Part 4 in a continuing Monday morning series.  Read this one carefully, and do NOT skip the scriptures!
           
Last time we talked about God’s immanence, his desire to connect with us and have a relationship with us.  God wants “to dwell in our midst.”  But what makes that even more amazing is God’s transcendence, His “Otherness.”  God is so far beyond our understanding that we cannot even comprehend the difference between Him and us.  But the ones who truly realize this show it in fear.  Please note:  “fear” is not a naughty word in the Bible.  It is an entirely appropriate emotion in the right place.

            For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. Isa 8:11-13.  Whom you fear shows your faithfulness to God.

            There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. Isa 11:1-2  Even the Messiah would “fear the Lord.”

            That fear did not stop in the first century, under the New Covenant.  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Acts 9:31

            That word, while it can be translated reverence, also means dread and terror.  Do not minimize it or weaken it because then you will miss the point of God’s transcendence.  In Ex 33 18-23, Moses asks to see God.  God tells him that He will allow Moses to see His goodness, but “you cannot see my face for man cannot see my face and live” (Ex 18:20.  It isn’t that God will kill someone who sees Him; it’s that we mere humans cannot stand to see such a glorious Being—we would die from it; our physical bodies cannot take it!

            Think for a minute about the call of Isaiah.  Chapter 6 begins with the statement that he saw God on his throne, but what did he really look at?  The throne, the train of his robe, the seraphim above the throne, and the smoke filling the room.  Nothing at all is said about how God Himself looks, but even those surrounding things send Isaiah into a panic, sure he will now die because he, a man, has been in the presence of such holiness.

            Look at Ezekiel’s experience in 1:26-28.  He uses the words “like,” “likeness,” “appearance,” and “as it were” again and again.  Is he really seeing God or something that looks like it might be God?  And even that causes him “to fall on his face.”

            When we weaken the concept of fearing God, we lose even the minute understanding we can have of God’s greatness, His glory, His holiness, and His might.  Even the term we often sing about—awe—has become a word denoting the trivial.  “That’s awesome,” we say of everything from basketball shots to a free ice cream cone on your birthday.  We’ve turned God into a big Granddaddy whose lap we can jump into and say, “Hi Pops!”

            When we lessen the fear, we lose the thing it was designed to create as well.  that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, …by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Deut 6:2, and in Ex 20:20, that the fear of Him may be before you that you may not sin.  The fear keeps us from sinning.

            And do not for a minute think that fear lessens love.  For one thing, recognizing the awesomeness, in its true meaning, of God, and knowing that still He wants to have a relationship with us in spite of the great divide in our beings, should inspire love.  God expects this love to be a natural reaction from us.  “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, Deut 10:12.

            A proper recognition of God’s transcendence, a being so far above us that He should not even care about us, yet He does, is essential to serving God properly. 
 
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. Ps 130:3-4
 
Dene Ward

The story of Jehu has always left me a little perplexed.  God sent a prophet to anoint him king over Israel and to give him this mission:  You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, 2 Kgs 9:7.

            Jehu accomplished the mission God gave him, throwing King Joram’s body into Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, and becoming king in his place.  He went on to kill Jezebel and completely wipe out both Ahab’s descendants and the prophets and priests of Baal as well. 

            Yet, in the first chapter of Hosea you read this:  And the LORD said to him, "Call his name [Hosea’s son] Jezreel, for in just a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, v 4.  Now is that fair?  God gave the man a mission and he fulfilled it, and now his descendants will be punished for the very thing God told him to do?

            No, God did not punish Jehu for his obedience.  In fact, he rewarded him.  And the LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel," 2 Kgs 10:30.  The problem was the reason he obeyed.  Later on, when far more needed doing to restore Israel to God, he failed.  But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin, v 31.  When you pick and choose the commands you will obey, you are making it obvious that you are only doing what you want to do, not what God wants you to do.  What should have been the hallmark of his obedience became the thing that made his rebellion obvious—he hadn’t really obeyed then either.

            Obedience doesn’t count when it’s what you want to do anyway.  The true test of obedience comes when you don’t want to do it, when it costs you something, when it makes trouble in your life. 

            When you say, “It’s just this time, God won’t care because I have done everything else right,” you are condemning yourself just like Jehu did.  Killing the house of Ahab made him king; of course he wanted to do it.  But getting rid of the golden calves?  Now that might have angered his new followers.  Don’t want to rock the boat, do we?  After all, God, I can accomplish more if I stay in power longer, right?  I can just imagine such rationalizations springing to Jehu’s mind, the same sort of rationalizations we use when we want to get out of a difficult moment our faith has put us in.

            Examine your faith this morning.  Why are you faithful?  Have you ever fudged a little?  Was it because of your own likes and dislikes, or maybe your fear of the consequences?  Did you fail to obey because in that one instance you simply didn’t want to?  If so, then the fact that you have ever obeyed only means that in those cases you didn’t mind doing so, and that means you were only serving yourself and not God. 
 
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. Josh 22:5;  James 2:10.                                                   

Dene Ward      

Last time we talked about knowing who and what God is, and the way He interacts with people.  Let’s look a little further at the reason and the method He chooses to interact with us.

            You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:43-45.

            And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God. Lev 19:1-4.

            Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Lev 20:7

            You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Lev 20:26

            After reading those verses back to back, one cannot help but be impressed with the holiness of God, that this is the “why” of every command God gives.  After this beginning, whenever He gives a command, God merely says, “I am Jehovah,” and expects them to remember that His essence demands their holiness if they are to relate to Him at all.  Check out Leviticus chapters 18 and 19 to see for yourself.

            From the beginning, God wanted a relationship with his creation.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day... Gen 3:8.  It seems He had a regular date with Adam and Eve to get together and talk, an appointment that was lost in their sin and that He took great pains to regain.

            When He brought His people out of Egypt, He tried to set up the same sort of relationship. 

            And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exod 25:8

            There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. Exod 29:43-46

            I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. Lev 26:11-12

            Once again His people rejected that relationship, but do not relegate that concept to the Old Covenant.  God is still trying to reach us in this intimate way.

            What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2Cor 6:16

            in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Eph 2:21-22

            The first of those two passages applies to individuals and the second to the church, his spiritual Temple.  God wants to be among us.  In fact, God wants what He had in the beginning, a relationship that, this time, will continue for Eternity.

            Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband….through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God, Rev 21:1-2; 22:2; 21:3.
 
Dene Ward

On our last camping trip we once again canoed the Blackwater River.  This time Lucas was along so things were easier but more exciting at the same time. 

            I didn’t have to paddle.  Instead, Lucas did the steering up front while Keith supplied the power from the rear.  I sat in the middle on a cushion with a pair of binoculars and the backpack of water bottles and snacks, like a queen in a floating sedan chair.

            On this trip we were able to identify the water bird we chased upriver the last time—a kingfisher giving a strident rattling call as he dove from a tree limb and skimmed the water, racing around the river’s bend.  Once I was able to catch his profile, high atop a dead cypress, a bird over a foot long with a shaggy, blue-gray crest and back, and a heavy, pointed bill.  After we left one behind, we soon came upon another.  These birds are highly territorial and know not to cross the invisible boundaries.

            Every time we passed fallen trees in the water, I raised the binoculars again and was usually rewarded with one or more turtles sunning on the logs, some with shells as large as hubcaps, some brave and daring as we paddled closer, others slipping quietly into the water as soon as they sensed us closing in, with no splash at all, a perfect score in Olympic diving.

            If it were just me, I would have been happy to continue on like that, a peaceful, beautiful, relaxing float on the water.  But with two guys, both of whom have the adventure gene in them, it was not to be. 

            We often passed small streams emptying into the larger river, but also a few backwaters—larger, deeper creeks that quietly flowed into the river.  Lucas pointed one out over our shoulders as we passed it, and Keith suddenly said, “Want to go up it?”

            Lucas grinned, “Sure!”  So with a little effort they managed to turn the canoe and paddle upstream to the tributary. 

            It was obvious no one had canoed that waterway in years.  The banks were overgrown and we stirred up more wildlife in fifteen feet than we had on the whole river.  Immediately we came to a tree trunk fallen over, spanning the width from one side to the other, probably ten feet.  All of us had to lie down in the canoe in order to get past it.  Still we paddled on, through water lilies, cypress knees, and flooded out brush.  Eventually, after a couple hundred yards, we could go no further.  The stream narrowed and water plants blocked the way, allowing the water itself to seep through, but too thick for a vessel of any size.  So we turned the canoe again, a little more trouble in the narrow inlet, and headed back out to the river, ducking one last time as we neared the mouth of the stream.

            It was fun to go where no one had been for a long time.  It was interesting to see things we could not have seen in the middle of the river and would never have seen where several canoes a day disturb the isolation.  But it was also good to get back to the river, where we knew others had paddled and we would ultimately find our goal—the beach just past the second bridge.  

            Meditating can be a lot like that.  If all you ever do is travel the same old path, paddle the same old stream, what will you find that others have not found before you?  The scriptures talk about musing, pondering, and meditating on God’s word, on his statutes, on the things he has done.  If we want to grow in the word, we need to do exactly that, and it may require going places we have never been, thinking thoughts we have never thought, wondering about things we may never be able to find out one way or the other.  But isn’t that what growth is all about?  Isn’t that why we often sit and listen in wonder at teachers who have dared to do those things, and who always make us see a passage in a different light, in a deeper, exciting way?  I would much rather learn from a man like that than sit in a class where all we ever hear are the same old platitudes.   

            But even more I would love to find those things on my own, and that will never happen unless I start thinking on my own, daring to wonder about things that may even seem a little heretical.  Most of the time, we will discover that they aren’t, that someone else found them before we did, and another old chestnut that is simply wrong will be debunked.

            Yet we must always be tethered to the larger river.  We must always recognize when it is time to turn around and come back.  Exercising our minds in the scriptures is a marvelous thing.  It brings understanding, Psa 119:99.  But God warns us to keep our eyes fixed on his commandments, Psa 119:6, so we don’t get so far off the beaten track that we never find our way back and are snared by the backwoods trappers who lie in wait.  It’s one thing to lie down in the boat so we can pass under a “low bridge.”  It’s another to get so entangled in the water brush that we cannot get loose.

            So today while you paddle your way down the river of life, be sure to check out a tributary or two.  But always be aware of the bowline that tethers you to God’s law, and turn around before you stretch it so tight that it breaks.
 
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.   Psa 19:13,14.
 
Dene Ward

Part 2 in the series taken from a class on the nature of God.
 
            To begin this session of the class I have to tell you something I don’t really have any knowledge of—Greek.  According to my good brother, John 4:24 should be translated, “God is spirit.” Not “a spirit,” just spirit.  Something about the Greek means “a” does not belong—don’t ask me what.  Without the “a,” “Spirit” becomes God’s essence.  Now add a couple of other verses where there is, correctly, no “a.”

            “God is light” 1 John 1:5.
            “God is love” 1 John 4:8, 16.
           
            Okay, so what? 

            First of all, “God is spirit” tells us what he is, an invisible being.  “God is light” tells us who He is, the essence of holiness and purity.  “God is love” tells us how He relates to us—with grace and mercy.  Put it all together and you get this:  God is an invisible person who is entirely pure and holy, whose acts are always perfect love.

            Now add this to the mix: 
            But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1Pet 1:15-16.  And--
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. Matt 5:44-45
God wants us to be like Him.  In order to be like Him, we must understand who and what He is and how that effects our behavior.  The verses we read at the beginning tell us the response God expects from the fact of who and what He is.

            First, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24.  What God is, spirit, means we are to worship “in spirit and in truth.”  Our simplistic explanation of that verse, that it means we do the right things with the right heart, ignores the first part of the statement—“God is spirit.”  If, like God, your spirit is your essence, then God expects you to come before Him with your own true essence.  We may hide from others who and what we are, but we are to take the “real” us before Him when we worship.  He will accept nothing less.

            Second, This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1John 1:5-7.  If God is light, then He expects us to walk in the light.  Our lives must match what He is (pure and holy) or the blood of His Son will not cleanse us.

            And third, Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1John 4:8,16.  If God is love and He offers that love to us, then He expects us to love others the same way and to the same extent.

            So here is the point:  the essence of God, who and what he is, makes demands on us.  This is unique among all religions.  Spend some time studying those Greek gods and find any who desired that their worshippers be like them.  Find any who expected behavior to be changed by anything but fear.    

            Find any who can claim to be, in very essence, spirit, light and love.  That is our God, and that is who He expects His children to be.
 
Dene Ward

This past summer we had a Bible class about God.  I bet you are sitting there thinking, “A Bible class about God?  What else would it be about?”

            Not what you think, I promise.  We often chide the Israelites for putting God in a box, either when they treated the Ark of the Covenant like a magic charm, or when they thought that as long as God dwelt in the large ornate box they called a Temple, they could do as they wished.  The prophets are full of sermons teaching them otherwise.

            But we often put God in another kind of box—our miniscule ability to understand Him.  We define him by the “omni” words and think we have it down.  But even those “omni” words put limitations on God.  We come across a verse like Gen 22:12, “for now I know that you fear God,” and suddenly find ourselves having to explain away a clear statement of scripture to make it fit our preconceived notions.

            So this class was about, not those “omni” words, but clear statements of scripture about God, many of them God’s very own words.  The brother teaching this class is a respected scholar in our congregation.  He regularly comes up with things you never saw before, even though you have read that verse a thousand times.  He would also not like for me to plaster his name on all the blog posts he has inspired from me (I asked and he firmly refused), but anyone who knows him, knows exactly who I am talking about.

            Many times, even though these were indeed familiar verses we were studying in the class, I found myself floundering around in the deep water desperately searching for a life preserver.  I am certain you would love for me to share those times.  But probably you are like me, much more comfortable splashing, not exactly in the shallows but somewhere closer to shore, and trust me, these “shallows” are plenty deep.  In fact, you may never have ventured this far out before.  Over the next few Mondays I will try to share a few portions of those lessons.  Grab your inner tube and come along with me.
 
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. ​Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Ps 139:1-6
 
Dene Ward

We have always shared our garden produce.  We have never had a lot of disposable income, but every summer we have extra beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, corn, cantaloupes, okra, peppers, tomatoes, and melons.  Every trip into services includes handing out bag after bag after bag of whatever we are inundated with that week.

            Once we gave a friend a bag of fordhooks.  Knowing she was a city girl, we did not do so without instructions.

            “You will need to shell them tonight, or if you must wait until tomorrow, then spread them out on newspapers.”

            A week or so later we asked her how she liked the beans.  Her red face and downcast eyes told the story before she said a word.

            “I left them in the bag overnight on the kitchen table and they soured and sprouted.  I’m so sorry.  I thought you were just exaggerating.”

            Yes, we still speak and are still good friends.  In fact, she is not the only one who has ignored our instructions and lost good produce as a result.  All these people help me understand a couple of verses in the book of Hebrews.

            And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient? And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. Heb 3:18-19

            In one verse, the Hebrew writer accuses the Israelites in the wilderness of disobedience and in the next of unbelief.  To him they were one and the same, and my disbelieving non-gardening friends prove the point.  When you do not believe what you are told, you will not do what you are told.

            Now granted, Keith and I are just ordinary people who might possibly be wrong, but you would think that forty years’ gardening experience would make us at least a little credible.

            And certainly God should have been credible to people who saw Him send the ten plagues, part the Red Sea, send water gushing out of a rock, and rain manna night after night.  But people always have an excuse if they do not want to obey.

            “It can’t be that important.”
            “God doesn’t care about such a little thing.”
            “God is merciful and loving.”
            “After all, I have done so many good things.  That ought to count more than this.”

            And so they deceive themselves into believing that the beans won’t spoil.  And their unbelief becomes disobedience, something God has never tolerated for an instant.

            Believe it!
 
For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Heb 4:2,11
 
Dene ward

 
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? ​Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. ​So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. Hab 1:2-4

            Who among God’s people has not cried out to God these past few years something akin to the above?  Who hasn’t wondered why God doesn’t change things, why He doesn’t make Himself known in such an obvious way that this nation will once again become God-fearing and moral, a nation of strength and integrity and compassion?  Who hasn’t stood with Habakkuk and dared to ask why?

            If you have studied the prophets, you understand without a doubt that God has a hand in this world, absolute control of the nations and their politics.  And that hand has its own purposes, its own way of dealing with the wicked and their ways.  Sometimes those ways are indecipherable to us.

            “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves… They all come for violence, all their faces forward. They gather captives like sand. At kings they scoff, and at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress, for they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!” Hab 1:5-11.

            God was sending a nation even more wicked than His own people to punish them.  How did that make sense, Habakkuk wanted to know.
And now, as mystified as Habakkuk, we are looking at the choices God has put in front of us this election eve, two different people who are ultimately alike:  “their own might is their god.”  Neither is a good choice.  Neither will lead this country back to God.  So what do we do?  This is what God told Habakkuk:

            And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. Hab 2:2-4.

            Have faith in me, He says.  I have made up my mind so accept it.  If you are arrogant, thinking you can handle this better than I can, if your motives are not upright, you will perish.  But the righteous man, the man who trusts me and obeys me with a pure heart, who doesn’t give up on me, he shall survive this.  It may not be easy, life may become difficult and even dangerous, but you show who you are when you stand and wait and trust me to know what I am doing.

            Do you know who will win this election?  I do, absolutely.  The one God wants in office will win.  Late tomorrow night His decision will be revealed.  It isn’t my business whether she or he deserves it.  My business is to trust God—He has a plan.  He does not need my opinion or my help.  He just wants me to be faithful no matter what because this world is not the one that matters anyway.  And more than that, no matter how bad things may get, and I do believe they will no matter who wins, he wants me to stand with his servant Habakkuk and say:

            Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, ​yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Hab 3:17, 18.
 
Dene Ward

Yet another technological advance is making our lives easier—Keith now has a close-captioned phone.  Now he can make his own phone calls.  This has made my life so much easier.  Before, I spent hours on the phone because I had to do all of it.  When you add waiting on hold or for call backs, there were days I felt like a prisoner in my own home.

            However, this voice recognition technology is not the perfect cure.  For one thing, it takes a minute sometimes for the captions to register and print up on the screen.  Recorded menus will not wait a minute for the computer to recognize the words and print them, and then for the caller to read them.  By the time the whole process has occurred, the pleasant little voice will be saying, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t catch that,” and unlike a real person, you can’t interrupt and explain.  I still have to deal with the menus for him.

            Then there is the machine’s inability to recognize every word.  If a speaker is not loud enough, all you get is “Voice unclear.”  If a word or name is odd, it will come up with the closest “normal” name it can find in its vocabulary.  I have been everything from “Jane” to “Jeanie.”  And if the word is something not in a dictionary, like a brand name or company name, the machine goes completely haywire.  Not long ago, Keith had to call a man about our septic tank.  In the course of the call, the man recommended we use Rid-X.  What did the machine print on the screen?

            “You’ll have to put some rednecks down their once a month.”

            Yet another time when I was talking to Lucas, the machine told me something about a “pork picture.”  Lucas had said nothing even remotely close to cameras or ham.  But the computer decided he had, simply because his speech was a little garbled at that point in the conversation.  He was a little excited, talking quickly.

            It doesn’t have to be a closed caption system to show us our words are a little garbled occasionally, especially when we stop and think about what we just said.  Think about prayer for a moment.

            I’ve heard people say, “I don’t want to bother God with my little problems.”  Did you really say that?  You don’t want to “bother” God?  As if you think that God considers hearing from His children a “bother?”  Is that actually how you feel about your children?  Haven’t you read the parable of the unjust judge?

            And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Luke 18:1-8

            If an unjust judge will pay attention to someone who “bothers” him, certainly a loving God will pay attention to someone He does not consider a bother at all.  In fact, he will give justice “speedily.”  Don’t think you are saving God trouble and merely being considerate.  Jesus said that when we won’t lay all our troubles on a Father who loves us, that the problem is a lack of faith, not an abundance of courtesy.

            And sometimes I hear, “God has too much to worry about without me unloading all my problems too.”  Once again, a lack of faith cloaked in consideration.  If you believe God is who He says He is, you cannot give Him too much to do.  In fact, the very wonder of it is that He pays attention to us at all!  What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psa 8:4.  But pay attention He does, and He has the power to take my problems and your problems and everyone else’s problems and fix them in the blink of an eye.

            And I could go on with some of the thoughtless things I have heard—and said.  Sometimes our words are garbled.  They simply don’t make sense.  It would behoove us to listen to ourselves once in a while and straighten them out, because they certainly don’t give a pretty picture of our hearts.
 
​The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Luke 6:45
 
Dene Ward
 

I remember visiting our children in Tampa once when Silas was still a toddler.  He was in the family room, around the corner through the kitchen. Instead of turning right through the kitchen, Keith headed straight ahead into the living room.  At 17 months, Silas finally seemed to recognize and remember us.  As soon as he heard his grandfather’s distinctive Arkansas drawl, he came running.  Deaf as he is, Keith didn’t hear him and kept going at first, while small towheaded Silas kept toddling behind, a huge grin on his face, until finally Granddad turned around and saw him.

            Have you ever followed anyone that way?  The people who followed Jesus did. And [Jesus and the apostles] went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. Mark 6:32,33. They dropped what they were doing and left their work and their homes because they recognized that what he was teaching was different, that he spoke “as one having authority,” yet with a compassion for them that none of their other religious leaders showed.  He drew crowds wherever he went, people so interested in hearing him that the practicality of it all didn’t daunt them.  They followed regardless the inconvenience and sacrifice, even of necessities–like food for the day—so he even met that need for them more than once.

            Would we recognize his voice if he were walking among us today?  Could we tell that though the things he said sounded different than “what we’d always heard,” (Matt 5) it was the simple truth?  In fact, what sort of traditions might he discredit among us?  Would we keep following him even though it angered our own leaders?  Would we follow when our social and economic lives were threatened?  Many of them were thrown out of the synagogues for their belief.

            If he walked among us today, would we follow everywhere as eagerly as Silas followed his granddad that afternoon, with a huge grin and an eager expression, hoping he would turn around and see us and welcome us into his open arms?  Or would we be so satisfied with where we are, or so caught up in things of this world that we would never even notice?
 
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand, John 10:27,28.
 
Dene Ward