Imagine for a minute that you are vacationing in a five star resort for which you have paid big money, more than you probably should have.  The flimsy shower curtain doesn’t quite reach side to side in the bathtub, the shower stream is thin and continues to drip after you turn it off.  The room is so cold you have to dress at the speed of light.  There is no television, telephone, refrigerator, or microwave, and the bed is hard.  No toiletries are offered, no room service, and you even have to carry your own linens with you.  How happy would you be?  You would probably not have lasted one night before you demanded your money back.

Campers put up with all of that, particularly tent campers, and they have a fine old time.  They understand going in what to expect, especially since they are paying a fraction of the amount of even a moderately priced motel.  Even when the weather is dismal, they seldom complain.  You take your chances when you live outdoors for a week.  Isn’t it interesting that the same circumstances can produce both happy people and unhappy people?

The only time we ever wrote a letter of complaint in 30 years of camping was last year.  Even campers in a state park campground have every right to expect a well-drained campsite.  When it rained our last night there, not only did the site not drain well, it collected water from all the surrounding sites.  We woke up in a pool of water.  The tent floor billowed up around us when we took a step.  At least it was waterproof, or the thousands of dollars worth of Keith’s hearing paraphernalia that we keep charging in the floor overnight (since there is no furniture in a tent) would have been ruined.

But we didn’t complain because of the rain.  We didn’t complain because it was cold enough for a foot high icicle to form under the water spigot.  We didn’t complain because the wind blew our light pole over, or the bathhouse only had two shower stalls for the whole campground.  That’s what you expect when you camp.  At least there was a bathhouse with hot running water and a heater in it!

It doesn’t take much to be a happy camper.  Maybe that’s why God has always warned his people about a life of ease.  Take care lest… when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God…(Deuteronomy 8:11-14).

Our lives on this earth are often depicted as camping.  We are sojourners.  We are just passing through.  Or are we?  How much do we take for granted in these days of luxury?  Every so often I remind myself to thank God for the running water, for the electricity, for the air conditioning.  I have lost them often enough, and for long enough at times, to remember that they don’t just happen; they aren’t “inalienable rights”—they are blessings.

Ask people today what is on their list of necessities and it will scare you to death.  An easy life makes a soft people.  Self-discipline disappears.  The ability to endure hardship is practically non-existent.  Complaining becomes an art form, and my problems are always someone else’s fault.  The worst result is the pride that causes us to forget God, Prov 30:8,9.

The results of trials and afflictions, on the other hand, are good, Deut 8:15,16; Psa 126:5,6; 1 Pet 1:6-8; 4:13,14. They make us stronger; they remind us who is in control, and build our faith and dependence upon God.  They remind us of the love God has for his children.  I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me, Psa 119:75. 

A parent who never says no, who never makes his child earn anything with his own hard work, who always gets him out of trouble instead of allowing him to reap the consequences of his mistakes, is not a faithful, loving parent.  These things build character.  Wealth doesn’t.  Luxury doesn’t.  Anyone who “needs” that to be happy will never in this life be a happy camper.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Dene Ward

A long time ago, a couple entrusted their two teenage daughters to us while they worked away from the area for six months.  I was 29 years old at the time, and 7 or 8 years from having teenagers of my own.  I doubt we really knew what we were getting into, but we agreed and did our best. 

Having someone give the care of their children into your hands for more than just a couple of hours is terrifying.  I think we probably made even stricter decisions than we did with our own children when the first one hit that milestone age of 13 several years later.  This isn’t like borrowing a lawn mower, or even a luxury automobile—these were souls we were asked to look after, in some of their most important years.

Those girls are grown now, even older than we were when they lived with us.  In spite of those six months, they turned out very well, as have their own children.  I doubt it had anything to do with us, but you had better believe that we were on our toes far more in those six months than at any other time in our lives.  Still, we made mistakes, but it wasn’t for lack of praying and considering before we did anything.

I am sure you can understand how we felt.  Here’s the thing, as a famous TV detective is wont to say:  all of us who are parents are given Someone Else’s kids to care for.  All souls are mine, God said in Ezek 18:4.  The Hebrew writer calls Him “the Father of spirits” in 12:9, the same word he uses in verse 23, “the spirits of just men made perfect.”  God is the Father of all souls, including those children of His He has entrusted to our care.  How careful should we be about raising them?

I have seen too many parents who are more concerned with their careers, with their personal “fulfillment,” and their own agendas.  They want children because that is what you do, the thing that is expected by society, and a right they feel they must exercise, not because they want to spend the time it takes to care for them.  “I’m too busy for that,” they say of everything from nursing and potty training to teaching them Bible stories and their ABCs.  When you decide to take on the privilege of caring for one of God’s souls, you have obligated yourself to whatever time it takes to do it properly and with the care you would for the most valuable object anyone ever entrusted into your hands.

If realizing that the souls of the children in your home are God’s doesn’t terrify you at least a little bit, you probably aren’t doing a very good job of taking care of them.

And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life… Deuteronomy 32:46-47.

Dene Ward

I find Job to be one of the most perplexing books in the Bible.  After trying many years to understand it, I have come up with this:  the book of Job does not answer the question of why bad things happen to good people; it is merely God saying, “You do not need to know why.  You just need to trust me no matter what.”

We all know the story.  In an attempt to make Job renounce God, Satan took away every good thing in his life.  What did he lose?  Seven sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys (remember, wealth was measured mainly by livestock in the patriarchal times), many servants, standing in the community, and even his health.  About the only things he didn’t lose were his house (42:11), his wife, and his closest friends--if you can call them that.  In fact, when you think about it, Satan probably knew those people would be a help in his own cause, and that is why he left them.  He certainly would not have left Job with a support system if he could have helped it.

And that brings us to Mrs. Job.  Now let’s be fair.  When Job lost everything, so did she.  And as I have grown older I have learned to be very careful about judging people who are going through any sort of traumatic experience. 

Keith and I have been through a lot together.  I have had to take food off my plate and put it on my children’s plates because they were still hungry and there was no more.  We have dug ditches next to each other in a driving rainstorm to keep our house from washing away.  I have held a convulsing child as he drove 90 mph to the emergency room thirty miles away.  We have carried all the water we used in the house back and forth for a month because the well collapsed and we could not afford to repair it.  I have bandaged the bullet wounds he sustained as a law enforcement officer.  But all that happened over a period of thirty years, not in one day.  And never have I lost a child, much less all of them.  What I would do if I were Mrs. Job, I do not know.  What I should do is easy to say, but however glibly it rolls off my tongue, that does not mean I would have the strength to do it. 

She was suffering just as much as her husband.  But somehow, Job hung on, while his wife let her grief consume her.  Job actually lost his wife in an even more painful way than death because she failed the test of faith.

So what happened to her afterward?  Job did have a wife or he would not have had more children (42:13).  Without further evidence to the contrary, the logical assumption is that it was the same wife.  Since they had a continuing relationship perhaps he is the one who helped her, and she repented both of her failure to be a “helper suitable” and of her faithlessness.

So what should we learn about sharing grief as a couple?  What I hope we would all do when grief and suffering assail our homes is support one another.  The thing that Job did not have from anyone is the thing that should make all single people desire a good marriage:  support and help.  Troubles should pull us together, not tear us apart.  What I cannot lift by myself, I can with help. Sometimes he is the reason she makes it over a personal hill and other times she is his light to make it through the dark places, and that is how God intended it.

Now here is the question for each of us.  If Satan were going to test my spouse, would he take me, or leave me?

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor.  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.  Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth, but how can one be warm alone?  Eccl 4:9-11

Dene Ward

I bet you’ve never heard of Rizpah.  Her story actually begins in Joshua 9.

The first cities the Israelites conquered after they entered Canaan were Jericho and Ai, Joshua 6 & 8.  In spite of what we would consider primitive communications, the word spread, and just as Rahab had heard about the Red Sea, a nation of people called the Gibeonites, who lived just north of present day Jerusalem, had heard about the Israelites and Jehovah’s promise to help them drive out all the Canaanites, 9:24.  Gibeonites were Hivites, a tribe of Canaanites, so they qualified for destruction, and they knew it.

They chose several men to act as ambassadors, packed up moldy bread, old clothes and shoes, and carried old wineskins.  When they arrived at the Israelite encampment, they said, “We’ve come a long way.  Look, everything was new when we started, and our food fresh.”  They wanted to make a pact.  “We will be your servants forever, if you will spare us.”  Instead of going to God, the Israelites believed these people, and were deceived into making the covenant, swearing by Jehovah.

As their punishment, God held Israel to the deal.  Years later, Saul killed some of the Gibeonites. They came to David for justice in 1 Samuel 21.  Two of Saul’s sons by his concubine Rizpah, and five of his grandsons by his older daughter Merab were given to the Gibeonites for execution.  I cannot imagine the despair in these mothers’ hearts as their sons were taken to their deaths.  But even more, I cannot imagine the strength it took for one of them to do what came next.

The Law stated that a body should not be left hanging overnight, Deut 21:22,23.  But those men’s bodies hung out there day after day.  Rizpah took it upon herself to care for the remains, not just of her sons, but of another woman’s sons as well, until someone took notice and obeyed God’s Law.  This woman, who had been a king’s wife (a concubine is a wife of second rank), living in relative luxury for many years, sat out in the open, 24/7, chasing away vultures by day and packs of snarling, scavenging jackals by night “from the beginning of harvest till the rains fell again,” possibly as long as six months!  Now add to that physically taxing and dangerous chore the overpowering, nauseating smell and the hideous sight of seven decomposing bodies, in the heat of summer, and above all, the heart wrenching pain of knowing that two of those bodies were her sons.  Finally, David noticed, and buried them.

Being a good parent requires strength and sacrifice, and huge quantities of time.  It involves a lot of humbling dirty work.  But no messy diaper or pool of vomit to clean up can come close to what this woman endured for her children.  Surely with Rizpah as an example, we can do whatever is required of us for the good of our children.  We can give up our selfish desires when necessary.  We can administer tough love, even when it hurts   We can take the time to teach them right from wrong, and teach them God’s word day in and day out, rather than expecting the church to do our God-given duty for us.. 

Rizpah could not save her sons’ lives, but even after their deaths, she did more, endured more for them than some parents will do for their children who are alive and well every day in their comfortable homes.

Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law, for it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life…Deut 32:46,47

Dene Ward