Baseball in America was first played as an official game in 1846, but uniforms were not worn by the teams until the New York Knickerbockers did so on April 4, 1849.  It took fifty more years for all Major League baseball players to wear official team uniforms.  Today nearly all sports players wear official team apparel.
              Uniforms have several purposes.  First, it helps to be able to identify at a glance who your teammates are.  If the quarterback threw to the wrong receiver, or the point guard passed to the wrong center, chaos would ensue.
              Second, everyone wearing the same colors helps develop unity, and motivates the players to do their best for one another.  It also fosters a sense of equality.  Everyone wears the uniform, not just the star players.
              For a couple of years now I have seen some college football teams wearing odd uniforms splotched with camouflage here and there, and with “names” like Honor, Courage, Integrity, Commitment, Service, and Duty sewn on the back where ordinarily the player’s name would have been.  I have discovered that this is a joint effort with the Wounded Warriors Project, a nonprofit organization supplying programs and services to injured servicemen and their families.  After the game, the uniforms are auctioned off and 100% of the proceeds go to the project.
              What a worthy endeavor, yet wearing those uniforms has caused some amusement among sportscasters.  At least twice I have seen “Integrity” commit a personal foul, and don’t believe for a minute that the announcers ignored all the possible jokes they could make about it.
              That made me wonder what would happen if Christians wore uniforms.  As much as I hate the way we take those lists we find in the New Testament (fruit of the Spirit, Christian “graces,” etc.) ignoring them as a comprehensive unit, and using them instead like individual casseroles on a buffet line from which we can pick and choose, what if one of those traits were printed on the backs of our jerseys?  Would people find our actions so amusing?  If “self-control” became angry and threw something across the room, if “mercy” gave as good (or as bad?) as he got, if “kindness” snarled at someone in his way, how would that effect the way others view the faith we so casually claim?
              Wait a minute!  This might actually be good for us.  If each one of us had the trait we have the most difficulty with posted on our backs, maybe we would be aware every minute of the day and actually behave a little better.  For you see, that is the problem with most of us.  We go through our lives without thinking; we just react, and that is when the “automatic” happens instead of the new characteristic we are supposed to be developing.  If we wore that jersey every day for a month, don’t you suppose “automatic” would become the right thing instead of the wrong thing?
              So today, think what needs to be written on your back—not the thing you find easiest, but the thing you find the hardest to do, and pretend it is there every minute of the day.  You see, your friends and neighbors are not ignorant of the personality a Christian is supposed to exhibit, and they know where you fall short.  They see that very word on your back every moment and it is what they use as an excuse when you try to recruit them.  Why would they want to be on a team where Integrity cheats on his taxes, where Commitment ogles the women in the office, and where Service never did a thing for anyone if it didn’t offer him a good return?
              Put on your uniform every day.  Remember what is written on your back, and do your best to live up to it.
 
Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, Phil 2:14,15.
 
Dene Ward

When our boys were small, on summer days when a soft, warm rain fell, they often asked if they could go outside and play in it.  I was reminded of those sweet days last spring when our grandson Silas did the same thing. 
              He put on his swimming trunks and headed outside, first just running a few steps out, then racing back in under the carport.  Gradually he ran further and further, eventually out to the old water oak stump some thirty feet from the house, stood there a minute hopping up and down, holding his arms out to present the most skin to the sky, and laughing uproariously. 
              He must have gone at it for ten minutes, running back to the carport and excitedly jabbering, “It’s wet!  It’s cold!  It’s fun!” then running back out into the rain even further, eventually to the swing hanging from the live oak limb out past the well.     
              But it was still spring and his little chin began to quiver, and all too soon we had to take him in and dry him off.
              Do you know what started all this?  Pure, unadulterated joy.  He and his little brother had been with us for five days while Mommy and Daddy were out of town, and although we had a great time, when they drove up that afternoon, it was clear who were most important in his young life.  They were back and before long they would take him in his own car seat in his own “blue car” to his own home and his own room where he could sleep in his own bed.  I know the feeling.
              But life may have made me forget that feeling of pure joy. 
              Despite the troubles of life we always have real reason for joy, and God expects us to show it.  David had that joy, and he expressed it before the people of Israel as they brought the Ark of the Covenant to his newly captured capital city. But he was married to someone who didn’t have it, and who did not understand.  She scolded him and received this reply:
              [It was] before Jehovah, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me prince over the people of Jehovah, over Israel: therefore will I play before Jehovah, 2 Sam 6:21.
              .Do you see the word “play?”  David was out there “leaping and dancing before Jehovah.”  That’s how he was playing.  That Hebrew word is found in Job 40:20, “the beasts play in the field.”  You will find it in Prov 8:30 and 31 where it is translated “rejoicing,” and in Job 5:12 where it is “laugh.”  The same attitude that had Silas laughing and playing in the rain had David playing before Jehovah--joy.               
              When was the last time you felt that way about God and your relationship with Him?  I think we are a little like Michal—too embarrassed to act like God means that much to us.  We are too conscious of ourselves and how we look, and far too worried about what other people think.
              If I am too embarrassed to show the Lord how much He means to me, I wonder, on the day He comes to pick us up and take us home, if He might be too embarrassed to act like we mean that much to Him.
 
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, I Pet 1:8.
 
Dene Ward

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. (1Tim 5:14).
 
              With so many of us confined to home these days, now might be the perfect time to discuss what it means to "manage" the home.  I fear we have let the world tell us that being an organized, hardworking, guardian/teacher of one's home and children isn't anything to be proud of—we must have something "fulfilling" to do with our lives.  One of the ways we perpetuate the myth of a soap opera addicted, bonbon munching idler is by a slapdash effort and constant complaining about the tedium of it all, finding every excuse to sleep late and post on Facebook forty times a day.  Let's see what we can do to change that. 
              When we become stay-at-home moms, and later, stay-at-home workers/servants in the kingdom, our husbands are treating us as managers of the shop, so to speak.  He leaves every day to work in another venue and expects that the home and family he has entrusted into our care will be run economically—within the living he brings home—and efficiently.  It is up to us to know who needs to be where and when and get them there—doctor's appointments, school functions, recitals, etc.—in clean, appropriate clothing.  It is up to us to keep track of the supplies everyone in the house depends on—toothpaste, deodorant, toilet paper (a little tricky these days), ibuprofen, bandaids, etc.  And it is up to us to fill those needs as thriftily as possible. 
             We are now in a time when jobs have disappeared or hours been cut, when some groceries have become hard-to-find, and prices accordingly higher.  How we manage the home matters more than ever before—at least more than it ever has for most young people.  They never had a Great Depression to learn in.  I hope this post today will help you out, and you won't mind it being a bit long—or a lot long, actually.
              I am sure most of these things have been listed elsewhere on the internet.  You can probably find more exhaustive lists, and other ideas of accomplishing the same things.  These suggestions—and that's all they are—are just to help you begin thinking on your own, to supply a little inspiration as you deal with your own family's particular needs.  We have been through several personal economic depressions, and this is how we got through them.
              As the manager of my home, I spend a good two hours every week going through sales flyers, cutting coupons (sometimes digitally these days), planning menus based on those sales, and making a shopping list.  As for coupons, I do not buy anything I won't eventually need.  I prefer to use a coupon when something is on sale so I get a double whammy.  I go to town ONCE, so as not to waste gas, and get everything done in one day.  I used to do that with babies in tow, too.  I keep my lists on one of those postage paid envelopes people are always sending you in the junk mail, with the appropriate coupons inside, along with things like dry cleaners receipts and bank deposit slips.  As I make every stop, any new receipt goes inside the envelope so everything is together when I get it home.
              As for cost saving tricks, do not think in terms of disposables any more than you can help it.  One bottle of dish detergent will wash a hundred times more plates, cups, and bowls for the money than the same dollar amount will buy paper goods. I am sure the same is true of dishwasher soap, but I don't have a dishwasher.
          Save plastic bags, especially freezer bags which are thicker and tougher.  Wash them out and dry them, which usually means to hang them somewhere.  (Sometimes my kitchen looks like a laundry room.)  Fabric softener sheets can be used more than once, in fact, until they get flimsy and crumpled. 
           Take all those singleton socks that have been bereaved of their mates by the sock-eating washer, slip them on your hand and dust to your heart's content.  Then throw that one in the washer.  Who knows?  It might even find its missing mate that way, or join it in the great Sock Beyond. 
           You know that bottle that says, "Shampoo.  Rinse, and Repeat?"  You don't have to repeat!  Just make sure your hair is really wet the first time and you will have plenty of lather to wash it with.  Especially if you are one of those people who wash their hair nearly every time they shower, you do not need to repeat.  It's just a waste of shampoo.  But I am sure these are things you have heard again and again as thrifty homemakers have been doing them for decades.
              Now to practice a little self-discipline.  When you have been able to buy whatever you want for most of your life, it may come as a shock that you can't do that any longer.  But here is your new rule:  if you can't afford it, you can't have it.  Sometimes credit cards make us think otherwise.  Learn this now.  If you no longer have the money, you have to stop the buying one way or the other.  For some people it takes cutting up the credit card to get the point.  Do what you need to do.
             Tap water will hydrate you.  That's all we had when we were kids.  None of us died.  Get rid of the sodas.  Period.  Eventually, we reached the salary point that my boys could have Kool-Aid.  I did not have the luxury of avoiding sugar—the alternatives, like fruit juices, were simply too expensive.  When my mother was growing up during the Depression, even sweet tea was for Sundays only.  Every other day of the week, the family had tap water with their meals.  She lived to be 91, and her mother 97.  See?  It won't kill you!
              Get rid of the snacks.  All mine had were homemade cookies, which were a fraction of the cost of Chips Ahoy or Oreos, and the boys thought they were better off than their friends.  This, and some of what I add below, may mean your family needs a major attitude adjustment.  I remember my mother telling me how Daddy turned up his nose and complained when she put oleo on the table.  He made $30 a week and she had a $10/wk. grocery budget.  She took him shopping with her.  When he saw the price of real butter, he changed his tune.  Sometimes you have to make do, and the Lord expects us to be grateful for the fact that we have what we need to survive.  He will NOT be happy with the ungrateful who demand luxuries.
              We might very well have to change our minds about what we will and won't eat.  Organic, cage-free eggs cost over twice as much as regular eggs.  If you don't have celiac disease, you might want to forego your gluten-free diet.  Those things are always far more expensive than the usual varieties.  It costs extra money for most of these fad diets. 
              Save oil you have fried in, and all bacon grease.  (If you are a true Southerner, that last should go without saying.)  I actually had a small stovetop percolator for years into which I poured used oil.  The grounds basket sieved out the impurities and pieces of leftover fried food, and all it takes is a tablespoon or so of fresh oil to refresh the used.  I have had the same old coffee can, back when you could still get metal ones, for bacon grease that I had when the boys were growing up.  What do I use the drippings for?  Seasoning Southern vegetables, greasing a biscuit pan, making cornbread, frying eggs or potatoes, or anything else that might benefit from bacon flavor.
             If you use a lot of canned goods (vegetables, I mean) keep any drained off liquid in a glass jar in the fridge to use as broth when you make soup.  Just add to it all week.  I usually made soup at least once a week because I always had a good quart of makeshift broth by then.  Potato soup, French onion soup, tomato soup, root vegetable bisque, plain old vegetable soup—none of these contain meat and all are made with relatively inexpensive items.
            There are any number of meatless meals, or meals where the meat can be skimped on.  Usually these meals are heavy on the starch (carbs), but that's what fills people up.  You yourself may need to cut back (diabetics, for example), but if you have teenage boys as I did, you will want to keep them satisfied and starch does the trick.  Beans and rice are the ultimate example.  Red beans and rice, black beans and rice—same dish, different spices and seasoning.  True Cuban black beans and rice contains no meat whatsoever.  If your recipe does for either of those dishes, cut the amount in half, or consider using a bone.  (Save all of your bones, by the way to make stock or to season soups and vegetables.)  And cut the meat into smaller pieces so more mouthfuls will have meat in them.  Then there are pinto beans and cornbread, Great Northern beans and cornbread, dried baby limas and cornbread, and on and on we go.  Lentil soup is basically a bean dish.  Pasta fagioli is an Italian soup with very little but white beans and pasta in it, and it is delicious.
             Eggs are another standby.  You can make omelets with whatever bits and pieces of leftovers you have—a few ham cubes, a shred or two of cheese, some chopped peppers and onions, etc.  Do not throw any bits and pieces of anything away! 
             Pasta with Eggs and Cheese is quick, easy, and cheap.  Boil a pound of spaghetti in heavily salted water.  Beat together three eggs and 2/3 cup of shredded Pecorino Romano or Parmagiana Reggianno cheese (pecorino is cheaper).  Drain the spaghetti and while it is still hot, pour the eggs and cheese over it and toss constantly, allowing the heat of the pasta to cook the eggs, until every strand is coated with cooked egg and melted cheese.  If you want it creamier, add ¼-1/2 cup of the pasta water (or milk if you want to splurge).  Some people add a couple tablespoons of butter, but we never did and it was just fine.
            Pancakes and waffles will also fill the bill—cheap and satisfying.  Biscuits and gravy are a favorite for many.  We couldn't afford the sausage, but even cream gravy made with milk, flour, and plenty of bacon grease was wonderful over hot biscuits.  When I was a child, my mother would sometimes make a huge pan of biscuits and then pull out everything she could find in the fridge and pantry to go on them—butter, jam, preserves, peanut butter, honey, maple syrup.  We kids loved it.  We had no idea that the money had run out that week—we thought it was a treat!
               I never pay full price for meat, but always buy it on sale, plus one thing extra to freeze.  As the weeks go by, you will find yourself needing to buy less meat at the time.  A couple of paragraphs ago I talked about cutting the meat in half for your bean dishes.  Do it for everything.  For chicken breasts, lay your hand on top of the breast, and cut horizontally beneath your hand.  Every breast will make two servings, and your eye will be fooled into thinking it is a whole breast.  Do the same with boneless pork chops.  If they have been frozen, do the slicing while they are still a little firm in the center and it will be easier to control the knife and keep the slice even. 
             Then there is the tale of the three night whole chicken, something I did again and again so long ago a chicken could be found for 19 cents a pound, and even then it was almost more than we could afford.
              Take the breasts and do the trick above, cutting them in half horizontally.  That is your splurge meal, assuming there are no more than four in your family.  Bread and fry, or oven fry, or grill, or use in any other recipe, including something a little nicer, like Chicken Milanese.  The second night use the thighs and drumsticks for a potpie or other chicken casserole your family likes.  Double up on any vegetables or starch the recipe contains.  Who knows?  That one might even last you two nights if you do it right. 
              On the last night, use the back and wings to make the broth for chicken and dumplings.  In the Deep South and parts of Appalachia, our dumplings are called "slicks" or "slickers."  A dough of flour, eggs, butter, salt, and some of the broth is rolled out flat on a heavily floured board and cut into strips about two inches long.  Because of the eggs in them, when they are boiled, they become fairly thick and all that flour you rolled them in will help thicken the broth, especially if you have cooled and then reheated them.  What you will have is more like dumplings and chicken rather than chicken and dumplings, but that's the point here—how to get by on a shoestring budget.  Chicken and rice is another good option.  Just use the same philosophy—less meat, lots of starch. 
              This is how the world survived during the Depression and we can do the same.  I am sure this is far more information than you actually need.  You are smart enough to see the pattern and implement it in ways that meet your families' needs and tastes. 
             We have much to be grateful for.  This is a time to learn some lessons our culture has sorely needed to revisit for a few decades now.  We will get through this because our God is in control, and He expects us to be good stewards of the blessings He has showered upon us.
 
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.  (1Cor 4:2).
 
Dene Ward

In the late 1800s a small settlement in New Mexico began with the John Cross Ranch over Geronimo Springs.  The place became known for its hot springs and was incorporated under that name in 1916.  By the late 1930s it boasted forty hot springs spas.  At the time there were about 3000 residents.  Evidently those residents were not satisfied with the growth of the town and they took an unusual step.
              Beginning in 1940, Ralph Edwards began hosting a radio show called "Truth or Consequences."  The show was so popular it ran on the radio for many years before becoming a television show that lasted until 1988, with hosts the likes of Edwards, Jack Bailey, and Bob Barker.  Edwards ran a contest stating that he would air the show on its tenth anniversary at the town which was the first to change its name to "Truth or Consequences."   On March 31, 1950, Hot Springs, New Mexico, changed its name to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and the next evening the show was broadcast from there.
              Edwards continued to visit the town the first weekend in May for the next 50 years.  The town still holds a "Fiesta" every year in Ralph Edwards Park to continue the celebration.
               That may all be a quaint and amusing historical fact, but let's make it a bit more serious this morning.  What does it take for me to finally wake up and repent, or just examine myself for faults that need correcting, and then get to work fixing them?
              Raising children and now, interacting with our grandchildren, reminds us of a basic truth of childrearing—reward or punishment (consequences) must immediately follow the deed.  A child’s attention span is short, and the younger he is, the more important the timing.  Even a child younger than one can quickly learn what “No-no” means when it is accompanied by consistent motivation—by consequences for his action. 
              But are we any better?  Peter tells us that when God delays judgment for sin out of longsuffering and patience but we don’t respond, that we “willfully forget” (2 Pet 3:5-10).  Paul says that when God forbears yet we do not repent, we are “despising his goodness” (Rom 2:4).  It isn’t that we have the attention span of a toddler—we’re just plain stubborn.
              Is that any more mature than a toddler?  We have all seen children who understand the consequences and take them anyway.  We cluck at their lack of common sense, their apparent unwillingness to learn any way but the hard way.  We wonder what sort of adults they will become.
              But you really don’t have to wonder.  You are surrounded by them.  Or, are you one of them, too?
 
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11.
 
Dene Ward
 

Have you ever apologized to anyone?  Let me rephrase that.  Have you ever apologized in the Biblical way?  You mean there is a difference?  I think there is a huge one.
              The first two definitions of “apology” in my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary are 1} a formal justification; a defense; and 2) an excuse.  The original word is Greek, apologia.  Paul used it in Acts 22:1 and 25:16 when he made his “defense” at his trials.  Understand this, in no way was he admitting wrong, and none of us would have expected him to.  He was in trouble for preaching the gospel.  He was defending himself, giving “a formal justification.”  That is not the kind of apology I am talking about either.
             Yet that is exactly the way most of us apologize—we defend ourselves.  We say, “I’m sorry you got hurt,” placing the fault on the other person, instead of “I’m sorry I hurt you.”  We say, “If I did anything wrong, I’m sorry,” as if to call in question the one we are “apologizing” to.  We give excuses for why we did what we did to make sure everyone knows “it wasn’t my fault.”  We do everything we can to avoid admitting wrong.
              Webster finally gives this as his last definition:  “An admission of error accompanied by regret.”  More to our point, this is the definition Jesus gives:  if he sin against you seven times in the day, and seven times turn again to you, saying, I repent; you shall forgive him.  Luke 17:4.  If he “turn again to you saying, I repent.”  No defense, no excuses, no justification, just “I was wrong.”  Have you ever apologized that way?
              I daresay most of us have not.  Yet that is exactly the way we are to apologize to God too.  Have you? Or do we, in our prayers, justify ourselves with phrases about being “only human,” or about “how hard it is, Lord,” or even “how mean he was to me first—you know he provoked me, Lord.”  What God expects from us is change for the better, Vine’s definition of the word.  That necessarily involves admission of guilt.  If not, why would we need to change?  And that is the same word Jesus used in Luke 17: 4.  “I repent,” plain and simple.
              So I ask you again, have you ever truly apologized in the Biblical sense, what Jesus called “repentance?”  The next time you begin with, “I’m sorry,” just stop after that second word.  Don’t allow yourself excuses or justification.  Just apologize.  You cannot correct error in your life without admitting it first, and once it’s been admitted, if you truly are a child of God, the responsibility to change cannot help but affect you.
 
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5.
 
Dene Ward
 

When my boys were young they were enchanted with a movie called “The Never-Ending Story.”  You see, when the movie ended it started all over again, and then again, and again. 
            Maybe it’s because I am a woman that I never saw the appeal.  All I could think of was housework—laundry that needs washing over and over, shirts that need ironing again and again, dust that keeps settling, meals that need cooking three times a day.  Oh for something that when I finish with it will stay finished!
            I think the Old Testament Jews understood a little.  Have you ever read the complex procedure for the Day of Atonement?  You should sometime, and then think about the promise of a forgiveness that lasts forever.
            Every year the sins that were forgiven the year before were once again remembered against God’s people, and every year the pile grew bigger and bigger.  At least when I do the laundry, I know a shirt that I washed and ironed will not be back in the hamper until it has once again been worn.  Imagine if everything you ever washed got dirty again the next week just because clean would not stay clean! 
            The first century Jewish Christians surely appreciated the blessing of forgiveness far better than we can.  They had been waiting for that promise to be fulfilled for hundreds of years.  Behold the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hands to bring them out of the land of Egypt…But this is the covenant that I will make…says Jehovah:  I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, Know Jehovah, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Jehovah; for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins will I remember no more, Jer 31:31-34.
            A high priest was coming who would offer himself, a perfect sacrifice that would cleanse each sin forever.  That pile of guilt would no longer build up on each one, becoming heavier and heavier, needing yet another sacrifice every year.  Think what that must have meant to a people who through the years had seen oceans of blood pouring down that manmade altar, knowing that next year, the same thing must happen again, not only for new sins, but for exactly the same old ones as well.  What a relief.
            And what a relief for us to know that God forgives and forgets, and that because of that wonderful blessing we can enjoy another “Never-Ending Story” that will remind us of a blessing, instead of a burden. 
 
And they indeed have been made priests many in number because by death they are hindered from continuing; but he, because he abides forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.  Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.  For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needs not daily, like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people, for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself,. Heb 7:23-27.
 
Dene Ward

Robert Frost, one of the greatest American poets, was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco.  After his father died of tuberculosis, 11 year old Frost moved with his mother and younger sister to Lawrence, Massachusetts.  He spent many years teaching and living in Massachusetts and Vermont, dying in Boston on January 29, 1963.
              Frosts' most famous poems include "The Mending Wall," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and the one I want to focus on today, "The Road Not Taken."
 
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
 
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 
              Forks in the road--life is full of them.  As a Christian, you will likely take the one Frost recommended—the one less traveled by--and yes, it will make all the difference in your life.  What choices exactly are we talking about?
              Where will you go to school?
              Will you marry and if so, then whom?
              What career will you choose?  Or will you decide to be a stay-at-home mom and then a servant of the church after your children have grown and left the nest?
              Where will you live?
              Will you take this promotion?
              With which congregation of God's people will you choose to serve?
              In what ways will you serve?
              By the time they reach my age, most people believe the forks are all behind them.  All that remains is the final leg of the journey, one about which we may have very little choice, especially due to health.
              They couldn't be more wrong.  There remains one huge choice we must make:  how will we allow the past circumstances of life to affect us?
              I've seen older people become bitter and unsympathetic because of the "raw deal" they believe they were handed.  But I've seen others with just as trying ordeals radiate a quiet, compassionate wisdom.  One permeates the air with the fetid reek of selfishness while the other offers comfort and encouragement.  They may have both suffered great losses and disappointments—of such is life—but only one has "the mind of the spirit," recognizing that this life is not the be-all and end-all, that the first moment of Eternity will make it seem as nothing.  And that final fork in the road will be her choice to continue serving God by leading others to the same fork, rather than driving them away with spiteful comments, cynicism, and complaints.
              This fork may be your last chance.  Even if you chose poorly all along the way, you can use your failures to help others avoid them.  One right choice at the end can still make your life useFUL instead of useLESS.
 
Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He has done what is just and right; he shall surely live. (Ezek 33:14-16)                                                           
 
Dene Ward

We have had a cat more often than not in the past twenty years.  All of them were pretty good about doing their work, as most barn cats are—it comes naturally to them to keep the rodents out of the feed sacks.  But because they are outdoor cats, they do not have quite the same affinity for human contact as house cats.  In fact, it seems that the less they have to do with us, the better they do their job.
            So when it comes time to take this sort of cat to the vet for its shots and check-ups, the process is a real adventure.  I remember once, when we put the cat in a box we had carefully aerated, drove 20 miles to the vet, opened the box and there was no cat.  We drove back home and found her sitting on the steps, licking her paws, and looking at us with a look of disdain.  “Where have you been?” she seemed to be saying with a smirk.  We still don’t know how she got out.  Her name was Jezebel.  Maybe that explains it.
            When we got Jasper we invested in a carrier.  The first time I used it, I discovered that this was still not going to be easy.  I sat on the porch and called him.  He inched his way forward and I just held out my hand until he finally relaxed and let me pet him.  After a minute or so, I picked him up and tried to put him in the crate. Immediately, all four sets of claws sprang out and grasped the edges of the opening.  It looked like a cartoon as I tried pushing him in while he hung on to the doorframe for dear life.  No way was this cat going in there willingly.
            Then I got smart, I thought, and put some food in the carrier.  Jasper smelled it immediately, and stuck his head inside.  I waited patiently as more and more of him disappeared into the box, then quickly shut the door; but somehow in that tiny space, he managed to turn around and slip out before I could get the clasp fastened. 
            By then, he was getting suspicious.  He was too leery to even come near me, so I waited a bit.  About a half hour later I grabbed a towel and laid it on the porch floor next to me.  By then, he was feeling generous again and sauntered up to me for a scratch.  After a few minutes, he lay next to me on the towel.  With a quick motion, I flipped the towel over his whole body and dumped him unceremoniously into the upended carrier,  The little bit of time it took for him to get his claws out of the towel gave me enough time to shut the door without him escaping.  Finally we went to the vet.
            Wouldn’t you know it, when we got to the vet, he wouldn’t come out of the carrier?  The vet had to dump him out.  And when she was finished with him and let him go, he scrambled back in as fast as he could.  Little stinker.
            In spite of his unwillingness to go to the vet, it kept him healthy.  The shots still worked, even though he really didn’t want them.  It doesn’t work that way with righteousness.  You can do things that look like righteousness all day long, but if you are doing them from a bad heart, they won’t do a thing for your soul.
            We seem to have a mistaken idea about the Old Law, that all they had to do were “right things,” and that their hearts did not matter.  Yet over and over you find instances where the heart most certainly did matter.  Take from among you an offering unto Jehovah; whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, Ex 35:5.  That is just one example among many.
            Doesn’t it mean more to you that Lord offered himself for us willingly?  No one takes [my life] away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. John 10:18.  How much would it mean in terms of love if he had done it because he was forced to? 
            That is how God looks at us too.  How much more does it mean to you when your child brings you a wildflower he picked in the field “just because” than when he sends that expensive arrangement on Mother’s Day, a day when the world practically forces it on him?  A buttercup on a Tuesday is far superior to a dozen roses the second Sunday in May.
            God will not force us to obey him, much less love him.  He has never accepted the letter of the law without the heart.
 
And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.  If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever, 1 Chron 28:9.
 
Dene Ward

Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.
              So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”
              Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.
              Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”
              Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.
              And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.
              And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 
              What are you afraid of this morning?
 
“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, Isa 8:12-13.
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell, (Matt 10:28.
“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,” Isa 51:7-8.
​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.
 
Dene Ward

I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.  (Phil 4:2-3).
 
              One of the saddest things about having been part of many different congregations in my lifetime is seeing people just like those two famous women above.  These were good women who had worked hard for the Lord, but for some reason they just could not get along.  We have seen it in every church and it is never takes long to figure out who the two parties are.  Once we were only at a place for a week-long gospel meeting and we still knew who they were well before the week was up.  That time it was two men, by the way.
              A lot of people may say that it doesn't really matter as long as they don't gather up parties on either side or cause a ruckus because, after all, the Bible doesn't say we have to like each other.  Yet the older I get and the more I study, the more I believe it does matter for one very simple reason.  Let me show you quickly this morning.
              Grab your Bible and look up Ephesians 2:11-22.  Christ came here with a mission.  The first one was making peace between God and man (Rom 5:1-3).  But he also came to make peace among men.  Look at verse 12 in this passage.  What was happening before Christ?  As Gentiles we were separate from Christ, alienated from the Jews, strangers from the covenant of promise, had no hope, and were without God.  Do you see all those words of separation and disunity?
              But now that we are in Christ we have been brought near, are one new man, are in one body of the reconciled, have access to the father, have become one nation and one family, and are built into one spiritual Temple (vv13-21).  Notice the difference in the words—nearness, access, oneness.  And why did that have to happen?  Because (v 22) God, who is a God of peace (Phil 4:9) cannot dwell in a Temple where there is no peace.
              When we think we can hang on to our little peeves and animosities and have it not affect the church, we are sadly mistaken.  It isn't just the Jew/Gentile or black/white problem, though they are bad enough.  It took Christ coming to fix that and make us one nation.  But we can still ruin the whole thing if an outsider can come in and see the disunity after just a few days, when one family fights another, when two men behave like children who want their way "or else," when two women avoid one another like the plague. 
When you just can't get along, and don't really even seem to care, you may as well hang a sign on the door that says, "God not wanted here."
 
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ​that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  (John 17:20-21).
 
Dene Ward