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            Shortly after this latest surgery, when I had grown weary of sitting in a dark house alone day after day, I donned a couple of pairs of sunglasses, one on top of the other, and a hat with a broad visor, picked up my walking sticks, and stepped outside.  It was still morning so as long as I faced west, the light was tolerable.

            The dogs heard me coming and met me at the door, bumping each other out of the way vying for the first pat, tails wagging so hard and fast they might have been declared lethal weapons.  When they saw my intent to head out into the open, they took off in that direction, Magdi stiffly romping, an old dog briefly reminded of her youth, and Chloe ripping circles around her, leaving skid marks in the grass.

            Right after an eye surgery, the operated-on eye sees nothing but a blur of color for a few weeks.  Although the two eyes are separate entities, each with its own plumbing and wiring systems, the other eye experiences some “sympathy pains” and its vision is not as clear as usual either.  While I could miss the furniture, so to speak, details were difficult.  As far as I could tell there were no individual blooms on the crape myrtles—each was simply one big blotch of color.  There were no leaves on the trees—they were just big puffs of green, exactly the way a child would draw them.  There were no individual blades of grass—the ground was just painted green, except way out in the field where someone had spilled a bucket of yellow paint.

            I headed for that spot, my two bodyguard/playmates scampering around ahead and behind, sniffing up grasshoppers the size of mascara tubes.  Our ten paws were soon soaked with dew and breaded with sand. When I got close enough to see my beautiful spot of bright yellow and knelt down, it was a thick oval patch of dandelion blooms about ten feet by six feet, between the mown field and the back fence.  Dandelions!  I laughed out loud.   My spot of beauty was what most people consider bothersome weeds.  There ought to be a lesson here, I thought, and maybe this is it.

            Not many of us are long stemmed red roses in God’s garden, let alone rare and delicate orchids.  I have met some fresh-faced petunias whose sincerity is obvious, some formal and well-dressed gladioli who can stand before a crowd and speak without fear, some pleasant and reliable carnations who seem able to function in practically any situation, and some sturdy daisies with a lot of staying power.  But some of us are just dandelions, not very popular, not very talented, all too soon developing a cap of fuzzy gray hair.  So do we use that as our excuse?

            Do we sit back and wait for those other blooms to catch everyone’s attention and take care of the business at hand?  Do we still do nothing, even those times in our lives when we are the only blossom in a field full of tares and thistles?  Even a dandelion looks pretty good there.

            That little patch of dandelions gave me the first real laugh I’d had in weeks.  It got me out of a dark, lonely house into a world of sunlight (safely at my back), and a cool breeze filled with birdsong.  My soul recovered more in five minutes than my body had in the whole week before.  What might my day have been like without those humble little plants?

            God has a place for all of us and he won’t accept excuses for doing nothing.  It doesn’t matter if someone else is better known, better liked, or even a whole lot more able, especially if those someones are not present when a need arises.  Stop looking at yourself and look around you—self-absorption never accomplished anything. 

            God is the owner of this garden and He doesn’t mind a dandelion or two.  In fact, it seems like He made more of them than any other flower.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work nor thought nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol to which you are going, Eccl 9:10.

Dene Ward

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            That is exactly what our lungs are—hot air balloons.  Most of the time we only use a small amount of their capacity.  That is why taking a deep breath can have such a profound effect.  We are not used to having that much oxygen in our systems all at once.  I have heard that when a person actually begins to use his lungs to their capacity, those who have not smoked in years are suddenly expelling it.  It sat at the bottom of their lungs all that time.  I don’t know if that is true, but I would not be surprised.

            When teaching voice lessons, one of the biggest challenges is to teach people how to breathe, and then how to manage all that air.  Taking a deep breath will not accomplish a thing if you just whoosh it all out with the first note you sing.  If you take too big a breath, you will not be able to control how much you let out at once.  Because you have filled to capacity, the minute you apply any pressure at all with your diaphragm, you will lose close to half of it on the first word.  It is far better to fill to about 90%--you will still have far more than you are used to having.  You will also have the ability to mete out what you need and sing all the way through a phrase without gasping for air in front of your audience.

            When I thought about that, suddenly I understood a word I had been ignoring in one of those oft-quoted passages:  for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, Matt 12:34.  We usually just say, “You can’t speak what you don’t feel,” which may be true, but it is possible to have things come out in ways you never intended at all. 

            I remember riding to a gospel meeting with another couple many years ago.  I was in the backseat with the other woman, while Keith sat up front with the man.  Motion sickness can hit me at the drop of a hat.  I tried to be polite and actually look at the woman whenever I spoke to her, but that looking back and forth to the side, all that scenery rushing past behind her head, along with the larger sense of lateral sway in the backseat, was taking a toll on me.  Finally I said, “I’m sorry.  I just can’t look at you any more; it’s making me sick.”

            You see what I mean.  Sometimes the bad things that come out of your mouth are perfectly innocent. 

            But Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”  Aha!  I looked up that word.  It’s a nice long Greek word, also translated, “remain,” as in something that remains over and above what is needed.  In Matthew 14, Jesus fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish.  He not only fed them, but he fed them so abundantly that they all ate and were filled and they took up that which remained (that long Greek word) of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full, v12.  The word is also translated “exceed,” “enough and to spare,” and “abound,” as in the grace of God…abounds to the many, Romans 5:15.  How much grace do you want God to give you?  I hope he gives me more than just barely enough, and the use of this word proves it will be plenty.

            So what comes out of my heart is what I stuff it with, what I cram in there every day, filling it to the brim and overflowing.  And, just like when I take too deep a breath and the pressure from my diaphragm makes too much air gush out all at once, when I am under pressure, what I have crammed into my heart is what will come out.  Is it bitterness for what I have had to endure?  Anger at God for the trials he allows?  Resentment of everything and everyone because of how my life has turned out?  Or is it love, humility, kindness, generosity, contentment, and faith?  

            Whatever it is, there is no denying what I have been storing away when all of a sudden it bursts upon the scene in a gust of hot air. 

Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.  The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.   When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.  The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth.  The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for the lack of sense, Prov 10:10, 11, 19-21.

Dene Ward

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Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward

Somehow Dene and I were talking about the figurative language God uses to describe heaven and she said that a 4th grader once told her in a class that it seemed to her that all you did in heaven was more church, sitting around and singing all the time and she was not sure she wanted to do that forever. Her point was that we need to use figures and expressions of heaven that give our children a real hope, a motivating hope, not something to dread like having to sit still in church. Of course, the picture will need to be changed as the children grow older. But, is there anything sacrilegious about saying heaven is like playing with the puppy all day, or Disney World where you never get tired and there are no lines, or a favorite game, or gameboy?

Before you react, consider the silliness of God’s picture, but it still communicated something to hope for to motivate those people through persecution. A city with walls so high and thick as to be absolutely impregnable communicated the hope of security and safety to people who rarely enjoyed much of either. But, then, the gates never closed! What security is there in that? And, I doubt gates of pearl would be much good against battering rams anyhow. But, the awesome beauty attracts a lively hope.

Or, streets of gold. To people who lived day to day, often unsure of their next meal, just think how much food there would be in a city where they could afford to use gold for paving. What a stable economy. Wouldn’t the housing be sumptuous?

And the tree of life bearing 12 manner of fruit, yielding its fruit in every month. But how are there months in a place where there is neither sun nor moon but God is its light? But, for those in fear of disease and death, a picture of a constant and flavorful source of life motivated them to try a littler harder to overcome.

A lack of focus on hope has made our service lifeless and gutted our attempts to change and to grow.

Our purity has become less than it ought to be, less possible, less a concern because we are living on outdated figures of heaven that provide no motivation to us. If heaven means a garden with no weeds or diseases and no off season, dream on. If it is flying like a bird, singing beautifully, running with the wind, hearing the music that is beautiful beyond all the composers, if it is plenty, security, health in whatever terms you dream, then dream on and gird up the loins of your mind to make your heart sing and your life pure to be worthy of the sacrifice that made your dreams possible.
 

Keith Ward

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            Did you notice the tops that fashionable young women began wearing a few years ago?  I have seen them before, and worn them—thirty years ago when I was pregnant.  They look like nothing more than maternity smocks.  I had only three maternity tops and three maternity dresses, so they wore out their welcome in a hurry.  Besides, like most women, I thought they made me look like a whale.  It’s safe to say I won’t be buying any tops till this style changes.  I will say this about them, though.  They were better than the last fad—tops so short, yet cut so low they practically met in the middle, and tight enough to double as corsets.

            Then there are the men’s pants that seem to stay up by magic.  I saw a teenager bussing tables at a restaurant a few months ago whose belt was literally around his thighs, the crotch of his khaki pants suspended between his knees, and the bulk of the legs bunched up above his ankles like a squeezed accordion.  He walked with the mincing steps of a woman in a long tight skirt.  If my schedule had allowed that day, I would have dallied over my coffee until his shift ended, just so I could see how he managed to get down the steps outside the door.

            But have you noticed this about style?  It doesn’t change; it just rotates around the circle.  Young people have been wearing the same hip-hugging wide-legged pants my generation wore as teenagers, and they think it’s new.  The capris women have worn the past few years are the pedal pushers we wore in the 50s and 60s.  I guess it’s true that you should never throw anything away because it will eventually come back into style.

            God’s word, however, never goes out of style.  Oh, believing it and living by it goes out of style.  That’s not the point.  Some clothing styles are called “classic” because they always work—they look nice, they’re comfortable, practical and always appropriate.  Doesn’t that describe God’s word?  If everyone lived by it, think how much better this world would be.

            Just a small “for instance:” twenty percent of American adults now have genital herpes.  That’s 1 in 5, folks.  Talk about an epidemic.  And why?  Because people do not want to live God’s way—one man for one woman for one lifetime. 

            One million cases of pelvic inflammatory disease occur annually. There are more cases of syphilis now than at any time since the discovery of penicillin.  1.3 million new cases of gonorrhea surface every year, as well as four million cases of Chlamydia.  And these statistics are over ten years out of date.  Imagine what it’s like now.  A medical investigation done at UC Berkley discovered that 47% of the female students there carried the human papilloma virus. 

            And why has all this happened?  Because it is now out of style to teach your children self-control, to wait for marriage—in other words, God’s way of doing things.  Instead, society teaches them the lie called “safe sex.”  If promiscuity were so safe, how could I find figures like these?

            This is something we need to remember every day.  If anyone should know how to make our lives here happy, shouldn’t the One who made us?  Do you realize that the laws God set down in the Old Testament put the ancient Jews thousands of years ahead of their time in public health and sanitation?  Don’t you get it?  In any situation you can imagine, handling things God’s way is safer, healthier, and happier in the long run.  All this, and Heaven too.  Indeed, Father knows best.

Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise; then shall I have an answer to him who taunts me for I trust in your Word.  And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules.  I will keep your law continually forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place for I have sought your precepts.  I shall speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in your commandments which I love.  I shall lift up my hands to your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes, Psa 119:41-48.

Dene Ward

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            They say that anesthesia can cause you some memory problems.  I have had so much of it in the past few years that I have started loading up on the green tea because they, the same “they” I guess, say it will not only help your memory, but will actually revive dying brain cells.  If mine are being revived I would hate to think how many were in my brain’s ICU just a few weeks ago.  I grasp for words I am sure I know at least once or twice a day, walk into a room and then wonder why I’m there, and look at people I have known for years and can tell you everything about—everything except their names.  I know there is another supplement that is supposed to help memory too, but I forget what it is.

            Speaking of forgetting, I ran a quick search on e-Sword to find all the passages containing the admonition “Forget not,” and was surprised how few there were.  That tells me that the things I did find must be important.

            The proverb writer says to forget not my law in 3:1, but most of the “forget not” list is in the latter half of the New Testament.   

            Forget not to show hospitality the Hebrew writer tells us in 13:2, and I was surprised to find that the actual Greek word for hospitality, philoxenia, means love of strangers.  So when Peter tells us in 1 Pet 4:9 to use hospitality one to another, he is actually telling us to love each other like strangers.  Mull that one over for awhile.  I think there must surely be something lacking in how we treat strangers these days.

            Later in the same chapter, the Hebrew writer adds forget not to do good and share what you have, for with such sacrifices God is well-pleased, 13:16.  I honestly believe that doing good is easy for all of us, but how about sharing what we have?  In fact, Paul told the Ephesians that the reason they were to work was to have to give to others, 4:28.  I am not sure how well that sits with the average American, even as wealthy as we are compared to the rest of the world.  We can always find an excuse not to share that somehow we make sound, not only plausible, but actually righteous.

            Then Peter tells us in 2 Pet 3:8 to “forget not” that a day is as a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years as a day.  Why is that important to remember?  Because the world has gone on now for two thousand years since the promise that the Lord would return, and it is easy to think it always will.  Scoffers will always ridicule us for our faith, but even we become complacent, and let our righteousness backslide just a bit here and there, because there is always time to repent.  Even if the Lord does not come back during our lifetimes, we should not forget that even young people die, and for all practical purposes, the Lord has come for them.

            Some important things to remember, I think, especially if inspired men said so.  Whether you drink your green tea or not, make sure you don’t forget.

Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s…the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments, Psalm 103:1-5, 17,18.

Dene Ward       

            I was scanning a baseball trivia article called “The Odd Side of Baseball” by Gene Elston, and came across this story.  On May 23, 1895, the Louisville Cardinals forfeited a game to Brooklyn because they didn’t supply enough baseballs for the game.  They didn’t have enough baseballs for the game?  What kind of game did they think it was, tag?

            They began the game with three balls, two of which were used practice balls borrowed from the Brooklyn Bridegrooms, so by the third inning the balls were all too worn out to use.  Since the home team was obligated to provide them, that was that.  Brooklyn got an easy win.

            I have watched baseball for a few years now.  Even a late bloomer like me knows that those umpires toss out balls with the least little scuff mark on them, not counting the home runs and ground rule doubles that you lose into the stands, not to mention the free souvenirs tossed by generous outfielders several times an inning.  Even I know you need more than three balls to play a full nine inning game.

            All of which got me to wondering what we fail to supply while claiming to be Christians.  The obvious one is showing up for class or a sermon without a Bible, but how many of us also try to get through life without opening one?  How many of us try to fulfill our obligation to know the Word with a scanty chapter a day?  How many of us think we can keep a viable relationship with our Creator on three one minute graces a day before meals?  Sounds like starting a baseball game with three balls, two of which are in poor condition to begin with.

            But let’s think for a minute about the supplies God furnishes and see if that doesn’t give us a few more clues.  We are supposed to emulate our Father, after all.

            A little searching turned up eight passages describing God as “abundant in lovingkindness.”  Seven of those include the phrase, “slow to anger.”  How many of us are more prone to bring just three balls of patience and forbearance to others, instead of an abundant enough supply to play through the whole game—and actually have leftovers?  Are we afraid some of that patience may go to waste or just too chintzy to share? 

            Psalm 132:15 tells us that God will “abundantly bless” his people.  Other passages talk about the abundance of rain and crops.  They speak of God’s people being satisfied, not with scanty amounts, but “with fatness.”  How would people describe what we give back to God, not just in the collection plate, but in our time, in our effort, in our generosity to others, and in the way we make decisions every day?  Is God always on our minds, or simply when the cultural norms of the day dictate?  Does our service to God always come first in any decision we make, even where we live, whom we marry, and where we spend our spare time?  Or are we stingy with that too?

            Isa 55:7 tells us God will “abundantly pardon.”  Not just enough so we can squeak by, but enough that we can live without fear of judgment, 1 John 4:17,18.  How do we pardon those who have wronged us?  How can we even speak in the same terms when the things we become so upset about are usually petty annoyances, nothing even close to the despicable deeds we have done to this merciful God, who continually supplies the balls, who never runs out no matter how many we scuff up, or hit over the wall, or toss out to a bystander as if it were nothing?

            What are you bringing to the ball game?  We can never supply our own pardon, but we can sacrifice anything and everything as often as necessary and stand ready to give up even more to a Savior who came “that we may have life, and have it abundantly,” John 10:10.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

Dene Ward

            Paul wrote a scathing letter to the Corinthian brothers and sisters.  This was a church with so many problems many might have refused to call them “sound” nowadays.  The root of every problem they had could probably be summed up as “immaturity.”  Paul, in fact, calls them babes.  You know what he would have said in our language?  “I could not speak to you as spiritual adults because you are a bunch of big babies!”  1 Cor 3:1.

            In chapter six these immature people were taking each other to court.  Paul tells them that this only hurts the church’s reputation in the world.  “What?” he says.  “Don’t you have any one wise enough to help you settle your disputes?  You are doing harm to the church and ought to be willing to suffer wrong instead of making God’s kingdom look bad” (chapter 6, more or less).

            I don’t think that only applies to legal matters.  This was recorded for us, and if we are as smart as we think we are, we ought to be able to apply it in all sorts of situations.  The problem is, we are Americans, and proud of it.  We have rights!  And we often insist on those rights, regardless of how it might make others view the body of which we claim to be a part.

            And then there are the situations that really have nothing to do with “rights,” just convenience or “feelings.”  I love the insurance commercial that says, “The drivers on the road are people.  So treat them like they are in your home, not in your way.”  I wonder if the ad man who came up with that is a Christian.  He sounds more like one than some I know who are. 

            So the next time the person ahead of you in the check-out line takes a long time writing a check, or when the person in the car ahead of you is not as brave as you are about making that left turn across traffic, “take wrong” and “be defrauded” of a few minutes in your day instead of letting him know how much he exasperates you.         

            What if either of those people walk into services Sunday morning, looking for the truth of God’s Word and recognizes you?  Exactly how has your “looking out for your rights” affected their hearts?  Do you think they are likely to be more or less receptive to the gospel? 

            What if, at a family gathering or a church potluck someone says something that you find insulting?  “Take wrong” or “be defrauded” of your feelings for the sake of the others there, including children whose fun might be ruined when you cause a scene and walk off in a huff, or a visitor someone has brought to the potluck who might now have a bad opinion of the church.  In all these cases, just like little children, we often see and care only how things affect us, and not how they will affect others.

            If we cannot yield the right of way when it only affects our convenience, what makes us think we can when it is a matter of legal rights?  If we cannot sacrifice a few precious feelings, we have already failed the test of whether we would sacrifice our lives.  He who is faithful in little is faithful in much; he who is unfaithful in little, is unfaithful in much, Luke 16:10.

            It takes maturity to yield, especially when you are in the right, especially when the other person is not looking out for your good, especially when you have to suffer wrong, or even just inconvenience, to do so.  It also takes maturity to remember this in the heat of the moment.  Would Paul call us a bunch of big babies, too? 

I say this to your shame.  Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you.  Why not rather suffer wrong?  Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves [by this behavior] wrong and defraud—even your own brothers, 1 Cor 6:5-8.

Dene Ward

           I had an up close and personal encounter with a wildflower a couple of years ago.  When we plant a new bed out in the field, we baby it the first year.  The point is for them to grow up scattered in the grasses and among other wildflowers in a natural way, but if you don’t get them off to a good start, they won’t stand a chance with all the competition out there for ground space and rainwater.

            So I was weeding the latest patch, which we had let go far beyond the normal time span.  I had difficulty even finding some of the small plants amid all the waist high grass and weeds.  I had nearly finished, was soaking wet and black up to my elbows, when I noticed one more low-growing weed and bent over to pull it.  I did not see the bare stalk of the wildflower right between my feet, leafless and flowerless, standing three feet high.  I did not know it was there until, as I bent over, it slid right into my eye like a hot wire.  Which eye?  The one which most lately has been operated on, the one with the shunt, the capsular tension ring, and the silicone lens, the one that already hurts the most. 

            The doctor and I spent nearly two weeks fixing me up after this little mishap, checking to see if there was any permanent damage, checking to see if the shunt had been knocked out of place, checking for infection, and worse, for plant fungus.  As it turns out, all I had was a hematoma and a laceration, but it was an exciting couple of weeks.

            That was too close and personal an encounter with a flower, but we can never be too close and personal with God.  I have had to learn that.  The prevailing sentiment many years ago seemed to be that we did not want to do or say anything that might make someone apply a religious pejorative to us indicating belief in something other than correct Bible teaching about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  Instead of saying, “I’m blessed,” instead of saying, “God took care of me,” indeed, instead of attributing anything to the providence of God, we said, “I’m lucky.”  We wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea, would we?

            Where did we come up with that?  Read some of David’s psalms.  He gave God the credit for everything.  Read Hannah’s song, or Moses and Miriam’s after crossing the Red Sea.  Since when don’t the people of God tell everyone what God has done for them?

            Read some of Paul’s sermons.  He does not seem a bit concerned that someone might use what he says to give credence to false teaching.  “You know that idol you have out there?” he asks the Athenians, “the one to the Unknown God?  Let me tell you about him.”  He tells Felix, But this I confess to you that after the Way which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our fathers, Acts 24:14.  It didn’t matter a bit what people called it, as long as he could talk about it.  In fact, he used their misconceptions as opportunities to preach the Gospel.

            Maybe that is my problem—I don’t want to talk about it.  It makes me uncomfortable.  It has nothing to do with whether someone gets the wrong idea about the Truth, but everything to do with me feeling ill at ease, or downright embarrassed.  I don’t want to be called a religious fanatic and certainly not a “Holy Roller!”  Yes, I want a close, personal relationship with God, as long as no one else knows about it.

            But here is the deal:  If I am too embarrassed by my relationship with God to even acknowledge it, then He won’t acknowledge me either, and I am the one with everything to lose. 

            Go out there today and say or do something that will make someone else curious enough to ask you a question.  Then open your mouth and unashamedly tell them how wonderful an up close and personal relationship with your Creator and Savior really is.

Everyone therefore who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in Heaven.  But whoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in Heaven, Matt 10:32,33.

Dene Ward

          When people start doing things to your eyes, taking things out and putting things in, cutting into them, pouring chemicals into them, you start seeing strange things.

            A week after one of the operations I had at the Cincinnati Eye Institute I started seeing gold circles as thin as thread right in front of me.  At first I thought I was going through some sort of spider web, although I had never seen a golden one to be sure, but I started waving my hand in front of my face trying to brush it away right in the hotel lobby.  When I looked up, the girl behind the front desk was watching me over her glasses, her eyebrows trying to crawl into her hairline.  She managed to put on her professional face then and check us out. 

            Even now I sometimes see sparkling lights in dark corners, and furtive movements on the periphery of my vision.  I was sitting in the assembly one Sunday when I was positive I saw rats running along the housing for the indirect lighting on the walls near the ceiling.  After I had similar experiences seeing things in the blinds by my chair and out the window next to the dining table, I finally realized it was just another visual anomaly resulting from all the surgery and other treatments I have endured lately.

            But the more frightening problem is the black spot—a “pressure phenomenon,” as one resident calls it.  When I see it, I know the pressure is up.  Some days it is bigger than others, also a bad sign.  The pinprick-sized spot becomes a nail hole, or even a bolt hole.  The first time I saw it, I thought it was a gnat, and I went around all day trying to shoo it away.  Finally it dawned on me that this gnat was always in the same place.  I bet I looked pretty funny those few hours before I figured it out.

            I wish that spot would go away.  On days when it does, I feel a lot better both physically and mentally.  Weariness and stress seem to be the worst aggravators of the problem.  It reminds me of Lady Macbeth, who succumbed to such guilt over prodding her husband to murder the king that she saw a spot of blood on her hands, and no matter how many times she wiped them, it would not come off.  “Who would have thought an old man could bleed so much?” she asks during her famous speech about “the spot.”

            We have a spot too—one that will not go away, no matter how many times we wipe it, no matter how many times we wash our hands before the world as Pilate did, no matter how strong the soap we use.. 

            Nowadays, mental health experts recognize the signs of guilt and the problems it causes.  Their solution is to deny the existence of sin and therefore, remove guilt altogether.  Now that’s handy, isn’t it?  All I need to do to avoid feeling bad about doing wrong is believe that it is right.  So who gets to decide what is right?  What if I don’t like your version of sins, especially if it makes your sins legal and mine illegal?  Only One is qualified to decide what is right and what is wrong.

            And, coincidentally, only one thing will make that guilt go away, and only one person can do it for us.  In fact, He requires it of anyone who wants to follow Him.  No matter how many times we tell ourselves that wrong is actually right, if we don’t let Him rid us of the spot of sin, the guilt will eat us alive just as it did that fictional Lady. 

            Get rid of the spot while you still can.  There will come a time when the offer is rescinded.

 Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish, Eph 5:25-27.

Dene Ward

            Lately I have felt swamped.  When I had to close my music studio doors because concerti and German lieder accompaniments do not generally come in large print editions, I thought I would sit here and die of boredom.

            Not so.  Between a husband who keeps making suggestions about things to do—like blogs—and women who are no longer satisfied with canned Bible class materials, and other women who want weekend studies and lectures, and an editor who wants one or two devotional books a year, I have plenty to do.  I am thankful for it.  God demands work from His people, and despite a growing disability, I still have much to do.  So do you.

            So how did I get this from the psalms study?  Think for a minute.  What did God ordain the Levites to do?  Just because they could not all be priests did not mean some were free to pursue other activities.

            Levites were assistants to the priests.  They did the clean-up after the sacrifices, some of the nastiest cleaning you can imagine, including hideous laundry stains.  They took care of the animals.  They baked the shewbread.  When the tabernacle was moved, they did the setting up and tearing down, packing and unpacking.  You can read chapter after chapter in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and see these men working.  None of them were idlers.

            So what happened after the Temple was built?  Some of the original duties were no longer necessary and new ones developed.  Now you can read chapter after chapter in 1 and 2 Chronicles and see new duties, ordained by God just as the original ones were.  They were musicians, every bit as professional as a symphony orchestra member today, every bit as trained as a singer on the operatic stage.  They were security guards.  I even found a passage stating they were to unlock the Temple every morning, which I suppose means they made the rounds and locked it in the evening too.  Many of the other duties were the same.  They still needed bakers.  They still needed launderers.  They still needed metal smiths and janitors and husbandmen.  I doubt that covers it by any stretch of the imagination.

            The same frame of mind that causes us to work for God provokes work in the earthly realm as well, because that, too, is working for God.  He ordained work in this physical world from the time He made man:  The Lord took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it, Gen 2:15.  The only thing sin changed was how difficult that work was going to be, not the fact of it.

            The scriptures say that we are to work for our employers (“Masters”) heartily, as unto the Lord, Col 3:23.  It says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, Eccl 9:10.  It calls those who do not work lacking sense (Prov 24:20), disorderly (2 Thes 3:11), brother to a destroyer (Prov 18:9), and wicked (Matt 25:26).  It says that a man who will not go out and work is “robbing his parents,” (Prov 28:24).  It says if we don’t work, we shouldn’t be allowed to eat (2 Thes 3:10).

            God reinforced all of that when He gave the Levites their duties in his Tabernacle and then when He changed those duties to suit the Temple.  He didn’t tell one group, “Since there is no longer any need to pack and unpack, to set up and tear down, you no longer need to work.”  He simply gave them new work to do. 

            And who are the priests and Levites today?  We are (1 Pet 2:9).  Peter said it was right for him to continue to teach “as long as I am in this body,” 2 Pet 1:13.  The same applies to us.  As long as we are above ground, as long as we are breathing, we serve God.  The duties may change, just as they did for those Levites, but the requirement to work does not.  You do what you can as the opportunity arises—that’s what those talents in the parable represent—opportunities--not your personal perception of your own “talent.”  God knows exactly what gift He gave you and the opportunities He gives you.  Use them.

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. John 9:4.

Dene Ward