Today's post if by guest writer Lucas Ward.
 
Lev. 23:2  “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts."
            When I reached this passage in Leviticus, I realized that I didn't know what convocation meant.  I had always read past the passage, assuming it meant "worship service."  I decided to look it up to be sure.  It turns out that convocation means "the act of convoking" according to Webster's Dictionary.  Sighing, I then looked up convoke.  It doesn't mean worship service at all.  A convocation is when people come together, a time of coming together.  So in Leviticus 23, when Moses is giving God's instructions on all the feast days, he is emphasizing that these are times when the nation was to come together and worship God as one.  The Sabbath was a holy convocation for each community.  On the Passover they came together to remember being freed from slavery in Egypt.  On the feast of weeks they came together to offer the first fruits of their harvest to God.  On the Day of Atonement they came together to fast, instead of feast, as they remembered their sins against God.  On the Feast of Booths they came together to celebrate God's care for them.  Ever—single—time--God ordered a day of worship, He wanted His people to come together to worship as a group.
            This is a principle that clearly carries over to the New Testament.  The early church "attended the temple together" to hear the Apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42, 46).  They "gathered together to break bread" (Acts 20:7).  We are told to exhort one another (1 Thess. 5:11) and admonish one another (Rom. 15:14), which clearly implies being together enough to know what exhortation and/or admonishment is needed.   As Christians, we are called the family of God and the word "brethren" is used of Christians at least 135 times in the New Testament.   A family defined by how we love each other (John 13:35) will naturally be together as much as possible, especially when worshipping the Head of that family. 
            Simply put, we cannot be the church that God intended, nor worship in the way He demands, if we never come together.  Streaming services may be a wonderful way to help those who are legitimately homebound, but if we are able we need to be getting up and joining our brethren in "holy convocation" as we worship together.  After all, how can I stir my brethren up to love and good works (Heb. 10:24) if I never see them?  The early Christians came together to worship even though if caught the Romans would put them all to death.  Surely we can brave a pandemic with a 98% survival rate!  And if we do wind up being part of the unlucky 2%, aren't we really the more fortunate for the chance to go home early? 

Hebrews 10:24-25  "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."
 
Lucas Ward

In Thomas Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again, George Webber concludes, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time…"
            Whenever Keith talks about Arkansas, he says, “Back home.”  It used to bother me a little.  Home should be where I am, shouldn’t it?  Then I realized that I could never have the feelings of a place that he did.  I never lived in just one place as a child, and the place I lived longest is not the place I go to when I visit my parents.  They left that place a year after I married and have lived in nearly half a dozen places since. 
            It is ironic that one of my sons lives there now, the place I would have called home, but when I go visit him, it has been so long since it was home, and it has changed so much, that I never even think of it that way any more.  The longest I have ever lived in any one place is the place I live now, and as Keith and I head into our senior years, I can foresee a time, though I hope not too soon, when we will have to leave it.  Even as small a plot as five acres takes a lot of labor, and it is a long way from the folks we count on to care for us when we become too old and disabled to take care of it and ourselves.
            Christians should be careful about those feelings of “home.”  Home should never be about a place, but about people, and about Truth.  I have seen churches divide over doctrines, divisions that were necessary.  Yet people who should have known better stayed—they were converted to a place, a building, not to the Lord.
            And Christians in our society have another problem—one that the poverty stricken brethren in places like Nicaragua and Zimbabwe never have to deal with—we have become entirely too comfortable.  We are so “at home” in our rich lives that we don’t want to give them up.  Persecution, even simply the ridicule and criticism of others, is too much to bear.  There is always a good reason not to speak up when sin becomes accepted, and not to behave differently.   Even if there is no persecution, we have a problem singing, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.”  This is home and we want to stay as long as possible.
            We must make ourselves see beyond the here and now.  We must force ourselves to realize that where and how we are living today is not our goal.  Eternity is difficult enough to comprehend without focusing on what is right in front of us as if it were the only thing that counted.  Here is the truth of the matter:  compared to Eternity our lives are not even a drop of water in the entire ocean. 
            Christians have the promise that one day we will never again be homesick.  Heaven is the home we have all been looking for, the place we will live forever.  We will never have to leave.  We will never sit pining and wishing for the good old days.  The “dreams of glory” Thomas Wolfe spoke of will be there and then.  But perhaps in Eternity “then” will no longer have a meaning.  It will be Now—a capital letter Now that never ends.
 
Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:6,8.
 
Dene Ward
 

"But I've been baptized and that's all that really matters."
            We wish we had a dollar for every time we have heard that statement.  Do you know when it comes up?  When you go to visit a fallen member, hoping to bring him back to the Lord.  "Yes, I know I don't (attend services like I should, study like I should, pray as I ought) and I know I (drink a little, need to watch my language, and hang out too often with people who are not righteous while avoiding Christians as much as possible) but I've been baptized so I'm okay!"
            Do you know why that happens?  Because we neglect to teach that baptism should be the start of a lifelong commitment to the Lord.  Instead we dunk people like Oreos in a glass of milk and they think "Now my sins are gone and I'm all right."  It's our own version of "once-saved-always-saved."
            Parents may be the worst.  They push baptism to the point that their child has nightmares and begs to be baptized, even if they are just 8 years old and wouldn't know what lifetime commitment truly meant if it bit them.  No!  You teach them to commit.  Then when that happens, you tell them, "This is how you show that commitment, by obeying God in this command," which also happens to be how you wash those sins away.  It takes both.
            Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life… For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he lives, he lives unto God. Even so reckon you also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. " (Rom 6:10-11).
         Baptism is not a magic bullet.  If you don't live like you have been baptized, showing that commitment every day of your life, it doesn't do you one bit of good.
 
Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered; and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness (Rom 6:16-18).
 
Dene Ward

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matt 13:45-46)
            Over forty years ago we were given the granddaddy of all winter squashes.  It sat nearly two feet high on its belled bottom, but would have been much higher if the neck had been straight.  Instead the neck bent over and made a nifty handle to carry it by, which helped a lot since it must have weighed about twenty pounds.
            We really enjoyed that squash.  It was the sweetest winter squash we ever ate, and as long as you were eating on the neck, you could cut off what you needed and just cover the end with plastic wrap until the next time.  Only when you reached the bell did you need to go ahead and scrape out the seeds and cook it all.
            So last year we decided to look for seeds for that squash.  We are now living over a thousand miles south of where we lived back then, and we could not even remember the name of the person who gave it to us.  We sent letters up to old friends and they had never seen or heard of anything matching its description.  Turns out the name we thought we remembered was not really a name, either.  "King" squash was evidently someone's description of this behemoth which they considered the "king" of all squashes.
            So we gave up on the name and started reading descriptions in seed catalogues.  Most had nothing even close.  The same old butternut, acorn, and spaghetti squashes filled the catalogue pages.  Finally we found a catalogue that specialized in heirloom varieties.  They had something called a Cushaw that was long and weighed about the right amount.  The neck was straight and just as thick as the body, so that wasn't quite right, but it was the closest thing we could find.  So we ordered some seeds.  The color wasn't right when the vine finally bore fruit.  But we didn't give up on it until we had cooked it and eaten it.  This was not the "king" squash we had enjoyed so many years ago.
            So we tried again.  This time we scoured the internet.  A friend became interested and decided to help and he is the one who finally found it.  He didn't find it by the name "squash."  He found it by the name "pumpkin."  And we came to learn that there isn't one name for this vegetable, just several descriptions.  It's a "neck pumpkin" because of the long, curved neck, or it's a Pennsylvania Dutch crookneck squash, once again because of the curved neck, but also because of its origins.  I use it like squash and I use it like pumpkin, and it fits nearly any recipe for those things as long as you follow the cooking instructions.        
          Seems to me that the same things can be true of the New Testament church.  I know people who have found it, not by the sign by the highway, but by matching what it does with what the church in the Bible did.  Not by matching a creed, or a preacher, or even a "name," but by whether or not it followed God's law.  Just cut it open, take a taste and see.  If you go out looking for a name on a sign, you can still find the wrong thing.  If you look only at the outside, you can miss it altogether.  It's the inner workings, the body of Christ following its head, the bride of Christ in subjection to the bridegroom, the vine bearing the fruit of the Spirit, the building built on the proper cornerstone and foundation.
            It can be done.  I know people who have.  It's up to us to be that body, to match the description and taste like the real thing so that anyone who does come looking can find us.
 
But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (1Cor 14:24-25)
 
Dene Ward

I grew up in Tampa.  I learned to drive down Busch Blvd when there were actually empty, weedy lots between Temple Terrace and Florida Avenue.  I drove on I-75 with a learner’s permit, what is now I-275, and even into downtown Tampa where my eye doctor had his office in a 20 story “skyscraper”—by Florida standards anyway.  I drove down 75 past Howard and Armenia to shop at the only mall in town, Westshore Plaza, in an era when sometimes you wouldn’t see more than 3 other cars on your side of the interstate.  Yes, it was a long, long time ago.
            I took Driver’s Ed at King High School.  They had a little driving course in the back of the school.  A two lane “street” painted on a parking lot with stop signs, yield signs, diagonal parking, and pylons for practicing parallel parking.  I could drive that course without a hitch and usually even managed to parallel park without crushing a pylon.
            But we never practiced U-turns.  So one day after I had passed my exam and had my own brand new driver’s license complete with the requisite peon-home-from-working-the-field picture, I was headed west on Busch Blvd and realized I had passed my turn-off.  Time for my first U-turn.  I pulled into the left lane and patiently waited for the traffic on the other side to clear.  It may have been years ago, but traffic was not kind that day.  Those cars were spaced just so that I had to wait far longer than if it were a normal left turn.  I knew I needed time to straighten out the car and get back up to 45 mph before any oncoming traffic reached me.
            Finally there was a break, just barely big enough for me to maneuver, if I hurried.  So I spun that wheel hard to the left and pulled out and hit the gas.  My little Mustang made it to the far right lane before completely turning, but almost immediately I was in trouble.  I had kept the wheel turned too long.  The tires screeched as I crossed back over all three lanes and was headed for the median.  Even though I needed to let go of the steering wheel I couldn’t.  I had thrown myself nearly into the passenger seat and was hanging on for dear life.  Thoroughly panicked, I finally let loose enough for the wheel to slide between my hands and allow the car to straighten.  I took my foot off the gas and shifted back into the seat just in time to miss the median and straighten myself out in the left lane.  No one and nothing was hurt but my pride.  I slunk in the seat as the oncoming traffic caught up and passed me, hoping no one I knew had seen that.
            That’s what a lack of experience will do for you.  I was old enough to drive.  But I had never performed that maneuver before, and had probably never paid enough attention to my parents as they did.  “It’s just a longer left turn,” I thought.  No, it’s a bit more than that.
            U-turns in life can be difficult too.  I have seen so many young people completely disillusioned because they thought making those U-turns after their baptism would be a cinch.  Now that I’ve turned my life over to God I won’t feel those temptations any more, they think.  I will suddenly be a changed person, able to live perfectly from here on in.  Once again a lack of experience is showing.
            We can be forgiven from our sins, but very often the consequences are still there to live with.  That can mean things as difficult as serving jail time or fighting addiction or dealing with people we have hurt physically or emotionally.  It can also mean the urges of a besetting sin.  You will still have to work on it.  You may need to change not just your life, but your schedule and your friends in order to see a difference.  The same things that tempted you before will continue to tempt you, and the Devil will try even harder because he thinks he might have lost you.  Why work on the ones who are securely under his belt?
            Tell your children these things.  Tell that neighbor you are trying to convert.  If they are not prepared for reality, they may lose hope.  But also tell them that now they will have help, help that can strengthen them enough to overcome anything—not necessarily easily, but certainly.  Help that understands what you are going through and will bear with you as you learn and grow with experience.  You may throw yourself across the highway the first time or two, but eventually you will learn to navigate the roads of life, and those U-turns will become easier to make. 
            And, if you have been “raised in the church,” you may find that the U-turns you need to make are of a completely different sort.  It is all too easy when you have never been involved in what we call “the big bad sins” to look down one’s nose on those who came from that background and judge them unworthy because they still struggle.  That is the U-turn you must make:  away from a judgmental attitude toward compassion, the same compassion Jesus showed for an adulterous woman, a thieving publican, and a convicted criminal.  Your U-turn may be the most difficult of all, but he still expects you to make it.
 
But [I] declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. Acts 26:20

Dene Ward

I started teaching women’s classes far too long ago.  I was too young to have any idea either what I was doing or even what I was supposed to be doing.  But at the first place Keith preached—it was a part-time position under the oversight of elders—one of those elders asked me to teach the teenage girls.  I was only 20, but he said no one else would do it.  Then at the next congregation the ladies elected me the first night I attended the class that was already in existence.  Even though there were women forty years older than I, they thought that being “the preacher’s wife” made me automatically qualified.  I, who should have been sitting at the feet of older women, was frantically learning as I went.  I cringe sometimes wondering how many women I confused or misled with my inexperience and lack of wisdom.

I hope I have improved.  I certainly have age and experience now, but the wisdom is an open question—always.  One thing about the age factor:  I have heard every excuse there is for not attending the women’s Bible study.  Are there truly valid reasons?  Yes, of course there are.  But there are far more of the other kind.  Let’s examine a few.

“It’s so difficult to pay attention with the little ones in tow, and it’s so embarrassing when they cause distractions.”  Yes, it is difficult, but there is no need to be embarrassed.  Over thirty years ago when my current Tuesday morning class started up, we all had children still at home.  We made comments over the heads of playing toddlers and it was not uncommon that a few mothers would occasionally have to throw down their books and Bibles and run comfort a crying baby or settle a small-fry squabble.  We were all in the same boat and understood, but we never let our children be the excuse we gave the Lord for not finding time to get together and study.

“But these lessons are so hard and take so long to do.”  I am afraid my lessons do tend to be this way.  But really now, what kind of hours would you expect to put in if you went back to school either to improve your job (vocation) or to get a promotion?  This is your spiritual education we’re talking about, and what you know will make a difference in how you conduct yourself in your spiritual vocation (Eph 4:1; 2 Pet 1:10) 

A long time ago a brother went to the elders about one of Keith’s classes.  “It’s too deep,” he complained.  Those good shepherds were wise enough and strong enough to tell that brother what he needed to hear instead of what he wanted to hear.  “If I had been a Christian for forty years like you have,” they said, “I would be ashamed to say something in the Bible was too deep for me.”  Are you aware of Jesus’ statement when the apostles asked him why he spoke in parables, making it harder for people to understand?  Because the ones who care enough will work hard enough to understand it, he told them.  Do you care that much?

I don’t make my lessons hard on purpose.  They seem difficult because the material is new to you.  I am trying to teach things you do not know, not rehash the things you do know.  That really would be superfluous and not worth a busy woman’s time.  Isn’t gaining a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Word of God worth rearranging your schedule, both in time to study and time to attend?  Can’t you give up something in order to study—like a TV show in the evenings?

“Well they are so hard I don’t even know what to write down in the blanks.”  Ask anyone in the class how I run it.  Despite the reputation I must surely have for being a mean old lady who likes to mortify people, I never put anyone on the spot.  If you don’t know the answer, leave it blank.  But how will you ever find the answer if you don’t come and listen for it?  A good percentage of the class does exactly that, and one even laughs about how much erasing she has to do.  Now that’s a great attitude.  Can’t you follow her example?

“My schedule is just so full.”  So is mine.  So is everyone’s.  The difference between those women and the ones who do not come (but could) is priorities.  They decided to make the time in their schedules for a Bible class.  They schedule things around it instead of the other way around.  They have trained their families to know, “Oh! It’s Tuesday,” or “the third Sunday,” and it really wasn’t that hard to do when they insisted on it.  And let’s just put this out there in black and white, plain and simple:  if you are too busy to study the Bible, you are too busy, and yes, maybe even sinfully busy if it causes you to neglect your Lord and His Word.

“Once I get older and have less to do, then I will start attending ladies’ Bible class.”  Wait a minute!  Who are the older women told to teach?  Not the older ones who “have less to do” but the younger ones, that’s who!  The things we older teachers have to tell you will actually help you during your younger years.  If you listen and use these things, you might just avoid the problems that so many of your friends have.   What good will it do you when you finally come to class and all you have to offer are the things you have learned not to do from hard experience instead of wise teaching?  All my “old faithfuls” began young.  The vast majority have stayed with it—that’s why the class looks like a bunch of older women, not because they are the only ones who have time. 

Many of the ones we have lost have moved to other areas.  I regularly hear from them how much they miss a class where they actually learn something new.  “We don’t have deep classes like this,” a visitor to our class once told me.  But here it is free for the taking to anyone who cares enough—and so few do. 

I know I am not some popular, funny, good-looking teacher.  I know my lessons stomp on toes because I make applications that are real to life instead of feel good fluff.  The truly good teachers I know do the same.  We want to help you.  We want to share with you what we have worked hard to obtain, what means the world to us and should mean the world to you. 

We also want to find young women who can take our places someday.  You simply must start early if you ever hope to do that.  I was 21 when I began serious, deep Bible study, and there is still so much left for me to learn and to share.  You could carry it on if you prepare yourself, but I can only give it if you are there to take it.
 
Older women likewise…are to teach what is good and to train the young women…Titus 2:3,4
And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful [women] who will be able to teach others also. 2Tim 2:2
 
Dene Ward
 

I have been a Star Trek fan since Captain Kirk sat on the bridge of the first USS Enterprise—the first Starship Enterprise, that is—on September 8, 1966 (our time).  I wasn’t even a teenager then and didn’t realize until years later how ahead of its time it was, nor that the strongest episodes were really parables.  Remember the two aliens who had faces half black and half white, and who hated one another because one had the black half on the right side and the other’s black half was on the left?  Our biases make just as much sense, that episode taught us.
            The show worked for me because of the characters and their relationships with each other.  If it had been all about gizmos and explosions, I would have lost interest quickly.  I knew who they were, their backgrounds, their likes and dislikes, and their pet phrases.  When Star Trek: The Next Generation came along, the producers really hit the jackpot and this time people were ready for it.  It’s a shame that the television movers and shakers still looked down their noses.  Patrick Stewart deserved a couple of Emmys.  Brent Spiner deserved even more.
            Get a couple of Trekkies together and they will talk for hours about favorite characters and episodes.  To them these people are almost real.  And they will spot the discrepancies between episodes or movies in an instant.  When Scottie showed up on TNG, having survived in a continuous transporter buffer pattern for 75 years, and thought Jim Kirk was still alive and had come to his rescue, my antenna twitched.  You see, in Star Trek: Generations, the movie that put Capt Kirk and Capt Picard together for the first and only time, Scottie saw Jim Kirk die.  He would not have expected to be saved by him.  The producers should have caught that.
            I’m sure you are already getting the point.  When we are really interested in something, we will spend hours on it.  We will take it in and remember it.  We will catch on to every detail, no matter how trivial and useless.  Why, who is to say it’s useless?  Have you noticed that no fictional character will sneeze or cough unless he’s doomed to a virus that affects the plot?  And everyone knows that the previously unknown character in the red shirt will soon be zapped by the alien.
            Doesn’t it strike you as odd that people who claim to be children of God know so little about His word?  That people who call themselves disciples of Christ have a problem remembering the main events of his life?  Forget about the details.  (Quick!  Name Jesus’ brothers.  How about his cousins?  Name all eleven of the Simons/Simeons in the Bible.  Which apostles were known by at least three names?)
            As people of God we should be interested in Him and his life.  We ought to want nothing more than to know His will and do it.  We should be able to talk about it for hours and look for every opportunity to learn even more.  I know people who can list Erica Kane’s husbands in order, or recite the starting lineups for all their favorite pro teams, including stats and colleges.  Some of these people are Christians whose Bible knowledge wouldn’t fill a thimble.
            Trekkies are called that for a reason.  They know that James T Kirk was (will be?) born on March 22, 2228, in Riverside, Iowa.  They know that Spock’s full name is S’chn T’gai Spock.  They can even speak a few words of Klingon, a language that doesn’t even exist! NUQ DAQ YUJ DA’POL = “Where’s the chocolate?” a phrase everyone should know, whether Klingon or Terran!
            Christians are called that for a reason as well.  Do you fit the description?
 
But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you, Psa 9:7-10.
 
Dene Ward

"I wouldn't want to be a member of it."
            The above comment came after a Bible class in which we studied and discussed the very first church, the one established on Pentecost (Acts 2).  Because it began with a membership of 3000 and quickly grew to 5000 men (Acts 4:4), which could easily have translated to 10,000 when counting wives and widows, this comment was muttered by one of the women sitting in the class.  She didn't like "big" churches, and evidently that included the congregation founded on the Day of Pentecost.  Can you imagine saying that you would not have wanted to be a member of the first church, the one where the apostles themselves did the teaching, where miracles were still performed, and the Holy Spirit made himself evident?  Unfortunately, I think I have a lot of brethren who feel the same way whether they say so or not.
            They want a small congregation so they can become "involved" and, though they probably won't say this, "important."  They want a church where they can know everyone personally and have close relationships with everyone.  They want a church where what they say and think matters and where they have as much say-so as the next guy because there are no elders.  Do you think I exaggerate and presume?  I have heard all of these things.
            We forget what the church is.  Jesus did not die for a social club where we get to make the dress codes and decide who can belong based upon the severity of their problems or their social stratum.  (When we fail to meet and greet certain ones in a friendly fashion, that is exactly what we are deciding.)  The church does not exist so we can all get a turn showing off our perceived talents and abilities and garner praise from everyone else, or so we can be sure to have a group who will give our children a wedding shower or a graduation present, or so we can have people to cater the family meal after a loved one dies.  Those are simply the side benefits of being in a body of Christians.  And if those things do not happen for us, we do not have an automatic right to leave the Lord.
            What Jesus died to establish is a dynamic group of believers whose minds are on the spiritual world (the "heavenlies") not the physical; who understand the severity of God's judgment; who believe it is not only their mission to make sure they are saved, but also to take as many as they can with them; who believe their worship must include a life of service to others; and who put the unity and good of the body ahead of their own likes and dislikes.  When we reach that point, statements like the one at the top of this post will simply disappear.
 
But you have come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not when they refused him that warned them on earth, much more shall not we escape who turn away from him that warns from heaven…Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:22-25,28-29).
 
Dene Ward
 

Whew!  It’s over for another year.  Some of it is in the freezer—blueberries, strawberries, tomato sauce, corn, pole beans, white acre peas, blackeyes, and limas—but quite a bit sits on the shelves of the back pantry in those clear sturdy Mason jars: two kinds of cucumber pickles, squash pickles, okra pickles, pickled banana peppers, pickled jalapenos, tomatoes, salsa, ketchup, tomato jam, strawberry jam, pepper jelly, pear preserves, muscadine juice, and muscadine jelly.
            The first time I ever canned I was scared to death.  First, the pressure canner scared me.  I had heard too many stories of blown up pots and collard greens hanging from the ceiling like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but once I had used it a few times without incident, and really understood how it worked, that fear left me. 
            Home canners are actually not just decades old, but centuries.  French physicist Denis Papin invented a "steam digester"—the first pressure cooker.  Born on August 22, 1647, he also suggested the piston and cylinder steam engine, which was invented later by someone else, but his designs were the impetus.  Papin's Digester, as his pressure cooker was called, raised the cooking temperature inside to 266 degrees, which cooked foods quicker without losing their nutrients.
              I may be an old hand at the pressure canner these days, but I still follow the rules.  If I don't, it will blow up.  No amount of sincerity on my part will keep that from happening if I let the pressure get too high. 
            I also follow the sterilization rules and the rules about how much pressure for how long and how much acidity is required for steam canning.  Botulism, a food poisoning caused by foods that have been improperly canned, is a particularly dangerous disease.  Symptoms include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, blurred vision, muscle weakness and eventual paralysis.  You’d better believe I carefully follow all the rules for home canning.  I give away a lot of my pickles and jams.  Not only do I not want botulism, I certainly don’t want to give it to anyone else either.
            Some folks chafe at rules.  Maybe that’s why they don’t follow God’s rules.  They want to take the Bible and pick and choose what suits them.  “Authority?” they scoff.  “Overrated and totally unnecessary.”  Authority does matter and a lot of people in the Bible found out the hard way.  Whatever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of {by the authority of} the Lord Jesus…Col 3:17.  You might pay special attention to the context of that verse too.
            God’s people were warned over and over to follow His rules, to, in fact, be careful to follow His rules, Deut 5:1.  I counted 31 times in the Pentateuch alone.  Not following those rules resulted in death for many and captivity for others.  When Ezra and Nehemiah brought the remnant back to Jerusalem, once again they were warned, at least five times in those two short books.  Maybe suffering the consequences of doing otherwise made the need for so much repetition a little less.
            David had a way of looking at God’s rules that we need to consider.  For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.  For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside, 2 Sam 22:22,23. Many of David’s psalms talk about God’s rules, but the 119th mentions them 17 times.  David calls those rules good, helpful, comforting, righteous, praiseworthy, enduring, hope-inducing, true, and life-giving.  How can anyone chafe at something so wonderful?
            People simply don’t want rules, especially with God.  God is supposed to be loving and kind and accept me as I am.  No.  God knows that the way we are will only bring death.  We must follow the rules in order to live.  We must love the rules every bit as much as David did.  I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules…My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times…When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord…Great is your mercy O Lord, give me life according to your rules, 119:7, 20, 52, 156.
            I get out my canning guide and faithfully follow the rules every summer.  I never just guess at it; I never say, “That’s close enough.”  I know if I don’t follow those rules someone could die, maybe me or one of my good friends or one of my precious children or grandchildren.  I bet there is something in your life with rules just as important that you follow faithfully.  Why then, are we so careless with the most important rules we have ever been given?
 
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 1 John 5:3.
 
Dene Ward

Lucas lives five minutes from the beach.  On our first visit we drove across Santa Rosa Sound and strolled the white sand beach, watching the sandpipers’ maniacal little legs dodging the last remnant of a wave as it crept across the shiny wet sand, and looked across the emerald green water for the first sign of a dolphin breaking the surface while the seagulls screamed overhead hoping for an errant crust or dropped crumb.  We plodded along, our feet sinking into the mud, leaning into westerly winds that would blow the curls right out of your hair, our words caught just as they slipped out of our mouths and blown away like dust bunnies in a fan.
            We weren’t alone.  Pale-skinned tourists in floppy sunhats scoured the beach for shells.  Children played tag with the waves.  Older tweens and teens, their hands and legs breaded with sand, carried pails of mud for sandcastles and sculptures, and gathered shells and driftwood for ornamentation.  Lovers of all ages strolled hand in hand, eyes only for one another.
            The beach itself is lined with condos, ten or more stories of glittering glass, reflecting the sun, balconies furnished with umbrella-ed tables and cushioned chairs and potted plants of the sort than can tolerate the sun, the heat, and the salt spray that constantly drifts over the narrow spit of land between the surf and the sound.
            “Wonder what one of those costs?” we often ask, telling ourselves we would never tire of the view and the calming rhythm of waves pounding the shore again and again and again.
            But guess what?  Before long we’d had enough and we piled back into the car for the five minute drive back to the apartment.  The first time we visited, we walked on the beach three times in three days, but soon it was down to one almost obligatory visit, and this past visit?  We didn’t go a single time.
            It’s easy to get used to things.  When we moved to Illinois for two years, I saw snow for the first time in my 21 years of life.  Guess who was out playing in it, digging tunnels through eave-high drifts, throwing snowballs with mittened hands, and building snowmen?  All of our neighbors stayed inside where it was warm, peering through their blinds at the crazy people from Florida.
            A few weeks ago a YouTube video went viral.  It pictured something not often seen these days—a young man helping a poor, elderly woman check out in a grocery line one item at a time because she was not sure she had enough money, and doing it with patience, respect, and kindness.  Isn’t it sad that something like that has become so rare that, just like a landlubber at the beach or a Floridian in the snow, everyone stops in their tracks to look?
            And isn’t it sad that some Christians need the example that young man set?  Giving courtesy and respect where it is deserved and even where it isn’t, yielding our rights, speaking with kindness, affording others the right to make the same mistakes we do without incurring our wrath, and realizing that not everyone operates on OUR timetables—THAT should be so common among us that no one gives it a second thought and certainly wouldn’t take a video of our actions as something rare—even behind a steering wheel.  Instead, we pat ourselves on the back for doing these things once every now and then.
            We should be like the waves incessantly breaking on this world with mercy, grace, and kindness, whether the shore is rough and rocky or flat and smooth.  No one ever questions whether the next wave will come.  It rolls in again and again, over and over and over without a break in the rhythm, so regularly that no one stops to say, “Look!  Here comes another wave.”  If it didn’t come, it wouldn’t be a wave.
            Are you a wave, or just an occasional splash?
 
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:12
 
Dene Ward