When we describe our camping trips, people sigh and say things like, “That sounds heavenly.” 

             We cook over an open fire, the meat caramelized by the flames and flavored by the smoke.  At night we sit by a pile of crackling logs under a black sky of twinkling diamond stars and sip hot chocolate.  In the mornings we cuddle by a fire pulled together from the coals of the night before, and gaze on a view that ought to cost extra—mountain after mountain after green rolling mountain against a blue sky, or wrapped with frothy clouds like lacy boas, or peeking through a fine mist, or shining in the sun, covered with trees sporting all the fall colors along with a few dark evergreens.  We hike through wilderness forests unsullied by human rubbish, watching birds we seldom see flit from limb to limb, coons or deer or bears trundling off in the distance or standing stock still in shock staring at us, tiny rills splashing over rocks into larger brooks running to yet larger creeks and finally to the rivers in the valleys below.  We visit orchards and buy apples straight from the tree, not prettied up for the store, sporting a real blemish here and there, but full of flavor, juicy with a perfect texture.  That evening we peel and slice a skillet full, add butter, sugar and cinnamon, set them on a low flame on the propane camp stove and twenty minutes later eat the best dessert you ever had.

              Then we trot out the other side of camping to our friends:  a day long misty rain that, even inside the screen set up over the table, seeps into your clothes and leaves you shivering; carrying a loaded tote to the bathhouse a few hundred yards up or down a steep hill every time you want to brush your teeth or take a shower; stepping outside the tent in the morning to a thermometer that reads 27 degrees. 

              “I could never do that!” one says.  “I’d be headed for the first Holiday Inn!” another proclaims.  Unfortunately, you don’t get the good part without the bad part.  The good parts often happen after the day-trippers head for the hotel.  Their food doesn’t come close and they pay a whole lot more for it at a restaurant than we did at the grocery store the week before we left.  They see the view once, just for a few minutes before being jostled out of the way by the next person standing behind them at the overlook.  And most hotels would frown on a campfire in their rooms.

              Keith and I are snobs about our camping.  When we camp, we live outdoors.  We don’t hide when the weather turns cold, or even wet—we can’t in a tent.  So we just wrap up and tough it out.  Oh, so superior are we.  But we have our limits too.  You will never find us at a primitive campsite.  You certainly won’t find us at a pioneer campsite.  We want our water spigot and electricity.  How do you think we handle those nights in the 20s?  We handle them with a long outdoor extension cord snaking its way inside the tent zipper to an electric blanket stuffed in the double sleeping bag and a small $15 space heater that, amazingly, raises the tent temperature 20-30 degrees inside.

              So where am I when it comes to Christianity?  Am I sold on the health and wealth gospel?  As long as good things happen to me, I am perfectly willing to believe in God and be faithful to Him.  Do I recognize the need for a little bit of trouble to prove my faith, but NOT full scale persecution or trial?  Have I come through some tough tests and now think so well of myself that I can scream to God, “Enough!” as if I had the right to lay out the terms for my faithfulness?

              The rich young ruler thought he was pretty good.  He had kept the commandments.  But Jesus knew where this fellow drew the line—his wealth.  So that is precisely where Jesus led him. 

              Do we have a line we won’t cross?  Is it possessions, security, health, family stability, friendships, comfort?  Whatever it is, the Lord will make sure you come against that line some day in your life.  You may think you are fine—why I can stay in my tent when it’s 25 degrees out!  What if the thermometer hit zero?  What if it rained, not just one day, but every day?  What if I had no running water, no hot showers, no electric blanket?  Would I pack up and head for the hotel?  Or would I tough it out, knowing the reward was far greater than even the most torturous pain imaginable in this life?

              You can’t run to the hotel and hide when persecution strikes.  You can’t close the RV door and count on riding out the storms of life.  Sometimes God expects you to stay in the tent in the most primitive campsite available.  Sometimes he even takes away the tent.  But you will still have the best refuge anyone could hope for if you make use of it, and when the trial is over, you get to enjoy the good parts that everyone else missed.
 
And another also said, I will follow you, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God, Luke 9:61,62.
 
Dene  Ward

Recently I had occasion in a ladies' Bible class to use an event from a congregation "long ago and far away" as an example.  As usual, I mentioned no names or places or even exact dates.  Some concepts are difficult to convey without a real-life Illustration.  Unfortunately, I have had to do that more than once during the subject we are now studying and I realized what it might sound like to the class.  I hastened to add, "I know it sounds like we went through the mill in a lot of places,  so let me tell you this too:  we have also had some wonderful experiences that I would not have wanted to miss, and met some of the best people in the world, many of whom we still count as friends."  No place is perfect—and neither are any of their preachers.

              That led me to remember the times we have been asked to leave a congregation under less than ideal circumstances.  I was young, naïve, and far too full of myself, but somehow I did remember this:  The cause of Christ is not about my glory or my feelings or even a wrong done to me and my family.  I must not do anything, regardless the circumstances, to harm the mission of the church in a specific area.  So when neighbors or family who were not Christians asked me why we left, I was very careful in what I said.  Usually, it went something like this:  "We have been here a few years and the church felt it was time for a change."  No one ever questioned me more, and I was relieved.  The gospel was not going to suffer in this area because I felt a need to cry on someone's shoulder.

              Paul is the perfect example of this.  He talked about "false brethren" in his list of trials (2 Cor 11:26).  He mentioned preaching brethren who did their best to cause him trouble while he was in prison (Phil 1:17), but he always kept things "in house."  He didn't go around telling the people he was trying to convert how awful these people he wanted them to be a part of had treated him.  That would defeat the purpose of preaching, don't you think?

              He mentions in 1 Corinthians 7 that he wishes that everyone would remain unmarried.  No, not just in the case of persecution, but even before that in the chapter.  And why?  Because you have others to be concerned about.  Though the distractions in that chapter have to do with caring for a family and persecution that might affect that family, I can apply that in a host of ways, including this one.  If a church mistreats a preacher, it is not just mistreating him, but also his wife and children.  So, he says, make sure you can handle what might come not only your way, but theirs.  Not even innocent children have the right to harm the cause of Christ.

              Paul also mentions suffering at the hands of brothers in 1 Corinthians 6.  It is a "shame" to have outsiders see us squabbling, he said.  Better to choose to suffer wrong, or even be defrauded, than have the spread of the gospel harmed by insisting on my rights in the matter.  In fact, he says that when we put ourselves forward like that we are "defrauding" the church with the consequences it brings. (1 Cor 6:7,8)

              "Discretion is the better part of valor" comes from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, (sort of) and is meant to be a joke.  Falstaff is saying that keeping his mouth shut has saved his life, NOT that being quiet is the most important part of bravery.  But I think in our case, it is not a joke at all.  We are being discreet about what has been done to us because we recognize that we are not the center of God's plan to save man.  To put ourselves in that position is nothing short of arrogance, but to be discreet enough that the cause of the gospel will not be hurt takes a special sort of selfless bravery.

              We all have that obligation, not just preacher's families.  We should be spreading the word about the good things the local group has done for us, not talking up the bad.  How do we ever expect our neighbors to want to be a part of a group that we have nothing good to say about?  It is far easier—and a lot more satisfying—to be the drama queen who can raise a ruckus about my mistreatment.

              Paul's example says, "Don't do it.  Be discreet.  Put the gospel before yourself and even before your children.  If you can't, then either don't get married or don't preach."  We would all do well to remember that.
 
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Rom 12:17-19)
 
Dene Ward

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by. And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” (Zech 3:1-10)

              First, let's get some basic information out of the way.  Joshua here is not the Joshua of the Two Faithful Spies and Successor of Moses.  This is the high priest who returned from Babylon with the exiles.  Understand, that meant the exiles were careful to keep their genealogies intact.  This had to be an exciting time for Joshua.  Ezekiel and his colleagues had been priests without a Temple.  The only duty that a priest in exile could perform lawfully was teaching the Law.  Finally they have the opportunity to perform all the tasks they had trained for.

              However, in this vision, Joshua, the high priest, represents the people standing before the Accuser in a trial of sorts.  There is no doubt about his guilt—he is clothed in filthy garments, plainly identified as "iniquity."  Animal sacrifices are never mentioned.  It takes heavenly beings to remove the dirty clothing and only God himself can replace them with garments suitable for spiritual service as priests. 

              Then the Branch is introduced in the same vision, in the same context.  While he is not specifically identified here, in 6:12,13 we see that he will build the  Temple of the Lord and rule as priest on his throne.  From many other passages, we are certain this is the Messiah.  And look what he is associated with in this night vision:  the removal of iniquity "in one day."  You can argue about whether that day is his crucifixion, his resurrection, or even the Day of Pentecost when "the land" (Isa 66:8) came into existence.  Whichever it is, we know that salvation is coming with this "Branch."

              And not only that, but every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.  To those people, dwelling under your vine and fig tree symbolized peace and security.  With the trials these returning exiles continued to experience, with the arbitrary nature of the pagan kings they counted upon for provisions, the droughts and crop failures, the enemies who lived just over the rise, security sounded wonderful.  It was icing on the promised Messiah cake.

              And we too need this vision.  Sometimes we forget the wonderful thing our Savior has accomplished for us—saving us from sin—because we are so wrapped up in the trials of life.  We have security and peace too, not from persecution, not from the calamities of a physical world, but from the wrath of God.  Our sins have been removed.  That is what we have to share with our neighbors.  That is the peace we invite them to—peace with God.  But if they do not see the joy and peace it brings in our lives, even in the midst of trials, they won't think it is worth very much either.
 
​Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)
 
Dene Ward

And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand! Then I said, “Where are you going?” And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” And behold, the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him and said to him, “Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.’” Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares the LORD. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the LORD. Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus said the LORD of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye: “Behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the LORD. And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.” Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. (Zech 2:1-13)

              If ever a night vision should be a comfort to us in this present age, it is this one.  Yes, it also reminded those people that as long as God was on their side they needed no other protection. The temple was the priority, but when the time was right, they built the walls under Nehemiah's leadership.  But the Jerusalem Zechariah pictures here is not that ancient city.  The Jerusalem in the vision is one that experiences a population explosion like none seen before.  God's children from every part of the world--from many nations--will come into it.  God will dwell in its midst, yet we know that the glory of God that had dwelt in the physical Temple never returned to their rebuilt Temple.  Zechariah is speaking of the New Jerusalem, the one where all nations, both Jew and Gentile, would be his people, the one in which His glory would again dwell.   And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.’” (Hag 2:7-9)

              And that is us, folks, the kingdom of his son, the body of Christ, the church.  Because we are a spiritual city, we have no walls, but he is telling us that we won't need them.  He will be our "wall of fire about them, there's nothing now to fear" ("Lily of the Valley," lyrics by William C. Fry).  As we approach a new age of possible, and probable, persecution, that promise should mean even more.  People all over the world have suffered.  Our turn might be coming. 

              Understand, that does not mean we won't be harmed.  But it does mean that the promised kingdom will not be destroyed, and that our reward is sure.
 
O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying of my soul, there is no salvation for him in God. — Selah But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. — Selah I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! — Selah (Ps 3:1-8)

Dene Ward         

Florida has some strange weather.  As a teenager in Tampa I remember looking out the front door to sunshine and warm breezes, then out the backdoor to rain.  Honestly--raining in the backyard and sunshine in the front.  At our place now we can look up to the gate and see rain while the garden is still wilting in the sun. 

              I thought about that recently when Lucas told us how his little strip of land two blocks from the beach seemed to be a dividing point in weather systems as they passed through the panhandle from the west.  He could walk outside and look south to sunny blue skies, puffy cotton ball clouds and palm trees waving in the sea breeze.  Yet if he looked north, he saw billowing black clouds lit up by lightning that occasionally streaked its way to the ground.  Take your choice of weather:  look north or look south; go out the front door or go out the back.

              Which reminds me about the essential truth of happiness:  it’s a choice you make regardless of the conditions you find yourself in.  “I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content,” Paul says in Phil 4:11.  The disciples rejoiced that they were “counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41.  If that doesn’t prove that happiness is a choice, what can?

              That doesn’t mean I can face every day with a smile—I haven’t gotten there yet.  But it does mean that when I am not in a good mood, I understand it’s up to me to change myself not my circumstances.  “I can do all things through him who strengthens me;” that old timeworn citation immediately follows Paul’s assertion that contentment is a learned behavior.  He understands that although happiness may be a choice, it isn’t always an easy one—it takes some help to manage when the outward man must face pain or illness or persecution or other suffering, whether physical or mental.  If it takes the help of Christ, it must be a difficult task.

              But it can be done, and while the doing may be difficult, the how isn’t.  All you have to do is face in the right direction, “looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith,” the Hebrew writer tells us in 12:2, and then goes on to tell us how our example did it:  looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Hebrews 12:2.  He looked ahead to the joy, not around him to the shame and pain, the hostility and the weariness. 

              What do they teach us in our Lamaze classes, ladies?  You focus on something besides the pain.  How many of you took a picture with you that they tacked on the wall?  Then you chose to look at it.  Even then you needed a little help—that’s what those men of yours were there for.  They helped you keep your focus and count your breaths.  You chose to listen to them and follow their instructions (when you weren’t grabbing them by the collar and telling them through gritted teeth not to ever touch you again!), but yes, it worked and you got through it, and you even wanted it again before much longer because you remembered the joy when that precious little bundle was placed in your arms, John 16:21.

              Do you want a happy marriage?  Do you want a good relationship with your family and your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do you want to greet life every day with a smile instead of a sneer, laughter instead of tears?  The weather you can’t change, but you can change which door you leave by and which direction you look.
 
We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal,. 2 Corinthians 4:18.
 
Dene Ward

May I just make a small observation from years of experience on both sides of the equation?  When you are suffering, when you are broken-hearted, when you are in pain and anguish or full of fear, someone who loves you will inevitably make an insensitive comment, a tactless comment, a mind-numbingly stupid comment.  Do you think they do it because they don’t love you any more?  No, just the opposite—they do it because they hate to see you in such pain, because they want more than anything to comfort you, and in that love and zeal they don’t know what to say, so the wrong thing pops out.

              I can make you a list of things NOT to say in various circumstances.  Why?  Because I have had them said to me in an assortment of painful circumstances in the past several decades.  You are not the only one who has been left with a hanging jaw and a shaking head.  And second, I can make that list because I have said a few myself.  I have friends who have miscarried, who have lost spouses early, who have lost children to accident or disease, whose marriage has fallen apart, who have been the one to discover a mate’s suicide, who have suffered the pain of a horrible disease and its ultimate end, and probably every time I have said something I wished I hadn’t.  I try to remember those times when someone says something similar to me—they love me as much as I loved my friends or they would never have tried.  They would have simply walked away.

              And so I will never make one of those lists that regularly make the rounds—“What Not to Say When…”  In fact, I am getting a little fed up with them.  Those lists seem to imply that the person hearing those words has never said anything dumb themselves, that they would automatically do better.  Pardon my skepticism.  I have known some wise people in my many years, but none of them has ever managed to be perfect in their choice of words every time.  I doubt that anyone in their twenties or thirties or even forties has either.  Should we be willing to learn better?  Yes.  But most of what I have heard has come in a scathing, sarcastic tone meant more to lash out than help someone else learn.

              God expects me to act like a Christian no matter what I am going through.  Did Jesus bark at His disciples the night before His death, a death He knew would be so horrible that He “sweat drops as blood”?  Did He browbeat the women weeping before the cross while He hung there in agony?  If anyone could have been excused for snapping back, it would have been Him, but the example He left was one of grace under pressure. 

              As His disciple I must still be longsuffering, no matter what I am going through.  I must “forbear in love.”  I must “bear all things, believe all things, and hope all things.”  Certainly I must be willing to say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” if the thing they do comes out of a heart full of love.  It is difficult when, as the Psalmist said, My days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread. Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh. I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places; I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop, (102:3-7).  I have been there.  On those days, it is difficult to put up with other people’s blunders.  It is, in fact, difficult to deal with people at all.  I am ashamed of my failures and so grateful to my caring friends and family who still showed me their love, even when I didn’t show mine and probably made them wonder why they kept bothering to try.  But I am not going to excuse myself because of my despair by attacking them with a scornful list of their failures.

              God does not put in an exception clause for when we are hurting.  Like His Son, we must still exercise self-control and love, graciously accepting the comfort that those who care sometimes ham-handedly give.  Even afflictions that have nothing to do with suffering for His name can test us as much as persecution can, just in how we handle them.  Isn’t that, in fact, the real test?  Pain is never an excuse for sin.
 
For hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously: 1 Peter 2:21-23.
 
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

Not long before my first grandchild arrived in this world I told my daughter-in-law, “One day after he is born, maybe a week, maybe a month, and maybe more than once, you are going to sit down and bawl your eyes out.  You won’t know why and you will think, ‘What’s wrong with me?  This is supposed to be the happiest time of my life, and here I am crying.’ 

              “There is nothing wrong with you.  You are simply exhausted and overwhelmed.  You have carried a child nine months, you haven’t slept enough, not only since he was born, but for awhile before that because you were so uncomfortable.  You haven’t sat down except to feed him.  Yes, you love him with a ferocity you have never felt before, but he is one demanding little creature, and you will wonder, ‘What in the world was I thinking?’ which only adds to the guilt you feel.  If you don’t suddenly burst into tears a few times, you aren’t normal, and it doesn’t mean you are a bad mother.  In fact, it probably means just the opposite.”

              I told her all that because I wished someone had told me when I sat down and burst into tears one afternoon long ago.  We do our brothers and sisters no favors by pretending that life is one big fairy tale.  Instead, we seem to bottle up our own emotions and deny they ever existed, while telling them to “Shape up!”

              God put us here to help one another, and it is no help at all to act like we never had these problems.  Babies do not lie down and go to sleep when you need them to.  One word “fitly spoken” will not unravel a tangled conflict.  Sometimes spouses are inconsiderate and unkind and have no interest in talking about the problem and fixing it.  We have lived too long with sitcoms that solve all difficulties in less than thirty minutes and Lifetime movies that depict one intervention mending a twenty year rift in a relationship.  In real life it doesn’t happen that way.

              We once spent an hour with a man who thought himself “the dream husband,” trying to get him to see that his actions were nothing more than abusive control.  The hour ended with him in tears, determined to be better.  The next morning he was again blaming his wife for her lack of gratitude for all his “care.”  That is real life.  Problems that took years to develop will not disappear in a minute, or an hour, or even a week. 

              Our children learn nothing when we hide our disagreements.  Keith’s parents once said, “We never argue.”  When he was finally old enough to figure things out, he answered, “That’s because you both clammed up and walked away, not because you never got mad at each other.”  Children need to see how to resolve conflicts in a godly manner, or even how to apologize when the manner was less than godly. 

              When a young person struggles with sin and we tell him he never truly repented, when someone who is seriously ill becomes depressed and we say, “Where’s your faith?” when another is beset by tragedy and in her grief asks, “Why?” and all we can do is scold, we have failed them.  A brother is born for adversity, Prov 17:17.  When I do not comfort my brother in that adversity, when I am too proud to share the wisdom that has come from mistakes I have made, I have not fulfilled my purpose for being.

              It’s time we older Christians stopped endorsing fairy tales.  It’s time we told it like it is.  Life can be hard and it doesn’t necessarily mean you are at fault. Even when you are at fault, it doesn’t mean you are worse than anyone else, no matter what image others try to present.  Older Christians must realistically prepare the younger for life, and comfort them during their trials.  Job said that when we do not comfort those who need it our very relationship with God is in peril, 6:14,15. 

              God told Ezekiel, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel… and say to them…The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought…therefore you shepherds hear the word of the Lord…I am against the shepherds and I will require my sheep at their hands…Ezek 34:2,4,7,10.  He feels the same way about older Christians who present unrealistic expectations to the younger and then do not comfort and console when difficulties arise.

              I must stop pretending I am completely put together so I can help those whose lives are falling apart.
 
Dene Ward

Although I had babysat a few times and had piano students on Saturday mornings from the time I was 16, it wasn’t quite the same as my first job.  I answered a classified ad at a concrete plant a couple of miles down the road from our house.  I expected to sit in an assembly line sorting tiles with a bunch of other women, dust rising and coating us through the heat of summer days, forty-two and a half hours a week, at minimum wage.  I lucked out.  I had written on my application that I could type and the yard boss grabbed me for his office girl that summer.  I got to wear dresses and sit in air conditioned comfort instead of sweating in blue jeans in the old tin building out back.

              But just like those other women, I didn’t get paid until payday.  I never once expected anything else.  The boss was not going to walk around handing out checks to anyone for work they hadn’t yet done.  Yet we kept on working, sure that on Friday afternoon the checks would come out. 

              I wonder about us sometimes and our expectations of God.  We walk by faith and not by sight, Paul said in 2 Cor 5:7.  Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him, the writer says in Hebrews 11:6.  Yes, God is a rewarder, but not yet.  Certainly we receive blessings in this life, but the best this life has to offer is a far cry from the final reward.  True faith does not expect Heaven now.

              The Psalmist tells us in 33:18 that God will take care of the one who fears him, will, in fact, “deliver his soul in famine.”  I probably would never have noticed this forty years ago, but it jumped right out at me the morning I read this psalm.  He will save us “in famine”—it doesn’t say we will never have to experience a famine.  Paul says we are to “fight the good fight,” 1 Tim 6:12, he doesn’t say God will keep us out of any sort of fight at all.  Our faith will be a shield and breastplate for us (Eph 6:16; 1 Thes 5:8), but it won’t be a peace treaty with the Devil.

              Habakkuk had a hard time understanding God’s reasoning in this matter.  How could a righteous God use a nation even more wicked than His people had become to punish them?  We should never act like we can call God on the carpet and tell Him, “Explain yourself!”  Habakkuk understood that himself, so God gave him the only answer he really needed, “The just shall live by his faith.”

              By the end of the book Habakkuk knew that didn’t mean no one would die.  He knew it didn’t mean they wouldn’t experience horrible things.  And we shouldn’t expect that either.  Despite what so many preach about “health and wealth” to the true believer, this world is not Heaven and God never promised it would be.  He simply promised understanding for what we are experiencing and the help to get through it. 

              It is for us to come to the conclusion Habakkuk finally did in a paean to hope that explains how we all make it through tough times, not just me and my problems, or you and yours, but each of us in the life we have before us and its own peculiar trials and tribulations.  We wait, as he did, for the troubles to come—and they will—and we rejoice.
             
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. Habakkuk 3:16-19
 
Dene Ward

I was driving back from Bible class, coming down the last hill before the river, rolling green fields dotted with black cattle on the right, and a couple of old trailer houses perched on the left, their yards littered with rusty old farm equipment, screens hanging loose on porches covered with peeling paint, and black and brown frosted-off weeds standing knee high.  It may surprise you that I was driving.  I have reached that point where the doctor is the one who decides if I can have a driver’s license, and it seems the general consensus is that it doesn’t matter if you can tell if that thing by the side of the road is a garbage can, a mailbox, or a midget, as long you know it’s there and don’t hit it.

              But I was really tired.  Most of my medications are beta blockers of one sort or another, or poisons that affect my heartbeat.  Sometimes I am lucky to have a pulse rate of 52 and blood pressure just scraping the bottom side of 100, the top number that is.  The bottom one might be half that. 

              I had just bought groceries for the week, picked up a prescription and some dry cleaning, stood in line at the post office for twenty minutes and taught a Bible class, not to mention driving the hour and a half round trip back and forth to town.  I was ready to sit out the rest of the day, after I got home and unloaded.

              But my weary mind forgot that I was driving and told me to lean back and relax.  I know my eyes weren’t closed longer than half a second, but when my brain caught up with what I was doing and I snapped to, my pulse was racing along just fine.  Good thing I was only five miles from home.              

              And that’s when I forgot that these medications are a blessing, that without them I wouldn’t see at all, and wouldn’t have for several years now.  That’s when I railed against a gift of God.  It’s not enough that I have no energy.  I must also put up with the discomfort of follicular conjunctivitis every minute of every day as a side effect, and nearly constant headaches from the blurry vision that accompanies it.  How can this be a blessing?

              Down days happen, usually when things pile up.  Once again we needed something we couldn’t afford.  Once again we had received bad news about a parent’s health.  Once again something broke down.  My vision had decreased another line at my last checkup.  Keith’s RA had broken through the latest, the third, layer of medication and we weren’t sure it could be knocked down without another layer.  And now I come dangerously close to an accident that could have hurt not just me but an innocent bystander.

              So down I spiraled.  When even blessings—like the medications that keep you seeing—become something you want to curse because all you can focus on are the side effects, you are too far down, and it’s time to find your way out.

             Down days aren’t so much about a lack of faith as they are about a moment’s forgetfulness.  They are about looking for the wrong things, or looking at the right things the wrong way.  This wretched medicine makes me feel horrible, I sometimes think on a down day.  On an up day I remember, this wonderful medicine has kept me seeing long enough to see my grandchildren.

              I don’t for a minute compare myself to John, and I certainly have no idea what his feelings were, but if I had been in his shoes—or in his cell—I might have needed a reminder too.  He had given up so much to fulfill his role in God’s plan as the forerunner of the Messiah.  Yet now, when he has done all that was expected of him, he is cast into prison for speaking the truth.  Surely God would save this righteous man, the one of whom the Messiah himself would say, “Of those born of women, none is greater than John,” Luke 7:28.  But no, day after day he languishes in a prison cell at the mercy of a wicked woman and her weak husband. 

              I would have had a down day or two as I came to realize that my work was finished, that perhaps I, too, was finished, at the completely un-ripe young age of 31 or so.  I don’t know if that is why or not, but he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one, or should we look for another?” (7:20) 

              The Lord sent him what he needed to hear.

              "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me." Luke 7:22-23.

              John already knew those things; he had probably seen many of them.  He just needed to be reminded, and there is no shame in that. 

            God can remind each one of us too.  He does it by the providential words and actions of your brethren.  He does it when a hymn suddenly wafts through your mind.  He does it by giving us His Word, a resource of constant refreshment when we need it.  How many of us don’t have verses we go to in difficult moments?  If you don’t, then you need to make some time today to find one.  Find it before you need it.  Find it, and let the Lord remind you about all of your blessings, both now and to come. 

              You can come up from a down day, but only if you reach out and take hold of the help that is offered.
 
They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31.
 
Dene Ward