One of the prettiest views of our property is coming down the shady lane late in the afternoon as the western sun sets behind the tall pines.  The live oaks spread their arms over the house and carport and most of the yard, dripping with Spanish moss and providing an even deeper shade over the lush green grass.  It isn’t fancy by any means.  It isn’t the grandeur of mountains and valleys that dwarf the human spirit.  It isn’t the sculptured and manicured lawn of a great mansion.  But it’s homey and comfortable and inviting.
              All that moss is part of the charm.  We’ve had people try to tell us to remove it.  “It’s a parasite,” they tell us, a common misconception.  Actually, it’s a bromeliad, related to the pineapple.  According to the Sarasota County Forestry Division, Spanish moss, the beard of ancient live oaks, does not jeopardize the trees.  It does not steal nutrients.  It is an air plant that prefers to perch on horizontal limbs like those of live oaks, which provide more access to sunlight and water than vertical limbs.  It processes its food from the rainwater that runs off the leaves and limbs of the trees.  Nothing is stolen from the tree.  Just look around.  Moss even hangs from power lines and fences, and it seems to prefer dead trees to live ones.  So much for the myth that it’s a parasite.
              However, the moss can become so thick that it shades the leaves of the trees from the sunshine, the thing necessary for photosynthesis.  During the rainy season, thick moss can become so heavy that it breaks branches. 
              I think Spanish moss must be a little like worry.  Let’s dismiss the notion that any worry at all is a sin.  Paul talks about “the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches,” 2 Cor 11:28.  He may not use the word “worry,” but that is exactly what he is talking about—anxiety, care, concern, the “daily pressure.”  Sometimes that emotion is legitimate and we become petty when we start forbidding certain words while accepting the feelings as long as we call it something else.
              Yet worldly care and worry can rob us of our spirituality and our usefulness to God.  It can make us “unfruitful,” Mark 4:19.  It can “entangle” us in worldly pursuits, 2 Tim 2:4.  It can tell tales about our hearts with misplaced priorities, Luke 12:22,23, doubt, Luke 12:29, and lack of faith, Matt 6:30.  All of that can choke the word right out of us and when trials come, instead of trusting a God who loves us and provides our needs, we may break from the stress.
              If you have trouble with worry, camp awhile in Matthew 6.  Don’t you understand, Jesus asks, that life is more than food and clothing, v 25?  Don’t you know that God loves you even more than he loves the birds and the flowers, vv 26,30?  Are you so arrogant that you think your worry will fix anything, v 27?  Don’t you have more faith than the heathens, vv 30,32?  Jesus always has a way of laying it on the line, doesn’t he?
              While there may be legitimate concerns, things we pray about even in agony as Jesus did in Gethsemane, and there may be good things that occupy our minds, like our care for the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church and the spiritual progress of our children, don’t let the trivial things, the things of this life that you can’t do anything about anyway, become such a heavy burden that you break under its weight.  Rid yourself of the moss that robs you of the Light.  “Let not your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said, John 14:27.  He came to bring us peace instead.
 
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

As we said last time, the first lament is one of overwhelming sadness.  In a mere 22 verses, the writer uses tears, weep, cry, and mourn a total of five times; distress, affliction and misery a total of seven times; sigh and groan a total of four times, and no comfort and desolate a total of seven times.  That is more words describing grief than there are verses in the lament.

              The speaker is Jerusalem herself.  She is no longer a "princess" but a "widow."   She whose streets were once full of people, is now lonely.  Her friends have become her enemies.  Even her roads mourn because they are no longer traversed by happy families traveling to celebrate the Jewish festivals. 

              In verses 8 and 9 she recognizes her sin, but at this point seems more embarrassed at the disgrace than anything else.  The pagans have seen her nakedness so she "groans and turns her face away."  "The Lord is in the right," she says. "I have been very rebellious, BUT…"

              Look at poor little me.  God has been so hard on me.  Everyone is laughing at me.  No one will comfort me.  See my suffering.  Yes, she is suffering badly, far worse than any of us ever have, but something is missing, even in her confession of sin.  She has more to learn about the purpose of punishment and the correct way to view it. 

              However, the grief itself is not wrong.  God has made that plain throughout his Word.  Even righteous men are shown to grieve, Abraham, David, Hezekiah, and Paul among them.  Even Jesus cried.  Paul told the Roman brethren to "Weep with those who weep," not look down on them and rebuke them for crying.  The promise we have ultimately is that God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes—then, not now.

              But our grief is to be different.  "We sorrow not AS those who have no hope" (1 Thes 4:13), not "We sorrow not."  And if on occasion, our grief is caused by our own sin, as with these people, we have an even larger obligation in our grief.  Godly sorrow works repentance (2 Cor 7:10).  These people are still working on that.  Eventually they will get there, but not quite yet.

              God made us to grieve.  It is human nature to miss a loved one, to be frightened by a bad diagnosis, to be overwhelmed by a loss of physical things, and especially by a spiritual loss.  It is even correct to grieve in such a dramatic and lengthy way as these people did.  As sinful as they were, when you read these laments and see what they went through, you still feel compassion and pity for them.

              But as with everything God made, He made grief to serve a purpose.  It can bring repentance, it can bring strength, it can bring clarity, and help us learn priorities.  Use it, not as self-pity, but the way He intended. 
 
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negeb! ​Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps 126:4-6)

Dene Ward         

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            A parent who never says no, who never makes his child earn anything with his own hard work, who always gets him out of trouble instead of allowing him to reap the consequences of his mistakes, is not a faithful, loving parent.  These things build character.  Wealth doesn’t.  Luxury doesn’t.  Anyone who “needs” that to be happy will never in this life be a happy camper.
 
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19
 
Dene Ward

My Tuesday class just finished a study of Lamentations, the first study of that book I have ever done.  Which means, of course, that I learned a lot of new things, and despite this being some of the saddest material in the Bible coming as it does immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, I have fallen in love with these little gems.

              That is the first thing I learned.  Lamentations is not one book that we have divided into five chapters.  It is five separate psalms of lament.  Once we figured that out we decided to study each one separately rather than go seamlessly from one to the other and perhaps have to stop in the middle of one if class time ran out and lose the train of thought.

              Another thing we learned:  each lament is an acrostic poem.  The patterns are not always the same, but the use of the Hebrew alphabet is prominent in them all.  In numbers one and two, each stanza has three lines and the first word of each stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, all 22 in order, making 22 verses in our English Bibles.  Number three is a bit more complex.  Each stanza has three lines and each line within the stanza begins with the same letter that is next in the Hebrew alphabet, making a total of 66 verses in our English Bibles.  Number four follows the pattern of numbers one and two except each stanza has only two lines instead of three.  Then you reach number five, which is not an acrostic in the strictest sense, but which still has 22 stanzas in a nod to the Hebrew alphabet.

              English poets are prone to look down their noses at acrostic poems as contrived and uncreative.  They served a real purpose in their time.  Those people did not have Bibles lying on their coffee tables.  They were used to listening and memorizing.  Knowing what letter the next stanza began with was a useful tool in that memorization. 

            Acrostics also had literary symbolism.  Using every letter of the alphabet meant a full expression of the emotion under discussion, in this case, grief.  After all this expressiveness, from A to Z we might say, nothing remains to be said.  And a study of these five poems will show you that is so.

              Number one is a poem of overwhelming sadness.  After we went through the verses and the figures of speech, the repeated words and synonyms and the nuances of expression, I read the poem aloud to the class.  They began reading along with me, but one young woman suddenly sat back, closed her eyes a second, then opened them and listened even more intently.  This poem will cut you to the heart.  You will want to weep out loud with this conquered people.

              Number two will shake you to the core.  Anger, fury, indignation, and other synonyms for the wrath of God appear several times both as nouns and verbals.  Enemy, foe, swallowed up, without pity, without mercy leave no question that what has happened is the doing of an angry God.

              Number three dwells on punishment, the reason for all this devastation and ruin, but suddenly turns close to the middle to remind the people that God is faithful.  A good God still punishes sin.  He would not be good if He did not.

              Number four brings home the consequences of breaking the Covenant.  Drawing heavily from Deuteronomy 28, the writer shows them item by item that God had warned them that this would happen, that making a covenant with the Creator involves the personal and corporate responsibility that the people had sworn to so many centuries before.

              Number five rounds out the collection.  Finally a humbled people feels remorse and repents.  They beg God for restoration and renewal, and the writer leaves it with a Hebrew idiom that seems to indicate that God's response will be positive.  After so much pain and terror, there is finally real hope.

              Do you see how the writer covers all the bases with these psalms?  Not only in the acrostics within the poems, but also by changing his focus from one psalm to the other, he has shown every possible emotion the people were feeling after the Babylonians destroyed their nation. 

              And that means we can use these words in our own struggles too.  We will all have trials in our lives, but most of us will never experience what these people did.  Surely if their grief can find expression and relief in these words, ours can too.  I plan to cover a few of those lessons in the future.  I hope you will study along with me.
 
All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength. “Look, O LORD, and see, for I am despised.” “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. (Lam 1:11-12) 
 
Dene Ward

My jasmine vine had a super-trellis built by a man who believes that if a little is good, more is better. 

            The trellis itself is a lattice of thick metal wires called a “cow panel,” used for the gate portion of pasture fence.  A cow isn’t even going to bend it, much less push through it.  The panel was stood on end and woven through a piece of twenty foot antenna mast set five feet deep into the ground.  The fifteen feet above ground was held steady by nylon cord tied to two nearby trees.

            The jasmine had already been growing five years, twisting its way up the fifteen feet of lattice work, and hanging over the top at least four feet.  Most of the blooms were bunched near the top every year, the sides down toward the bottom thinner in both leaf and blossom.  Still that huge vine was a beauty every spring and its scent often wafted on the breeze a good fifty feet away.

            Then last summer, after the spring blooms had been spent, an afternoon thunderstorm blew through.  Winds gusting up to forty miles an hour bore down on our property, littering the yard with limbs and twigs, moss and air plants.  Afterward, we walked the place mentally adding up the hours of clean-up in our future.  Then we headed down the drive and when we passed the two azaleas and two young oaks announcing the beginning of our yard, we saw the jasmine.

            The two cords had snapped from the tension the winds had put on them and then the mast had simply bent over in a salaam toward the wood pile.  It wasn’t broken or even creased, just bowed in an arc.  The weight of that vine simply couldn’t stand on its own against the gusts.  The “top” of the trellis now hung only a foot or so off the ground.  Keith got beneath it and tried to stand it up, but the weight was too much for him alone.  It would take at least two men pushing, while a truck pulled with a rope. 

            A few days later, before we had had a chance to do anything about it, we walked out again and discovered new growth all over the “side” of the jasmine vine, the side that was now the “top.”  It looked like the vine would not only survive, but thrive.  So we found a section of 8 inch PVC pipe that would stand on its end six feet high, and used it to prop the end of the bent trellis.

            Within a few weeks the shoots on the vine were thickening all over the new top, and dangling off the sides.  It was obvious we would no longer have a fifteen foot tall sentinel welcoming guests, but a fifteen foot long hedge four feet high would do just as nicely. 

            This past spring white blossoms covered the entire length of it, not just the mass at the end that used to be the top.  The white was almost solid because the blooms were so thick and on some mornings you could smell it all the way across the field.   

            We don’t realize it, but the times when the storms of life hit us, are often the times our faith and strength shows best.  When a trellis stands on its own on a calm day, so what if the vine blooms?  Would we expect otherwise?  But when the storm comes and the trellis is damaged, yet it not only continues to support the vine the best it can, but the blooms actually increase, now that’s worth noticing. 

            When life is easy, of course we can stay faithful.  Isn’t that what Satan said about Job?  But when a trial comes along, how we handle it can be a far more powerful witness of Christ in us than any service we might have given, any class we might have taught, any check we might have offered.  Just like that bent over jasmine, our blooms will show brighter and influence more people when we faithfully endure the worst Satan flings at us.

            Are you dealing with a storm in your life?  Don’t think your usefulness to God and his people is finished.  Don’t think that because some servant of Satan blew you over that you have lost your value.  How you handle it, the fact that you keep on standing for the Lord, even if a little bent, will be seen by many more than ever before.  The blooms will be so thick, and the scent so heady, that your example will not be missed.  You may think you are of no more benefit to God, but He says otherwise.  Those who appreciate you will stand under your bower and give you support, but the work you are doing as you persevere is still a service far more precious than you could ever have imagined.
 
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Prov 4:18
 
Dene Ward

My family loves gravy.  I would never think of serving bare rice or naked mashed potatoes.  There must always be gravy. 

            On the other hand, sometimes you cannot have gravy.  When you grill a steak, there is no gravy.  When you smoke a chicken quarter, there is no gravy, and if somehow you did catch the drippings, you wouldn’t want them.  Believe me, I tried it once.  Smoked drippings simply taste bitter.  Oh, you can always fake it with butter, flour, and canned broth, but any gravy connoisseur will know the difference.  You only get really good gravy with fresh meat drippings, flour sizzled in the pan, and some kind of liquid.

            Yet, if your life depended upon it, you would choose the meat over the gravy any time.  You would know that the only real nutritional value, the only real protein, is in the meat and not the gravy.  If you tried to live on nothing but gravy alone, you would soon starve.  You might be round as a beach ball, but you would still starve.

            Too many times we give up the meat for the gravy.  We give up marriages and families for the sake of career and money.  We give up a spiritual family that will help us no matter what for fair weather friends who won’t.  We even give up our souls for the sake of good times, status, and convenience.

            Then there are the times when it seems like life makes no gravy.  So we give up God because he dared to allow something less than ease, comfort, and fun into our lives.  Can’t have the gravy too?  Then I don’t want you, Lord.  You’re going to give up a grilled rib eye because it doesn’t come with gravy?  Really?

            I doubt we realize exactly what we are doing.  The problem is that we have things reversed.  We think this life is the meat, and the next is just the gravy.  That is what we are saying when we give up on God because things didn’t turn out so well here.  Justin Martyr, a philosopher who was converted to Christianity in the early half of the second century wrote, “Since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men put us to death.  Death is a debt we must all pay anyway” First Apology, chapter 11. 

            Can we say that, or are we too addicted to our pleasure loving, wealthy culture?  The first Christians converted with the knowledge that they would probably lose everything they owned and die within a matter of weeks, if not days.  And us?  We are out there looking for the gravy and blaming God for his scanty menu.

            The fact is we do have some gravy promised in this life.  We just look for it in the wrong places.  Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them …everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Matt 19:27,29.  Are you still looking to the world for your gravy?  Jesus plainly says the place to look is in your spiritual family.  When it works as he intended--even if it only comes close—it is far better than anything the world will ever offer you.

            So remember where to find your spiritual sustenance.  Remember where to go when times are rough and you need a hand.  And even those things are not the meat.  The meat is eternal life with a Creator who loved you enough to die.

            Everything else is just gravy.
 
…train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come, 1 Tim 4:7,8.
 
Dene Ward

On our last camping trip to Blackwater River State Park we had reserved an especially good site, along with its neighbor for Lucas, three months in advance.  We arrived and after three hours were nearly set up when the ranger arrived to tell us that the next day a controlled burn was scheduled right on our edge of the campground and we would have to move.  It was not a happy event.  Not only would we have to tear down and start again less than an hour before sunset, but none of the other sites were as private. 

              Privacy is not that important when you sleep in a trailer or RV, but in tents with paper-thin walls it makes a difference.  Our new sites were smack dab in the middle of the campground and so small and close together that I could hear Lucas snoring in his tent next site over.  In fact one night, he and Keith were snoring in rhythm, and the night after Lucas started a snore on the inhale and Keith finished it on the exhale, perfectly synchronized.  Yet when the controlled burn passed the campground we were glad we had moved.  Even with the wind blowing in the opposite direction, the ash would have fallen on our equipment and melted holes in it.

              This is one of the things you must be ready to deal with in a State Park.  The point of a state park is conservation.  There will be more rules than a commercial campground, rules that when broken actually make you a lawbreaker.  But state parks have the nicest facilities for the money that you will find, along with well-maintained hiking trails, nature walks, and all sorts of other free amenities.  We do our best to follow those rules because those parks are part of God's Creation, and we want them to last. 

              Florida has one of the best, and most awarded, state park systems in the country.  The idea was proposed during the Twenty-Sixth Regular Session of the State of Florida House of Representatives on May 2, 1935, and we are thrilled that it was later passed.  In our thirty years of camping, we have certainly made good use of the resulting parks.

              And on that particular trip we learned a lot about controlled burns.  There are two reasons for controlled burns.  When the underbrush is allowed to spread unchecked, all that extra fuel makes wildfires more destructive.  Also, in a pine forest, the controlled burns keep the hardwoods from taking over.  The day after the burn every small hardwood was smoking and burned to a crisp while the pines stood tall and strong, if a little charred on the bottom.

              As Christians we must experience times exactly like these controlled burns.  Perhaps the most difficult “burns” to understand are the problems among God’s people.  If the church is the body of Christ, why do people behave badly?  Why do divisions happen and heresies lead people astray?  The Proverb writer tells us that God will use the wicked, whether they want to be used or not, Prov 16:4.  Paul says in 1 Cor 11:19, For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 

              The question is not will there be problems in the church?  The question is, when there are problems will we be able to “recognize” those who are not genuine believers?  I fear that too many of us look to the wrong things. 

              Do I believe one side because they are my friends, never even questioning their words, while automatically dismissing the other if among them is a brother I don’t like too much?  Does “family” make the decision for me?  Am I relying on how I “feel” about it, instead of what the Word actually says?  Does it matter more to me who can quote the Big-Name Preachers instead of the scriptures?  Is one side more popular than the other?  Will it give me more power if that side wins the fight?  When I rely on those types of things, I am the one who is showing myself to be a less than genuine believer.

              While these things are necessary, it doesn’t mean God likes them, any more than he liked the Assyrians who fulfilled their purpose in punishing his wayward people. 

              Ho Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation! I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he means not so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few... Wherefore it shall come to pass, that, when the Lord has performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks, Isa 10:5-6,12. 

              Jesus presents a similar viewpoint when he says in Matt 18:7, Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion comes!  These things have their place and their purpose, but God will punish the ones responsible. 

              Now the hard part:  The apostles did not tell the early church that it was understandable to become discouraged and leave because their idea of the blissful, perfect institution was often marred by sin.  They said to use that experience to double check where we stand, to make sure we are among the true believers, the tall pines that withstand the blaze instead of the scrub brush and interloping hardwoods who try to destroy Christ’s body.

              Those controlled burns in the pine forests happen every three years.  Who knows how often the church needs cleansing but God himself? For me to give up on the Lord and his body because someone causes trouble, because peace among God’s people sometimes seems hard to come by, means I am giving up on God, failing to trust that he knows best. You may get a little singed, but it is cleansing burn, far better than the eternal burn that awaits the factious.
 
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit…Therefore by their fruits you shall know them, Matt 7:15-17, 20.
 
Dene Ward
             
 

A long time ago, when Keith preached for a small country church, he and I used to do our visiting on bicycles.  With two toddlers aged 3 and 1, we each had a child seat over the back wheel of our bikes and off the four of us would go for an afternoon or early evening of making the rounds to our elderly or ill brothers and sisters, or to make new contacts in the rural community whenever someone moved in. 

We rode sometimes as far as five or six miles one way.  We learned the roads far better than we would have by car.  The traffic on the highways was scarce so we could easily avoid the potholes.  We learned to use the center of the dirt roads.  You simply couldn't plow your way through the thick white sand on the corners and edges.  We also learned why lime rock roads are often called washboards.  Talk about vibrations—your teeth were still chattering a half mile after you turned off.

We found another good reason to avoid the edges of the roads—snakes!  More than once one of them jerked back from the road and slithered further into the grass it had been just about to leave.  Whenever we passed a flattened rattlesnake or moccasin in the road, we gave a little cheer.

And we also learned about wind.  I was reminded of it the other day when Lucas called and told me his experience with his bike and the wind.  It goes like this.  You are having the greatest ride of your life.  You feel great.  Your legs seem to fly on the pedals.  You can up the gears with impunity and virtually zip down the road.  Then you turn around to head back home.

Suddenly you understand why the ride out was so easy.  You are headed into a wind that had formerly been at your back.  You pedal harder in lower gears.  Your calves and thighs ache.  You begin to huff and puff.  Sometimes you wonder if you are making any progress at all.  And it takes you half again longer to get back home than the ride out.

When I see someone trying to navigate the trials of life without God that's what I think of—pedaling against the wind.  I cannot imagine facing problems without God.  What's the use of it all?  You can't count on help from anyone because, like you, they are all in it for themselves.  You don't believe that anything good will come from it.  You are pedaling into a headwind so strong you will be lucky to even stay in the same place instead of being blown backwards.  Who will listen to your cries?  Who will hold you up when things get even worse?  And why did it happen to you anyway?  Nothing makes sense.  And sooner or later, even if you get through this one, another problem will rear its ugly head and there you go again.

But with God on your side things are as different--the wind is at your back.  It may still be a rough ride.  Life can deal you some bad moments.  The French have a phrase:  c'est la vie.  Such is life.  You can't get through it unscathed.  But with God behind you, you know you have help.  You have someone to lean on, to talk to, and to count on.  Because you have His Word in your heart you can make better decisions.  Because you pray you can feel calmer and more content.  Knowing that He will send help through your brothers and sisters, through Providence, through his Holy Spirit, and because you believe He will answer your prayers, you can face the impossible and come through it far better than you might have otherwise.  You know there is a reason—be it learning or growing stronger or refining your soul, you know you will be better on the other side of this affliction.

Are you riding with the wind, or against it?  If you don't have that relationship with God, if you don't know Him through his revelation to us, and if you never bother to talk with him unless you want something, maybe you are headed in the wrong direction.  Just because you sit on a pew, you aren't necessarily on the right road.  It's easy to get bogged down in the sand corners.  Just because you were once baptized into the Lord's body, you aren't necessarily a part of it now.  There is a snake out there just waiting to strike at your ankles.  You need to turn that bike around.  He wants to help you, but He can't as long as you keep riding against the Wind.
 
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. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but 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. (Isa 40:28-31)
 
Dene Ward

Shortly after meeting some new people, word came back from mutual friends that their assessment of us was, “They do so well for a handicapped couple.”

              Handicapped?  We had never thought of ourselves that way.  No one else, even people who have known us for years, has ever described us that way.  Now Keith, who has reached the point of “profound deafness” may well be called handicapped, but he has never used that word of himself.  He just keeps on doing what needs to be done because it has to be done.  About the only thing I have taken over for him is the telephone.

              He has never used his handicap as an excuse.  Nothing disgusts him more than many of the felons he must deal with who blame society, their parents, their neighborhoods, their economic class and anything else they can for their lack of education and ambition, and their crimes.  He was raised in back hill poverty, without running water, with only a kitchen woodstove for heat in a climate where the water bucket in that same kitchen often developed a top layer of ice overnight.  He began going deaf in his early 20s and already had one hearing aid at 27.  He finished a college degree while supporting a wife and two children.  He continues to work, even now in his mid-60s, despite his ever increasing disability and one stroke already on his medical record.  He uses none of these “handicaps” as an excuse.  They are simply obstacles he must overcome.

              Too often we want to claim handicaps in our work for God.  I don’t have time.  I don’t have the money.  I don’t have the talent.  I am too young and inexperienced.  I am too old.  I am not popular.  I am too shy.  The same God who promised he would not tempt you more than you are able to bear, will not give you an opportunity you don’t have the ability to handle.

              He doesn’t lay out the opportunities like a multiple choice test, then let us choose the one we want.  “None of the above” is not on the list either.  He is the one who decides our handicaps and his decision is obvious in the things he places before us to do.  He expects us to choose “all of the above.”

              Handicaps will make you stronger, but not if you use them as excuses.  You must work your way through them.  Then God will decide whether you did as much as you were able to do.  He is the one who really knows.
 
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor 12:9,10.
 
Dene Ward

Most are familiar with the life of King Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah.  When he was thirty-nine, he became ill “unto death,” the prophet Isaiah told him.  Yet because of his good life and his fervent prayer to God, he was granted a fifteen year reprieve (2 Chron 32).

            Hezekiah was grateful.  He wrote a psalm of thanksgiving, ending with, For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks you, as I do this day; the father makes known to the children your faithfulness, Isa 38:18,19.

            I wonder how he felt on his fiftieth birthday, twelve years later.  I wonder what was running through his mind in year fourteen, and as the fifteenth year dawned, was he still grateful for the extra time God had allowed him, or was he bitter, knowing the end was in sight?  If it were the same illness returning, he had to know this was it, even if he was only 54 years old.  Did he ruin the time he had left by railing about how badly God had treated him, completely forgetting the gift of fifteen extra years?  How would you have acted?

            2 Chronicles gives us a lot of information about how he used those fifteen years, some of it not too wisely, in fact.  Yet he seems to have finally reverted to his former self—a man who worshipped God and did what was right in leading God’s people.  We don’t know, though, how he met his death, whether with a smile of gratitude or a groan of bitterness.  I would like to think the former.

            Has God given you a reprieve?  Sometimes he gives it just as he did Hezekiah, a few more years to live following a major illness or accident, even when the doctors thought it was over.  Sometimes the reprieve is about an increasing disability, yet we still function far longer than anyone ever expected. 

            Sometimes it’s a second chance with our finances—an opportunity to show good stewardship with what the Lord has given us instead of once again running ourselves into the ground with a lack of character and self-control. 

            Maybe he has given you an opportunity to repair a relationship and enjoy years of fellowship with an old friend or family member.  Perhaps, most important of all, he has given you the chance to mend your relationship with Him, to come back from a dalliance with the world and serve him as you ought.

            God gives reprieves every day.  Some are obvious, others not so much.  Look at your life today and instead of seeing a bitter end, see if you can find a second chance you might have missed.  Be grateful for the opportunity instead of resenting the new limits you must live with, and the knowledge that the end might be near. 

            Hezekiah knew exactly how long his reprieve would last.  We don’t.  Today might be the last occasion you have to tell a friend you’re sorry, the last opportunity to make amends for a wrong done long ago.  It might be the last time you get to tell someone you love him.  It might be your final chance to return to God. 

            In all things live like your reprieve is over, for it may very well be.
 
Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him, Isa 30:18.

Dene Ward