I suppose it is the time of year.  The mailbox has been spewing out six inch high piles of catalogues lately.  Usually they wind up in the trash, but I opened up one of the less familiar ones the other day.  The prices made it obvious this was for people of means, not folks like us, and so did the items themselves. 
           
            A Marshmallow Blaster—a pneumatic gun to shoot marshmallows up to 40 feet, $39.95.
           
            A Touchscreen Portable Video Poker Game--$99.95.
           
            A Balance Board Trainer—helps you improve your balance without having to go to a gym, $479.95.
           
            A Rotating Dual Disco Ball--$59.95.
           
            A Fish-Finding Watch--$139.95.
           
            A Laser-Guided Pool Cue--$79.95.
           
            An Authentic Scottish Practice Chanter—the first step for those who wish to learn to play the bagpipes--$49.95.
           
            Obviously, the people who would want these things are either so wealthy that they truly need nothing, or else bored to death—possibly both.
           
            That’s what happens when you count on this world to make you happy.  Solomon did exactly that and came to the conclusion that all things are full of weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun, Eccl 1:8,9, despite what Hammacher Schlemmer comes up with.
           
            Boredom can get to us in every way when things are too easy.  We recently sent care packages to Zimbabwe that included powdered Concord grape juice. Evidently grapes are not a native crop over there, and with the drought, rampant inflation, and food shortages, they were having difficulty even fulfilling the obligation to observe the Lord’s Supper on Sunday mornings.  At one point, they were reduced to boiling raisins and using the decanted water. 
           
             And here some of my brethren sit arguing about whether or not to call it an “act of worship,” how big a piece of bread to break off, whether the bread should contain oil or shortening, whether it can be sweet, and other assorted nitpicky items.  Our destitute brethren could teach us a thing or two about how precious this observance should be, precious enough to even think of buying the grape juice instead of food, and certainly not a source of contention. 
           
             When things become so easy that our worship to God becomes tedium so that we argue about it to fill the time, remember how it got to be that way—because we are so blessed in the first place.  Maybe there is a reason that the last beatitude is Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake.  Maybe our blessings would mean a whole lot more to us if they were harder to come by.
 
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the Gentiles, says Jehovah of hosts. But you profane it, in that ye say, The table of Jehovah is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even its food, is contemptible. You say also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and you have snuffed at it, says Jehovah of hosts; and ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering: should I accept this at your hand? says Jehovah, Mal 1:11-13.
 
Dene Ward

When we camp in the fall, we must make our reservations several weeks in advance.  With my precarious eye condition, we never know when we might need to cancel, but it’s our philosophy that you hope and pray for the best, then deal with life as it happens.
 
           Then there is the weather.  There are no 2-3 month forecasts, at least none you can count on.  Only once in 28 years have we hit a solid week of rain, but that was also the week we passed around a stomach virus—first Nathan, then Keith, then me, and finally Lucas—so the rain was the least of our problems.

            In the other years, though, we have noticed this:  it always rains on Tuesday.  No matter where we camp or what year, Tuesday is the day for rain.  Sometimes it’s one hour-long storm; sometimes it’s a day of passing showers; once in a while it happens at night while we sleep warm and dry in the tent.  Those are the best years.

            We have come to plan for it ahead of time.  Sometimes we go on a day of shopping in a nearby town, replenishing the ice supply and picking up anything circumstances create a need for, like duct tape, batteries, a new air mattress once when we woke up flat on the tent floor one morning.  Sometimes it’s browsing at a flea market, a used bookstore, or an antique shop.  Sometimes it’s a scenic drive through a national forest.  We know when we leave the house on Saturday that on Tuesday we will be doing one of these things.

            One year we really hit the jackpot.  Monday night at 11 pm, shortly after we were tucked into our sleeping bags for the night, the rain started and did not stop until 11 pm Tuesday night—24 hours straight of cold drizzle.  We were in an unfamiliar campground in an unfamiliar area.  The nearest town with decent shops was over 50 miles away.  There were no indoor tourist spots nearby either.  By breakfast Tuesday morning the “water resistant” screen-house over the table was saturated and had started dripping through.  We obviously couldn’t sit there all day.  So we gathered up books, Bibles, notebooks, a Boggle game with plenty of paper and pencils, a propane lamp and stove, and headed for the tent.  We spent the entire day in that 16 x 10 tent reading, studying, playing games, talking, drinking hot chocolate, napping, and then starting the list over again.  The day passed quickly for that kind of day, and the next we were back to sunny skies, hiking, and evening campfires.

            Wouldn’t it be foolish for us to expect to be able to choose one week three months in advance, and think we could live outdoors without a chance of rain?  Instead we go on, knowing it will happen, prepared for it, and determined to have a good time anyway.

            Peter told those first century Christians not to be so naïve as to expect to never suffer.  Paul told Timothy, Yea all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, 2 Tim 3:12.  We are promised all spiritual blessings, but health and wealth do not fall into that category.  We are promised “a hundredfold” brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children, but often their greatest worth is in the encouragement they offer during the trials of life.  We are promised that God will never forsake us, but that matters far more in times of difficulty than in times of ease.  In fact, it is usually in those difficult times that we come to realize our greatest blessings.

            Only the shallowest of Christians expects God to make sure he leads a “charmed” life.  We are called to be disciples of a Lord who suffered.  A disciple follows in his Master’s footsteps.  Why would we ever think we should be immune to the same suffering?

            As long as you expect a week without rain, your life will be one of constant disappointment.  Hope and pray for the best, prepare for the trials and tribulations, then live a life of joy when it rains on Tuesday.
 
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you to prove you as though a strange thing happened to you; but insomuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also you may rejoice with exceeding joy, 1 Pet 4:12,13.
 
Dene Ward

I am different from most women, I guess.  I do not enjoy those cutesy-pie sayings that sound like they came straight out of a sugar canister.  For one thing, I think they can engender the opposite feeling they are intending to--guilt, mainly.  How many times have you heard that even if you don’t feel good, you should go to the assembly because it will make you feel better when you leave?  Yes, on occasion, it does just that, mainly because I was too busy having a pity party and the services put my mind on things besides me. 
But what about the person who is genuinely ill, or who is so old and feeble that he needs to rest after putting one sock on?  Do I really think that going to church and spreading germs to the elderly and small children is going to make me feel better, and even if it did, wasn’t that awfully selfish of me?  Or if pushing myself too hard could cause me to collapse during the services, what great good did that accomplish for anyone else?  Yet sometimes these people do push themselves—they are in fact the ones most likely to push themselves--so they come and infect everyone else, because they have been made to feel guilty for not doing so by things I have come to call duck-billed platitudes.
 
           I see another problem with some of these things—they smack a little of the health and wealth gospel.  “Sacrifice for the Lord isn’t sacrifice if you really love the Lord.”  Nonsense.  Try that one on a first century Christian who is about to have his throat chomped on and his belly ripped open by the lions in the Coliseum.  Sacrifice feels like sacrifice and God never promised anything else.  What He did promise was that sacrifice is worth it.  That doesn’t mean anything if you have annulled the pain of the sacrifice.

            The things we need to hear are the true things.  Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution...For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps, 2Tim 3:12; 1Pet 2:20-21.  What we need is to be told how to endure what will surely come if we live like Christ did, not how to avoid it or worse yet, how to make it “fun.”

            Sometimes life is just plain hard.  That was the punishment we got when we were thrown out of Eden.  Christians are not immune to that penalty, we are just forgiven for it.

            Be strong, God is always telling us in His Word.  Be courageous.  It isn’t courage to turn everything into one giant tea party.  That’s denial, and I see too many Christians living in that state.  And this is what it leads to when you finally realize you cannot platitude your way out of it—“Why did this happen to me?”  This is why:  We live in an imperfect world, made that way by sin, which, no matter how much we like to believe otherwise, we have participated in.  And it won’t get any better.  Tragedies are a part of life.  BUT---

            We live in hope of a better world, a better place that will be perfect and will never end.  That is what you need to remember, not a bunch of saccharine sayings on poster after poster after poster.  I have something much better, and so do you if you will take hold of it.  It does not tell us that everything will be wonderful in this life, that God will spare us from anything painful.  Instead it promises pain, but it also says this:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:35-39.
 
Dene Ward

Keith noticed it first, a dove that sat quiet and almost still on the ground beneath one of the hanging bird feeders.  While other doves and a bevy of cardinals hopped around him pecking at the ground, then flying up and down from the feeder, he barely moved a foot in two hours, and always one small, hesitant hop at a time.  By early evening most of the other birds were gone, finished with their free supper and off to find a good roosting place for the night, but he still sat there.
           
            By then I was a little worried.  I grabbed the binoculars for a closer look.  He had puffed himself up twice his size as birds will do in the winter to keep warm.  But it was still early September and the humid evening air hovered in the upper 80s.  Suddenly his head popped up, stretching out his neck just a bit, and then immediately back into the folds of feathers around his shoulders.  As I continued to watch I noticed it every five minutes or so.  It almost looked like he had hiccups, but somehow I did not think that was the problem.  Something worse was happening.

            Near dusk he suddenly flew straight up to the feeder itself.  Instead of perching on the outer rung designed for a bird to curl its feet around and be able to lean forward to eat from the small trough that ran around the bottom of the feeder, he flew into the trough itself, hunched down, and leaned against the clear plastic walls of the feeder.  Then he became completely still—no more twitching or bouncing.  I watched until it was too dark to see any longer. 

            The next morning I went out with my pail of birdseed to refill all the feeders around the house.  There beneath the feeder lay the now much smaller body of the dove.  Sometime in the night he had died and fallen off the feeder.  We carefully disposed of the small body for the sake of the other birds and our Chloe just in case it had carried a contagious illness.  It was a sad moment.  I couldn’t help but think, “You weren’t alone, little guy.  We watched you and we cared.”

            We weren’t the only ones watching.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father, Matt 10:29.  God notices when every little bird falls to the ground.  And never forget the lesson Jesus draws from that:  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows, Matt 10:30-31.

            Dying alone has become a metaphor for a purposeless existence. “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone,” (Orson Welles).

            It’s used to depict life and death as a beginning and end that you cannot effect one way or the other.  “Don’t expect anyone to stick around.  You were born alone and you will die alone,” (Anonymous).

            It’s used as a desperate pitiful plea for someone to care:  “I just don’t want to die alone, that’s all.  That’s not too much to ask for, is it?  It would be nice to have someone care for me, for who I am, not about my wallet,” (Richard Pryor).

            It’s used to show the meaninglessness of life:  “At the end, we all die alone,” (Anonymous).

            Is it any wonder that skeptics and atheists commit suicide?  None of these things is true for a Christian. 

            For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever… Ps 37:28.

            Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you, Heb 13:5.

            Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go, Josh 1:9.

            Sometimes we can quote passages like these until we are blue in the face, but when the hour of trial comes, any sort of trial, and no one stands with us, we allow the physical eye to fool us into believing we are alone.  We need to learn to see with spiritual eyes like our Lord did:  Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me, John 16:32.  We are the only ones who can take that promise away—when we don’t believe it.  With God a believer is never alone no matter how much vacant space surrounds him.

            If God promised to watch for every fallen bird, He will watch for me.  Even if some day I breathe my last breath in an otherwise empty room, I can know that Someone cares enough to be nearby, watching and waiting to take me home.
 
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints, Ps 116:15.
And I will gather you to your fathers…2 Chron 34:28.
 
Dene Ward

Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, ‘You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.’” Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The LORD is righteous.” When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah: “They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless, they shall be servants to him, that they may know my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries,.” 2Chr 12:5-8.

            It’s easy, when you find yourself in a trying situation, to make excuses for your behavior; to say, “Woe is me,” and expect everyone to sympathize with you and pat you on the back, not just occasionally or even often, but almost as if it were a daily penance on their part because you have to deal with the difficult and they don’t—at least in your mind.

            “Why is this happening to me?” can become a mantra if you aren’t careful.  Maybe God, in the passage above, answers that question.

            Judah repented when they learned the consequences of their disobedience and God repented their destruction.  But He did not stop their servitude to the king of Egypt.  “This way they will learn how to serve me,” he told the prophet.

            Did you ever think that maybe that “unjust” master (boss) was there to teach you service?  Or that difficult spouse? 

            Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly, 1Pet 2:18-19.

            Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct, 1Pet 3:1-2.

            Did you ever think that maybe that obnoxious neighbor or ornery brother in the Lord might be there to teach you patience and forbearance?

            Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing, 1Pet 3:9.

In fact, doesn’t God expect us to use every situation, whether blessing or trial, to improve as His servant?  The sufferings we endure are meant to be opportunities for growth, not merit badges on a boastful sash.

            Suffering does not make us exempt to the call to service.  People in all situations of life have been serving God as hard as they can for as long as they can, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, hungry or full, old or young, even in slavery, for thousands of years.  The place God puts us is not only the test of our faith, but the textbook from which we learn our service.  What lesson would God have you learn today? 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you, 1Pet 5:10.

Dene Ward

            The little girl stuck her head inside the door.  Yep.  It was empty.  Stepping inside, she shut the door, turning the cast iron doorknob—nearly as big as her head—as quietly as she could.

            She panned the room slowly, her brown pixie-cut hair shining in the sunlight that shone through the tiny window near the ceiling.  It did look different now.  She shoved the thick glasses higher up on her pert nose and looked harder.  Now she could see the dust balls atop the army green footlocker, the dirt clods clinging to the ramshackle plow, straw poking out of the stacked crates, ropes looped over rusty nails jutting out of the wall, dark gray lines netting the sides of clanky buckets like veins, the ridges circling the cane fishing pole leaning against the wall, empty dust-frosted preserve jars lining the rickety shelves, the delicate weave of her grandmother’s flower basket sitting empty on the bottom shelf of a drawered table.

            She shuffled across the concrete floor, listening to the grit scrape with every step.  Stopping, she leaned over and studied it.  It glinted in the slanted sunlight like little slivers of glass.  A black ant crept up to one and shoved it along like a tiny bulldozer.  At first she was startled; she had never seen an ant before, but now…  She shoved her glasses up again.  A whole bunch of ants darted crazily around the center pole of the old garage.  She skipped over but it was only an old dead roach lying on its back, so she sauntered back to the corner.

            For a while she roamed around with her head up, gazing at the pine rafters and silvery spiderwebs until she tripped over an old footlocker and sprawled over the top on her poochy stomach.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way down her face.

            With the footlocker before her, she had found a new interest.  The lock hung open and she took it off and lifted the metal latch.  Her grandmother’s lace garden hat lay on top, a pair of gloves under its floppy brim.  Red and yellow flowered aprons with gnarled strings, a caramel colored walking cane, a yellow-stained baptismal robe, a pair of steel rimmed spectacles wrapped in a once-white lace handkerchief; she fished beneath all these before she found what she wanted—a huge rusty cowbell whose clang sounded more like a clonk.  She held it up to her ear and listened two times, three and another just for good measure.  Then she held it up over her head and watched the clapper swing from side to side.  So that’s how it worked!  She knew there was a metal jobbie in there but how it made the clonk was beyond the comprehension of her four year old mind—until now.

            She closed the top of the locker and set the bell on top.  Taking a step back to gaze at it, her heel landed on the rake tines and the handle slammed against the back of her head.  It was too bad glasses didn’t go all the way around her head, too.

            She set it up against the wall and looked at the floor.  It was really dirty.  And that big, hairy janitor’s broom leaned against the opposite wall just itching to sweep some.

            She took it by the middle of the handle and lugged it across the floor to the back corner.  It was longer than she was and she had to stand on her toes to reach the end of the handle, but when she pulled it down the broom end slid out so-o-o far in front of her.  After a half dozen pushes, she was worn out.  She yanked up her striped tee shirt and wiped the sweat off her face, sticking her finger up under the bridge of her glasses to get to her nose.  It was too bad glasses had to sit on her nose.  She brushed her hands off on her red corduroy pants and reached up for another swoosh.  That pile of dustballs, dirt, sawdust, and spider webs wasn’t big enough for her to quit just yet, even though a big red blister was rising on the inside of her thumb.

            But she only had time for three more swooshes before she had to stop and listen.

            “Denie!” came the call again.

            Oh well, she had just as soon stop anyway.  Something else needed tending to.  She had seen lines in her grandmother’s face.

 

I wrote that when I was 17.  It won a couple of prizes, but that’s not why I have posted it today.

I doubt that as a four year old I had any sense of other people’s troubles, but as a 17 year old I must have begun to see one of the biggest problems a trial in your life can give you—an inability to see the pain others are going through.  All you can see is your own.  All you can feel is your own.  All you care about is your own.

Contrast that to our Lord.  He led a difficult life, a poor man with no belongings, ridiculed by others and in danger more than once, yet all he did was serve anyone who needed him.  As he anticipated what was coming the night before his death, he taught his disciples, concerned about how they would handle what lay ahead.  As he hung on a cross in hideous pain, he worried about his mother, seeing to her care. 

How do we do when we are suffering?  Is it all about us?  Can we even tolerate hearing that someone else might be going through something even worse?  Believe it or not, I have seen people become angry when the attention shifts to someone else who is suffering, perhaps even more.  Is that how a follower of Christ, one who walks in his footsteps behaves?  Of course it’s difficult.  Of course you are in need of help and service.  But an attitude of selfishness that denies others the same help they themselves crave is inexcusable. 

My new glasses helped me see more than a blur of moving colors for the first time in my four years of life, yet, as the story shows, they had their limitations.  You could only see what was right in front of you.  “It’s too bad they don’t---“ fill in the blank, I have thought all my life.  Now I think, it’s too bad glasses don’t help us look inside our own hearts too.

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

            I was walking out to spray the periwinkles one recent afternoon.  Those beautiful little flowers wilt easily in the heat, and we have found that several cool mists a day can keep them alive.  Lately the heat has been especially oppressive, highs in the upper 90s with a heat index of 110.  Stepping outside is like stepping into an oven, one with steam vents, so frequent spraying is necessary.

            As I rounded the corner something off to the side jumped.  I stopped immediately.  In our area, especially in the afternoon shade, when something moves, you stop and do not continue on until you have identified it.  Whatever it was had also stopped.  I took one more step and it moved again.  Something very small jumped up to the huge live oak on the east side of the house and clung to the trunk.  I backed up slowly, then turned around and went for the binoculars.

            When I came back it moved again, and this time I realized it was flying, sort of.  Even though it was only ten feet away I could not tell what it was until I had focused the lenses on the rough taupe bark.  It was a tiny brown puffball of a bird.  I stepped closer and this time two flew.  Another step and I saw a third. Then a wren sang above my head and I turned to see two full grown adults watching from the roof line.  Now I was sure.  That scraggly nest on top of the push broom hanging in the carport had managed to produce babies after all—at least three. 

            About that time Magdi came to investigate.  Any time I stand still and she notices, she comes to my side.  I think she is in protector mode, assuming I have seen something dangerous.  All the babies flew then and she gave chase. The last one was not quite as adept at flying.  It barely made it to the handlebars of the push mower in the smaller shed.  Keith had come out by then to see too.  Quickly he called her off.  She can chase down all the rattlesnakes and water moccasins she wants to, but a baby wren is off limits.  We watched a few more minutes, keeping rein on the dogs, then managed to get them away, interested in something else so the baby birds would be safe—at least from two Australian cattle dogs.

            Isn’t that what God has promised us?  Not that we will never be tempted; not that we will never have trials and tribulations, but that He will keep watch and there will never be more than we can handle.  The Lord is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that which you are able to bear, 1 Cor 10:13.  He is always watching over us, ready to shoo the Devil away if things get too difficult. 

            Still, it is up to us to resist.  It is up to us to endure.  He won’t do that for us—we have to flap our own wings and fly away.  I am certain that last little wren learned to fly a little better that day, beating those wings faster and harder as the danger approached, a danger a hundred of times bigger and heavier than it was.  The next time it will be easier.  If we are not there, it will stand a better chance.

            But God is never “not there.”  He knows the limits of our endurance.  He knows what we need to grow strong.  He knows how to keep the dangers away from us far better than we can keep the dogs away from those baby wrens.  We had to go inside eventually and leave them to themselves, but God will never leave us alone.  The Lord Himself learned how to endure and He will help us any way He can. 

            When things get tough, flap your wings a little faster and trust.

I will lift up my eyes unto the mountains: from where shall my help come?  My help comes from Jehovah who made Heaven and earth.  He will not suffer your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.  Jehovah will keep you from all evil, He will keep your soul.  Jehovah will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more, Psa 121:  1-3,7,8.

Dene Ward