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            Every time I have had eye surgery, even the laser surgeries, a bright light has shone into my eyes for sometimes as long as 3 hours.  Is it any wonder that I come out of these procedures with an eye that is extremely light sensitive?  I don’t just mean, “Ooh, that’s too bright.”  I mean, “Ow, that really hurts.” 

            On the way home from Cincinnati after the first surgery at the Eye Institute there, the passenger seat had me sitting in the sun as it set to the west of us heading south.  Even with two pairs of sunglasses, a towel, and the sun visor in the car, I could not stand the light.  So Keith pulled over and put me in the back seat, right behind him on the east side of the car, and on we went down I-75, a bearded man in the front seat with his woman in the back, her head covered by a towel.  It’s a wonder Homeland Security didn’t stop us.

            Speaking of those sunglasses, I got to the point where I enjoyed the looks on people’s faces every time I walked into the women’s side of a rest area, whipped off my sunglasses and—voila!—there was another pair underneath them.  It took months before I could go outside without two pairs of sunglasses and a cloth over the eye that had been operated on.  My home was like a cave, with all the blinds drawn, and no lights on anywhere near me.  “Letting my light shine” was not a metaphor I enjoyed at the moment.

            A lot of people, who never had eye surgery, don’t like it when we let our lights shine.  Now why is that?  Jesus says that when we do so God is glorified.  I really don’t think that is the problem, except perhaps for atheists who don’t want anything good to be attributed to a Being they deny so fervently. 

            When I was in high school I was quiet and subdued.  I didn’t “preach on the street corners” so to speak.  But people still noticed what I did and did not do.  One of the shadiest characters in the school sat behind me in Latin class.  I never knew him before that class, but somehow he knew about me.  His language was usually atrocious, but if he ever slipped when I was present, he apologized immediately.  When he had a problem with his girlfriend he came to me to help him write a note of apology to her.  He was a year ahead of me, and I was an usher at his graduation (which I was a bit surprised he managed), but he came to me to help him fix his tie and collar before the seniors marched in.  My “light” did not seem to have any ill effects on him at all.  In fact, while he was around me, he behaved himself, and he relaxed because he had found someone he could trust not to hurt him or betray him.

            But it does not always work that way.  Why?  I think maybe it’s because when your light shines, it lights up the whole area around you, and then everyone can see the faults of the others, even though you never say anything about them.  Just by being good, you make others look bad.  Peter tells us in 1 Pet 3:16 that people will slander you for your good behavior.  No, it does not make any sense, but it’s all they can do to take the focus off their bad behavior when your light shines so brightly on them.

            Don’t become too sensitive to the light.  Keep on shining it.  You may have some good effects, keeping others from sinning, at least while they are in your presence, and possibly down the road of time as well.  Even if it causes you trouble, keep your batteries charged.  If you’re going to suffer anyway, Peter adds, suffer for doing good.  The Light will save you.

Jesus therefore said unto them, Yet a little while is the light among you.  Walk while you have the light, that darkness overtake you not; he who walks in the darkness knows not where he is going.  While you have the light, believe on the light that you may become sons of light…I am come, a light into the world, that whoever believes on me may not abide in the darkness, John 12: 35,36,46.       

Dene Ward

Among the other things we have dealt with recently is the discovery that I am allergic to dust mites.  This is not just a small nuisance.  We found out after I ran a low fever for 6 months, accompanied by horrible headaches. Finally a CAT scan showed that one of my sinuses had been infected for so long that the lining, which should not even show up on a scan, did in fact show up as a gray wall nearly half an inch thick.  The doctor operated, ripping out bone and tissue to open up what had become a sealed incubator for anaerobic bacteria. 

So we began vacuuming upholstery, washing sheets with a special de-miting solution, and zipping up mattress and box springs in special casings.  The doctor also suggested I hire someone to dust for me.  That’s not going to happen, but I am much more careful when I do the dusting myself.

Keith has also decided that we need to rip out the carpet and put down new flooring.  Yes, the doctor says, good idea.  Too bad she can’t write it out as a prescription we can deduct from the taxes next April.

The money is not the only problem.  Do you know what a mess this place is in while we are having this done?  Do you know how many things we need to go through and toss, and how many others need to be picked up and moved, or stacked and restacked as progress is made across the house?  How about a freezer filled with several hundred pounds of garden produce and meat?  How about an antique grand piano?  Will I ever again be able to find a certain book in all these bookcases?  Just thinking about it stresses me out, and I have an idea that we have not thought about every problem that will arise.

This is exactly the process a person goes through when he makes Christ the new foundation in his life.  Those of us who have grown up “going to church” have no real comprehension of what they are facing when we talk to our friends and neighbors.  We too often show no sympathy for the upheaval conversion will cause.  In fact, the disruption in their lives may be the biggest hurdle they must cross, and the least we can do is be understanding.  Too many times we dismiss those poor people, who so desire to have the peace we do, as “not worthy” because they cannot make an instant decision to change themselves, and then do so overnight.  “They were not truly converted,” we proclaim.  Shame on us.

Let’s not turn into hecklers instead of helpers.  I have seen too many new Christians lose their way because the people who should have been guiding them were moving too fast for them to keep up, and simply grew impatient, leaving them behind.  Putting in a new floor is a nuisance.  Putting a whole new foundation in one’s way of life is a monumental change that deserves help and respect.

And just perhaps, the reason we do not understand is that our foundation is not what it should be.  Is it habit and comfort, or is it commitment?  Maybe I need another kind of new floor as well.  Do you?

According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds thereon.  But let each man take heed how he builds thereon.  For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, 1 Cor 3:10,11.

Dene Ward

            A few years ago my eyes went to Auckland, New Zealand.  Later they went to Singapore.  They have also traveled to Honolulu, Lisbon, Amsterdam, London, and Brandenburg, Germany.  I suppose it is ironic that although my eyes have been to all those places, I have never seen any of them, and never will.  The magic of digital photography, videotape, and DVDs have taken my eyes to far away, exotic places, and because of that, medical magic will help others.

            I have heard many speak badly of doctors whose conferences take them to places like these; things like, “I wish I could count my vacation as a business deduction.”  Have you ever seen one of the programs for these conferences?  Yes, there are sightseeing tours arranged for the doctors (which they pay for), but they are sandwiched in between seminars, lectures, demonstrations, and panel discussions that you and I could never make heads nor tails of because we did not sign what amounted to a mortgage in order to attend years of medical school, nor have to pay an annual six figure malpractice insurance premium to protect ourselves from those who think doctors should be perfect.

            For any who complain about their travels, I hope you never need to rely on two doctors who live a thousand miles apart having met one another by chance several thousands of miles away from their homes in order to save your sight, or worse, your life.  Let them sightsee a little.  It’s worth it, if not to you, then to some poor soul somewhere.

            That was extra.  Here is my point this morning.  I will never see those places, except in pictures.  Abraham did not even have pictures as evidence when he left his home at God’s command.  He had no deed in his hand when he believed God would give him the land of Canaan, nor did Isaac and Jacob, or their wives.  But we are told, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, Heb 11:13.  Amazing faith, we think.  There was nothing that even hinted to them that they would inherit that land.  At times they were run off it, even threatened if they stayed, but they still believed God would keep his promise. 

            That’s what we do today, isn’t it?  Some might think we have it even harder.  At least the three patriarchs eventually stood on actual land--dirt and grass and watering holes, with trees growing and animals wandering about.  We must believe in something we can’t see or touch.  Oh, really.  Do you think they didn’t believe in that place too?  …and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth…they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one, wherefore God is not ashamed…to be called their God, but he has prepared for them a city, Heb 11:13,16.

            Their faith went beyond the physical, just as ours should.  It may be a tall order, but look at all those who have gone before us and managed it.  Why is it we treat the faith requirement as some sort of burden?  “Don’t lose faith,” we say when someone has a problem, creating yet another problem for them.  Faith should be an asset.  It causes hope, and how many people have lived longer lives because a doctor gave them a little thing called hope?

              The hope we have is for something even better.  Unlike all those amazing places my eyes have been but I have never seen, this is one I will see, the most amazing place of all, forever.

For in hope were we saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for that which he sees?  But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it, Rom 8:24,25. 

Dene Ward

I have been spending a lot of time in doctors’ offices and hospitals lately.  My ophthalmologist has now transferred me permanently to the University of Florida/Shands Teaching Hospital where I receive excellent care, and regularly excite the interns.  These handsome young men run up and down the halls, grabbing their buddies and saying, “You gotta come!  You’ll never get another chance to see someone like this!”  For an elderly, gray-haired, slightly overweight woman, that is quite an ego builder.
             
Then there are the Fellows.  Notice, that is a capital “F.”  I have not quite figured out the whole hierarchy, but these seem to be young doctors who have finished medical school, and are now attached, almost literally, to an older, experienced doctor for a year or so before they go out on their own.  I met the latest Fellow a few weeks ago.  I go in fairly often—often enough that even the cleaning lady recognizes and greets me. Since it was our first time together, he got to do the initial work-up himself.  He tried reading the chart, but my doctor has notoriously bad handwriting, even worse than most doctors—he obviously aced the bad handwriting class that med schools seem to require all doctors to take. The pharmacy regularly has to call the office to find out what he prescribed, and that’s his good handwriting.  
              
Since this Fellow was having such a tough time of it, I just started talking.  He shut the file and listened, and then asked quite a few questions.  I have learned more about eyes than I ever hoped to know, including anterior chambers, corneal depths, iris prolapses, capsular tension rings, and zonules. The look he gave me was half surprise and half amusement.  Before we were through he said, “In your next life you will be an ophthalmologist.”
        
Opportunity knocked and I was totally oblivious.  Let me describe this young doctor and see if you miss it, too.  He was medium height, about five-nine, slim build, probably one-sixty.  His hair was dark, with heavy eyebrows, his face square and his skin dark as well.  His name was Indian, as in Gandhi, not Geronimo.  The University of Florida is nothing if not a melting pot.  Now think back to what he said.  “In your next life…”  Even if he no longer believes in his native country’s faith, his culture was showing:  reincarnation.  About 6
hours later, I realized what I should have said:  “In my next life, I won’t need
an ophthalmologist.”  Here he was, so imbued in his own culture’s faith that such a statement would pop out of him, and I, supposedly imbued in mine, missed a golden opportunity to reaffirm what I know to be true.
             
What do I do?  I blame it on my slow mind.  I’m getting older, you see, and don’t think as quickly as I used to.  Nonsense!  I had that problem twenty years ago, too.  “Old” has nothing to do with it.  What has everything to do with it, is a focus on the here and now, rather than on the eternal.  I was too concerned about what the doctor would tell me about this life to see what I might be able to do about the next one. I was too concerned with my physical fate and not concerned at all with the spiritual fate of another.  
              
A few months ago, I did a little study on spiritual immaturity.  Do you know what the apostle Paul equates that with?  Carnality.  Walking after the manner of men, 1 Cor 3. Thinking more about the physical than the spiritual, more about this life than the eternal life to come.  As I get more and more mature in Christ, this life should be less and less on my mind.  It should be easier to think of the “right” thing to say, not harder.  Have I not gotten any better at all?
             
Well, yes, I am some better.  I do not rail at God about this illness.  I do not ask him, why me?  I don’t whine--well, not very often anyway.  And just when I think I have accomplished something, the Lord sends me a wake-up call.  What I don’t  do is not even half of it.  My faith should be a positive thing, not a negative thing.  Here I had a chance to sow a seed, however small, and I stumbled in what might have been freshly plowed ground and fell flat on my face.   
           
I can hear some saying, “Don’t be so hard on yourself.  You have serious issues to deal with in your life right now.” Didn’t Paul have serious issues when he was beaten and thrown into prison?  But didn’t he sing God’s praises and preach to whoever would listen while he was there?  Isn’t his focus on the spiritual the reason he was able to say I have learned in whatever state I am to be content, Phil 4:11?  How else do you handle beatings that flay you open to the bone, stoning, shipwrecks, and betrayal by so-called brethren, to the point of rejoicing that those traitors were preaching the gospel, 1:15-18?  
 
And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth. And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.   Heb 11:32-40. 
 
All of these folks, some of whose names are not even recorded for us, like their father Abraham, desired a better country, v16, [greeting it] from afar, v13.  And because of that focus on a spiritual life, they were able to meet the challenges of the physical.
             
Yes, I will see this young man again, probably many times. But I may never again get that golden an opportunity to make a comment that might make him think.  But at least next time, I will be listening for the knock.
             
Are you listening?

Dene Ward

Twice now I have stood in an emergency room waiting for a doctor to tell me whether or not I would be a relatively young widow, 42 the first time, 48 the second. It is amazing what changes a few unexpected moments can bring about in your attitude. Suddenly you realize what is important. Suddenly the little annoyances of living together every day disappear. You would give anything to pick up after him one more time or put up with an annoying bit of male humor. There is nothing quite like the feeling when the doctor looks into your eyes and says, “He’ll live.”

When you get that reprieve something else happens as well. The next few days, weeks, even years if you allow it to last that long, are sweeter than ever. You revel in those evenings when you can still walk hand in hand around your garden, throw tennis balls for the dogs to chase, or pick wildflowers to fill an empty vase on the countertop. You understand that an exciting life has nothing to do with going places or having things, but rather in being together for as long as possible. And you find yourself bewildered when those around you don’t get it; when they magnify petty grievances or imagined slights into relationship-breaking arguments or silences. What is wrong with these people, you find yourself thinking. Why does it take a tragedy to make us behave like mature adults?

All of us face spiritual emergencies. All of us struggle with temptations, with suffering, and with trials. Sometimes we come through those trials in good shape physically. Other times we may suffer disabilities, the loss of status or worldly goods, the loss of loved ones, even the loss of our own physical lives.

Our souls often lie behind the curtains in a spiritual emergency room. The Great Physician stands over us, comforting us, assuring us that He understands and has, in fact, borne the same woes on His shoulders. He has everything we need to get through this, including the most wonderful prognosis of all.

It will keep us from bitterness because we know that these things are only temporal and fleeting, whether it feels that way right now or not. It will keep us from drowning in sorrow because we know we will see the one we have lost again. It will keep us from throwing our faith away in a moment of despair because, when we believe his words, hope rises to conquer even the forces of Satan.

There is nothing quite like the feeling when He looks into your eyes and says, “You’ll live.”

And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who has not the Son of God has not the life. These things have I written unto you that you may know that you have eternal life, unto you who believe on the name of the Son of God,  1 John 5:11-13.

Dene Ward            

Have you ever really listened to one of those commercials about various prescriptions drugs?  
              
“Do not take Wonderdrug if you cannot sit, stand, or lie for longer than an hour, if you are pregnant or might become pregnant, if you have high blood pressure, low blood pressure, heart problems, trouble breathing, or during months beginning with J or ending with R.  Wonderdrug has been known to cause dizziness, memory loss, headaches, earaches, toothaches, infectious diseases,  cancer of all sorts, liver damage, bleeding ulcers, stroke, seizures, heart attack, acne, warts, and, in rare occasions, death.”   In some cases the remedy sounds truly worse than the disease.  I must say, though, I was stopped in my tracks the other day when one commercial warned that the drug might cause “increase in gambling."  Surely they were just trying to get my attention, right?  
              
Lately, I have had so many chemicals poured into me that I have had to
wonder about the remedy in my case as well.  Atropine, Predforte, Phenylephrin,  Zymar, Erithromycin, Alphagan, CoSopt, and Travatan, plus four others by three other doctors, all at the same time, a total of about 60 doses a day at one point.  And then there were the accompanying side effects:  light sensitivity, erratic heartbeat, dry mouth, dizziness, loss of taste, not to mention the eating away of the top layer of my eyeball (epithiliopathy) not once, but twice since then, after it had healed!  Believe it not, stopping the medication would have been worse, though sometimes I was strongly tempted to do so.

Pouring chemicals into your body is not good.  If your body is working correctly, don’t.  

It is no different with sin.  Sin may be attractive.  It may look good, but you will sooner or later suffer the side effects: guilt, shame, and spiritual death. 
As David wrote, For my iniquities have gone over my head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.  My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness, Psa 38:4,5.

Righteousness, on the other hand, offers no painful side effects to the
sin-sick soul.  Instead we receive peace, boldness, strength, hope, joy, and life.  These are not unnatural to the soul; unlike lives of sin, this is the way God intended us to live from the beginning.  
             
Don’t be fooled by the labels the world attaches to sin, labels like “fun,” “security,” and “love.”  Jesus did not call Satan a liar without cause.  Instead, live joyfully, at peace with God, with all the guilt and shame removed from your shoulders.  That is what life in Christ is all about.
 
Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Rom 5:1,2  
 
Dene Ward

Whenever someone asks how I am doing these days, I usually find myself saying, “All right.”  I understand that “How are you?” is generally a greeting, not a question, but most of the time people are really asking, and I do not want them to be sorry they did.  “All right,” seems to answer the question in all respects without beginning a litany of troubles. Things are not good and may never be again, but I am not now in the middle of another crisis.

Look at that phrase carefully, though.  “All right.”  Isn’t it odd that it has come to mean that things are not “all” right?  Not actually bad, but certainly not “great.”

Do you remember the poem “Pippa’s Song” from Robert Browning’s Pippa Passes?  Actually, all I remember is the last line: “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world.”  The context of that poem is interesting.  Pippa is an orphan in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Asolo, Italy, where even the pillars of the community live lives of moral decadence.  Yet her viewpoint is that, despite all the evil in the world, we can still know that God is in his Heaven, and thus everything is “all right,” in the true meaning of those two words, not their presently understood mediocrity.

Especially if we interpolate a word in there, “God’s back in his Heaven and all’s right with the world,” we Christians can know the same thing. 

God, who became the Son, left Heaven for us, going so far as to give up his equality with God the Father, Phil 2:6.7, suffering the same trials and temptations we do in life, yet refusing to give in to sin, Heb 4:15.  He died a torturous death, Acts 2:23.  Then, just as Satan thought he had won the ultimate victory, it was snatched out of his hands when Jesus rose from the dead, 1 Cor 15:1-8.  Forty days later he ascended back into Heaven, Acts 1:3,9.  And all of that happened so we could be forgiven, so we could live an abundant life here (a spiritual abundance), and so we could have Eternal Life in the hereafter.

So remember today and every day, regardless how your life is going, regardless how you may feel, regardless the horrible tragedies Satan may have unleashed around us, “God’s [back] in his Heaven, and all’s right with the world.”

Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight of sin that so easily besets us, and run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Heb 12:1,2.

Dene Ward

Several years ago, the heel of my right foot became so swollen and sore I could hardly walk, and if I banged it against anything I nearly lost my lunch.  So I needed what the podiatrist called a retrocalcanealexostectomy.  In plain English, they detached the Achilles tendon, removed a wad of extraneous tissue that my body had created to try to pillow the pain, sawed off the back of my heel, which had calcified into a walnut-sized knob, then reattached the tendon with what amounted to a “hollow wall anchor.”  It was nearly a year before I walked normally. 

When they took the cast off the right leg, the difference in the calf muscles was amazing.  Crutches for two months followed by a cane for another two or three, means no exercise, and no exercise equals atrophy.  The right calf was half the size of the left, and totally limp.  For the next four years that did not matter too much; I still had a good left leg.  Then the left foot did the same thing and here we go again—more surgery.

Now I had two wimpy calf muscles.  Guess what you need when you try to reach something on the top shelf and need to stand on your toes?  Guess what it feels like when you try to do that automatically, without thinking, with those sore heels and limp calf muscles?  Yeow!

So for the next few months I worked on getting those muscles back into shape.  The first time I tried toe raises, nothing happened!  I concentrated hard and told myself to stand on tiptoe, and still nothing happened!  So I found some exercises that I could do without trying to stand on my toes, that still made my calf muscles ache and burn.  In a few weeks I actually went up about a half inch off the floor.  Kind of hard to tell with your eyes a little over five feet higher than your feet, but I am pretty sure, based on what I could and could not reach on the top shelf.  Progress!  It wasn’t long till I could tiptoe through the tulips—if we had tulips in Florida.

So how about your spiritual muscles?  You know what?  They atrophy just like those physical muscles.  When was the last time you actually did a real Bible study on your own?  I mean work, with a pen and paper, not just reading commentaries and doing a copy and paste job on your computer.  In education classes they always told us that writing things down was a big key to information retention.  Taking notes makes you hear the words again, saying them in your head as your write; then you feel yourself forming each letter of each word, and see them again after they are written.  The more senses that are involved, the more likely you are to learn and remember. 

Of course, putting knowledge into action is what makes it worthwhile.  There is the meditation, the decision making and actual living based upon your newfound knowledge, and the teaching as you share what you learn.  The more you learn and do, the stronger you become.  Soon you will be tiptoeing through the pages of the Bible with more and more ease, more and more confidence, and more and more ability to live like God wants you to.  Pick up your Bible and exercise a little.

For when by reason of time you ought to be teachers, you have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God, and have become such as those who need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.  But solid food is for full-grown men, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil,   Heb 5:12-14.

Dene Ward

I don’t know how many times I have had someone tell me that my others senses will all improve once I am completely blind.  I just smile and tell them I appreciate their concern.  It is the grateful, loving thing to do, while jumping down their throats and biting their heads off with a sharp retort certainly isn’t.  If they didn’t care so much they wouldn’t try to be helpful, and I am just as responsible for my words as they are for theirs.

As to that comment, it is just a myth.  It isn’t that suddenly your hearing will improve when you can no longer see.  It’s that suddenly you use it to better advantage.  When you could see who was approaching you, you didn’t need to hear the door open, judge the weight of the steps and length of the stride, and determine whose voice it was.  Now you must, so you do.  Even still sighted, I have always seen more than Keith has.  When you have poor vision, you concentrate harder and take care to notice more.  I see signs he never does.  I notice the color of cars and houses.  I know two oak trees flank a driveway, not just one, and I remember that when we go back to someone’s home the second time.  He just looks for the address, numbers I can never see from the car.

All of that made me wonder about our spiritual senses.  Did you know you can find all five mentioned in a figurative context in the Bible?

Jesus had a lot to say about people who are spiritually blind.  For judgment came I into this world, that they that see not may see; and that they that see may become blind. Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said unto him, Are we also blind? Jesus said unto them, If you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, We see: your sin remains, John 9:39-41. 

The prophets also talk about spiritual blindness.  It isn’t just that some people cannot comprehend God’s word—they blind themselves to it when they do not want to see what it says.  Peter also mentions people who are spiritually near-sighted in 2 Pet 1:9.  You can find more passages about spiritual blindness than any of the other senses, and they should scare us all to death.  Be careful when, in a spiritual discussion, you find yourself uttering the words, “I just can’t see that.”  It may be that you have become spiritually blind.

You could make a similarly long list of passages commanding us to “hear,” “listen,” “hearken,” and “take heed.”  Jesus said in the context of the parable of the sower, “Take heed what you hear,” and also, “Take heed HOW you hear.” 

Just as some are “hard of hearing” physically, the prophets and preachers dealt with those who were hard of hearing spiritually.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel both were told to go preach to a people who would “refuse to hear.”  Do you think it cannot happen to us?  The Hebrew writer warns, “See that you do not refuse him who speaks,” 12:25, and Paul warns of those who have “itching ears.”  Keith has special medicine for exactly that thing.  Too bad it doesn’t work on the spiritually deaf as well.

Do you think you can’t have a spiritual problem with your nose?  For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 2 Corinthians 2:15-16.  The point is exactly the same—if you don’t like what becoming a follower of Christ means, it will stink to you, but to those who understand, who comprehend, who hear and see the true nature of things, he will smell wonderful.

The Hebrew writer talks about those who have “tasted the heavenly gift…and the goodness of the word of God” 6:4,5.  If you don’t know people who think the Bible is anything but good, is, in fact, the source of human misery, you haven’t tried too hard to spread it.  Always there are some who take a taste and spit it out with disgust—the same people who cannot see, cannot hear, and cannot smell the sweet aroma of Christ.

And always there are those who cannot feel, whose hearts will never be pricked by the gospel, who are numb to its appeals.  Paul told the Athenians at the Areopagus, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, Acts 17:26-27.  Not many of those people groped their way to the Lord in the end, but a few did.

Did you notice something about all those spiritual senses?  When a physical sense leaves you, you learn to make better use of the ones that remain.  Unfortunately, when a spiritual sense leaves, the rest seem to follow suit.  If you won’t see, then you won’t hear.  You won’t let the grace of God touch your heart.  You won’t enjoy the smell of his sacrifice nor the taste of his love--if you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, 1 Pet 2:3.

Can you imagine a more miserable existence than never seeing a sunset, never hearing the sweet coo of a baby, never tasting a ripe strawberry, never smelling the yeasty aroma of bread fresh from the oven, or never feeling the warm sun on your back?  That’s exactly the kind of lives people live when their spiritual senses don’t work.  But you can fix them all with one easy cure—heal your heart.  God told Ezekiel that if the people repented he would give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26.  Once your heart can be touched, the other senses will come flooding back into your life, almost overwhelming you with new sensations.

The five physical senses are a wonderful blessing from God.  The spiritual ones are even better.

In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 29:18-19.

Dene Ward

Most of the time people assume that because I am not in the middle of a crisis, everything is fine with these eyes of mine.  It is difficult to understand that they are surviving on “borrowed time,” that they have outlived the prognosticators, and that any day could be the beginning of the end for my vision.

Occasionally someone still asks about the things I have been through, and I still answer them without thinking--until they begin to shudder, and I take pity and stop.  One experience in particular makes people shrink about half their size as their shoulders draw in and their chins drop to their chests with a groan.  Even the everyday isn’t pleasant.  Eye drops are some of the most painful medications in existence, and an evening headache is par for the course.

“Is it worth it?” some asked.  In fact, one person tried to talk me out of any more surgeries.

Is it worth it?  I began all these procedures before either of my grandsons was born.  Without them, I would never have seen those sweet, tiny faces.  Was it worth the pain and the terror I sometimes felt right before yet another sharp instrument or harsh chemical headed for my eyeballs?  Do I even need to answer that?           My doctor thinks I am strong.  No—I was a grandmother in prospect, and a stubborn one at that.

Some people obviously do not think the Lord is worth any sort of pain at all.  They give up when it gets difficult, and “difficult” can just mean they have problems with relationships, or they must give up activities they enjoy.  They have yet to encounter physical pain; the emotional pain was all it took.

Keith and I have received threats in the mail, threats that the FBI took seriously enough to send an investigator to look into.  We have endured gossip and slander that spread a couple hundred miles.  We came within two days of being homeless because of, as Paul called them, “false brethren.”  Was it worth it? 

As we enter old age, looking to the end is no longer a distant view, and that makes it comforting to know that we have a reward waiting for us precisely because we endured those things.  We have yet to face physical torture, and though I no longer consider that an impossibility in this country, I doubt it will reach that point before we are gone.  To have put up with any sort of pain for the Lord, emotional or otherwise, is a blessing.  Finally I understand how the disciples could “count it all joy” to give up or endure something for the Lord who gave up all for us, even if that something is trivial comparatively speaking.

Was it worth it?  Yes, Heaven is worth it all, but gratitude should ultimately reach the point that merely being able to sacrifice for the Lord is worth even more.  True spiritual maturity revels in seeing our Lord and Savior, not in seeing Paradise; in the ability to serve a God we can see before us, not in being pain- and worry-free forever; in being beside the Father who loves us, not in enjoying one giant eternal party.

Sometimes going through pain in life, pain that has nothing to do with your Christianity, opens your eyes to spiritual things.  Was that physical pain worth it?  Did it give you a longer life?  A better quality of life?  Did it give you more time with your loved ones?  Usually that is enough to make it “worth it.”  Now ask yourself, what can you make it through for the Lord?  Will it be worth it?  God has the ability to make it so, but only you can make the decision to endure.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 1 Peter 4:12-16

Dene Ward