In 1950, Tulsa police officer Clinton Riggs produced the first Yield sign.  It was yellow and keystone-shaped—I actually think I remember some of those in the deep dark recesses of my mind.  That first one was placed at the corner of 1st Street and Columbia Avenue, one of the most dangerous intersections in Tulsa at the time.  The Yield sign worked like this:  Drivers were expected to slow to 10 mph and look for other vehicles before proceeding through the intersection.  If an accident occurred after the driver went through the intersection, it was automatically assumed that he had violated the law.

              Officer Riggs was born July 15, 1910.  After serving with the Tulsa Police Department for three years he then joined the Highway Patrol in 1937.  During World War II he served as an intelligence officer for the Army Air Corps, and then returned to the police department afterwards.  Somewhere along the way he got his law degree from the University of Tulsa.  He retired from the department in 1970 and passed away in 1997.  Quite a life, but he is remembered by us all as the father of the yield sign.

              The Bible has its own yield sign and it works pretty much the same way.  We are to "subject ourselves one to another" Eph 5:21.  We are to give up our rights, even take wrong (1 Cor 6:7), for the sake of our brother (Rom 14; 1 Cor 8).  We are to count others as "better than ourselves" Phil 2:3.  And why?  Because that is what the Lord we claim to follow did.  "Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus."  He yielded his rights as Deity when he became human and he did it for us.

              Some of the men's business meetings I have heard about need to post a yield sign on the wall.  The conduct in them grieves the Holy Spirit and disgusts the Father who watches his children's actions.  But that's not the only place we need a sign.  Anywhere we push our opinions, demand our rights, and look down our noses on any who disagree with us are dangerous intersections where a collision could easily result in a spiritual death. 

              Anyone who has a collision with another soul after going through an intersection where a yield sign is posted, is automatically deemed guilty of breaking the law.  God's law:  Yield right of way.
 
And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. (1Cor 8:11-12)
 
Dene Ward

I have a feeling that some of Bella and Chloe’s playtime might have been a little unsettling to Bella’s youngest master.  Young wild animals learn survival skills through play—how to hunt and how to fight.  Even domesticated animals learn some of these things.  Puppies always engage in rough and tumble play, including baby nips and growls.  Chloe and Bella did the same, and being larger and older, it looked much fiercer.
 
             Teeth bared, growls ferocious, their muzzles tilted back and forth as if trying to find the best place to lock onto one another.  Larger Bella ran at Chloe and broadsided her, sending her rolling, then pounced on top.  In seconds, more experienced Chloe had her legs wrapped around Bella and flipped her over, like a wrestler reversing a pin.  Sometimes they ran headlong into one another like charging bulls and as they met, the saliva flew in all directions.  I learned to stand way back.

              How did I know this wasn’t real, that it was simply an older dog teaching a younger through play?  Because they never drew blood.  If you watched their mouths, neither ever closed tightly on the other dog’s body anywhere.  And when they finished, they stood panting for a few moments, energy spent, both tongues dangling toward the ground, looking at one another.  Often they would touch noses, then walk shoulder to shoulder back to the shade, Chloe under the truck and Bella under a tree—lesson for the day over.

              I remember a time when brethren could discuss things, even differing views on a passage, and each come away having learned something.  They could trust one another, not only to have each other’s best interest at heart, but also to listen and consider fairly, and never to become angry.  Even if voices rose, no blood was drawn, spiritually speaking, respect continued, and both left with more knowledge and insight.

              What has happened to us?  If someone disagrees with me, it makes me mad or it hurts my feelings, and either way I don’t like him any more.  It is no longer about learning and growing—it about winning arguments and putting people down.  Instead of being able to trust a person because he is a brother, one must try to find a brother he can trust, and it isn’t easy.  That’s not just a shame, it’s a tragedy.  If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21

              God meant us to learn and grow together, honing our skills and building one another up.  It might make us occasional sparring partners, but in that sparring we learn how to handle the word more accurately, we learn how to defeat the gainsayers who deny the Lord, and the false teachers who might be after our souls.  And after that sparring match, we “touch gloves” and leave with our love and respect intact.

              At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
 
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
 
Dene Ward

We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly.  By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field.  Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”

              Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property.  Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions.  Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic.  Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.

              It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede.  The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe.  As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head.  In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.

              I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice?  Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure.  Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep.  Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering.  All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.

              When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it?  God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone.  He meant for us to walk it together.  When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
 
Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon m. Romans 15:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

A three consecutive-day series.  I hope you will check in all three days!

We are puppysitting for some friends, a four month old chocolate lab named Bella.  She is already taller than our full-grown Australian cattle dog, though not as heavy, a long-legged gangly dog still with a puppy mindset—which means faster is better than slower, all things are meant to be chewed upon, and play time is the only time. 

              Chloe, on the other hand, is middle-aged, 6½, or about 45 in dog years.  To her the best things in the world are a belly scratch, a chewy treat, and a nap, and one of the worst things in the world is a puppy being foisted upon her carefully controlled domain.  She learned quickly that Bella has difficulty getting under the truck—something about all those long knobby leg bones getting in the way—so she spends the vast majority of her day there while Bella roams about being a curious puppy.  Someone I know well has learned not to leave things lying about outside if he doesn’t want them ventilated with puppy-teeth holes, something I consider an unexpected benefit to Bella’s visit.

              Chloe is not a purely sedentary lap dog, though.  She enjoys nosing around some, and will run back and forth to the gate to greet us.  She walks around the property with me and often leaves me in the dust when she spies something interesting in the corner woods.  Bella is walking with us now.  Her nose is always in the air, and her ears cocked for any sounds that might drift our way—one neighbor’s baying bloodhound and the other’s crowing rooster, for example.  But she doesn’t listen long.  As soon as she determines the direction, she is off in a shot while Chloe listens a bit more, making a studied determination about whether the sound needs investigating or not.

              Bella thinks everything is a game.  She has no ability to distinguish when it’s time to be serious.  Chloe will stop for a drink and Bella will be all over her, standing in the water, stepping on the edge of the pan, causing it to tilt and spilling the water everywhere.  When a frog jumps in the old tubs Keith uses to soak his hickory wood for smoking meat, she jumps right in after it, NOT looking before she leaps, landing belly deep with a splash.  Reminds me of the puppy we had once who thought the rattlesnake next to the woodpile was a toy and tried to play with it.  We managed to get him away before he was bitten, but when we left for a camping trip, the neighbor found him one morning with fang marks in his neck.  Lucky for him, the skin there was loose and that’s all the snake got, not the muscle in his neck.

              Yet despite their own preferences, both of these dogs are adapting.  Chloe finally learned to quit running away and stand up for herself.  After a nip or two on the nose, Bella knows who the boss is now and she will actually “bow” before Chloe, lowering her height by crouching on her belly in front of her.  Chloe will now stand nose to nose with her, sniffing, and then suddenly take off in a run, looking behind to make sure Bella is chasing her.  Bella has learned to be a little more discreet and Chloe has learned that fun is still—well, fun, and it’s worth having some once in awhile.

              Older and younger people—older and younger Christians, no matter their physical age—need to learn from one another in the same way.  We teach our children not to go running down the halls, especially among older people who have issues with balance and might be knocked over.  A fall for the elderly could easily lead to a broken bone, and how many broken bones have led to a fatal case of pneumonia?  That’s not something a child would ever think of, which is why the adults must teach them.  In the same way, babes in Christ mustn’t go running helter-skelter down our spiritual halls with no concern about the fragile souls we might encounter.  Yet, the older ones need to learn that we must go out into those halls and encounter those souls, not sit quietly and safely in our pews.

              The younger must learn the need for wisdom and discretion and the value of quiet reverence, but the older must learn that “emotion” is not a four letter word. 

              The younger must learn respect for those they label “nay-sayers.”  They must realize that those old “fuddy-duddy” cautions come from concern for their younger souls’ safety and good, not from cowardice or a lack of faith.  The older must remind themselves that God called them to take a risk, to exercise their faith not to sit in dusty rooms discussing it.

              The younger in the faith and the older in the faith—we learn from each other, but not if we’re too busy putting one another down, refusing to listen to one another, with attitudes full of disrespect and disdain. 
 
The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair, Prov 20:29.
 
Dene Ward

On June 6, 1933, Richard Hollingshead opened the first drive-in theater.  Camden, New Jersey, was its home and the price was twenty-five cents per car per person.  That night the movie was "Wives Beware."

               I remember those theaters well.  Across the river from our small town, an only slightly larger town boasted one that offered a double feature for $1 a carload.   It was thirty years later so naturally the price had risen, but still, what a deal!

              Our family usually arrived about fifteen minutes early to procure the best spot.  If you were too close all we kids in the backseat could see were headless actors.  But you certainly didn’t want to end up on the back row or next to the concession stand amid all sorts of distractions.

              Once you found a decent spot, you checked the speaker before anything else.  If it didn’t work, and some did not, you went on the hunt again.  Once the speaker situation was in order you spent a few minutes edging up and down the hump to raise the front half of the car to just the right angle so the line of sight worked for everyone.  (That first New Jersey drive-in did not have the hump.  I am not sure how anyone actually saw the movie.)  Then you had to deal with obstructions.  Our rearview mirror could be turned completely vertical, but other cars had one you could fold flat against the ceiling.  Headrests on the front seat would have been a catastrophe, but no one had them back then so we avoided that problem altogether.

              Now that set-up was complete, we rolled down the windows so we could get any breeze possible in that warm humid night air.  Along with the chirping crickets, the croaking frogs, and the traffic passing on the street behind the screen, we also had to put up with buzzing mosquitoes.  My mother usually laid a pyrethrum mosquito coil on the dashboard and lit it, the smoke rising and circulating through the car all during the movies, the coil only half burned when the second “THE END” rolled down the screen.

              At that price we never saw first run movies.  Usually they were westerns with John Wayne or Glenn Ford or Jimmy Stewart, or romantic comedies with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.  Occasionally we got an old Biblical epic like David and Bathsheba or Sodom and Gomorrah, both about as scripturally accurate as those westerns were historically accurate, which is to say, not very.  The only Disney we got was Tron, but that was back when it was a bomb not a cult classic.  Still, we enjoyed our family outing every other month or so.

              And we got one thing that I am positive no one born after 1970 ever got.  When the screen finally lit up about ten minutes before the movie started, after the Coming Attractions and ads for the snacks at the concession stand—and oh, could we smell that popcorn and butter all night long—was the following ad, complete with voiceover in case you missed the point.  “CH__ CH.  What’s missing?  U R.  Join the church of your choice and attend this Sunday.”  And that was not an ad from any of the local denominations—it was a public service announcement!

              But this is what we all did—instead of being grateful that anything like that would even be put out for the general public, we fussed about its inaccuracy.  We were bad, as my Daddy would say, about living in the objective case.  When that’s all you see, you miss some prime teaching opportunities.

              So let’s get this out of the way first.  It isn’t our choice, it’s God’s.  It is, more to the point since he built it and died for it, the Lord’s church.  We should be looking not for a church that teaches what we like to hear, but what he taught, obeying his commands, not our preferences.  And you don’t “join” it.  The Lord is the one who adds to the church, the church in the kingdom sense, which is the only word used in the New Testament for what we in our “greater” wisdom call the “universal” sense.  But that’s where we miss the teaching opportunity because for some reason we ignore this verse:

              And when [Saul] was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple, Acts 9:26.

              Did you see that?  Immediately after his conversion, Saul tried to join a local group, what we insist on calling “placing membership” in spite of that phrase never appearing anywhere in the text.  (For people who claim to “use Bible words for Bible things” we are certainly inconsistent.)  The New Testament example over and over is to be a part of a local group of believers—not to think you can be a Christian independent of any local congregation or simply float from group to group. 

              Why do people do that?  Because joining oneself to a group involves accountability to that group, and especially to the leadership of that group.  It involves serving other Christians.  It involves growing in knowledge.  It means I must arrange my schedule around their meetings rather than my worldly priorities.  The New Testament is clear that some things cannot be done outside the assembly.  I Cor 5:4,5; 1 Cor 11 and 16, along with Acts 20 are the obvious ones.  That doesn’t count the times they all came together to receive reports, e.g. Acts 14:27, and plain statements like “the elders among you” which logically infers a group that met together.  Then there are all those “one another” passages that I cannot do if there is no “one another” for me to do them with.

              We are called the flock of God in several passages.  You may find a lone wolf out in the wild once in awhile, but you will never find a lone sheep that isn’t alone because he is anything but lost.  It is my responsibility to be part of a group of believers.  We encourage one another, we help one another, we serve another.  Our pooling our assets means we can evangelize the city we live in, the country we live in, even the world.  It means we can help those among us who are needy.  It means we can purchase and make use of tools that we could not otherwise afford.  It means we can pool talents and actually have enough members available for teaching classes without experiencing burn-out.  It means we are far more likely to find men qualified to tend “the flock of God among them.”

              So while God may add me to the kingdom when I submit to His will in baptism, it is my duty to find a group of like-minded brothers and sisters and serve along side them.  Serve—not be served.  Saul had a hard time “joining himself” to the church in Jerusalem because of his past, but Barnabas knew it was the right thing for him to do and paved the way.           

              CH__CH.  What’s missing?  Is it you?
             
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, 1 Thes 5:11-14
 
Dene Ward

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matt 11:11)
 
              Did you ever stop and think about that statement?  This is John, the blood cousin of Jesus, we are talking about.  John, the great preacher who gave up any semblance of a "normal" life--family, a comfortable home, a business, even the standard fare of the day that most of his Jewish friends and family enjoyed—all for the sake of his mission as the Forerunner of the Messiah.  John, the brave martyr who dared speak against an evil and sinful woman and her weak and ignominious husband.  Yet the least in the kingdom is greater than he?

              I am not going to define either "the least" or "the kingdom" in any sort of theological way.  I am sure great scholars could write pages about it, but I am not sure it would do me the same amount of good as simply considering these phrases at face value.  Are you in the kingdom of his Son?  I am, or so I claim.  I certainly do not claim to be the greatest.  I am much closer to the least, but greater than John?  I would never in a million years claim it, yet both Matthew and Luke record Jesus saying it.  It must be true in some way.

              I don't know about you, but that statement does not make me puff out my chest in pride.  Instead, it makes me hang my head in shame.  I have never lived up to John's example and I probably never will.  But when I think of what Jesus says here, it certainly makes me want to try harder.

              How about you?

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1Pet 1:17-19)

Dene Ward

We had a pleasant surprise this year.  Besides the usual wrens’ nest in every odd place you can imagine, we had two hawks’ nests.  Two!  Hawks are very territorial, but they had set up their nests on opposite sides of the property, one just inside the east fence, and one just inside the west fence, as far from each other as they could possibly be and still be on our property.

              We have learned a lot about these birds and knew when to start listening for baby hawk noises.  Finally one morning we realized the mother was no longer in the east nest.  We peered long with the binoculars and called up to the nest.  Nothing.  A few days later we finally saw the dirty white downy baby head and the big black eyes.               

              After another week the baby sat up tall and we had a clear view for the first time.  It isn’t a hawk—it’s an owl!  A barred owl.  Although they usually have one or two siblings, this one appears to be an only child.  Its mother usually sits nearby on a low branch in a live oak arching over the creek, a two foot high chunky brown and gray bird with a round head and no ear tufts, horizontal bars across its shoulders and vertical streaks running down its chest.  In the evenings she flies to the garden and sits on a tomato post, just as the hawks have done for years now, occasionally swooping down to the ground to find dinner for the nestling. 

              The hawks have hatched now as well, two downy white babies that sit in the nest and peer over at me when I make the trek to the west side of the property to talk with them.  Both of their parents sit nearby when they aren’t out hunting up food, circling above and screaming their distinctive cry.

              We could talk about those parents and the care they give—in fact, I have done that before.  We could talk about the way the father watches over the mother as she sets, bringing her food, then taking his turn to set when she needs a break.  We’ve done that too.  Today, I want to talk about this:  I can’t possibly watch both nests at once.  I have to walk the entire long side of the property to see one, and then back to see the other.  I have often seen the hawks as they first learn to fly.  I may miss that this time around if I am watching the owl learn to fly on the same day.  So?

              Have you ever heard someone say, “I know God has more important things to deal with than my little problems?”  Is this supposed to be an excuse for a poor prayer life?  Is it supposed to be a proclamation of humility?  What it winds up being, if you think about it, is a lack of faith in the ability of God.  I can’t watch two nests, but God can.  Of the sparrows Jesus says, “Not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight,” (Luke 12:10).  Then he adds, “Fear not.  You are of more value than many sparrows.”  Not only does God consider my small problems important, He wants me to tell Him about them.

              The pagans of the world create gods they can understand based upon their own feelings.  The ancient Greek gods were the height of pettiness, malice, and cruelty.  Why?  Because the humans who created them imputed those far too human characteristics to their personalities.   We do exactly the same thing to God when we put Him in the box of our own human understanding.  “I know God has/does/thinks/feels…” is the height of presumptuousness.

              It is not for us to be describing God in any manner in which He does not describe Himself.  “I just know God would never…” may be the most obvious way we limit God, but it is not even the most common.  Even in our zealous attempts to be reverent by inventing words like “omniscient,” we are guilty of limiting Him to our own ability to understand.  God is Eternal—you cannot quantify an Eternal Being because you cannot even comprehend Infinity.  He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” Eph 3:20.

              Simply let His Word describe Him and our (in)ability to comprehend Him.

              Behold God is great and we know him not, Job 36:26.

              "Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven--what can you do? Deeper than Sheol--what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea, Job 11:7-9.

              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 [immeasurable], Isaiah 40:28.

              For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55:8-9.

              God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things we cannot comprehend, Job 37:5.

              Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" Romans 11:33-34.

              It is not my place to figure out what God is doing or why, or even the possibilities of His power--He says it’s impossible to do so.  It’s not my business to decide whether my problems are big enough to bother Him with—He says to bother Him.  It’s not my business to decide what He might say or not say, do or not do, think or not think.  To do that is to limit Him to my understanding and to be a disrespectful child who thinks he deserves an explanation from a Sovereign Creator.  He has told me everything I need to know.  Reverence means I just accept that.
 
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out, Ecclesiastes 8:16-17.
 
Dene Ward

I'm sure you saw it on Facebook too:  someone issued Florida a participation trophy for participating in winter this year.  Especially up here in the north part of the state, we have had several hard freezes, sleet, snow flurries, and ice on the roads.  At least we know we will have a blueberry crop this year.  Our type of blueberries requires a certain amount of cold and the past two winters have been too warm for our plants to produce enough berries for one muffin!

              But I know this:  anyone who has not lived in the Midwest or Northeast still does not understand real winter.  We lived 100 miles south of Chicago for two years.  That experience was far more than two or three weeks of lows in the 20s and highs in the 40s.  Someone in Maine would probably consider that a heat wave.  A few cold weeks down here is nothing compared to several months of even colder weather up there.

              We have had the same experience trying to explain the heat down here.  When people further north see highs in the 90s they say, "Well, we get that hot, too."  Here is one difference: we have it day in and day out for a full five months with no let up.  Here is another:  we have humidity to match it; and a third:   the sun exposure, being much more direct, will sap the strength right out of you. 

              We tried to tell some people that once, and they just laughed.  Then they came to visit for a week.  It was only mid-June, so it wasn't really all that bad yet.  One morning the visiting lady went outside with me to help hang up clothes, oh, around 9 am.  We hadn't been outside more than five minutes before she suddenly gave a soft little "whew!"  I looked over.  She was red-faced and pouring sweat.  "It's sort of like a sauna out here, isn't it?"  she said, panting a little.  She could hardly endure a week of it.  And it was constant.  Once the summer sets in, there is no fluctuation.  A heat wave?  Ours lasts from May till October.  Being here a week in June still does not earn you a participation trophy in a Florida summer.

               So I have learned over the years to listen to others and to realize that unless I have had their exact experience, I really do not know what they are dealing with.  I have learned to withhold judgment until I gather more information.  I have learned to offer more sympathy and less castigation, and I never say, "I know how you feel," when I don't.

               I have been watching and listening to all these accusations of sexual harassment lately.  Nothing quite gets my hackles up like someone saying, "So why did she wait so long to tell?" as if her delay makes her story unbelievable.  Especially when it comes from someone without a participation trophy, and especially when it comes from a man.

               I will tell you exactly why she kept quiet.  Not just embarrassment, but total mortification.  And the more chaste a woman is, the less likely she will say anything.  If she has been raised as a Christian, to keep herself pure and to assume the best of others, her first thought will be, "What did I do wrong?" even when she did absolutely nothing.  She won't want to cause any trouble or bring attention to herself.  She won't want to embarrass her family.  She won't want to hold herself up to all the probing eyes and thoughts of people who will assume the worst about her and dare to bring up what she considers unspeakable suspicions.  Even if she is perfectly innocent.  And if the harasser is older, a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier, or in authority over her, she will be too scared to speak.  If she needs the job, the class, the promotion, the grades, or whatever it is she might lose if she talks, she will keep quiet for years, even decades.

              So stop judging.  If you are a man, don't say a word.  You have no idea what it's like.  You don't have a participation trophy.
 
​“Judge not, that you be not judged. ​For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. (Matt 7:1-2)
 
Stop by tomorrow for practical advice on avoiding sexual harassment.
Dene Ward

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the light bulb that went off in my head.  I have taught women’s Bible studies for well over forty years now.  We never have the hen parties or gossip fests that many are accused of.  We study. We learn.  We grow.  I am so proud of my women I could burst.

              One of the biggest blessings of sitting in a good women’s class is finding out that many marriages are like yours, and so are many husbands, at least in some ways.  That is the light bulb moment I spoke of. 

              We were studying Hannah and shaking our heads at Elkanah, who was the typical oblivious man.  Despite the fact that the scriptures call Hannah and Peninnah “rivals,” the same word used in Num 10:9, “when you go to war against an enemy,” he either didn’t notice the obvious tension in the household or he thought it trivial. 

              “Why are you so upset?” he asked Hannah.  “Aren’t I better to you than ten sons?”  That was supposed to not only assuage a bitter conflict in his home, but overcome a cultural stigma that weighed on Hannah every hour of every day.  Really?

              My first inclination was to call him an egomaniac (“aren’t I better…?”), then unfeeling, or at best clueless.  But another woman pointed out that he obviously loved Hannah.  Look at the special way he treated her, and the point he made of doing it before others when the family offered sacrifices at the tabernacle.  A real jerk wouldn’t have done that.  He was simply being a man.

              So, over the years, we have learned to point out “man things.”  We say to our younger women, “He didn’t mean anything by it, honey.  It’s a man thing.”  The point isn’t that men do not necessarily need to learn to do better, but that women need to stop judging them unfairly, as if every time they do one of those things, they are deliberately setting out to hurt them.  Nonsense!  They have no idea they are hurting you.  They love you and if they did think it might hurt you, they wouldn’t do it.  That little bit of wisdom has brought a lot of us through some tricky moments in our marriages.

              Unfortunately, we do that to one another in the church too.  It can’t be that nothing was meant about us specifically when a comment was made—it simply must have been meant as an insult or a hurtful barb.  It escapes us that we are talking about people who love one another, and even though we are supposed to be loving them too, we automatically assume the worst.  It is the worst kind of egotism to imagine that every time anyone speaks or acts they have me in mind.

              I tried to look this attitude up in a topical Bible and do you know where I found it?  Under “uncharitable” and “judgmental.”  Isaiah talks about people “who by a word make a man out to be an offender” (29:20,21).  Isn’t that what we are doing when we behave in such a paranoid fashion?  It isn’t anything new.  People have been making false judgments, jumping to the worst conclusions possible, for as long as there have been people.

              What did the Israelites say to Moses?  “You brought us out here to die” (Ex 14:11,12).  Really?  He certainly put himself to a lot of unnecessary grief if that was his purpose.  He could have just left them in Egypt and they certainly would have died as oppressed slaves.

              Eli watched Hannah pray at the tabernacle where she and her family had come to worship and accused her of being drunk (1 Sam 1:14-17).   Talk about being uncharitable.

              Actions like those do not come from a heart of love.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, 1 Cor 13:7, which means I put the best construction on every word or action of another, not the worst.  It means I am concerned about how I treat them in my judgment of them, rather than being concerned with how they are treating me.  If I am not careful, I may be the one with the ulterior motives.
 
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses, Prov 10:12.
             
Dene Ward