A few years ago Keith bought me a leaf blower for Valentine’s Day.  Yes, ladies, I know what you are thinking, but in this case you are wrong.  We don’t do diamonds.  We don’t do gold.  We don’t even do silver-plate.  We have always had to live so closely that any gift-giving occasion is treated as an excuse to buy what we need anyway.  Just ask the boys about the several Christmases when they got bedspreads, sheets, blinds, and even trash cans for their bedrooms.
            I had been spending hours every week sweeping the carport.  It was either that or spend even more time sweeping the house as the sand was tracked in.  With the blower I could get the job done in about five minutes, especially after I learned to handle the thing.  You never turn it on pointed down, unless you want a face full of sand, and be careful any direction you turn if you don’t want to blow on what you just blew off.  Even Chloe learned to keep her distance the first time I turned it on in her direction and for two days her fur looked like it had been caught in a hurricane blowing in the tail direction.
            Perhaps the most obvious point is to always blow in the direction of the wind.  I have quit trying to wait till the wind isn’t blowing, not out in the country in the middle of a field—I would never get it done.  So I settle for the couple of hours the carport looks nice afterward, and remind myself how awful it would have looked if I had just let the leaves and sand pile up.  But I have learned to test the wind.  It is much easier to blow the leaves the way the wind is blowing them anyway.  Otherwise it’s exactly like paddling upriver.  You can do it, but it takes a whole lot more work.
            I think that may be the best way to judge most decisions you have to make as a Christian—that is, conversely.  If it’s too easy, it’s probably the wrong decision.  If it doesn’t cost you anything, you are probably selling your soul. 
            God has always expected his people to make tough decisions.  By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward, Heb 11:24-26.  Moses chose God instead of wealth and power.
            Joseph chose prison instead of adultery, Gen 39:9.  Ruth chose a life of poverty (she thought) so she could worship God and be a part of his people rather than the comfort of her own culture, Ruth 1:16.  The apostles chose to follow an unpopular route that led to death, instead of staying in good graces with the powers that be and living a normal life.  For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake…we [are held] in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things, 1Cor 4:9-13.
            God’s people have always been challenged with this decision.  “Choose this day whom you will serve,” Joshua demanded of Israel, 24:15.  “How long will you go limping between two opinions?” Elijah asked in 1 Kgs 18:21.  Make a decision, they were saying.  We face the same challenge, and we face it every day. 
            If life has confronted you with a decision, I can almost guarantee you that the hard choice is the right one.  You have to blow against the winds of society, and even worse, the winds of self.  Christianity has never been the easy way out.  Yet, when you set your priorities correctly and think in spiritually mature terms, it’s the only obvious one.
 
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days… Deut 30:19-20.
 
Dene Ward

When we moved, we met our next door neighbors on both sides within a short time.  One had hardly uttered a simple greeting before she said, "I won't say anything else, but I am very glad to have new neighbors."  As she came to know us better, she did say more, usually when we did something so completely different from her former neighbor that she was astonished.  And the same happened when we finally met the other neighbor—a cautious welcome soon followed by what can only be described as relief.
            My aim here is not to recount all the things we heard about the former owners of this house, nor to pat ourselves on the back for being better than they.  What came to me first was to wonder what our old neighbors were saying about us to the man who bought our property.  Were they relieved as well?  I hope not.  We tried to be good neighbors despite some serious annoyances at time, looking to smooth out problems rather than exacerbate them.  I hope they remembered that instead of some irritation they felt toward us.  Still, our new neighbors have made it plain that their former neighbor was not a hard act to follow as neighbors go.  Almost anyone, they thought, would be better.
            So perhaps the lesson for today is this:  as neighbors, we should always strive to be a hard act to follow.  When we are gone, people should have nothing to remember but kindness, generosity, consideration, and helpfulness.  Isn't that the neighbor Jesus taught about in Luke 10?  In Gal 1:23 and 1 Thes 1:7,8, Paul says that when you have true faith people cannot help but notice it.  All over the New Testament, that same faith is accompanied by love, peace, righteousness, godliness, and meekness (Gal 5:6; Eph 6:23; 1 Tim 6:11,12).  It stands to reason that, as people of faith, we should be known as good neighbors no matter where we live.
            And so this morning, consider your neighbors and what they probably think of you.  If you had to move tomorrow, would you be a hard act to follow, or would they sigh with great relief?
 
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10).
 
Dene Ward
 

If you "grew up in the church," if you have been a Christian for 20 years or more, you certainly know Hebrews chapter 11.  Some people call it the Faith Hall of Fame, as good a description as any, I suppose.  If I asked you to list the names in that chapter, you probably could.  But even though we are all familiar with it, I am not sure very many of us really understand what it means to our lives.  After all, we aren't great heroes of faith are we?  We certainly ought to be!
           So I have taken a liberty or two—or three, or four—and with your kind indulgence present the following, hoping it will help not only me, but you also.

            By faith the young mother arises to another day of endless chores, sick babies, and not enough time to handle it all, knowing in her heart the importance God has set on her managing her home and teaching her family, and willing to work hard at it even when it seems to present no immediate rewards.
            By faith the father returns to a job he doesn't really like, among people who are godless, immoral, often foul-mouthed and intemperate because he realizes that God has given him a family to support and children to raise.  He won't quit because he doesn't enjoy the work or the boss doesn't treat him right, but will keep on working "as unto the Lord."
            By faith the teenager takes the mean teasing of his so-called friends and still refuses to participate with them in their filthy language, immodest apparel, drinking, drugging, and sexual immorality, valuing his purity as a vessel fit for God's use rather than his own comfort among his peers.
            By faith the single child of God serves even those who constantly pester him about his choices in life, making him feel useless or immature as a Christian, simply because he has not married.  He takes it all with equanimity and grace, accomplishing just as much or more than they do for the God he loves.
            By faith the widow arrives at the meetinghouse on Sunday morning, sits where she has always sat with an empty place next to her, and sings with even more spirit the songs of a loving Savior and the promises he has given us, planning to meet her life's love at the gate where she is sure he is waiting.
            By faith the woman whose husband has forsaken her, who now faces a life of hardship and perhaps even poverty, understands that she still has children to raise, and who, despite a life that has completely fallen apart, a broken heart, and endless, but hidden, tears, raises them to be good citizens, good servants, and even to respect a father who has deserted them because that is what God expects her to do.
            By faith the man who receives a terminal diagnosis faces it with strength because he believes in the hope God has promised, and sees it as his responsibility to set the example for others.
            By faith the couple who lose a child, despite the most horrible pain imaginable, teach their remaining children about a God who loves them and a sibling who will be with them again someday if they will only be as true and faithful as the example their parents are setting before them.
            I will let you supply the names to these people.  I know them all.  Some of them are you.
 
And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth. And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Heb 11:32-40)
 
Dene Ward        

I just made a peach cobbler.  Most any peach cobbler is worth eating in my book, but I did a little something special on this one.  Instead of a plain biscuit or pie crust topping, either of which is outstanding, I rolled the biscuit dough out fairly thin, then spread it with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, finely diced crystallized ginger, and melted butter, rolled that up jelly roll style and sliced it in one-inch wide circles.  They looked just like cinnamon rolls.  That was my top crust.  As I said, this is not your ordinary peach cobbler.
            I have special touches I add to a lot of things, small nuances that make it just a little better and little different.  Like adding a teaspoon of vanilla to my apple pie filling and sprinkling the top crust with freshly grated cinnamon, throwing a teaspoon each of lemon juice and lemon zest into my blueberry pie filling, rolling my molasses or ginger cookie dough in white sparkling sugar before baking them, adding a chopped jalapeno to my collards, and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar to a Dutch oven full of beans or lentils.  I do those things because I am always looking for ways to make the things I cook for friends and family out of the ordinary.
            I bet you all do things like that with the things that matter most to you.  My mother used to finish all the edges of her seams—the part you never see unless you wear the item inside-out—with a special stitch that kept it from raveling.   And when anyone did happen to inspect her seams they were always impressed with how neat those raw edges looked and marveled that she would take that extra time.
            So here is the thought for the day:  What extra effort do we go to in our offerings to God?  I am afraid that too many of us think that coming in for the Lord's Supper hour on Sunday mornings is the most we really "have" to do.  But could we do something extra for God?  Could we get up an hour earlier or stay an hour later?  And beyond that, could we wake up every morning with the determination to offer him something a little special, a little out of the ordinary in our behavior, in our service to others, in our prayer life, in the way we conduct ourselves out there in the world?  Wouldn't it be great to offer God a taste of a life that has just a little more zeal, a little more devotion, and a little more sacrifice? 
            We will never match the extra he put into our salvation, but wouldn't it be nice of us to try?
            A prayer for the day:  I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you. O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you. (1Chr 29:17-18)

Dene Ward

Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity (Acts 9:36).
            Joppa was the main seaport of ancient Israel, the place from which Jonah fled the Lord when he refused to preach to Nineveh.  It is now called Jaffa.  A disciple named Dorcas lived there.  Notice, she is called a "disciple," not a "woman."  Perhaps Luke is stressing the truth of Gal 3:28: There is now neither Jew nor Greek…slave nor free…male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And to cement the notion, notice later in the text that two men went after Peter when she died.  Two men thought this woman was important enough to try to persuade that great apostle to come to their aid.  I am not sure that would have happened in the Old Testament or anywhere else in the Greek or Roman world.
            We know very little about her.  Some assume she was a widow since no husband is mentioned.  We do know that it is the widows who showed Peter all the clothes Dorcas had made for them.  Since our social lives tend to revolve around those with like circumstances, widows and other singles are often left out of the couples group and must resort to gathering with their own kind, but none of this is definitive.
            The real point is this woman's service to others.  Luke tells us she was "full of good works" making her the epitome of verses like, …women should adorn themselves…with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works, 1 Tim 2:9,10.  Do we really have any doubt at all that she was a godly woman?
            Many might wonder why Peter would bother to raise from the dead someone so ordinary, a disciple to be sure, but one who was not famous, who did not travel around preaching, who did not, it seems, even keep preachers in her home.  After all, Stephen, the deacon and great speaker had been killed not many years before.  Not long after this, James, Jesus' own cousin and one of the Twelve, even one of that special cohort of three who often accompanied the Lord, would be killed.  But who was raised from the dead?  A woman who was "full of good works."  A woman who simply helped the poor.  If you are familiar with the prophets, with God's special concern over the injustice among his people perpetuated by the rich against the poor, this should not be such a surprise.  Maybe we need to go back and read those books again before we dare to make judgments about exactly who is and is not the most important disciple among us.
            God thought the church needed Dorcas, so He sent her back at Peter's call.  Would anyone think the same about me?
 
The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people (Titus 3:8).                                                                           
 
Dene Ward

Keith recently showed me the following quote by John Stott:  "A servant girl who was once asked how she knew she was a converted Christian replied: 'Well you see I used to sweep the dust under the mat, but now I don't.'  It is possible to visit somebody else as if Jesus Christ lived there, to type a letter as if Jesus Christ were going to read it, to serve a customer as if Jesus Christ had come shopping that day, and to nurse a patient as if Jesus Christ were in that hospital bed.  It is possible to cook a meal as if we were Martha in the kitchen and Jesus Christ were going to eat it."  Authentic Christianity
            The thought was so good I wondered if we might expand it this morning. 
            It is possible to drive as if Jesus Christ were in the car in front of us.
            It is possible to call a company we had a beef with as if Jesus Christ were going to answer the phone.
            It is possible to greet the cashier as if he were Jesus Christ, or to stand behind a slow customer in the line as if that customer were him as well.
            It is possible to speak to the waiter in a restaurant as if he were Jesus Christ, even if we need to return an unacceptable dish.
            It is possible to speak to a neighbor whose dog woke us up in the night as if he were Jesus Christ.
            I believe you could add a few yourself from your own experience.  The Lord is at hand, Paul tells us in Phil 4:5, which means he is always within arm's reach any time you have any of those situations listed above happen to you.  And isn't it interesting that the first half of that particular verse is, Let your forbearance be known to all men.  "Forbearance" means reasonableness, moderation, graciousness, gentleness.  And truly isn't that what we want the Lord to see in us in all those situations?  If not, why do we even bother to call ourselves his disciples and wear his name?
 
But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 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. ​“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ​so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ​For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ​You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:39-48).
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago. after an unseasonable two weeks in the month of January that left our azaleas and blueberries blooming, the live oak leaves falling by the bushel, and the air conditioner humming away instead of the woodstove, we finally had a night in the thirties and woke February 1 to frost on the ground—and on all those blooms.
            Keith rose earlier than usual to start the sprinkler on the blueberries so when the sun hit them as it climbed behind the trees in the eastern woods, the frost would be washed off and the blooms left undamaged.  He also built a small fire in the fire pit beside them, pulled together from the remains of a fire we had enjoyed the night before with a cup of hot chocolate. 
            Ever since we moved to this plot of ground we have had a fire pit for hot dog fires and marshmallow roasts.  Now with the boys gone, we still like to sit there on a cold night and talk.  We sit there in the mornings too, if coals remain, and some did that day, so, thanks to a considerate husband, I had a fire to warm me along with my second cup of coffee.
            The world was waking up.  Wrens warbled loudly in the shrubs, in between perches on the suet cage.  The hawks cried out as they flew overhead, hunting breakfast.  A neighbor’s cow bawled so loudly I wondered if it needed milking or was just hungry.  Frosted off brown grass may be crunchy, but probably doesn’t offer much nourishment.
            I watched the small fire and scratched Chloe’s furry head.  Suddenly the wood shifted, and the whole fire lowered a bit as the wood beneath completely lost its framework and became nothing but ashes.  Slowly and surely the rest began to burn and fall, and within a few minutes only a twig or two was left glimmering in the white debris beneath.
            One morning recently, when we were sitting by a similar fire planning a camping trip, we suddenly realized that we could no longer plan “twenty years from now” with any reasonable expectation.  I suppose it hit me first when I did the math and thought, if Keith makes it twenty more years he will have outlived all of his grandparents and his parents.  One of my grandmothers lived to 97, but then I realized that I take after my other grandmother more and that would give me only ten more years.
            I am not being morose.  After all, for a Christian, it means the reward is closer, but I think the day it hits you will suddenly change everything you say and do from then on.  It needs to hit you sooner rather than later—life is short, a breath, a wind, a shadow, the grass, the flowers—all of these things are mentioned in scores of places in the scriptures.
            We are just like that small morning fire.  Only half the size of a normal campfire and built on the half burnt remains of the night before, it was gone in moments.  But it still accomplished two things. 
            It provided some warmth in the early morning chill.  The thermometer next to the house said 37 that day, but Keith said the car thermometer, which was not next to a warm wall, registered between 29 and 33 as he drove to work.  In a nightgown, sweatshirt and denim jacket, I needed some warmth while I sat there.  So does the world.  It’s up to me to provide that warmth, which translates as comfort and compassion, to everyone I meet.  As Paul said in 2 Cor 1:3,4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  God gives us spiritual life so we can give comfort to others, not just for our own joy.
            The morning was still dim that day, and the fire also provided me with the light to see around me.  God appeared as a pillar of cloud to lead the Israelites during the day.  What about travel after dark?  And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. Exodus 13:21-22.  Isn’t it in the dark of trial, indecision, and despair that we need guidance most?  And when do our neighbors need our help the most?  God means for us to be a light, a city set on a hill, bright enough for all to see even at a distance.
            And then we gradually burn down and the light and the warmth disappear.  Or does it?  Don’t you still remember people who have helped you along the way?  Don’t you still recall their wise and comforting words and their kind deeds?  It only looks like the fire has died, for underneath those feathery white ashes lie smoldering coals that will still warm you and give you light.
            That’s what God expects of this small morning fire we call our lives, and the fire that keeps on giving will be the one that springs to life again on that bright and glorious morning to come.
 
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, Psa 90:12.
 
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
 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (Jas 1:22-25)
            How many times has the above passage been used in sermons and articles?  I think I have even used it myself, at least once if not more, on this blog.  We must constantly look at ourselves in the mirror of God's word and then we will see all of our faults and be able to fix them, right?  I recently had an experience that made me stop and rethink all of that.
            We had the privilege of keeping our grandsons for a while, and had taken them to their favorite eating joint.  Silas sat across from me in the booth and we were discussing school or friends or something of the sort.  He leaned down to get a sip of his soda then looked right at me and said, "Grandma?"
            "Yes?" I encouraged.
 "You have two different eyes, don't you?  One big eye and one little eye."
            It took a minute for me to realize what he meant.  So then I explained that I had very sick eyes (which is exactly what one doctor called them), and that the "little eye" had needed so many surgeries that I couldn't hold it open as well as I could the other one.  He was perfectly satisfied with the explanation and we went on to talk about other things.
            That night I looked in the mirror, wondering where this "little eye" was that he saw.  I had never noticed that much difference.  That's when I realized that every time I looked in the mirror I only looked at the other eye.  It has had surgeries too, and it is also "sick," but it has not been medically abused as much as the other.  When I made myself look at both eyes I was actually startled.  Since I always focus on the other eye, I had never really noticed exactly how different the two eyes look.
            Don't you suppose the same thing can happen when we look in the mirror James spoke about?    Simply looking in the mirror is not enough when we only look at the good we do and refuse to look at the very sick parts of our souls, the parts that really need spiritual medicine.
            So here is today's challenge:  don't just look at the big eye; focus on the little one, the one you really need to see.  I can't fix my "little eye," but you can fix yours right up, if you are brave enough to really look at it and honest enough to change.
 
How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. (Luke 6:42)
 

Over the holidays I finally used up several votive candles.  That's "several" as in half a dozen.  Now I have six empty little jars, none of which have lids.  The budget-conscious woman in me wondered what to do with them.  With no lids they are fairly useless, and I have no more shelf space to accommodate them.
 
So I went looking for Keith.  "Can you use these for nails or screws or something?"  He looked skeptical but took them with him to the shed anyway. 
Very shortly he was back inside with those same jars.  "I already have a shelf full of them."

Still it was difficult to make myself throw them away.  We are so used to saving and "re-purposing" because we have had to for so long, that it felt like I was being sinfully wasteful to even considerate it.  But I took a deep breath and did so.

I wonder if we don't have the same problem with our spirituality.  Habits, hobbies, even family traditions can get in the way of the time we need for spiritual things.  Those things are not usually wrong.  A smattering of them can even be healthy, not just to our bodies, but also to our weary minds.  But what goes undone because I just can't let go of a trivial pursuit of mine in order to pursue something not trivial at all?  At what point does is become "clutter" in my life?

Perhaps it is time for some careful consideration.  How might I rearrange things so that I can spend more time on spiritual endeavors?  Sometimes it is as simple as changing the order of things or just getting up 10 minutes early.  Can I do those simple things for God, for my relationship with Him, for my spiritual health?

Here's a thought.  Family night is important.  I would never even consider asking someone to give it up.  But maybe once or twice a month you could use that time of togetherness to cook and take a meal to someone who needs it.  Or take your children with you to visit at the hospital, then stop for ice cream on the way home.  (How do you think they will learn visiting otherwise?)  Or spend the first half hour of family night on a devotion and accompanying discussion.  It isn't that difficult to figure these things out when you really want to.

Stop saving useless "votive jars" when you already have a shelf full of them.  At some point it is no longer good stewardship.  At some point, even good things can become sinful.
 
​And that which fell among the thorns, these are they that have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. 
(Luke 8:14)                                                                            

Dene Ward