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

Yesterday was a special anniversary for our country.  It was also a special anniversary for my family.  We lost someone precious to us. This is what I wrote on that day five years ago.
 
            I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.

            I will not cry floods of inconsolable tears.  I may shed some because I will miss his gentle ways and constant concern—he was still my daddy and no matter how old I have grown he never forgot it.  But I will smile through the tears because I know that he is finally pain- and worry-free for the first time in many years.

            I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.  I will not deny the faith he lived every day and taught my sister and me.  He did not just talk the talk.  He walked the walk and effected more people than he ever knew.  His gentleness was only surpassed by his passion for living as a Christian. 

            I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.  I will celebrate his life with joy because his eternity is not unknown to me.  His was not a desolate life of despair, but one that touched others with its grace.  Men he worked with and for respected him.  Some may not have liked him because he was “too straight an arrow,” but no one ever doubted his honesty.  In a day when we suspect practically everyone of lying to get ahead, to get a promotion, to win an election, to get out of trouble, to salve a conscience, it is truly remarkable that no one who knew him ever doubted his word.

            I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.  I will do my best to continue my life as he lived his, facing problems with prayer and optimism, caring for those whom God had made him responsible for, and seeing to every other need that came his way. Many small churches sit in pews he bought, sing from songbooks he paid for, and have preachers they now support only because he helped support them in the beginning.  He never preached sermons there, but they exist in part because he existed.

            I will not wear black to my daddy’s funeral.  He will be wearing white.  What goes with white?  Red, blue, green, purple, even pink maybe.

            Anything but black.
 
For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.  For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.  2 Cor 5:1-4.
 
Dene Ward
 

A couple of times when I was young my family, together with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, shared the rent on a house in Daytona Beach for a week.  It was an ordinary cement block house, probably built in the 50s, two bedrooms, one bath, a living room and kitchen.  What made it worth renting was its location—right on the beach.  Every morning we four girls were out building sand castles and playing tag with the waves, floating on the undulating water just past the sandbar or diving below to play shark attack on one another.  We all smelled of suntan lotion and seaweed, coconuts and salt, and only came in for lunch and an afternoon of card games and board games during the worst of the heat, and were back out again in the evening when the sea breeze cooled enough to give us a shiver after once again dunking ourselves in the brine.

            Our parents got the two bedrooms, but we girls didn’t mind sharing the floor in the small living room, the gray, white-streaked linoleum tiles covered with quilts, the floor beneath crunching with a little grit despite all the sweeping our mothers did every day.  You live on the beach, you WILL have sand.  At 8 I was the oldest and usually the last one asleep.  No air conditioning in those days meant the windows stayed open wide and I loved listening to the roar of the ocean.  Over and over and over, the steady pounding of the surf gave me a feeling of security.  I did not have to guess if the next wave would roll in; all I had to do was wait for it, and eventually it lulled me to sleep.

            Fast forward to a time thirty years later.  We were camping on Anastasia Island, a beach 60 miles further north.  The state campground was still small back then, only one section just a few feet off the dirt trail to the beach, acres of palmetto groves separating it from the bridge to the city streets of old St Augustine.  The boys had their own tent, and as we lay in ours once again I listened to the surf crashing onshore, just as it had all those years before.  Over and over, as steady as a ticking clock, as a piano teacher’s metronome, as a heartbeat on a hospital monitor.  All those years and it had not stopped.

            And then another twenty years passed and we two spent a weekend on Jekyll Island.  This time we were too far from the beach to hear it in the night, but after a wonderful meal at the Driftwood Bistro we stopped on the beach for a walk and there it was.  The wind whipped around our legs and plastered my hair across my face, gulls screamed over us in the waning light, and the waves were still coming in, again and again and again, just as they have since the dawn of time.  They never stop.  Some days they may be rougher than others.  Some days the sea may look almost calm.  But check the water’s edge and that lacy froth still creeps onshore in its never-ending cycle.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: ​“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Jer 31:35-36

            Jeremiah tells the people that God will restore his nation and establish a new covenant in the verses just preceding those, a covenant in which their sins will be “remembered no more.”  He uses the stability of the natural phenomena that He created as a guarantee of His promise.  Only if the sun stops rising, if the moon stops shining, if the waves stop rolling in, can you discount my promises, He says.  That guarantee counts for all of God’s promises.  He never changes, we are told.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so yes, He will keep the promises He has made to us of redemption, of protection, of spiritual blessings and a final reward.

            Are you a little blue today?  Has your life been upended in a way you never expected, in a way you can hardly bear?  The sea God made is still roaring.  Those waves are still rolling in just as they have for generation after generation after generation.  The white caps you see are the same your parents saw and your grandparents and your great-grandparents on back to your earliest ancestors.  And God is still faithful to His people.  Close your eyes, listen to that perpetual roar, and breathe a little easier tonight.
 
I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name. ​And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” Isa 51:15-16
 
Dene Ward

I thought we had gotten past this.  A few years ago I even saw an article or two on the subject, but I guess not everyone read them.  So just the other day I saw someone make a comment to a godly, single woman in her late 20s that it was up to her to change her marital status and it was the only way for her to actually reach full maturity and understand responsibility in her life.  I know that young woman fairly well and I know she is probably more mature than the person who made that comment, no matter how long she has been married nor how many children she has.    

In the first place, how is it “up to her” to get married?  That kind of thinking is the reason so many young Christian women “settle,” winding up in inappropriate marriages to ungodly men, sometimes even abusive men.  Young ladies—it is far more dangerous to your soul to marry the wrong man than it is to stay unmarried.  Period.

And as for maturity?  I have seen so much whining on Facebook from young mothers who suddenly find they have to sacrifice for their children—give up some sleep, give up some “me time,” even give up their daily Starbucks--that I would be careful about tossing that accusation around lest it be thrown back in my face with evidence that would shame me.

The only thing the scriptures require of you is to be a servant of God and you can do that regardless of your marital status.  Paul, in fact, seemed to believe you might even be a better servant if you stayed unmarried.  1 Corinthians 7 gets skimmed over to the point that all anyone sees is his admonition to stay single “for this present distress.”  That is not all he says about staying single.  “To the unmarried and widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am,” (v8) comes several paragraphs before “the present distress” even enters the discussion.

Jesus also said that marriage was not a requirement to be his disciple.  For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.  Matt 19:12.  No, women are not “eunuchs,” but then Jesus is speaking figuratively in that last clause—some people choose not to marry for the kingdom’s sake, including women.

The scriptures show us several women who made that decision.  Anna did get married as a young woman—but she became a widow after only 7 years, which means she might have been as young as 21, according to the marriage customs of the day, and then she chose to remain single for the rest of her long life.  She used that time to serve at the Temple.

You need to understand one thing before we look at these other women.  Women in the Bible are often identified as “the wife of” someone, not because a woman has no identity without a husband, but for the sake of identification.  There were at least 7 Marys in the New Testament.  How are you going to tell them apart without last names?  So we have Mary the wife of Cleophas.  We have Mary the mother of Mark.  We have Mary Magdalene, meaning she was from the village of Magdala. 

And we have Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus.  Never is a husband mentioned.  In fact, Luke tells us that the house where they lived was “Martha’s house” (10:38).  Understand this:  Jewish women did not inherit their husbands’ estate—the sons did.  That means Martha was wealthy enough on her own to have her own home.  And she used her home to house her family and open it to the Lord and his disciples.  It must have been a large, well-appointed house.
And that brings me to the Mary who allowed the church to meet in her home when Peter and James were thrown into prison (Acts 12:12), probably another widow who chose not to remarry.  Then there is Nympha who allowed the church in Laodicea to meet in her home (Col 3:15).  And let’s not forget the obvious—Lydia, who immediately upon her conversion insisted that Paul and Silas stay in her home, another case where no husband is in the picture.  Understand this—all three of these women put themselves in danger of persecution when they did this, but their conviction and commitment to the Lord went all the way.  Where is the “immaturity and lack of responsibility” in that?

We tell church members that they are responsible for what they do, that they cannot blame it on “the decision of the elders.”  It is up to me to know what they are doing and speak up if I think they are doing something sinful.  We tell our young people that they must develop their own faith, that they cannot get into Heaven on their parents’ coattails.  Guess what?  Wives must have their own faith too.  So why would anyone think that a single woman, or man for that matter, cannot have his or her own faith?  Why would we think that having a spouse is necessary to please God?

I know plenty of young single people—and some not so young any more—who are living full and godly lives, spending time in the Word, serving the church and their community.  That is what God will judge them on. 

…Each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor, 1 Cor 3:8.

[God} who will render to every man according to his works, Rom 2:6.

…And the dead were judged…according to their works, Rev 20:12.

Did you see a spouse in there anywhere?  Neither did I.  It is up to you what you do with your life.  Not being married does not make you a second class citizen of the kingdom.

I have nothing against marriage.  I have been married for almost 42 years.  My husband has helped me become a better Christian.  But don’t let anyone push you into marriage.  Don’t “settle” for someone who won’t make you a better servant of the Lord.
 
But I would have you to be free from cares. He that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and is divided. So also the woman that is unmarried and the virgin is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married is careful for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. 1Cor 7:32-34
 
Dene Ward