A few years ago Keith dug up a plant he found out in the field far from the house, surrounded by stinging nettles and poison ivy.  He had thought it looked like something besides another weed.  When I rubbed the leaves between my fingers and sniffed, I discovered it was spearmint.  So I potted it and put it next to my herb bed, where it comes in handy every so often, and grows so bountifully I have to give it a haircut once in awhile.
            Imagine finding a useful herb in the middle of a patch of useless, annoying, and even dangerous weeds.  I thought of that mint plant a few days ago when we studied Rahab in one of my classes.  I have written about her before, and you can read that article in the Bible people category to your right, “The Scarlet Woman and Her Scarlet Cord,” but something new struck my mind in this latest discussion. 
            God told Abraham his descendants would not receive their land inheritance for another 400 years because “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full,” Gen 15:13-16.  The people of Canaan, the Promised Land, were not yet so wicked that God was ready to destroy them, but the time was coming. 
            If there is a Bible definition for “total depravity” perhaps that is it:  “when their iniquity is full.”  That had happened before in the book of Genesis—to Sodom in Genesis 19, and to the whole world in Genesis 6 when God saw that “every intention of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually” (v 5), another fine definition for total depravity.
            Both times God brought about a complete destruction—except for a tiny remnant that we can count on our fingers in each instance. That means that when God finally brought the Israelites into their land, the Canaanites’ iniquity was “full” and those people must have been every bit as wicked as the people of Sodom and the world in general in Noah’s day. 
            Yet right in the middle of Jericho, the first city to be conquered, a harlot believed in Jehovah God.  A harlot.  Would you have bothered speaking to her if she were your neighbor, much less invited her to a Bible study?  But she outshone even the people of God in a way that made God take notice of her.
            Thirty-eight years before, when those first 12 spies came back from their scouting expedition in Numbers 13, ten of them, the vast majority, gave a fearful report.  Look at the words they used:  “we are not able;” “they are stronger than us.”  Look at the words Rahab used when she spoke to the two later spies:  “I know the Lord has given you the land;” “our hearts melted and there was no spirit left in any man…because the Lord your God he is God.”  The earlier Israelites raised “a loud cry,” “wept all night,” and “grumbled against Moses and Aaron” (Num 14:1-4).  Rahab sent the spies safely on their way and hung a scarlet cord in her window, patiently waiting for the deliverance promised by two men she had never seen before in her life, but whose God she had grown to believe in with all her heart.  The difference is startling.  If you didn’t know anything but their words and actions, which would you think were children of God?
            And a woman like this lived in a place determined for destruction because its iniquity was “full,” plying a trade we despise, living a life of moral degradation as a matter of course.
            Who lives in your neighborhood?  What kind of lives do they lead?  Rahab had heard about the God of Israel for forty years (Josh 2:10), assuming she was that old—if not, then all her life.  Have your neighbors heard about your God?  Have they seen Him in your actions, in your interactions, and in your absolute assurance that He is and that He cares for you, even when life deals you a blow?
            Do your words sound like the faithless Israelites’ or like the faithful prostitute’s?  Would God transplant you out of the weeds into the herb garden, or dig you up and throw you out among the thorns and nettles where a useless plant belongs?
            Don’t count on the fact that you aren’t a harlot.
 
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:10-14.
 
Dene Ward

We first encountered a coreopsis when we planted several packets of wildflowers and a few sprang up along the edge of our mown field.   These two foot high plants held bright yellow ray flowers on bare stalks above lance shaped leaves.  “Tickseed” I found as its colloquial name because its hard flat black fruit resembles a tick.
            Although they still spring up here and there nearly fifteen years after that original planting, they are sparse and tend to congregate on the southern edge of the field, shining like the occasional light bulb in a sea of green grass and weeds.  They had just started blooming in early May when I spent my entire morning walk with Chloe talking to God about a particularly thorny issue.  I had just asked for what seemed impossible. 
            It has taken me years to reach this point.  The church of my day spent nearly its entire existence fighting false doctrines, certainly a noble cause.  False teaching can steal souls as easily as the temptations of an increasingly carnal culture.  But we often forgot to balance those teachings with the truth, jumping far beyond it to a place of certain safety, where we were so far from the ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing that we fell into the pit of despair instead.  Yes, miracles have ceased, but that doesn’t mean that God no longer works in the world or that my prayers will not be answered.  Yes, the Holy Spirit operates through the Word He inspired, but that doesn’t meant that I will not receive help from an avenue He has set in motion.  Providence, we call all of those things—normal natural occurrences that seem to come at the most opportune times.
            And so I was walking along the path, pulling my way with those now ubiquitous trekking poles of mine, along the back fence, probably fifty feet from the nearest--and loneliest--coreopsis, turning on its southwest side by a stretch where we had sown none of them, and none had ever before appeared.  When things do spread, they always go north-northwest, certainly never south, especially in the summer.  Yet suddenly, right there before me stood a bright yellow beacon where it should not have been.  It was so unexpected I came to a complete halt and called Chloe over, as if she too should have cared.  Coming as it did so surprisingly, just after that impossible request, I was instantly reminded that God can do the impossible, and my spirits soared.
            No, I am not a mystic, or a believer in such things.  But I am reminded of a sermon Jesus preached once, where it seems he glanced up and surely must have seen a flock of birds on the wing, so he said, “Behold the birds of the heavens,” and a few minutes later when he surely must have seen a nearby patch of flowers and said, “Consider the lilies of the field.”  Jesus had no problem at all using the natural world to teach His lessons.  Why can’t I use the natural world to remind me of lessons I need at a particular time?
            I have a friend who loves butterflies.  As she endures cancer treatment she often says, “God sent me a butterfly today.”  She had looked outside and seen one flitting around in her flowerbeds.  That butterfly reminded her that God cares for her, just as Jesus reminds us, Look at the birds of the heavens, that they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you of much more value than they? Matt 6:26. 
            God has created an amazing natural world to teach us if we will but pay attention.  Solomon used that natural world in the wisdom God gave him.  And he spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fishes. 1 Kings 4:32-33.  If we deny this creation of God its ability to edify and encourage, how are we any different from the pagan who denies that it proves God’s very existence in the first place?
            Pay attention to what lies outside your door today, the birds and lilies, the butterflies and the out of place, bright yellow coreopsis.  As it turns out, God did answer my impossible prayer that day, in almost exactly the way I had asked.  Who am I to try to explain that away?
 
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God," Mark 10:27
 
Dene Ward
 

As soon as the garden is planted it starts—our evening stroll to see how it fares, what has come up, what is bearing, what is ripe and ready to pick the next morning, which plants show signs of disease or insects, and then, what should we do about it.  It’s a habit, a ritual almost, one we look forward to every year.
            Sometimes I think that God must love gardens too.  The first place he built for man, the perfect place, was a garden--and Jehovah planted a garden, eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed, Gen 2:8.  And it was in that garden that He walked with man every evening.  I wonder what they talked about.  Probably a lot of the things we talk about—but then maybe not.
            What will be ripe tomorrow?  Yes, they might have discussed that, because Eden probably produced a bumper crop.  Do we need to spray for bugs?  No, not that, for bugs were not a problem.  What will be ready for supper tomorrow night?  Yes, the choice was probably endless.  Do we need to pull the plants that are infected with blight so they won’t infect others?  No, definitely not that question--at least not at the beginning.  Eventually, though, Adam was discussing with Eve exactly what we discuss about our far from perfect garden.  Yes, we need to spray.  Yes, we need to water.  Yes, we need to pull those weeds out before they choke out the plants, and I sure hope there’s enough produce to put up for next year too!
            We each have a garden.  The Song of Solomon uses the term to refer to the physical body and chastity.  I have no trouble using it to refer to my soul as well.  Shouldn’t I be out there every evening with God, surveying that garden, examining it for pests and disease, looking for wilt and fungus, making decisions about how to save that garden and make it bear the most fruit for the Lord?
            Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 2 Corinthians 13:5
            Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. Psalms 26:2
            Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!  Psalms 139:23-24
            We even sing that last one.  Do we mean it?  Do we really want to look closely enough to see how to properly tend our gardens, gardens that belong to God?  Are we really willing to look through His word long enough and deeply enough to find our faults and fix them?
            Every evening God expects you to meet Him in that garden of a soul, to plant His word in it and tend it as necessary, even if it becomes painful.  He knows it is the only way for that garden to produce, so that you can someday be in the new Garden of Eden with Him.
 
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Psalms 92:12-15
 
Dene Ward

My daughter-in-law saw it on her back porch—a dust bunny walking, instead of blowing, along.  She took a picture and let the internet identify it.  "A junk bug."  "A trash bug."  "A garbage bug." "An aphid lion." And perhaps most colorful of all, "a masked hunter."
            I was surprised to find that it is common everywhere.  Surprised because I have never seen one and I am a native of Florida, the land of bugs.  The junk bug is actually the larva of the green lacewing, considered to be a beneficial insect because, like ladybugs, it eats many garden pests, especially aphids, hence the name "aphid lion."  It is a voracious predator, stabbing soft-bodied prey with sharp hollow horns and sucking their insides out.  Besides in your garden, you are most likely to see a lacewing around your porch light at night.
            But the lacewing larvae have a unique trait.  They carry on their backs the carcasses of their dead prey, which acts as camouflage against birds and predatory ants.  Check the pictures online.  The camouflage works well indeed.
            But don't we act like these bugs ourselves?  We go through life picking up baggage, piece after piece, until we are weighed down with it, practically unable to move.  At least the bug doesn't go that far.  God has given us a place for all that luggage and it is not on our backs.  Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you…(Ps 55:22).  None of the things we carry with us help us live our lives.  None of them is necessary for survival.  Only God fills that role.  Give him the junk on your back and you might be surprised at what you can accomplish.  Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, Even the God who is our salvation. (Ps 68:19).  We don't even have to worry about our salvation—He takes care of that too.
            Or do we cling to it as an excuse for our lack of motivation, for getting nothing done for the Lord because we have all this excess baggage from our lives?  That can happen as well, hanging on to the burdens of life like a security blanket because it's all we know.  Well, it's time to unload.  Whatever burden you carry with you today, drop it off at the door as you go out to live your life.  God considers our failure to do so as evidence that we don't trust Him, and as arrogance that we don't need Him.  Show Him otherwise this morning.
 
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act (Ps 37:5).

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you (1Pet 5:6-7).
 
Dene Ward

We plant a lot of tomatoes in our garden.  We have learned by trial and error that it is far better to plant more than you think you can possibly use of several different varieties.  Some years one type produces better than the others.  Some years one will be wiped out by a disease that doesn’t touch the others.  Usually there is neither rhyme nor reason for any of it.  By planting several types, we can be sure to have some, if not all, bear fruit, and by planting too many, if it’s a bad year, we still have enough.  On the other hand, if it’s a good year, we can be generous with friends and neighbors.
            We have also learned which types work best in our area.  For a long time we could always find what we needed in plants, but gardening has become the fashion now, and just like clothes, certain types of tomatoes are popular.  You used to search far and wide for heirlooms.  Now you must search far and wide for the ordinary hybrids.  The problem with heirlooms, at least in our part of the country, is that they bear about 5% as much as the ordinary hybrid.  We usually plant 90-95 tomatoes to fill our needs in canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and salsa.  It isn’t so much that we put up a lot; it’s that in this heat, tomatoes stop bearing by the end of June.  We may have a shorter growing season than our northern neighbors and if we used heirlooms exclusively, we would need to plant nearly 2000.
            If we can’t find the reliable varieties of plants in the garden shops any longer, we can find their seeds in at least one of the half dozen seed catalogues we receive.  It’s a lot more trouble.  In our small home, we have to use the entire back bedroom to lay out the seed sponges and set up the grow-lights.  When they outgrow the sponges, they are still too small and delicate to place outdoors and the weather still too cold, so we have to transplant each one into a larger cup—all 90, one by one.  Then, when the weather finally turns, we have to carry them outside every day, a little longer every day, to harden them for the final transplant into the garden where they will be prey to sun, wind, insects, birds, and animals.  Because of our careful preparation, most of them make it.  We seldom lose more than half a dozen.
            All that because fashion has taken over in gardening instead of common sense and proven track records.  It happens in every area of life. 
            Don’t get me started on the organic craze.  People had been eating organic foods for thousands of years when Jesus came along and there were still plenty of sick people for him to heal and raise from the dead.  Don’t tell me they didn’t have cancer in those days.  Herod the Great is thought to have died of it based upon descriptions of his illness.
            Everyone knows how music changes.  As far as our songs in the assembled worship, we are seeing a whole lot more rhythm and a whole lot less depth in the words.  Or, “Wow!” someone says—usually someone with a music background—“this one actually uses Dorian mode!”  Yes, but can an untrained congregation sing it easily enough to focus on the lyrics and actually do some “teaching and admonishing?”
            Teaching has its fads.  We gave up phonics and wound up with “Johnny Can’t Read.”  In Bible classes we stopped teaching Bible facts to our children because we wanted them to develop the “heart” and not just the knowledge.  So now we have ignorant people tearing churches apart over things they should have been taught as children.  We used to be known for our Bible knowledge—now many of us are as clueless as any unbeliever on the streets.
            Yes, some things are changeable expedients, and I have agreed with most of ours.  However, those things should be carefully weighed not only for their rightness, but also for the sake of pure old common sense.  Do we want to do it because it will work better for this group of people, or because everyone else is doing it?  Some of us wind up planting 2000 tomatoes just so we look good to the world, when 90 of the right kind would do just fine, probably better, at fulfilling the need. 
            The seed is the word of God, Jesus said.  Maybe it’s time we used the seed instead of chasing around looking for something new and exciting.  God’s way works, but only if you know it, and only if you use it.
 
Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of the LORD are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. Hosea 14:9
 
Dene Ward
 

We have nearly finished with our front yard.  The blue evolvulus ("Blue My Mind") is going great guns bordering the schefflera under the front windows and Judah's tabebuias are growing what looks like an inch a day.  The desert rose out by the sidewalk has more blooms than leaves.  But we wanted something nice next to the front door.
            I remembered a red hibiscus by the first house in my childhood memory.  What made the memory more special was my mother telling how I, as a toddler, thoroughly misunderstood the name and, seeing a bloom down on my level one day, asked her if that one was a "low-biscus."  Then I began to see them around the neighborhood, and found myself wanting one even more.
            We were out exploring one day after a doctor appointment, went under an overpass and found a roadside stand—vegetables and flowers.  After buying a gorgeous tomato—a one-slicer, if you get my drift—the owner took us to a "triple hibiscus."  The plant was already three feet high and sported three colors of blooms, red, yellow, and pink.  For $15 we snapped it up immediately.
            It has bloomed every day since.  But Keith, having grown up in a different part of the country with a different climate, cannot seem to get the name right.  "Have you seen your hollyhocks this morning?" he asks on a regular basis.  Knowing what he means, I usually just answer yes or no.  However, if someone else were around, I might have to correct him or they would be hopelessly confused.  I am not sure if hollyhocks even grow in central Florida. 
            So here is the point this morning.  We can look at something and call it the wrong name all the time, but that does not change what that something is.  What matters is how the Word of God defines and labels things.  What exactly is a Christian?  What exactly is a church?  What is sin?  What is marriage?  We could go on and on.  We must always be willing to call things what God calls them, what His Word defines things as.  I can deceive myself by changing the names of things, but that will not make them right, or change what they are in any sense of the word at all.
           
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (Isa 5:20).
 
Dene Ward
 

All summer I had been watching those monarch butterflies flit over my flower beds. Every couple of days I carefully checked the herb garden twenty feet away for signs of their caterpillars.  That’s what I read somewhere—that monarch butterfly caterpillars are the dreaded parsley worms that can wreak havoc on that herb almost overnight.  Nothing happened.  My parsley grew well and was never infested.  Somehow I got off easy this year.  I thought.
            Then in mid-October we went away for a week.  We returned on a Friday night, after dark, too late to see much but the back porch by the light hanging outside the back door.  The next morning we stepped out for a stroll and saw what had happened.  Every sprig of parsley was completely bare, only the bright green stems sticking up completely naked—except here and there for the bright green worm still clinging to the bush it had just decimated.  I am not so paranoid as to think that somehow they all got together and planned the attack for while we were away, but it was certainly suspicious.
            Satan, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of planning his attacks that way.  He waits until we are most vulnerable.  He waits until we have experienced a crisis in our lives, until we are frustrated by circumstances, until our defenses are down, and then he zooms in for the kill.  Being on the alert when you are tired and hurt is not easy, but that is exactly what we must do, standing guard as a soldier in the Lord’s army. 
            One of the greatest benefits of being in the family of God is having people who care enough to watch your back.  All of us should be aware of the crises in our brothers and sisters’ lives.  Too often we are so consumed with our own affairs that we don’t have time to watch out for others, and that means we are too consumed, period.  Then we wonder how a brother could fall so far, why a sister was caught up in such a sin, why a family has “suddenly” disappeared from among us.  How in the world could those things have happened?  They happened in part because everyone was too busy to notice.
            What do you do when announcements are made in the assembly?  Is that when you spend your time arranging your books, glasses, and children on the pew, the time you flip to the first song and look through it, the time you know you can spend a little longer in the ladies’ room before you need to be seated?  Those announcements should be your greatest tool the next week as you figure out what you need to do for whom, how you can encourage a brother or sister in distress, what you might say to one whose soul is in danger.  How much do you hear when you are finishing up a conversation that has no bearing on a soul, or racing to your pew before the first song begins?  Those pieces of news are about service, and that is the most important part of a Christian’s life, considering one another…Heb 10:24.
            Be aware of the timing in the lives of others too.  Is it the first anniversary of a widow’s loss?  Is it a season that makes being alone that much harder for the single?  Are ordeals approaching in people’s lives that might make them more prone to Satan’s attacks?  We have a job to do; we have service to offer; we have comfort to give and sometimes exhortation and rebuke when we see those attacks making progress in the lives of another.
            If we see them.  If we care.  If we aren’t so wrapped up in ourselves that we miss the attacks and wake up one morning to an almost overnight slaughter in the garden of God.
 
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed, Hebrews 12:12-13.
 
Dene Ward

Last spring, just like every spring for the past 37 years, we planted the garden. That early in the year, the heat is not bad, the humidity is low, and the sub-tropical sun leaves us with only a moderate sunburn.  We came in with dirty clothes and aching backs, sat down together, leaned forward with crossed fingers on each hand held tightly at our temples, squeezed our eyes shut and said, “I hope, I hope, please, please, please grow.” 
            Do you for one minute believe that?  No, we counted five days ahead, and then went out that evening and looked for what we were sure would be there, seedlings poking their heads through the clods of earth, and sure enough, there they were.
            Our definition of hope is very much as I described, like a couple of middle school girls who “hope” a certain cute boy will look their way, or a teacher will change the due date on a big project, or a “mean” girl won’t spread some sort of embarrassing news about them.  “Please, please, please, maybe, maybe, maybe.”  That is not the Bible definition of hope. 
            I knew that, but I am not sure how much I really understood it until I did a study on hope and found passage after passage that made it abundantly clear.
            …Waiting for our blessed hope, Titus 2:13.  That’s “waiting” like waiting for the bus at the regular stop, not like you just walked out one morning with absolutely no knowledge of the city transit system, sat down on the side of the road and “hoped” you had guessed right.
            …The full assurance of hope, Heb 6:11, not just a hint that it might be possible, but completely sure it will happen.
            Hope is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, Heb 6:19.  How would you like to use the hope we often express as a “maybe” as your anchor in the middle of a storm?
            …Hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised, Titus 1:2. 
            Peter says that our salvation is “ready to be revealed,” 1 Pet 1:5, a salvation he makes synonymous to the “hope” in verse 3.  It’s like a portrait on an easel covered by a satin cloth, just waiting for the unveiling.  God has prepared that salvation “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.  No one is up there still hammering away on the off chance it might be ready when you need it.  It is already there, available whenever the Lord decides to give it.  Sure.  Certain.  There is nothing cross-your-fingers “maybe, maybe, maybe,” about it.
            Farming is tricky enough with weather, pests, and plant diseases abounding.  If a man had to wonder whether or not a seed would sprout where he planted it, who would ever even try?  Paul uses that very example in 1 Cor 9:10: for our sake it was written that he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes to thresh in hope of partaking.
            Our hope is like planting seeds.  They will come up, and it will come about.  It’s time we left middle school behind with its string of maybes, and became adults who understand the assuredness of our hope, and then use that certainty to strengthen us in whatever situations life holds.
 
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word,  2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.
 
Dene Ward

That garden of ours is a lot of work.  In Florida that means it is also a lot of sweat.  When Keith comes in from a summertime Saturday of hoeing, weeding, mulching, spraying, mowing, and picking, he must leave his work clothes hanging on the porch because the hems are literally dripping.
            Losing that much fluid can be dangerous.  Dehydration can cause nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, lightheadedness, and heart palpitations as the body tries to pump the same amount of blood with less liquid to accomplish the task.  If the body is not re-hydrated, confusion will follow, and eventually coma, organ failure, and death.
            It is important to keep your body hydrated as you go along and not wait until you are thirsty.  Keith always carries a gallon jug of water out with him to set in the shade of the carport while he works.  Every time he has a break in the activity—a finished row, an accomplished chore, an errand that takes him past the carport—he stops to take a drink even if he doesn’t think he needs it.  If you wait until you are thirsty, dehydration has already set in.
            I like to think of our Sunday assemblies as our chance to re-hydrate.  Nothing can sap your energy and drain your spiritual reservoirs like a week out in the world.  Without replenishing ourselves on a regular basis, we can suffer spiritual dehydration.  Trials become harder to bear and temptations more difficult to overcome.  The carnal, selfish attitudes that surround us can drain our faith.  Suddenly we hit a critical point, a time when our souls wrest in a spiritual cramp, and if we do not top up the tanks, a spiritual heat stroke in on the horizon.  If we wait too long, coma—an indifference to our situation—and spiritual death will soon follow.
            When the assembly of the saints works as it was intended, it reminds us that we are not alone, encourages us with the hope of the gospel, strengthens the muscles that have grown weak with exhaustion, and replenishes the faith, “provoking one another to love and good works.”  That meeting that we so often do nothing but complain about is as essential to our spiritual health as water is to our bodies. 
            But you can’t just sit there looking at the water bottle and expect to gather strength from it.  You can’t expect someone to hold it for you.  Your mama quit doing that a long time ago.  Re-hydration takes at least enough effort to pick up the bottle, lift it to your lips, and swallow.
            You don’t need it every week, you say?  Yes, you do.  If you wait till you’re thirsty, damage has already been done to your soul.  If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take a sip every chance you get.
           
Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14
 
Dene Ward

I had heard bad news the night before, and after a night of crying and praying, had completely passed the grief stage and was well into rage.  I furiously weeded the flower beds, flinging dirt and weeds as hard as I could.  At least it served a purpose.  In Florida, you can’t just hoe the weeds and expect them to die.  Anything green will re-root by morning in this humid climate unless you completely remove it from the garden. 
            I was black to my elbows and sweating profusely when it crossed my mind to wonder if it might just be all right to curse if I were cursing Satan.  Chloe sat next to me, tilting her head back and forth in confusion.  Finally, when the convulsive sobbing started, she tucked her tail between her legs and slunk off in the direction of the porch, with a bewildered look over her shoulder at me.
            In a moment of clarity awhile later, I realized that I had reached a milestone in my spiritual life.  Automatically, without even having to think about it, I had directed my rage at the right person.  Instead of blaming God, I had blamed the one who twists every good thing into ugliness.  For once I had never even had a question about why this particular thing had happened.  I knew why it had happened—because the enemy of God is the enemy of every one of his faithful children too.
            So why doesn’t God keep anything bad from happening to those children?  Maybe the same reason a good parent doesn’t shield his child from the result of his own mistakes.  Maybe the same reason we make them eat their vegetables and get their shots.  Causing pain is not always bad, not if you want to build healthy bodies and strong characters.  But who am I to even ask or say anything definitive about the matter?  This is all I can say:
            His faithfulness is everlasting, Psa 119:90.
            He loves justice and will not forsake his saints, Psa 37:28.
            His love is steadfast, Psa 89:2.
            There is no unrighteousness in him, Psa 92:15.
            He made all things very good, Gen 1:31, and is the only one who is good, Luke 18:19. 
            He cannot be tempted with evil, and is never the cause of temptation, James 1:13.
            Does any of that sound like the one we should blame about anything?  Most of our problems come because of the freewill God created in us, yet even that freewill is a good thing for it means we can choose to love and serve God rather than being the pawns of a pagan notion of destiny.  It means He can know that our service is willing and not forced, and that our love for Him is just as genuine as His for us.
            That means we will have to put up with things we don’t like, with things that hurt and cause us pain because a long time ago one of us chose the wrong way, and suddenly there was evil in the world.  But isn’t it wonderful that the justice of God says that, while we may have to live with the effects of that choice, we aren’t saddled with its guilt—we can make our own choices.
            Remember when bad things befall you who to blame.  Go out to your flower beds and remind yourself what the scriptures call him each time you rip out a weed and fling it with all your might--the Accuser, the Adversary, the Enemy, the Evil One, the father of lies, the Prince of demons, the Ruler of this world, that old Serpent, the Tempter.  Why in the world would we ever think Someone Else was to blame?
 
 
This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope. It is of Jehovah's lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Jehovah. Lam 3:21-26
 
Dene Ward