ​Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush…says the LORD. Jer 6:15.  Neither does our culture—they are downright proud of their sin.

              Suddenly the righteous man is the one who has to hide, who has to live in the dark alleys so he won't be persecuted for his godliness.  Suddenly our society is no longer hospitable to the good, but only to the evil. 

               So what should we do?  Be careful out there.  Don't fall prey to the desire for popularity or simple companionship.  Keep yourself holy in an unholy world even if it becomes dangerous, even if you must sacrifice for the Lord, the one who sacrificed for you.

              Snakes are crawling around everywhere.  Be careful where you step.
 
…“O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. Ezra 9:6
 
Dene Ward

The Environmental Protection Agency was established on December 2, 1970, at the call of President Richard Nixon to seriously address, at a Federal level, the problems arising from factory pollutants, automobile emissions, overuse of pesticides, dangerous practices in waste disposal, and oil spills.  Most of us have benefited from its oversight in areas of which we are not even aware.  But occasionally, they do seem to get a little unreasonable, in the same ways as anyone who tries to make rules in places they have never been and do not understand.

            Campgrounds, for example, have a lot of aggravating rules.  Some of them are just plain ridiculous, obviously made by people who sit behind a desk and have never camped in their lives.  Yet, I understand the problem.  Too many thoughtless people have no concept of picking up after themselves while being careful where they dump things. 

              Most state parks have a place to dump “gray water.”  We aren’t talking about raw sewage.  Gray water, as defined, includes the dishpan of water you washed your dishes in.  Ever carry a couple gallons of water 500 yards in an awkward dishpan you must hold out in front of you, trying not to slosh it all over yourself in the cold?  Nearly impossible.  And who, living in the country, doesn’t know that wash water works wonders on the blueberries and flower beds?  At least the last park we stayed at had dispensed with the gray water rule.

              I think some of these things bother me because, as country people, we are always green.  We are careful what gets dumped where, even if it means having to load it up and cart it off to the landfill ourselves; you don’t want your groundwater polluted, especially uphill from the well.  We rotate crops.  We even rotate garden spots. We use twigs to dissuade cutworms rather than plastic rings or metal nails. We mulch with the leaves from our live oaks, which we then turn under to enrich the ground after the garden is spent.  We dump the ashes from the woodstove into the fallow garden.  I am sure Keith could add even more to this list.

              God expects his people to be “green.”  Good stewardship of his gifts has always been his expectation, from our abilities to the gospel itself.  You can even find sewage disposal rules in the Law.  Cruelty to animals was punished under the Old Covenant.  That same principle of stewardship follows into the New.

              At the same time, God said, “Have dominion over [the earth] and subdue [the animals],” Gen 1:28.  He said to eat of the plants and the animals, 1:29; 9:3.  God meant this to be a place we used for our survival, not a zoological and botanical garden where nothing can be touched.  When we carefully use the resources of the earth, it will continue to furnish us with the things we need.  So we eat sustainable seafood.  We hunt in season, and eat the meat we bring home.  We raise and eat animals fed with garden refuse.  We carefully sow and reap so the ground will continue to be arable.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

              Sometimes, though, the people who claim to be green are no longer flesh-colored (in all its assorted hues).  They care more for animals than people.  I know that is true when I see a “Save the Whales” bumper sticker on the same car touting “The Right to Choose.”  Let’s save the animals, but the babies are fair game.

              Shades of Romans 1--Paul speaks of the Gentiles who had rejected Jehovah throughout the ancient days and eventually arrived at the point that they “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” 1:25.  Our culture has come dangerously close to that.  The environment has become the cause du jour, and while I certainly agree that we should care for the beautiful home God gave us and not be cruel to animals, it is because I am grateful to the God who made them for me, not because I have less regard for humans.  I have always been that way, not just recently, yet I still know that people are more important than sea turtles, and unborn children more so than polar bears.

              So let’s be green, just as God has always expected—but let’s be flesh-colored too, caring about the people, and their souls even more than the animals.  And let us also be as white as snow—an obedient people who worship and serve the God who created it all.
 
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.  The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works, Psa 104:13,14,16-18,21-24,31.
 
Dene Ward
 

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 the guest 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

Thirty-three years ago we moved onto this "back forty," across a grassy stretch between two fences, over a low rise deep into the live oaks, around the moss-laden corner and down the hill to what had last been a watermelon field.  We mowed it little by little, landscaped it with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, and began planting—a garden first, then roses, azaleas, blueberries, grape vines, crepe myrtles, daylilies, amaryllises, jasmine, jessamine, and finally, a few annuals.  Then came the trees—a few oaks, including a huge acorn we brought back from a camping trip in north Georgia, a sycamore, a maple, a couple of apples, a peach, and then two pecan trees, right in the middle of the west field.  Finally we had our dream property, but nature refused to cooperate on a few things.
 
             First the apple trees died, then the peaches.  "Too close to oak trees," the county agent said.  Now the blueberries have stopped bearing, and yes, they are right next to what used to be a small oak—but that was three decades ago.  It now towers over them.  And the pecans?  They might be six feet tall after all these years, and we haven't had the first pecan.  "Too close to the pine trees," we were told, pines that at the time were hardly more than fat sticks in the ground, but are now well over forty feet tall.  "They have ruined the soil for pecans."

              So what can we glean from this?  What are we surrounding ourselves with?  What has "ruined our soil?"  What has made us completely unfit for the kingdom?

              The first thing that comes to mind is, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, you make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. (Matt 23:15).  If we aren't careful, we can stunt the growth of new Christians.  Barnes says they Jews did this by converting for the sole purpose of inflating their numbers and then not teaching the former pagans how to live by God's law.  Add to that, when a hypocrite converts someone, just exactly what does he probably teach them to be?  Another hypocrite just like he was.  So in either case, we have left them as weak pecan trees in the midst of stronger pines who ruin the soil in which they have been planted.

              But let's not forget the obvious application.  Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals. (1Cor 15:33)

               This is not about whether or not you should go out into the world to make contacts and teach.  Of course you should.  But soil is where a tree gains its nutrients and its life-giving water.  When I talk to my neighbors, when I work with my colleagues, where do I go for sustenance?  Do I stay with them and imbibe their values, or do I return to my core group, to my support system, to regain my strength?  Am I careful to monitor myself for signs that I may be taking in the wrong kind of nutrition and passing it off as "seeking the lost?" 

               The area in which we plant ourselves should have access to light, not be dwarfed by taller, stronger trees who smother us in their own values.  WE need to be the oaks, not the pecans, the ones who influence the weak, not the other way around.  Just who is influencing whom in your case?

               Stop and check yourself today.  It did not take us thirty years to know we had a problem with these trees.  When a five foot tall tree has not grown an inch in a year, something is amiss.  Have you grown?  Have I?  Are we better than we were five years ago?  Or do we still fight the same battles in the same way with the same meager results—or even fail? 

               So ask yourself, who had you rather spend time with?  Who do you go to for advice?  Who influences your behavior more than anyone else?  If the answer is NOT "godly brothers and sisters," maybe you are nothing more than a stunted pecan tree.  If you think those towering pines and oaks who are affecting your growth have any real respect for you, you are sadly mistaken.  They see you for what you are—a weak, scrawny pecan tree.  So does God.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. (1Cor 3:18)
 
Dene Ward

The car hummed along the highway as we carried our two grandsons to our home while mommy and daddy were away for a few days.  They slept away most of the two plus hour long trip, waking in time to see the unfamiliar countryside sweep past on the last road “over the river and through the woods to grandma’s house.”

              They played the rest of the afternoon away, digging in the sand, chasing bubbles, and swinging on the old oak tree (the same one Daddy fell out of and broke his arm).  Dinner came only after a bath for those two dirty-faced, dirty-footed little fellows, a tub full of bubbles and cups and pitchers to pour over each other.  After their favorite mac and cheese, chicken nuggets and applesauce, it wasn’t long until their eyes were drooping and they were ready for bed.  “The tired-er the better,” we thought, especially for that first night. 

              They fell asleep quickly, twenty-month-old Judah in the “Pack and Play” and four year-old Silas by his own choice next to his little brother on the twin-sized airbed.  We listened through the rest of the evening, but never heard a peep. 

              However, at 4:52 a.m. I sensed something by my bed and woke to a small figure standing there in the starlight filtering through the curtains.  Dark in the country is not like dark in the city.  We have no streetlights—unless you live entirely too close to an uprooted city slicker who thinks he needs one, and we don’t.  We have no concrete to reflect the moonlight either.  When it’s dark, it’s dark, and if you are not used to navigating by God’s natural night lights, you think you woke up in a tomb.

              “Silas,” I whispered, “what’s wrong?”

              “All this dark is keeping me awake,” he said quite seriously, and even though I was sleepily thinking, “All this dark is supposed to keep you asleep!” I knew exactly what he meant.  Even though we had left a nightlight right by his bedroom door, it was far darker than he was used to, and when he woke it troubled him.

              By then Granddad had wakened as well, and he took him back to bed and lay with him until he was once again snoring his soft little boy snores, not much more than five minutes afterward.  He slept another three hours with no problem at all.

              I thought sometime later that week that this little boy had it right.  The dark should be keeping us awake.

              Even the Old Testament faithful understood the concept of walking in the light.  O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of Jehovah, Isa 2:5.  It seemed natural, then, for the Son to claim to be the light as well.  I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life, John 8:12.  And so, as children of God, we, too, are lights.  For you are all children of light, children of the day.  We are not of night or of darkness, 1 Thes 5:5.

              Unfortunately, the light has come into the world and the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil, John 3:19.  As “children of light” we should be opposite the world.  We should not love the darkness; we should hate it. 

              This will come more naturally if we mature to the point that we don’t just walk in the light and not walk in the darkness.  Look at Eph 5:8:  for at one time you were darkness, but now are light in the Lord.  Do you see that?  Light isn’t just something you walk in, it is something you become.  Just as at one time you didn’t just walk in the darkness, you were darkness.  We have completely changed our essence.  No wonder we are supposed to hate the dark.  No wonder the mere presence of it in the world, among our neighbors, our friends and even our family, should be keeping us awake at night.

              All this dark is keeping me awake Lord, should be a lament on every Christian’s tongue.  Not only that, we should be actively trying to rid the world of that very darkness.  Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, Yes, rather, reprove them, Eph 5:11. 

              If the darkness in the world isn’t enough to keep a “child of light” awake, perhaps he has become something else.
 
Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen upon you. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples; but Jehovah will arise upon you, and his glory shall be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Isa 60:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

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

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

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, over thirty 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