Now that the weather has finally changed, we are once again drinking our last cup of coffee by a fire in the mornings, instead of under a fan.  The first time this winter, I was reminded of a basic fact.  Cool, crisp air behaves differently than hot, humid air.

              Hot humid air is also hazy air.  You cannot see nearly as far and the sky is a duller, almost muted, shade of blue.  Cool air is clear.  Even my weak eyes can see farther.  And a clear winter sky is one of the prettiest blues you will ever see.

              Hot humid air will also mute sound.  Not enough that you will notice it in the summer.  You only notice it on a cold morning when suddenly the traffic on the highway a quarter mile through the woods sounds like it might just be coming through the trees right at you.  You can always hear better in the winter.

              And that may very well mean that we need to keep a cool head about us in religious matters.  When your spiritual vision is clouded by the heat of emotion, you will inevitably make the wrong decision.  In almost every Bible narrative you will see the difference between wrong-headed emotion and cool clear logic.  Look at Joseph and Potiphar's wife as a simple example.  Which one was guided by hot, wanton desire and which by a decision based on a cool, careful consideration of right and wrong?  And that process plays out over and over, not only in the Bible, but in our own lives.

              The difficult part of this, at least in a culture so steeped in emotionalism, is teaching these things to our children.  I told mine over and over, you have to be a little cold-blooded when it comes to choosing a spouse.  You have to be willing to ask yourself the hard questions.  Will she be a good mother to my children?  Will she be a help or hindrance in my chosen career?  Are her aims in life the same as mine?  Does she understand a lifetime commitment in the same manner I do?  Will she help me get to Heaven, and will she let me help her?  Too many times I see young ladies who are blinded by love, falling for exactly the wrong guy, and who will not listen to their friends who quite clearly see an emotional, and possibly physical, abuser.  And I see young men who refuse to understand that attraction should come from knowing one another and sharing spiritual ideals, not good looks and shapely figures.

              There are any number of decisions we make in life, some having nothing to do with right and wrong, and some everything, that require clear thinking.  Some things hurt, and hurt badly, but must be done for the good of oneself, one's family, and people we are trying to serve.  Some of those things are things God has said to do.  You would be surprised how many times I have heard God's commands completely dismissed because someone might be "hurt."

              And so, as you notice how clear things appear this winter, remember that a little cold logic can be an excellent thing.  You will see better.  You will hear better.  And you will make far better decisions both for this life and the next.
 
“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD… (Isa 1:18)
 
Dene Ward

My jogging time has been cut drastically.  What happened?  My music studio began a boom that resulted in two dozen lessons a week with the associated paperwork, bookkeeping, lesson prep, and concerto and art song accompaniment practice, often as much as 90 pages—I couldn’t even get through it all once in an hour of playing time.  I no longer had 8-10 hours a week to spend jogging and exercising. So I adjusted the five mile jog down to three, and the exercise to thirty minutes a day instead of 45. But I was still exercising, wasn’t I?  The Lord understands if life gets a little busy.  Maybe, but He won’t alter the formula of calories in/calories out just for me.
 
           Then foot injuries with the corrective surgeries that followed slowed me down to a walk, and now a chronic illness brings along with it activity restrictions—no exertion, no lifting, no bending over among others.  Suddenly jogging and heavy exercise is a thing of the past, but it wasn’t my fault.  I was doing the best I could.  Yes, but…

              You can look at me and see the results.  It’s pretty obvious.  Returning from one of the many surgeries I have had, I walked into the ladies room and nearly ran over a sixty-something lady with gray hair, all bent over as if the weight of the world were on her.  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said, then nearly fainted when I realized it was a mirror and I was talking to myself.  At that point I was barely over fifty.

              But it didn’t happen overnight.  Gradually I had to cut back on the exercise time and gradually the weight piled back on.  Gradually the nearly constant pain put lines in my face and grayed my hair.  Suddenly, I am not only back where I thought I would never be again, but even worse.

              When my problem became apparent, we looked around for a way to fix it.  I now have an elliptical machine in the middle of my kitchen.  I can set the resistance to something my body can handle without harm, and there is no danger of stepping in a hole or tripping over a limb or vine when I “walk,” as often happens these days.  It isn’t quite the same thing, but it is far better than sitting in a chair all day.  My fitness, which will never again be like it was during those years of jogging, is increasing, probably less than one fencepost at a time, but increasing nevertheless.

              Losing your spiritual fitness happens the same way.  It can start when you are suddenly satisfied with your progress and think you have arrived.  You can think that while still saying the words I have heard out of so many mouths, “I know I am not perfect.”  It isn’t just Satan who excels at fooling us. 

              The Hebrew writer reminds us, We must pay closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it, Heb 2:1.  You can wander back one fencepost down the road and still see your way back pretty easily.  But one fencepost will lead to another and another until you have rounded a curve and the goal is no longer in sight.  When you can’t see it, it seems much farther away than it really is, and that’s when you give up—that’s when you say, “Might as well go a little further.  It can’t be any worse.”

              Yes, it can.  You can get caught back there, time ending on a day when you meant to turn around and head back where you belonged, but suddenly it’s too late.  God won’t reset the clock for us either.  So turn back now, while you still can.  Just go one fencepost at a time and you will soon be back around that corner within sight of the goal, making progress perhaps not as quickly as you would like, but in the right direction, which is all that really counts in the end.
 
"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isa 55:6-7
 
Dene Ward

I grew up reading and playing the piano instead of playing outside where it was dangerous to someone who couldn’t see well.  As a result, I was about as physically un-fit as anyone could possibly be.  Even after a genius of a doctor fitted my strangely shaped eyeballs with contact lenses more or less successfully in my mid-teens and I could finally see what lay in front of my feet, I had grown accustomed to sedentary activities and preferred them.

              Then I had babies, gained thirty pounds and could hardly walk across the house—which is not exactly large—without gasping for air.  I decided it was time to change things.  Keith had jogged since I had known him.  My closest friend, who lived just across the cornfield from me, also jogged.  Surely I could do this, too, I thought.  But I did not want to be embarrassed by how I looked doing it or by failure if indeed I couldn’t. 

              We lived well off the highway on property not ours, but whose owner allowed us to use it in exchange for the improvements we made to it—tearing down and hauling off a dilapidated frame house, digging a well and septic tank, and putting up a power pole—and for watching the property and livestock for him since he lived a half mile away.  We were surrounded by his fields, including a small hay field and larger cow pasture.  Neither of those could be seen from either the highway or the neighbors’ homes.  So I drove around the fields and measured them with the odometer.  The hayfield perimeter measured a quarter mile and the pasture three-quarters.  Now I could keep track of my progress.

              Nathan was four, so that first day I set him on a hay wagon in the middle of the hayfield and jogged the quarter mile around.  When I finished I thought I might pass out, or die, or both.  The next morning I could hardly get out of bed, but I did and after Keith left for the meetinghouse I jogged again, but this time I went all the way around plus one fencepost further.  Once again I survived.  The next day I went two fenceposts past one lap, and the next day three.

              The hayfield was a rectangle and I was adding my fenceposts on a long side.  When I finally reached the end of that side, I added the whole short side at once making one and a half laps.  The day after that I added half the other long side, then the other half and the last short side, making two whole laps.  Once I could do three laps I moved to the cow pasture.  One lap around the pasture plus one around the hayfield and I had completed a whole mile.  I could hardly believe it.

              I made that progress in one month and lost ten pounds without even trying.  Within six months I was jogging on the highway, a five mile circuit six days a week.  I had lost thirty pounds.  I was never fast.  The best I ever did was the tortoise-like pace of 5 miles in 47 minutes, but it wasn’t the 47 minutes that got me back to my front door that day, it was the fact that I kept going.

              Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves.  I have known new Christians who expected their lives to change instantly the moment they came up out of the water.  They thought sinful attitudes would suddenly morph into godly ones and temptation would be a thing of the past.  Once the adrenaline rush wore off and life became routine, their lack of speedy progress discouraged them.  No one would expect a person such as I was to run five miles the first time she ever tried, but for some reason we expect that in our spiritual progress.  We do have a lot of powerful help, but powerful doesn’t mean “miraculous.” 

              We seem to expect it of others too.  If a person has a failing as a young man, it will be held against him forever.  The fact that he improves is seldom noticed, but let him slip one time, even if it has been ten years, and suddenly everyone is saying, “There he goes again.”  Many of my brethren would never have allowed Peter to reach the eldership for exactly that reason.  Peter’s impetuosity was a problem for him, as was fear of what others thought, even after Pentecost (Gal 2), but he did improve, and those people noticed instead of saying “again,” or he would never have been an elder.

              Do you think others didn’t have problems after their conversion?  Look at the admonitions in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8.  They were still suffering from a background of idolatry.  They couldn’t eat that meat without “eating as a thing sacrificed to an idol” (8:7).  That problem did not disappear overnight.

              Unless we are willing to say that we have reached perfection, none of us believes that it’s how fast we progress that matters.  We all believe that it’s the improvement that God judges.  Some of us have gone farther than others, but if we have stopped and are leaning on the fence, perfectly content with where we are, God will not be pleased with us.  God rewards only the one who is progressing, even if it’s just one fencepost at a time.
 
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil 3:13-14
 
Dene Ward
 

I think most Christians understand courtesy.  Granted we have somehow raised a generation that must be reminded sometimes to consider how their actions affect others, but most of the time that reminder works with young Christians, bringing about a surprised look and a hasty, "Oh, I never thought of that."  Courtesy and consideration should be a hallmark characteristic of a Christian, especially courtesy where it is not deserved. 

              And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ​Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. (Matt 5:40-42)

              To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1Cor 6:7).

              Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (1Pet 3:9)

                But for some reason we seem to have trouble with this in our homes.  Think about this:  we often talk to our spouses worse than we do to perfect strangers.  Instead of asking politely, we issue orders.  Instead of a please, we bellow, or screech, as the gender may be. 

               I have heard men talk to their wives like slaves, "Bring me a coke, get me the paper, why did you hide my ________," as if its disappearance could only be her fault.  I have heard wives talk to their husbands the same way: "Go get me this, go get me that, go do this or that for me, I can't believe you did that in my house," as if it were not his house, too.  I even stood in a kitchen once while a wife berated her husband in front of half a dozen other women who were also embarrassingly caught in the onslaught.  We talk to the people we claim to love worse than we would ever speak to someone we don't know, standing in line at the grocery store.

               "If I can't be myself at home, where can I be?" I've often heard as an excuse.  Where you are is not the issue, but who you are.  A kind, courteous person will be that way anywhere.  To anyone.  But especially at home.
 
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. (1Cor 13:4-5)
 
Dene Ward

When I was a child I learned quickly that meeting with the saints was more important than anything else I might like to do at the given time.  My earliest memories of our faith are sitting in my mother’s lap while my Daddy led the singing, and then sitting on the front pew with him when my little sister came along and usurped my throne.  On Sunday and Wednesday we went to services.  Every night of every gospel meeting we went to services.  Every time the people of God met together, we met with them, and neither convenience, nor school functions, nor social gatherings of any kind got in the way.  As soon as we found out there was a conflict, there wasn’t one, because my parents taught us that nothing and no one was more important than God. 

              Nowadays it has become fashionable to not only dismiss the assemblies as unimportant, but to talk about anyone who thinks they are as “Sunday morning Christians” at best, and Pharisaical hypocrites at worst.  That was not true in my family.  In my house at least, the assemblies were object lessons:  if you won’t do this easy thing for the Lord, will you ever do anything more difficult? 

              My parents lived their lives the rest of the week as godly servants of others, visiting the sick, cooking and carrying food to those who needed it, showing hospitality, sending financial support to preachers in need, buying supplies for poor churches they had heard about, and keeping themselves pure from the worldliness that surrounded them, even when it made them unpopular with their extended family, neighbors, and co-workers.  And they also taught their children to follow in their steps, children who have now taught 9 grandchildren, beginning early on, that gathering with God’s people is important.  All the accountable ones are faithful Christians seven days a week.

              Do you think God’s people have ever thought that the assembly rituals were the only thing there was to their religion?  The Law of Moses was intricately bound up in the everyday lives of God’s people.  It wasn’t just “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,” and nothing else.  Sacrifices were required for various times in their lives, the birth of children, death in the family and other times of uncleanness, sin offerings, and thanksgiving other than the mandated feast days.  Harvest time meant remembering to leave the corners and the missed crop behind for the poor.  It meant time for tithing the increase.  The Law pervaded their lives and these things were done any and every day of the week. 

              Even in Jesus’ time the people led lives of worship.  The Pharisees fasted twice a week, not on the Sabbath but on Monday and Thursday, ordinary weekdays.  Jewish families lined the doors and walls of their houses with scriptures—the original post-it notes.  Their lives revolved around the feast days, which demanded making extensive travel plans and saving money for the trip all year long.  They had rabbis in their homes to ask them questions and hear them teach.  That’s how Jesus often wound up among them.  

              All these people worshipped throughout the week, but it wasn’t the instant cure for hypocrisy some seem to think, was it?  Many of those labeled hypocrites by the Lord looked down on others for not being as enlightened as they were.  Sort of like folks today who think they are better than anyone who dares utter the phrase “Sunday worship service.”

              Perhaps these people should get off their high horse and follow the Lord’s example.  Even if they don’t think the assemblies are important, Jesus did.  Where was the first place we find him seeing to “His Father’s business?”  He met with God’s people in the synagogues all the time, and synagogue worship was only a tradition, not something included in the Law.  He attended the feast days, including the one which was simply a civil holiday.  He taught the apostles to do the same.  Paul went to the synagogues expecting to find there the best prospects for the gospel—imagine that!  Too bad some of our more informed brethren couldn’t be there to teach him better.

              Of course Sunday morning isn’t all there is to it.  God never meant it to be, but don’t become an unrighteous judge of people who believe it is important.  That’s how a lot of us learned about serving God, not only by being there for the Bible study, but by putting it first over every other worldly thing in our lives, even if they weren’t sinful things.  Babes must crawl before they can run. 

               Hebrews commands us to consider one another to provoke one another to love and good works.  That’s what we do when we meet together.  It isn’t love to look on your brethren with contempt, and that’s what I am seeing in these prideful attitudes of instant dismissal when anyone speaks of our gatherings as “worship.” 

              Seems to me, someone needs to be provoked a little more.
             
Acts 1:13,14; 2:1; 2:42; 2:46; 6:1-3; 14:27; 20:7; 1 Cor 5:4; 11:17-28; all of chapter 14; Heb 10:23-25—the reasons we gather.  I will let you choose the one you think is most important.  Better yet—read them all.
 
Dene Ward

Owning a piece of land was our goal when we moved to this part of the state.  I remember when we finally signed the papers and came out to make plans for our new home site.  Walking on this ground was suddenly different.  Every place we put our feet was ours, or was it? 

              We have done our best to be good stewards of this land, this loan from God.  Stewardship is what being green is all about.  We used this ground for our family’s sustenance.  We raised pigs for their meat and chickens for their eggs.  We grew a large vegetable garden, and a little herb garden closer to the kitchen.  We planted grapevines and blueberry bushes and several kinds of fruit trees. 

              We also tried to make the world a more beautiful place.  We transplanted azaleas, jasmine, roses, and lilies, and have added an amaryllis bed, a trellis of six different flowering vines, wildflowers in the field, and annuals here and there.

              We have used it to create a loving home for our children.  Keith and the boys built a doghouse for all the various family pets.  In the early days they put up a swing set.  Later they set a basketball goal in the field.  They put together a backboard to act as catcher in their three-man baseball game (pitcher-batter-fielder), and hauled in dirt from the back corner of the property to make a pitcher’s mound.  We tried to make this possession of ours a good place, a useful place.  We tried to make it more than just a has-been watermelon field.

              You are God’s possession.  He told his people at least twice in Deuteronomy, “You are my treasured possession.”  We have this tendency to say, “It’s my life; I can do as I please.”  No it isn’t, and no you can’t.  You belong to God.

              Maybe it is more difficult for us in our culture.  We do not understand belonging to a person.  That is slavery, something this country paid a huge price to rid itself of.  But those ancient people did understand.  I found two places in the Old Testament where men told other men, “We are yours.”  (2 Kings 10:5; 1 Chron 12:18)  They added comments like, “We are on your side,” and “We will do all you say to do.”  Do you think God asks any less of us?

              Even when we understand that, we limit it, and try to make it sound better for being so:  as long as my heart is for God, nothing else matters.  You cannot compartmentalize your devotion to God.  YOU belong to God, not just your heart, not just your actions, not just your words or your time or your money—all of you, even your physical body.  “It is He who has made us and not we ourselves” Psalm 100:3.  Of course we are his possession.

              Paul reminds us of the same thing in his argument against one particular sin.   Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot? God forbid, 1 Cor 6:13,15. 

              What we do with our bodies does matter.  Just as the two of us would be angry for anyone to use our piece of land for something sinful, God is angry when we use his possession for sins of the flesh.  Just as we want to make the best use of this land for as long as possible, God expects us to care for his possession so that it will be useful to him for as long as possible.

              Taking care of God’s possession, our bodies, involves far more than the usual abstinence from smoking, drugs, and liquor we usually associate with this concept.  Especially as we grow older, ailments happen.  Sometimes it's genetics, but sometimes it’s because we didn’t take care of ourselves the years before.  Staying healthy for as long as possible is the least we owe God, but usually the last thing we think about. 

              And after illnesses come about, do you follow your doctor’s instructions?  I am simply amazed when my doctors ask me if I take my medicine regularly, and if I can handle the discomfort they cause.  Evidently some people can’t—or won’t.  The medicine tastes bad, or the eye drops burn, or it’s too much trouble to remember.  We have turned into a nation of whiners.

              We aren’t put here to play.  We are put here for our master’s use.  “We were bought with a price,” Paul says.  Is the Lord getting his money’s worth out of you?
 
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1Cor 6:19-20
 
Dene Ward

You can find a million diets out there, but there is one thing none of them can get around:  your calorie intake must be less than your calorie usage if you want to lose weight.  That doesn’t mean it is easy or that other things do not play into it.  Just ask a middle-aged woman about the difficulties of losing weight, and you will get an earful.  I can vouch for those “other things” myself, having gone through middle age and now arrived at “old age.”  It’s true—several million women could not make this up and it not be valid.  Be that as it may, you still must count those calories and burn up more than you take in.

             The very first calorie counting diet book was written by Lulu Hunt Peters, copyrighted August 14, 1918.  Diet and Health: With Key to the Calories was a best seller.  Dr. Hunt knew what it meant to be overweight and to diet.  She lost 70 lbs. on her diet plan of maintaining 1200 calories a day.  Her book was witty and entertaining.  Just a for instance, the title itself was a parody of Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures.

              Keith and I do more calorie counting these days.  Our activity level has decreased due to illness and just being too old and tired to do as much.  That means we have to be much more diligent than before when Keith was riding his bike 50-75 miles a week and I was jogging 25-30 miles a week.  Something about being in your 60s slows you down a bit.

              The other morning I was making a light version of baklava—half the calories and a third the fat of the ordinary Greek pastry.  I had phyllo dough leftover that I needed to use up and a brand new jar of raw honey. Such was my excuse that day—but at least I had found this lighter version.  After I poured the honey syrup over the baked dough, Keith came along behind me with a spoon and started scraping the pan.  In between licks he said, “This doesn’t count, right?”  Oh, if only… 

              I heard a chef say one time that he had to work out about two hours a day to burn off the estimated 6000 calories he took in just tasting the dishes he made before sending them out to his customers.  I get it.  My local brethren have so many potlucks (at least two a month for some of us), plus company meals and family meals, wedding and baby showers, that I am sure most of my extra calories come from that tasting.  No way will I send something out there that I don’t know is good.  And if I took diet food to a potluck I just might be excommunicated.

              Yes, those calories count.  And so do those little bitty sins—you know, the little white lies to keep yourself out of trouble, the little bits of gossip that you just can’t seem to keep to yourself, the pens and paper clips you “borrow” from work, that side job you did for a little extra cash that doesn’t get reported the next April.  We seem to think that because we assemble on Sunday mornings and don’t do the big bad sins—the ones in the Ten Commandments—that nothing else counts.  The fact that our language makes people think less of the body of a Sacrificed Savior never seems to cross our minds. 

              The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge states that the Jews believed that “he who observed any principal command was equal to him who kept the whole law.”  Their example was idolatry.  If you didn’t worship an idol, you were good to go!  The little stuff didn’t matter.  All you have to do is read about Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees in the gospels and you can see the results of that doctrine.

              First century Christians must have had the same problem.  “He who keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it,” James said in 2:10.  The context?  People who said they had faith but didn’t take care of the sick and needy, or visit the fatherless and widows, or welcome the strangers to their assemblies.  The same God who said, “Do not kill,” also said, “Do not commit adultery,” he reminds them.  All sins count in God’s eyes.

              This is not new with God.  Ezekiel said in chapter 33:12,13, “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression…if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his iniquity which he has committed, therein shall he die.”

              Yep, all those calories count, no matter how small the spoon or how tiny the taste.  And so do all those sins.  The only cure for the problem is to quit sampling the goods.
 
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:19
 
Dene Ward

The “dumps” is an easy place to find yourself if you aren’t careful.  In fact, lately I have visited more times than I care to admit.  If the doctors’ timetable holds, this could be an exciting year for me and I don’t mean that in a good way.

              I try to remind myself every day that “the dumps” is a dangerous place to be.  Cain found out when his visit there led him to kill his brother.  After offering his unacceptable sacrifice, God had warned him, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin couches at the door,” Gen 4:6,7, ASV.

              That word “couch” is a little odd to us.  We seem to think that God made a typo, and usually read it “crouch.”  The old King James says, “Lies at the door,” but that misses the connotation—an animal hunched up and ready to spring on its unwary prey.  Just like a lion, we might think, and isn’t that appropriate when we consider who exactly is waiting at the door for us and why? 

              When you allow yourself to visit “the dumps” you make yourself a prime target.  Grief certainly isn’t wrong, disappointment isn’t a sinful emotion, anger isn’t either according to Ephesians 4, but every one of those “downers” make us vulnerable to something that is sinful—bitterness, malice, and vengeance, just to name a few.

              “Get out of there,” God told Cain, but Cain stayed.  Instead of changing his attitude, his anger and disappointment became resentment and he slew his brother.

              When we wallow in the mires of sadness, we are far more prone to blame it all on God and give up our faith.  When we flounder around in the seas of anger, we are more apt to lash out.  If we tend toward hurt feelings, we are more likely to think badly of a perfectly innocent brother or sister, and then act on that bad feeling.  And every one of those “countenances” has to do with me making myself the center of attention.  When all I think about is me and how I feel and what has happened to me, Satan is leading me as if he were a compass, straight to the place where I will be more likely to fall.

              How do you stay out of the dumps?  Do well, God told Cain.  When you are doing, you are far less likely to get into trouble.  When others become the center of your attention, you will suddenly find you have left “the dumps.”  Satan will have no hand hold on you.  He can only get a good grip when your countenance falls, your mood dips, or your attitude sours on people and life in general.  Then he will step right up and be the friend you think you need, the one who says, “Of course you deserve better than this, of course they were mean to you, of course God has deserted you.”

              Have you been hearing those words lately?  Be careful.  You are visiting the dumps again and the owner of that junkyard is not your friend.
 
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. Psa 73:21-28                       
 
Dene Ward

Today we had a Caribbean dinner—jerk grilled chicken breasts with tropical salsa, and sautéed sweet potato cakes.  We are not much for hot food so making my own jerk seasoning is a bonus—I can cut the red pepper in half.  As for the salsa, one tiny red jalapeno, seeded, ribbed, and finely diced, was plenty with the mango, pineapple, avocado, and onion.

              Ah, but those jalapenos do leave their mark.  Ordinarily I wash my hands half a dozen times during the course of cooking dinner, but I had finished with the raw chicken, the creamy avocado, and the sweet, slick mango so I hadn't washed them again after dicing that pepper and never even thought about it.

              After dinner we made our usual after-dinner-before-dishes walk to survey our little realm.  Keith absently reached down and held my hand.  Then he just as absently reached up with that same hand and scratched his eyelid.  At least it was his lid.  About the same time Chloe came up behind me and licked my dangling hand.  The next thing I knew Keith had a clean cloth up to dab his running eye and Chloe was at the water bucket lapping as quickly as she could.  I came inside and washed my hands immediately.

              We are often just as clueless as I was today about the influence we have on others.  One word, one thoughtless act, even one look can have repercussions that last for days, or weeks, or even years.  Paul reminded the Corinthians that "a little leaven leavens the whole lump" and told Timothy that the words of two specific men "eat like gangrene" (1 Cor 5:6; 2 Tim 2:17).

              The prevalent attitude I hear, even among brothers and sisters, is "that's their problem."  No.  God makes it plain that it is my problem when my influence causes others to fall.
Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. (1Cor 8:13)
And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9:42)

               It's time we grew up and realized our responsibility to others.  We will be judged for every "idle word," Jesus says.  That's a word we said without thought, without concern for others, without owning up to our responsibility for every little thing that escapes our tongues.  James says "Be…slow to speak…" not because you are slow-witted but because I am actually taking the time to consider what I am about to say before it's too late.  Sounds like an excellent reason to shut up once in a while, especially if I am prone to talk just to hear myself talk.
 ​When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. (Prov 10:19)

               Don't forget to wash the jalapenos off your hands.
 
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! (Luke 17:1)
 
Dene Ward

Croquet has a long and unsure history as a game.  The things we do know even seem to be in dispute.  Sometime in the early 1850s, a woman named Mary Workman-MacNaghten, whose father was a baronet in Ireland, went to a London toy maker named Isaac Spratt, and asked him to make a croquet set.  Her family had played the game long before she was born "by tradition," which means no written set of rules, using mallets made by local carpenters.  Her brother eventually wrote down the rules they used.  Spratt made some sets and printed out those rules.  He registered his creation with the Stationers' Company in 1856, but the copyright form gives the date as August 2, 1853, plenty of time for Lewis Carroll to make the game even more famous in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

              When our boys were in middle school we gave them a croquet set.  At first they seemed a little disappointed—croquet?  How boring.  Then we actually started playing and they discovered strategy, like whacking your opponent completely out of bounds with one of your free shots.  Now that was fun.

              We have settled down to annual games during the holidays whenever we get together.  It is the perfect way to let the turkey digest, and we usually wind up playing two or three times.  But that time of year means a less than clear playing field on what is already a rollercoaster lawn.  Our yard, you see, isn’t exactly a lawn.  It’s an old watermelon field, and though the rows have settled somewhat after thirty years, we still have low spots, gopher holes, ant hills, and armadillo mounds.  But in the fall we also have sycamore leaves the size of paper plates, pine cones, piles of Spanish moss, and cast off twigs from the windy fronts that come through every few days between October and March.  You cannot keep it cleaned up if you want to do something besides yard work with your life.  So when you swing your mallet, no matter how carefully you have aimed, you never really know where your ball will end up.  We call it “ultimate croquet.”  Anyone who is used to a tabletop green lawn would be easy pickings for one of us—even me, the perennial loser.

              All those “hazards” make for an interesting game of croquet, but let me tell you something.  I have learned the hard way that an interesting life is not that great.  I have dug ditches in a flooding rainstorm, cowered over my children during a tornado, prayed all night during a hurricane, climbed out of a totaled car, followed an ambulance all the way to the hospital, hugged a seizing baby in my lap as we drove ninety down country roads to the doctor’s office, bandaged bullet wounds, hauled drinking water and bath water for a month, signed my life away before experimental surgeries—well, you get the picture. Give me dull and routine any day. 

              Dull and routine is exactly what Paul told Timothy to pray for.  I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:1-5. 

              Did you catch that?  Pray that our leaders will do what is necessary for us to have a “tranquil and quiet life” so that all men can “come to a knowledge of the truth.”  God’s ministers cannot preach the gospel in a country where everyone is in hiding or running in terror from the enemy, where you never have enough security to sit down with a man and discuss something spiritual for an hour or so, where you wonder how you will feed your family that night, let alone the next day.  The Pax Romana was one of the reasons the gospel could spread—peace in the known world.  That along with the ease of travel because every country was part of the same empire and a worldwide language made the first century “the fullness of times” predicted in the prophets.

              I don’t have much sympathy for people who are easily bored, who seem to think that life must always be exciting or it isn’t worth living.  I am here to tell you that excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  And God gave us plenty to do during those dull, routine times.  It’s called serving others and spreading the Word.  If you want some excitement, try that.  It’s even better than Ultimate Croquet.
 
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 1 Thes 4:9-11.
 
Dene Ward