Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
We all know that Abraham sacrificed Isaac. The angel staying his hand and the ram snared in the bushes and the connection between, “God will provide the sacrifice” and the cross are all familiar stories. It is less obvious that the 3 patriarchs all sacrificed their sons.
 
Isaac loved Esau. He favored Esau so strongly that Jacob became a “Mama’s boy.” He loved Esau so strongly that he ignored his faults and was prepared to pass the blessing to him, the grace to be the one to carry the line of the promise. But Jacob deceived Isaac and received that blessing. Isaac may have been blind, but God was not, and Esau realized that the correct son had received the blessing. Despite his great love for Esau, “no place was found for repentance,” and Isaac “sacrificed” him to the purposes of God.
 
Every father has a special place for his firstborn.  Jacob refused to ignore Reuben’s faults and rejected him from the genealogy of the promise (Gen 49:1-4).  However, the great sacrifice came earlier. Jacob loved Joseph above his brothers and when he thought Joseph was dead, he lavished all that love on Benjamin. We’ve all seen the baby of the family spoiled and Jacob did so. But when it came to the point that the family of promise was about to be extinguished in the famine, he sent him with Judah, “And if I am bereaved, I am bereaved” (Gen 43:14). It is clear from Jacob’s language that he put Benjamin in a separate category above the brothers, but to save them all he “sacrificed” Benjamin.
 
In different ways, these all sacrificed the sons of their love in pursuit of the promise of God that had been passed down since Gen 3:15.
 
Jesus said, “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  We probably will never be called upon to give our child to death.  We may have to reject one we love to choose God.  But, the real question is what things do we allow to interfere with our wholehearted pursuit of God?
 
Keith Ward

We often talk about avoiding distractions when we discuss our lives as Christians.  Usually the things we list are jobs, families, material goods, and other physical items.  Feelings can be distracting as well.  When I let myself become angry, when I feel outrage at injustice done me or mine, when I “get my feelings hurt,” all these emotions can distract me from my mission as a Christian by switching my focus from others to myself.
            For me hurt is more distracting than anger.  I have come to realize with age that most things are not worth becoming angry over, especially for what anger can do to our minds and our bodies.  But hurt is something we seem to want to hang onto.  Being a victim is good--it lets us off the hook for any wrong we might have done and puts everyone on our side whether we deserve it or not.  But while we are busy nursing our hurt like some sort of wound sustained in heroic conflict, we are not completing our mission as disciples; in fact, we are helping Satan complete his.
            Jesus shows us one way to avoid the distraction of “hurt feelings.”  Everywhere he went he was received as an important new rabbi, a teacher worth listening to, even when people might disagree.  Everywhere, that is, except home.  Matthew 13 tells us the story of his preaching at Nazareth, his home town.  Did they listen?  Did they accord him any respect at all?  No, they were too busy wondering among themselves what had happened to the little boy raised by the carpenter, the one who used to run and play with a whole brood of brothers and sisters.  Wasn’t he cute?  How could that little guy have anything of importance to say?  And that was probably what the nicest of those folks thought.  In fact, the first few verses of Mark 6 make it plain that their unbelief was palpable.  Jesus was totally amazed.
            So what did he do?  Did he leave with hurt feelings?  Did he go mope in the wilderness?  Did he sit around the fire with his apostles recounting all the wrong done him?  The very people he had known all his life, whom he might have expected to produce the most followers, rejected him.  No, he avoided the distraction of hurt feelings by refusing to take it personally.  Instead he made note of a trait of human nature:  a prophet is not without honor except in his own country.  None of the commentators I checked think this was an old proverb, but it was certainly true.  Jesus must have seen it before.  I have certainly seen it since.  Jesus told himself, “This isn’t about me; it is just the way people are.  They would have treated anyone else in my position the same way,” and then he moved on to complete his mission.
            I was woefully ill-prepared to be a preacher’s wife.  I thought everyone loved preachers and their families because my family did.  When I was growing up, they were in our home often, and remained friends through the years.  At the age of 20, a brand new preacher’s wife, I was shocked to the core to find out that not everyone was like that.  By 26 I had finally come to grips with the fact that some people just don’t like preachers and their families on general principle.  That was especially obvious when we had lived in a place less than a week before one of the women there called to bawl me out about something she thought I should have done the one time I was ever in her presence.  It wasn’t about me, it was about what I was, so I just shook it off and went on about my job, standing beside a man who took far more abuse than I did just because of what he was, a preacher.
            And since then, I have talked with many young women, not necessarily preachers’ wives, who are shocked at the behavior of others, who are hurt over misunderstandings and the resulting mistreatment.  How did this happen, they wonder?  Sometimes it is just human nature trumping the new nature a Christian is supposed to have because not everyone fights the battle, they just wear the name.  It happens because of who they are, not because of how they feel about you personally, and you need to learn the lesson and move on.  While expecting better of your brothers and sisters, even of the world in general, you must also learn not to become discouraged when you are disappointed.
            Jesus knew the secret—it isn’t about me, it’s about what I represent and how that affects their lives.  Don’t be distracted by feelings of hurt or anger or bitterness.  Get on with it!  Don’t let the devil win one by moping around when you could be out there showing others how to handle slights and insults.  A soul I lose because I sit down and cry over my own hurt feelings, pitying myself for how mean “they” were to me, is my fault and no one else’s.
 
Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.  Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you, Matt 5:11,12.
 
Dene Ward

I started jogging and working out when I was 29.  By the time I was 30 I jogged 30 miles a week.  Oh, to have all that energy again!  I still work out, but several surgeries, medications, and bad vision make it impossible to do what I used to—not to mention age, which will tell on even the healthiest of us.
            Some days, usually Mondays when I have had a couple days off the elliptical machine, I do well, finishing my chosen program two or three minutes ahead of schedule.  Other days I just plod on through until the programmed timer goes off and I notice that I was a quarter mile short of my programmed distance.  But I got it done.  I sweated and I panted and my muscles burned for the allotted amount of time.  Mission accomplished.  Maybe I will live an extra day because of it.
            Some Sundays I have no trouble at all keeping my mind on the worship. I am full of spiritual pep and vitality.  I sing with gusto and listen attentively to the classes, prayers and sermons, even making connections I never had before and priming myself for more study when I get home.  Other Sundays It’s all I can do to just be there.  My mind is as lethargic as my body.  I hear, but I don’t really comprehend.  When I leave I wonder if it did me any good at all.  Surely God is upset with my poor showing that day.
            Is He?  If the day was difficult, but I made it anyway; if it was a struggle to worship “with the spirit and the understanding;” if the “all” I had to give was very little, was my service to God a failure?  I don’t think so.  We have no trouble understanding the concept of the widow’s mite in a literal way.  She gave all she had that day, and Jesus praised her for it.  Some days the spiritual mite is smaller than others.  If I give it all, why isn’t that what God expects of me?  Won’t God be pleased that I still tried as hard as I could with far less available than usual?  If God goes by effort, I worked harder that day than on any day when it was easy, didn’t it?
            And if this sort of thing worries you, if you find yourself thinking you have failed because you weren’t at your spiritual peak, then you have certainly shown the heart of flesh that God told His people He wanted from them.  You didn’t feel like it, but you still obeyed God’s instructions in your service.  And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, Ezek 11:19-2.  Obedience—that’s the heart of flesh.  A hard heart can shout amen and sing the rafters off the roof in the middle of blatant disobedience.  God made it clear which He prefers.
            By the end of an exercise week I am really dragging.  My legs feel like lead and my lungs seem starved of oxygen.  But I still go at it and get it done.  It still does my body the good I intended.  If you are dragging at the end of some spiritual interval, a time that might have started out with all the vitality you could have wanted but gradually wore down, just keep on plugging.  The energy will return and you will be back where you want to be.  That does not mean that you are not where God wants you to be.
 
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

​            Once I heard a misguided soul talking about the old hymns with more than a little scorn.  He said something on the order of this: “We need to get rid of these old things and their old-fashioned language.  Who in the world even knows what an Ebenezer is anyway?”
            Of course he was referring to the old standard with the line, “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’ve come.”  Now he has a point.  How many of us sing that line, violating the injunction to “sing with the understanding,” found in 1 Cor 14?  The solution though, is not to get rid of the song, but to educate our understanding.  The song is straight out of the scriptures, yet because I don’t know what it means am I to cut that word out of my Bible?  No, I am to study the word of God and learn what it means.
            The Israelites had been worshipping idols again, and the Philistines conquered them.  Finally, after twenty years, Samuel brought them to repentance, and God helped them fight and win against those perennial foes.  To memorialize the victory, Samuel raised a stone and called it Eben-ezer, the stone of help.  With God’s help they had conquered their enemies.  Isn’t that how we conquer ours?  Isn’t it with God’s help that we can defeat the devil and overcome sin?  We should raise an Ebenezer in our lives to remind us of the help God gives us every day of our lives.  Now go sing that song with understanding, don’t just get rid of it.
            Yet, while I knew the Ebenezer story, that whole incident reminded me that I often sing other songs and think, “What does that mean?  I need to look it up,” and then I go away and forget to do just that. 
            Do you sing the song with the line, “Lord Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same?”  All my childhood I thought people just didn’t know how to spell Sabbath correctly.  But finally one day several years ago, after singing that line over and over and meaning to go look it up, I finally remembered and did. 
            “Sabaoth” means “armies” or “hosts.”  Whenever we say “Lord of hosts” we are simply translating Lord Sabaoth to English.  In fact, many newer translations do exactly that.  But to me there is something more awesome and reverential about the ancient word “Sabaoth” than the simple word “armies” or “hosts.”  Maybe it is because those words are often used to refer to a nation’s army, while the other always and only refers to God’s army--and what an army it is!  That word reminds me that He is the one who is supreme over all the innumerable hosts of spiritual armies, armies we could not fight against no matter the number of our soldiers or the strength of our weapons.  Isn’t the commander of that army far more powerful than anything we can imagine?
            And doesn’t that make you feel far more secure as His child?  Doesn’t His promise of help (Ebenezer) and vengeance on our behalf with his spiritual army (Sabaoth) seem more certain, and more powerful?  And don’t you want to make sure that you are not on the receiving end of that vengeance?  James promised that when those who have been defrauded cry to God, that Lord of Sabaoth will hear.  I would shiver in my boots if I were the one doing the defrauding but shout from reassurance if I knew that army would be fighting on my behalf.
            So the next time you sing a song you don’t really understand, don’t just throw away the song.  Look it up.  Study a little.  (You’re supposed to be doing that anyway!)  Maybe you will find strength in the discoveries you make about the powerful God you serve, and that strength will help you live a better life today.
 
Who is the king of glory?  The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.  Lift up your heads, oh gates, even lift up everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.  Who is the king of glory?  The LORD of hosts [Lord Sabaoth], he is the king of glory.  Selah.  Psalm 24:8-10.
 
Dene Ward

            I’ve always found a certain measure of comfort in 1 Tim 2:14:  for Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled has fallen into transgression.  Comfort, you ask?  Sure.  At least Eve had to be tricked into sinning.  Adam knew it was a sin and did it anyway.

            But I think the bigger point is this:  no matter what our culture tries to tell us, men and women are different.  We have different strengths and different weaknesses.  As you age, dealing with more people in all sorts of situations, it becomes more and more obvious.  In fact, I have come to believe this:  there is nothing worse than a bad woman, but there is nothing better than a good woman.  Women seem to have the capacity for both infinite cruelty and infinite compassion.

            It should also be comforting that most of the oracles in the prophets are aimed squarely at men—they were the ones in control, the leaders who bore the responsibility for how a nation behaved.  So I found it interesting when one commentary pointed out that we do have four oracles specifically to women, and I thought it might be good to explore those oracles and make application to ourselves.  After all, people really haven’t changed.  We are still men and women with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. 

            For the next four Mondays look for “Oracles to Women 2 through 5” here on the blog.  Let me warn you:  this will not be comfortable.  In order to make an application we can relate to, I will be specific and sometimes brutally honest.  I guarantee you will recognize these women.  You see them around you every day—sometimes in the mirror.  Yet I hope we can all learn to be better by these inspired words from God’s prophets.
 
Every wise woman builds her house; But the foolish plucks it down with her own hands, Prov 14:1.
 
Dene Ward

I certainly do not mean to be judgmental, but when people actually say it out loud, when they write it on facebook posts, isn’t it a matter of “by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:37)?
 
           Listen to the things people say about why they worship where they worship, or what makes that place appealing to them.
            “I love the singing there.”
            “The preacher is so easy for me to listen to.”
            “I feel so good when I leave.”
            “Everyone is so friendly and loving to me.”
            “They came to visit me while I was in the hospital.”

            Okay, so maybe a few of them are not terrible reasons, but do you see a common denominator in them all?  It’s all about me and how I feel.
Why is it you never hear things like this?
            “I go because my God expects me to be a part of a group worship and accountable to a group of brethren and godly elders.” 
            “I go so I can provoke others to love and good works as the Bible says.”
            “I go to study God’s Word and this group actually studies the Bible instead of some synod’s pamphlet.”     
“The sermons often step on my toes, but I want to be challenged to improve as a disciple of Christ.”

Can you see a completely different center of attention in those?  In fact, if the second list can be said to center on the object of our worship, what does that say about the object of worship in the first list?

I hear items from the first list often, but from the second seldom, if ever.  So here is my question:  If a person cannot find any items from the first list in a church, does that excuse him from the assembled worship in his area?  Of course not.

So why do we act like we are sacrificing something if the only place available has a preacher with poor speaking ability, no one who can carry a tune, and isn’t particularly outgoing?  If that is my idea of sacrificing for my Lord, I’d better hope our country never builds a modern Coliseum. 

Sometimes serving God is not a lot of fun.  Sometimes it isn’t very exciting.  Sometimes it is a lot of work with little appreciation.  Sometimes we will be ignored.  Sometimes we will be criticized.  Sometimes we will be the object of scorn and sometimes these things will come at the hands of our own brethren.  If I can’t take a boring sermon and off-key singing, what makes me think I can handle real persecution? 

If I would be ashamed for my first century martyred brethren to hear my griping about the church, why do I think it is acceptable for anyone to hear it?  Does it glorify God?  Does it magnify His church and His people?  No, I imagine it sends everyone else running from instead of running to “the pillar and ground of the truth,” the church for which “he gave himself up,” the manifestation of His “manifold wisdom” (1 Tim 3:15; Eph 5:25; 3:10).

And if somehow we could call it some sort of trial or persecution to worship with a group that is not exactly the ideal, what would the proper attitude be?  Certainly not griping about it, but rather “rejoicing that we are counted worthy to suffer,” (Acts 5:41).  Why, maybe we should actually go out and look for those places to worship! 

And if I did choose one of those places to hang my hat, would it really become any better with someone like me in it?  Make no mistake.  It isn’t about whether the kingdom of God, specifically the one I attend, is worthy of me and my commendation, it’s about whether I can ever be worthy of it.
 
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory, 1Thess 2:11-12.
 
Dene Ward

Keith and I met at college.  It took most of the first year for us to actually become an “item” because of a lot of things—mainly our differences.  Country boy vs. city girl, 24 year old ex-Marine vs. naïve 17 year old girl.  We lost count of how many people told us it would never work.   Even today, people who have met us separately and then finally see us as a couple say, “I never would have put you two together.”
 
           The campus was small so you parked and walked everywhere.  Few knew the extent of my vision problems back then.  I had learned to watch people move, and usually recognized them across campus by their walks. 

            I did not realize exactly how distinctive a walk could be until I met Keith.  I still can’t quite figure it out.  He keeps the top portion of his body completely still and swings his legs from the hips, at least that is the best way I can describe it.  Whatever it is, I recognized him from a farther distance than I ever had anyone before.  He says it has something to do with growing up on the side of a mountain.  I have seen that mountain and the remains of that old house, and it brings to mind the old joke about cows in the mountains having legs of different lengths.

            I wonder how people in the world recognize us.  Could it be that our walk gives us away? 

            John tells us that as followers of Christ, we ought to walk even as He walked, 1 John 2:6, and that would certainly make people notice.  If they don’t, then are we really behaving as we ought? If we use the same language, engage in the same activities, dress the same way, and react in the same way as the rest of the world, who exactly are we walking like?  Sounds like the rest of the world to me.

            People in the neighborhood, in the office, in the school, in the grocery store or doctor’s office should all be able to see a difference in how we behave and how the rest of the world behaves.  Yet it is not just a matter of being “different.”  They should know what that difference means.  They should be able to recognize the walk!

            It is not enough to just follow His footsteps—a lot of people do that with little or no thought.  It keeps them out of trouble, it keeps them in good standing with the elders, it satisfies them that they have fulfilled the commandments.  But a child can stand in one of his father’s footprints and then jump to the next without making a new impression in the sand.  Is he really walking like his father walks?

            What really needs to happen is the full body awareness, swinging your arms the same way, holding your head the same way, lifting your feet and setting them down the same way—everything exactly the same because now Christ lives in you.  You have reached a point where you no longer need to struggle to leap from footprint to footprint in order to stay on track.  Your walk actually fits into His.

            How are you walking this morning?  Is it a recognizable walk?  And exactly how would a stranger describe it?  If you are walking as He did, there should be no question about it.
 
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin, 1 John 1:6,7.
 
Dene Ward

More than once I have been outside weeding and accidentally pulled up a fistful of thorns.  Usually it’s a blackberry vine, though stinging nettles are not far behind on the list.  Either one makes for pain and blood loss for at least a little while and I try hard to look a little closer before the next pull.
 
           Not too long ago I saw a picture of a plant called “Crown of Thorns.”  It’s an import to our country, a type of cactus, but one that is notoriously picky about its surroundings.  You can only grow it in Zone 10 or higher, but once you get it going, it’s nearly impossible to kill.  It is heat and drought tolerant.  Long after other houseplants would have died from neglect, it will even bloom.

            The photos I saw made me think of the crown of thorns we are familiar with as Christians, the one the soldiers wove and placed upon Jesus’ head.  I doubt it was the same plant, but it looked as I imagined that one would, a thick stem covered with long sharp spines.  I cannot even imagine trying to weave the thing without leaving yourself a bloody mess.
 
           We sing a song with these lyrics by William Featherston:

1. My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
   For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
   My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
2. I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
   And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
   I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
3. I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
   And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
   And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   
4. In mansions of glory and endless delight,
   I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
   I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   

I missed it all my life until Keith pointed out the thirds lines of verses 2 and 4.  “I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow,” and, “I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow.”  Jesus wore a crown of thorns so I could wear a crown of glory.  If it was anything like those plants I saw, it was a bigger sacrifice than one might ever have thought, but the symbolism is profound because everything he went through that horrible night was for me.  And you.  Even that prickly crown.

Now, as his disciples, what sort of crown am I willing to wear for others?  Can I, as the Corinthians were chided to do, give up my liberties?  Can I concede a point even if I know I am right because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter?  Can I stop an argument instead of continuing one?  Can I let someone else have the last word?

Can I give up my time and convenience for the sake of someone who needs an encouraging word?  Can I skip a meal to visit the lonely?  Can I miss a ball game to hold a Bible study?

Can I stay up a little later to pray a little longer?  Can I turn off the TV to spend some time in the Word?  Can I make teaching my children about God a priority instead of something we just try to fit in when we can?

None of those things will cause the kind of bloodletting those thorns did, but if I cannot even do those paltry things, how can I even hope to wear that “glittering crown on my brow?”  If that makes me uncomfortable and ashamed, good.  That’s why we sing those songs.  They are to teach and admonish, not produce feel-good pep rallies.

When I am weeding in the garden, I do my best to avoid the thorns.  Maybe in life, I should be out there looking for a few to wear.
 
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe, John 19:2

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2Tim 4:7-8.
 
Dene Ward

In Thomas Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again, George Webber concludes, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time…"
 
           Whenever Keith talks about Arkansas, he says, “Back home.”  It used to bother me a little.  Home should be where I am, shouldn’t it?  Then I realized that I could never have the feelings of a place that he did.  I never lived in just one place as a child, and the place I lived longest is not the place I go to when I visit my parents.  They left that place a year after I married and have lived in nearly half a dozen places since. 

            It is ironic that one of my sons lives there now, the place I would have called home, but when I go visit him, it has been so long since it was home, and it has changed so much, that I never even think of it that way any more.  The longest I have ever lived in any one place is the place I live now, and as Keith and I head into our senior years, I can foresee a time, though I hope not too soon, when we will have to leave it.  Even as small a plot as five acres takes a lot of labor, and it is a long way from the folks we count on to care for us when we become too old and disabled to take care of it and ourselves.

            Christians should be careful about those feelings of “home.”  Home should never be about a place, but about people, and about Truth.  I have seen churches divide over doctrines, divisions that were necessary.  Yet people who should have known better stayed—they were converted to a place, a building, not to the Lord.

            And Christians in our society have another problem—one that the poverty stricken brethren in places like Nicaragua and Zimbabwe never have to deal with—we have become entirely too comfortable.  We are so “at home” in our rich lives that we don’t want to give them up.  Persecution, even simply the ridicule and criticism of others, is too much to bear.  There is always a good reason not to speak up when sin becomes accepted, and not to behave differently.   Even if there is no persecution, we have a problem singing, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.”  This is home and we want to stay as long as possible.

            We must make ourselves see beyond the here and now.  We must force ourselves to realize that where and how we are living today is not our goal.  Eternity is difficult enough to comprehend without focusing on what is right in front of us as if it were the only thing that counted.  Here is the truth of the matter:  compared to Eternity our lives are not even a drop of water in the entire ocean. 

            Christians have the promise that one day we will never again be homesick.  Heaven is the home we have all been looking for, the place we will live forever.  We will never have to leave.  We will never sit pining and wishing for the good old days.  The “dreams of glory” Thomas Wolfe spoke of will be there and then.  But perhaps in Eternity “then” will no longer have a meaning.  It will be Now—a capital letter Now that never ends.
 
Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:6,8.
 
Dene Ward
 

We are well over a thousand now—and counting.  I have been writing up these little things so long I can’t watch something happen without thinking the phrase above.  In fact, more than once Keith and I have looked at one another after some oddball event and said it in unison: “There oughtta be a devo in that.”

            “Go to the ant, thou sluggard.  Consider her ways and be wise,” Solomon wrote.  “Look at the birds,” Jesus said, and, “Consider the lilies.”  Both of them taught valuable lessons from the things around them.  The parables were nothing more than every day occurrences with analogous meanings.  Parables were not uncommon in the Old Testament either, and many of the prophets taught lessons with the visual aids of their own lives or actions.  Hosea and Ezekiel come instantly to mind.

            Even the writers of the New Testament used athletic contests, farming truisms, and anatomical allegories to teach us what we need to know about our relationship with God, with one another, and in our homes and communities.  Telling stories is a time-honored and perfectly scriptural way of teaching God’s word.

            In fact, maybe if we started looking at the world that way, at the things that happen in our daily lives as if they had some meaning beyond the mundane, some deeper spiritual use, it might just be that our lives would change for the better.  It might be easier to see where we need to grow, maybe a place we need to make a one-eighty before we get much further down the road.  There is something about watching a dumb animal and thinking, “I didn’t even have that much sense,” that will straighten out your attitude.

            If I have done nothing else for you in all these years, maybe I have accomplished this.  Maybe you have learned to look at the things around you and say, “There IS a devo in that—I need to make a change.”
 
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? Job 12:7-9.
 
Dene Ward