One Sunday, a newly married young woman named Jessie Pounds did not feel well, so her husband went on to church without her. When he returned. she had written the words to this hymn.

Somewhere the sun is shining,
Somewhere the songbirds dwell;
Hush, then, thy sad repining,
God lives, and all is well.

Refrain:
Somewhere, somewhere,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!
Land of the true, where we live anew,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!

Somewhere the day is longer,
Somewhere the task is done;
Somewhere the heart is stronger,
Somewhere the guerdon won.

(Refrain)

Somewhere the load is lifted,
Close by an open door;
Somewhere the clouds are rifted,
Somewhere the angels sing.

(Refrain)

            Because it is well over a hundred years old, the song contains a couple of words that might be unfamiliar to us.  Do you know what it means to “repine?”  The song gives us a clue with the modifier “sad.”  I doubt I am doing anything joyful if I am repining.  No, the word means dejection or discontent. 
And how about “guerdon?”  The song says we “win” it, whatever it is.  And if you look it up you will find the terse definition “reward.”

Obviously young Mrs. Pounds was allowing her illness to depress her, and the act of writing this song, reminding herself of the hope she had as a Christian, cheered her up.  She wanted to share that hope with us. 

I can already hear some of my brothers talking about how “unscriptural” this song is.  Where does it say there will be songbirds in Heaven?  And certainly Revelation says there is no need for sun because God is the light.  May I just say this?  Those literalists are missing the whole point.  John’s Revelation uses figurative language to describe Heaven.  If you think there will be pearly gates and streets of gold, you are just as mistaken as Mrs. Pounds.  But somehow, I think she knew that; I think she was motivating herself with her own special view of what Heaven must be like.

The descriptions in Revelation are about motivators.  Those first century Christians lived a day to day existence.  They prayed for their “daily bread” because they had no idea if they would have enough that day, let alone tomorrow.  The farmers among them existed at the mercy of the weather and natural disasters.  The shopkeepers and artisans lived at the mercy of the economy.  No one was going to “bail them out.”

            To those people, a place so wealthy that gold and precious jewels were used as construction material, meant security.  It meant rest from working long hours day after day to simply survive.

            Those people lived under the rule of a foreign king.  Doubtless they had all seen wars and battles.  They knew, in fact, that the Barbarian Hordes could still come over the mountains and wipe them out.  Did 9/11 cause you some concern?  Has it made you worry more about the possibility of terrorists under every bush?  Those first century Christians lived with that sort of uncertainty every day of their lives.  In fact, they probably had more safety as a conquered people than ever before.  But the picture of a huge city with huge walls meant safety and peace forever.  Security—that is what those pictures of Heaven were all about, not materialism.  I have no doubt that if John were writing to us, he would use other motivators.

Frankly, I feel we should give ourselves motivators that mean something to us personally, and we should do the same for our children.  “Getting to worship God forever and ever,” translates to a child as having to go to church, listen to sermons, and sit still forever.  If you think that will motivate them to want to serve God all their lives, you didn’t have any business becoming a parent in the first place. 

And that is what Mrs. Pounds has tried to share with us.  On a day of illness that drug her down, she went to the best place to pull herself out of it—thoughts of Heaven, the reward, the “guerdon.”  Perhaps if we sang more songs about the reward, we would do a better job of gaining it.
 
…we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven…Col 1:4-5.
 
Dene Ward

When I was a child I would often hang my head off the edge of the bed and look at the room upside down.  Suddenly the ceiling was the floor and the floor was the ceiling.  I imagined what it would be like to walk on that new “floor,” high-stepping through doorways and making my way around light fixtures.  The windows would come nearly to the new “floor” instead of being three feet above it.  And it certainly would be easier to clean the cobwebs out of the corners.  I would lie like that for nearly half an hour as my mind suddenly saw things from a new perspective.

            As I have grown older, dealt with people who had many different problems, and had far too many “exciting” experiences myself, my perspective on life has shifted as well.  In fact, if a person finds himself with no new insights on life, especially after the age of forty, he has probably not grown a spiritual inch.  And as you grow, your thoughts should begin to shift.  Things that look plain and simple when you have never experienced them have facets you never saw before.  Suddenly you notice the light fixtures, the exhaust fans, and the part of the doorway that hangs nearly a foot from the ceiling.  They were always there but because you never hung your head upside down you never saw them.

            As a Christian my perspective must be spiritual, not carnal.  It must be with a view toward Eternal Life, not life here on earth, something that could easily be described as looking at things upside down.  As Paul tells us in Romans 8, we must have the mind of the spirit, not the mind of the flesh. 

            The correct perspective is a powerful tool in defeating Satan.  In Hebrews 10:32-34, those Christians looked ahead toward a “better” and “abiding” possession.  With that thought firmly locked in their minds, and from that perspective, they could endure imprisonment, ridicule and scorn, loss of their earthly possessions, and physical persecution.  With the same perspective Christians could face hungry lions while singing hymns and praying.

            On the other hand, a person whose perspective is only on earthly things will not be tough enough to give up the praise of men.  He will not be strong enough to apologize.  He will be intimidated by the thought of losing acceptance in his community.  Living “the good life” will have a stranglehold on him and any trial of life will defeat him.  A wrong perspective can turn us into weaklings.

            Perspective affects every part of one’s life.  Think about Jesus’ perspective on wealth  (Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth...but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupt…), insults (who when he was reviled, reviled not again), status (he counted not being on equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself), his own desires (And Christ pleased not himself but [others]), and death (the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many). 

            No one understood Him because from their perspective he looked strange.  He was walking on the ceiling upside down.  We must be striving to get up there with Him, and when we finally make it, things that look so difficult from down on the floor will suddenly be much easier.

            A correct perspective may be one of the most important things a Christian can have because it changes everything—every opinion, every moral, every purpose in life.  It will determine the state of one’s heart, and therefore, the state of one’s soul. 
           
…They dragged Jason and some of the brethren before the rulers of the city and cried, These who have turned the world upside down have come here also, Acts 17:6.
 
Dene Ward
 

I started jogging and working out when I was 29.  By the time I was 30 I jogged 30 miles a week.  Oh, to have all that energy again!  I still work out, but several surgeries, medications, and bad vision make it impossible to do what I used to—not to mention age, which will tell on even the healthiest of us.
            Some days, usually Mondays when I have had a couple days off the elliptical machine, I do well, finishing my chosen program two or three minutes ahead of schedule.  Other days I just plod on through until the programmed timer goes off and I notice that I was a quarter mile short of my programmed distance.  But I got it done.  I sweated and I panted and my muscles burned for the allotted amount of time.  Mission accomplished.  Maybe I will live an extra day because of it.
            Some Sundays I have no trouble at all keeping my mind on the worship. I am full of spiritual pep and vitality.  I sing with gusto and listen attentively to the classes, prayers and sermons, even making connections I never had before and priming myself for more study when I get home.  Other Sundays It’s all I can do to just be there.  My mind is as lethargic as my body.  I hear, but I don’t really comprehend.  When I leave I wonder if it did me any good at all.  Surely God is upset with my poor showing that day.
            Is He?  If the day was difficult, but I made it anyway; if it was a struggle to worship “with the spirit and the understanding;” if the “all” I had to give was very little, was my service to God a failure?  I don’t think so.  We have no trouble understanding the concept of the widow’s mite in a literal way.  She gave all she had that day, and Jesus praised her for it.  Some days the spiritual mite is smaller than others.  If I give it all, why isn’t that what God expects of me?  Won’t God be pleased that I still tried as hard as I could with far less available than usual?  If God goes by effort, I worked harder that day than on any day when it was easy, didn’t it?
            And if this sort of thing worries you, if you find yourself thinking you have failed because you weren’t at your spiritual peak, then you have certainly shown the heart of flesh that God told His people He wanted from them.  You didn’t feel like it, but you still obeyed God’s instructions in your service.  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, Ezek 11:19-2.  Obedience—that’s the heart of flesh.  A hard heart can shout amen and sing the rafters off the roof in the middle of blatant disobedience.  God made it clear which He prefers.
            By the end of an exercise week I am really dragging.  My legs feel like lead and my lungs seem starved of oxygen.  But I still go at it and get it done.  It still does my body the good I intended.  If you are dragging at the end of some spiritual interval, a time that might have started out with all the vitality you could have wanted but gradually wore down, just keep on plugging.  The energy will return and you will be back where you want to be.  That does not mean that you are not where God wants you to be.
 
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint, Isa 40:28-31.
 
Dene Ward

But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish” Jonah 1:4-6.

            From what I’ve heard all my life, you’d think that the “big fish” in Jonah is the only thing worth talking about.  Our prophets class has found far more and this is just a quick overview class, nothing as detailed as verse by verse.

            The passage above may not be the first lesson we garnered from Jonah, but it is one we need more than we realize.  Here is Jonah, the only Jew, the only member of God’s covenant people, on this boat as a mighty storm threatens to engulf it and take them all to a watery grave, and he is the only one not praying.  In fact, a heathen captain has to take him to task to get him started.

            Have you ever been embarrassed by the zeal of a “heathen” friend or neighbor when that zeal should have come from you first?  Have you ever fallen to pieces while one of them calmly said, “Let’s pray about this,” and did?  Have you ever related a wonderful occurrence in your life without once mentioning the goodness of God only to have someone else “give God the glory” with every other word?  Have you ever had your door knocked on by someone looking to convert a soul when you have never even invited a friend to services?  We are Jonah, folks, far too many times.

            I would blame it on such a fervent desire to avoid false doctrine that we pushed the pendulum much too far.  I would do that except for this—nowadays I am not even sure we know which “false doctrine” we are trying to avoid.  It has simply become tradition.  We don’t do anything to call attention to ourselves, nor to God for that matter.  We want to be quiet and comfortable, certainly not “out there” with our religion, and so our God is not praised nor thanked nor acknowledged when He should be.  “We don’t do that,” I’ve heard it said.  And I, for one, would like to know why.

            None of those things is foreign to the scriptures.  You find all of them abounding in the epistles and saturating the Psalms.  God is everywhere.  What He does is always mentioned.  He is the reason for praise, for fear, for awe, and He expects us to acknowledge it. 

            Why didn’t Jonah do so?  Because he was trying to get away from God.  He was trying to avoid his mission.  He had God placed in a box in a town in a covenant land and thought if he got far enough away, God would forget about him. 

            Is that why we do it?  Are we trying to avoid God everywhere except the church building?  Is it far more comfortable to hide ourselves with silence than to proclaim our faith?   
When the world can shame my faith, can I even keep calling it that?
 
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths, Prov 3:5-6.
 
Dene Ward

I have learned a lot of things over the years, among them these:  No matter how well you keep your house, the morning that you get busy with something early on and decide to finish before you dress and do the usual morning chores, will always be the morning the neighbor stops by and finds you still in your bathrobe at 11, the breakfast dishes scattered over the countertop, and the bed unmade—and the more you try to explain that this is unusual for you, the more unbelievable you will sound.  When someone tells you a joke you don’t “get,” you will suddenly comprehend the punch line and laugh raucously the next morning while standing at the checkout behind a woman who has just told the cashier that her mother has a terminal illness.  And your baby will always choose the moment after the preacher reads Hab 2:20, Jehovah is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him, to fill his diaper as noisily as possible. 

            Part of learning how to live is learning how to cope with annoyances and embarrassments on an every day basis, realizing that you are not the only one this happens to.

            So why do we let disappointments ruin our faith so easily?  Yes, the church is God’s perfect institution, but as long as it is filled with people like you and me, it will not always behave itself perfectly.  Even the chosen twelve had a Judas among them.  Even the first Christians had a couple like Ananias and Sapphira, who gave for the praise they would receive rather than from a heart of love.  Even the first church had instances of social bias that caused uproar over the care of widows.  Yet they got over it, continuing to work and grow by leaps and bounds.  Why can’t we?

            It is good to have ideals, but be realistic as well.  God will never disappoint you, but His people will.  Until you can present to them a perfect example of righteousness, don’t expect them to do so for you.  Rather, understand that we are all growing together.

            Someone someday will lie about you, perhaps even a Christian.  Realize this—most of the time they don’t even know they are lying.  For some reason or other their attitude of depression or bitterness at that moment has put a winding road in their ear canals that twists everything they hear into something hurtful.  By the time they tell someone else what they “heard,” they really think that is exactly what you said.  You know what?  It won’t kill you.  People who know you (or the other person) will either dismiss the comment entirely or ask you about it, giving you a chance to set the record straight.  Anyone who believes it has their own problems to deal with.  In ten years, no one will care, because no one will remember.  I know.  These days it only costs me one night of sleep instead of a year’s worth of worry.  Progress!

            Stop expecting perfection where there is none.  Stop blaming God for the sins of His children.  Remember to whom you were converted—to the Lord, and not to a group of forgiven sinners who sometimes backslide.  Learn not to expect more than you can deliver yourself.  It’s a whole lot easier on your faith.
 
And he said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come; but woe unto him, through whom they come...For there must be also factions among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you. Luke 17:11; 1 Cor 11:19.
 
Dene Ward

My grandsons have “buddies,” their favorite stuffed animals/characters/items to sleep with.  For Silas it is a soft fabric Spiderman, a similarly made Mario (as in the video game), and his “blankie,” a receiving blanket that has been with him since he was an infant.  For Judah it’s Tiger (stuffed of course), Marshall (a stuffed Dalmatian he named after the Paw Patrol character), and his blankie, several times bigger than his brother’s.  They go with them everywhere.  On any sort of trip, you will see those buddies in the back seat.  Sometimes they are not in the arms of those little guys, but just their presence somewhere nearby has a calming effect.

Can they do without them?  Yes, they can.  They never take them into the meetinghouse, or into a restaurant, and especially not to school.  Their primary function is as bedtime buddies.  However, should they become frightened or upset, guess who they look for?  Guess what they ask for?  When the tears start, guess what Mommy and Daddy start scouring the house for?  Once they are found, the relief is instant.  No more crying.  No more fear.  No more worries about what lies ahead.  They have their buddies, and they are just fine.  They will even tolerate being left with a babysitter or taken two plus hours north to Grandma’s house for several days without Mom and Dad as long as those buddies are with them.

At the risk of sounding irreverent, isn’t that how God and our Lord should be to us?  Shouldn’t we recognize their presence every day, in fact, plead for their presence in our lives and be grateful for it?  When things go awry, as they will sooner or later in everyone’s life, shouldn’t they be the ones we look for?  And once we are assured of their presence, shouldn’t the relief be instant?  Isn’t that what faith is all about?

Hannah could not have children, it seemed, the great longing of every Hebrew woman.  In addition her rival wife “provoked her” constantly.  She was “in great bitterness” and “wept sorely” (1 Sam 1:10).  What did she do?  She went to God and prayed her heart out.  “I poured out my soul before Jehovah,” she told Samuel (v 15).  And what happened afterward?  “Her countenance was no longer sad (v 18).

What do you do when a crisis rears its ugly head?  What do you rely on?  Who do you count on?  What calms your fears and dispels your worries?  Hannah knew who her real Buddy was, and He calmed her as no one else could.  If your “buddies” are anyone or anything besides your Father and Older Brother and your Comforting Helper, you will be sorely disappointed in the results.  

Those little boys will go anywhere as long as they have their buddies.  We sing a song, “If Jesus goes with me, I’ll go—anywhere.”  Can you?
 
I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and will execute justice for the needy. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence, Ps 140:12-13.

Dene Ward

We were driving a hilly section of North Georgia on a winding backroad between small Southern towns, the kind with steepled churches, brick town halls on green grass-carpeted squares, and railroad tracks running right down the middle of Main Street between diagonal parking on either side of the road.  Away from the towns farmland tufted with white cotton bolls, metals barns housing lumberyards, and firewood stands with cords stacked for sale were nestled among single wide and double wide trailers, old frame farmhouses and the occasional red brick ranch style home of the younger generation.

            Then we passed a deserted house.  You can always tell.  The paint is peeling, the gutters are full of leaves, and the naked windows stare out at you, no light of life within them.  A house left to itself always deteriorates far more quickly than one that is lived in.

            And the yard?  Weedy, strewn with wind-blown trash, gardens filled with dried up flower heads or bolted vegetables, everything withered from lack of care.  A garden left to itself always goes to seed.

            So how did some primordial soup produce even one cell of life where there was none before, and how did that cell evolve into something more and more complex, and finally become an intelligent creature conscious of its own existence and that of others outside itself, able to reason, to create, and to appreciate art of all kinds, and strategize plots of great complexity? 

            Until someone can show me a vacant house that keeps itself clean and void of rot, and a garden that never needs weeding or watering, I just won’t believe it.  I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but God made me smart enough to see through that one.
 
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, Rom 1:18-22.
 
Dene Ward

“It’s just for fun,” I keep hearing.  “I know it doesn’t mean anything.” 

            If it doesn’t mean anything, why am I wasting my time on it?  And since when does God ever countenance sin “just for fun?”

            Astrology, palm reading, psychics, mediums, “ghost whisperers”—God condemns every one of these things and all their cousins in His word.

            There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this, Deut 18:10-14.  “God has not allowed you to do this.”  Isn’t that plain enough?  And if it isn’t, do you really want to be lumped in with people who sacrifice their children?

            “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers (people who claim to consult the dead}; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God, Lev 19:31.  It makes you unclean, unfit to serve God.

            And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? Isa 8:19.  It doesn’t even make sense, God tells us. 

            But it does make sense to Satan.  If he can get you to listen to anyone besides God, he has made his first inroad into your heart.  And lest anyone say, “These are all Old Testament passages,” let’s remind him of Gal 5:20 where these things are lumped under the heading of sorcery and labelled “a work of the flesh.”

            And no, these condemnations are not only to those who actually practice these things as Ezekiel makes crystal clear:  And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the [false] prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike--Ezek 14:10.  You can’t play around with this stuff and not be considered guilty, even if all you do is ask them a question.  Even brand new Christians understood that in Acts 19:18-20, and at great financial loss burned their books of divination.  It was obvious to them, babes that they were, that these things were an abomination to God.

            So please, stop playing with fire.  Stop making excuses.  Don’t let yourself be so fascinated that you lose all sense of right and wrong.  God will not tolerate a little playing around.  To Him it is sin, plain and simple.
 
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death, Rev 21:8.
 
Dene Ward

            Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.

            So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”

            Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.

            Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”

            Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.

            And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.

            And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 

            What are you afraid of this morning?

“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 8:12-13.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, (Matt 10:28.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,” Isa 51:7-8.

​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.

Dene Ward

            I’m seeing a lot my brothers and sisters running around beating their breasts and wailing like Chicken Little, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” The world is about to end, they are sure.  All is lost for the people of God.  Nonsense.

            And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did send me before you to preserve life, (Gen 45:4-5.

            Would you have thought twenty years before that statement that God was doing anything?  Here is the one He has sent to preserve the chosen people of God, the forbears of the Messiah, and he is sold as a slave and then falsely accused and thrown into prison and forgotten by the man he helped.  And now those chosen people are in danger of death from a famine.  But yes, God was accomplishing exactly what He set out to do, using the imperfect and illogical actions of men.

            Years later the people of God are under constant attack from marauding Midianites who regularly swoop in and take the produce of their farming and herding, leaving them barely able to survive and afraid to perform even menial day to day tasks.

            Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor,” Judg 6:11-12.

            O mighty man of valor?  A man so scared he is trying to thresh wheat deep in a winepress?  A man whose first task he would only try in the middle of the night?  A man who needed sign after sign to reassure him?  And then he has only an army of 300 against a host of 135,000 (Judg 8:10)?  Yes, that was the man and the method God chose and that man ultimately came through, delivering the people and acting as judge for forty years after.

            They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” For they conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant-- Ps 83:3-5.  Imagine how it looked to the few faithful throughout Israel’s history—the 7000 who did not bow their knee to Baal, the righteous remnant that watched as the city of God fell to invaders who performed sacrilege after sacrilege to prove that their god was more powerful than Jehovah.  And that is exactly how it looked.

            And then think of those disciples as Jesus was carried away, tortured, and killed.  Here was the Messiah, they believed, and how could this be happening?  They had placed all their hopes in him and now that hope was lost.

            But that too turned into the most unlikely victory—11 men standing on a mountain wondering how in the world they could fulfill the mission they had just been given.  Once again God managed, not to just eke out a victory, but to overwhelmingly conquer as Christianity swept the world. 

            Did they give up when persecution hit them almost immediately?  Did they give up thirty years later when Nero tried it again? Or the next time, or the next?

            Just who do we think God is?  He is not a loser.  He is in control.  His ways are not ours—surely you’ve quoted that verse yourself.  It may look like things are going south, but what has happened throughout history, over and over and over?  GOD WINS.  The victory is not always easy for His people.  Sometimes they are hurt.  Sometimes they die.  Sometimes they die horrible deaths.  When you committed your life to Him, what did you think you signed up for?  Comfort and ease?  Riches and popularity? 

            Stop wailing and whining because things are bad.  The first century church came into a world every bit as bad—or worse!  It was a hard victory, but it was a victory.  Some of them celebrated it in another plane, and that may yet be our future too.  But do not ever doubt who is in control and who will win. 

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations…Psalm 145:13.

Dene Ward