When I was a child, we read the tales of fairies and genies, and talked about the things we would wish for if we had three wishes. It was not long before I realized that three would not be enough!  Soon I learned to wish that all my wishes would come true, but, later, I added a special formula to avoid the “Midas Touch” dilemma.  [I didn’t really want my sister to turn into a cockroach forever.]

Even adults spend some time wishing.  I would wish to be able to hear music and for my wife to see well, for youth, for wisdom, for wealth, for perfect weather and for….you see, three would never be enough. 

Then, wisdom strikes (rarely) – I am wishing for all the wrong things and all the things that matter have already been granted--I must just wait a little while with faith.

We will live forever in perfect health in bodies of a totally new kind that make these look like tents (2 Cor 5:1-4).  There will be joy and peace and plenty so far beyond our understanding that it is described as the streets being paved with gold and rivers of waters of life flowing from the throne of God.  No one will die or even get sick.  Beauties beyond mortal vision will thrill us.  A life super abundantly beyond all that we can think to wish for us awaits us (Eph 3:20).  And, it never fades or diminishes in its delights for the soul as it does on earth where, once we receive them, we often tire of the things we had wished for. (1 Pet 1:4).

Can you believe it; many people think they can do better!  They feel the cost of a life of righteousness is too high and seek their joy in the pleasures of sin.

Sin is for the young and healthy. Its pleasures are real but fleeting, and just as an addict must use more and more of his drug to achieve a high, so must sinners “wax worse and worse”  to achieve their pleasure (2Tim 3:13).  Sin inevitably hurts others and ruins the psyche of the sinner.  Then you die and comes judgment.

A life of righteousness builds one’s inner man and his relationships.  Joy and peace accompany the righteous in sickness and health and whatever circumstances life brings, for he looks for “a city whose builder and maker is God;” and “godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” Heb 11:10, 1 Tim 4:8.  Then you die and all your wishes do come true and beyond that, glories you never imagined to wish for.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, the tree of life, which bare twelve kinds of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the peoples.

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. (Selected from Rev 21 & 22).

Keith Ward

Several years ago, a prominent female politician angered many American women when she answered a reporter about her choice of career over homemaking by saying, “Well I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies.”  Most of us read a sneer in her tone and, as I remember it, her office was inundated with homemade cookies baked and sent by outraged homemakers.

One of the things I decided to do as a homemaker was to keep a cookie jar filled with homemade cookies, and for the most part I have.  Chewy oatmeal raisin, spicy gingersnaps, crumbly peanut butter, sparkly snickerdoodles, decadent triple chocolate, wonderful almond crunch cookies that always surprise people and steal the show, and all those variations of the All-American chocolate chip:  Toll House, Neimann Marcus, peanut butter chocolate chip, double chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, and death by chocolate chocolate chip.  My boys would come home from their friends’ houses talking about how deprived they were—all they had were Oreos.

My younger son Nathan was especially fond of cookies.  As a toddler, he would pull up a chair to stand in so he could “help” me make cookies—help that usually involved tasting the dough to make sure it was good, and then “cleaning” the beaters.  When he was in high school, I bought him a shirt that said, Life’s Greatest Questions:  Who Am I?  Where Did I Come From?  Why Am I Here?  WHERE ARE THE COOKIES? 

Eventually that chubby, tow-headed, blue-eyed cherub became a long, lean man who went off to college.  The first time he came home he brought a friend with him.  He immediately led the buddy to the counter where the cookie jar always sat.  “See?  I told you there would be cookies.”  Until he married I would bake cookies and save a dozen each week in a freezer bag until I had 4 or 5 kinds, then mail them to him and start all over.  This was one serious cookie connoisseur.  I am not sure what else made an impression on him, but I know he will remember that I loved him enough to make cookies for him.

I am reminded of David after his small army defeated the Amalekites.  Not all of his men were as righteous as he.  Several “wicked men and base fellows” did not want to share the spoils with the men who had stayed at camp, guarding their belongings.  David said, You shall not do so, my brothers, with that which Jehovah has given us…the share of him who goes down to the battle shall be the same as he who tarried by the baggage; they shall share alike, and it was from that day forward a statute and ordinance in Israel.  1 Sam 30:23-25.  David understood the value of those who did the behind-the-scenes work, the jobs others considered less important, and which seldom received glory or recognition. 

Think about Dorcas.  Stephen, the deacon and great preacher, had been killed not long before. James the apostle, a cousin of Jesus himself, would be next.  But who did Peter raise from the dead?  Not the powerful speakers who performed miracles, but a widow who made clothes for the poor, Acts 9:36-42.  Surely God was saying that what we consider small and unimportant tasks are actually some of the greatest of all.

Never underestimate the importance of “baking cookies.”

For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink because you are Christ’s, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward, Mark 9:41.

For the recipe accompanying this post, click >> Dene's Recipes page 


Dene Ward

Every dog we have ever had has loved a good belly rub, but Chloe seems to have taken it to another level.  It isn’t just that she begs for a belly rub, it’s that she thinks God put her here to have her belly scratched, and that scratching her belly may be the only reason He put us here.

A few people seem to have the same opinion about themselves and the church.  The only reason God instituted a church is to pander to their every need.  It seldom seems to cross their minds that other people have needs as well, and that those needs may be even more critical than theirs.  Chloe wouldn’t care if the house were on fire if she saw us running outside.  She would still scamper up, plop herself on the ground and roll over—isn’t that why we came outside, to scratch her belly?  A Christian who thinks he is the center of the universe is behaving the same way.

Others think the only reason God put them in the church was for the church to listen to them.  They never ask a question in a Bible class, or offer a comment to stimulate discussion and deep thinking.  Instead they have all the answers and are happy to tell you exactly how things ought to be done, even things that are not specifically spelled out in the scriptures.  They know best.  It amazes me when these are people new to a congregation, who don’t yet know the background and experiences of the people they are trying to advise, often including elders, or who are in their mid-twenties with little life experience behind them.  Kind of reminds me of Chloe who thinks a belly rub is appropriate any time of day, any place, even while you are trying to shoot a rattlesnake that she obviously has not seen.  But she knows best, Boss!

Then there are the ones who think their feelings, or the feelings of a family member, are all that count.  The church is supposed to pussyfoot around and never offer exhortation or criticism that might “offend” by our definition of the word.  They think they are put here to be stroked and petted and “have their belly rubbed” regardless of what might be happening to their souls.  Reminds me of that passage about people “whose god is their belly”—nothing matters at the moment but how they feel.  I am not about to let Chloe roll over on her back in the middle of a garden row I have just planted that is supposed to help feed us this year, no matter how much it hurts her feelings for me to tell her, “No!”  Some things are more important than her feelings, and if she were my child instead of my dog, I would explain that to her rather than let her do as she pleased and cost us a few hundred dollars worth of groceries. 

So what do you do about people like that?  You do the same thing the Lord did for you when you were still that immature and selfish.  You tolerate, you teach, you show them a better way with the example of your own service and willingness to accept abuse or take on responsibilities that are not yours but that you do because they need doing and you are there.  You love them in a way they don’t deserve and yes, you rebuke when necessary and hope they won’t act childishly and run off to play somewhere else, where everyone will scratch the belly they offer, and let them be the only ones who matter and the only ones worth listening to.

The Lord did all that for us, and he expects us to do it for them.  Some day maybe they will learn to be better than a silly little dog who thinks the world is here to scratch her belly.  Didn’t you?

And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all. 1Thes 5:14

Dene Ward

Uh-huh.  Sure.  I have heard that way too many times in the last few weeks.  As much as I like and trust my doctor, he might as well ditch that line.  I automatically cringe when I hear it.  What follows almost invariably does hurt, at least “a bit,” and often more.

What would you expect when they insert six inch sticks halfway into the top of your eye socket and mash all along the top of your eyeball trying to reposition things inside your eye?  Or when they insert a syringe into the front of your eye and pump in a gel that makes eye pressure increase by 50% in just a second or two?  Or when they put a needle deep into your eye to ream out a blocked shunt?  Or when they laser an eye the size of a marble over 300 times, leaving black burn marks that last for years?  And all of this happens while you are awake, with only a couple of numbing drops to deaden the surface of your eye, which also has a fresh surgery incision, and a raw cornea the resident describes as “road rash of the eye.”

Sometimes I would like to watch my doctors undergo all of these things, then tell me it doesn’t hurt, not even “a bit.”  I think every patient going through any sort of procedure has those daydreams, especially when they hear, “This won’t hurt a bit.”

And isn’t that why our Savior and High Priest is so precious to us?  He does know that life can hurt, that Satan is a frighteningly strong power, that it is not easy to endure this world’s sorrows.  


Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.  For truly not to angels does he give help, but he gives help to the seed of Abraham.  Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor those that are tempted, Heb 2:14-18.

So when He says it won’t hurt, we know it won’t.  When He says we can overcome, we know we can.  When He says the struggle is worth it, we know it is.  Not only has He been through it Himself, but He will go through it again with us. 

            Hallelujah!  What a Savior!


For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore draw near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need.  Heb 4:15,16

Dene Ward

We had our first opportunity for an overnight with Silas a few months ago.  It was better than a trip to Disneyworld, better than a vacation in an exotic place, better than dinner in a five star restaurant, better than just about anything you could possibly think of.  Do I sound like a doting grandmother yet?

When he woke the next morning, he remembered that it was the two of us who put him in the crib the night before and he called out, “Granddad!  Grandma!”  And there was that smiling face and those big blue eyes under a head full of tousled blond curls. 

My one concern that weekend was understanding what he was saying.  He has been talking since he was one, but sometimes in a language we can’t quite figure out.  It sounds for all the world like a real tongue.  It comes complete with hand motions and facial expressions and he is quite fluent in it.  Unfortunately, we aren’t.

The last year he has gained more English and less of his personal argot.  For two years old, as he was then, he had quite a vocabulary.  We were looking at a book about shapes, and he pointed to one and said, “That’s an oval.”  I hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of that when he added, “And that’s a rhombus.”  I quickly flipped through my own mental file card, trying to remember that one from high school math classes. 

That morning after we got him out of bed, he turned to me and said, “Can I have bussenwuddy?”

I was stumped.  Maybe I didn’t hear right, I thought.  So I asked, “Bussenwuddy?”

His little eyes brightened and he started jumping in my lap.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy!”

Okay, now what?  Bussenwuddy...  I flipped through those file cards in my mind once again.  What have I heard him talking about that sounds like bussenwuddy?

Finally it came to me.  “Buzz and Woody?” 

Another excited little bounce.  “Yes, yes!  Bussenwuddy.  Can I?”  He wanted to watch the Toy Story DVD.  I felt like a successful grandmother--I had figured out what my two year old grandchild wanted.  Do you think anyone but a grandparent would have tried so hard?

God is trying to talk to us every day.  He has put it down in black and white.  All we have to do is pick it up and read it.  Some of us won’t even be bothered with that.  Then there are the ones that will pick it up, but then put it back down in frustration.  “I can’t understand this.”  Well, how hard are you willing to try?

I have had women leave my classes because “They’re too much work.”  Keith has had people complain about his classes because, “They’re too deep.”  Really?  I would be embarrassed to say such a thing if I had been a Christian for two decades or more. 

Don’t I care enough about my Father in Heaven to put a little effort into it?  It isn’t that He expects us all to be scholars, who love to put our noses in books for hours on end.  But He does expect us to care enough to spend a little time at it.  He expects us to be willing to push ourselves some. 

No, it isn’t all as simple as, “Do this,” or “Do that.”  Sometimes He throws a bussenwuddy in there (Matt 13:10-13; 2 Pet 3:16).  But if you really care about communicating with your Father, if talking to Him really excites you, if He is the most important thing in your life, then you will exercise that file card memory of yours and flip through it occasionally, striving (a word that denotes effort, by the way) to learn what He expects of you. 

You don’t have to be a genius with a photographic memory, but you do have to love your Father enough to be willing to work at building a relationship with Him.  Pick up your Bible today, and show Him how much He means to you.

And he said to me, "Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel-- not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

Ezekiel 3:4-7

Dene Ward

 

I do not mean to leave you discouraged, so let me share some success stories with you.  After all these years, we have a few, and I do believe God meant us to share them (Acts 14:27) with one another. 

I remember a lot of baptisms.  Keith has baptized in swimming pools, sunken bathtubs, and ponds.  I remember standing right at the shore, cold water lapping at my feet on a chilly January night as a young woman came up out of the water with him, and wrapping her in blankets as quickly as I could.  I remember him coming home one night, sticking his legs out of the truck door to show me the damp hems because a Bible study had resulted in the birth of a babe in Christ.  I remember the night we stood on the edge of a swamp, bullfrogs croaking a bass chorus and headlights shining over the weedy waters, as he baptized a young man he had studied with for several weeks.  I believe it was May and I remember thinking, surely God will keep the snakes at bay tonight!

I remember some neighbors up the street in another state, who had started coming to services, and her to our women’s class, and who wanted so badly to be baptized one Sunday morning, they wouldn’t even change into robes.  “We came in these clothes, and these clothes are going down with us, right now!” the man said.  I think we did persuade him to remove his wallet and take off his shoes.

I remember another young man who faithfully completed the correspondence course, asking good questions along the way, and then sent back his final lesson with the note, “I’m ready to be baptized.”  He attended faithfully until he moved away.  I remember another young man whose commitment was restored after a long talk, who brought his wife to us, and has gone on to begin a church in an area where there was none, still faithful after thirty years

God sends you other encouragements if you just pay attention.  One neighbor had seen us leave every Sunday morning, and when suddenly she had custody of her three grandchildren, she called, wanting us to take them to church with us.  We certainly would have loved to have her as well, but we didn’t look down on the opportunity.  For two years those children were dressed and waiting every Sunday morning at 8:00.  I have no idea if that has borne fruit, but I do know this—when the woman died, her children asked Keith to speak at her memorial.  Something had been planted and it did have some effect.  That’s all God asked us to do. Perhaps you would like to share a few stories of your own below to encourage others.

Sowing the seed is not a part-time job.  For a Christian, it’s a career.  Get on with it.  No one will be judged by the results.  Just remember that every person you come across is a potential field and everything you do can affect the results of your planting.  That is what you will be judged on, not the number of splashes.

God wants sowers.  He wants waterers, and, we hope, plenty of harvesters.  The seed will yield its crop, but don’t get so busy counting ears of corn that you forget to plant the next row.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11

Dene Ward

I have nearly lost count of the number of eye surgeries I have had.  After each one, it takes awhile to get back into the swing of things.  One of my regular activities is walking and after an eye surgery, the challenge is to see where I am going.  I use an old rake handle as a walking stick to steady myself when I stumble.

My 6 year old red heeler, a type of Australian cattle dog, has figured out that I have some sort of a problem, and she has become my “protector.”  When our neighbor to the west came down a few weeks ago with his brush-hog to mow the majority of our 5 acres, I was out walking.  Magdi usually walks the first lap of six on my 1/2 mile plus loop, scares up all the critters—especially the snakes—then sits in the shade, watching, while I finish.  That day, she stayed with me for the entire walk, and any time I got within 100 feet of the tractor, she went after that mower with a vengeance.  We were afraid she would get hurt, so I altered my walk to stay on one side of the property and the neighbor worked the other half until I finished.  Then my canine bodyguard retreated under the porch till the next time I came outside.

One Saturday, I was walking while Keith used the little rider on the acre we keep mown around the house.  Every time our paths started to intersect, she would charge across the field from wherever she happened to be, cut between us, and bark and nip at his wheels, even though she is scared to death of the mower, and runs from it otherwise.  (I wonder if she thinks it has already eaten Keith.) 

Today, another neighbor was using his brush-hog on his side of the south fence, and we passed one another three or four times along the fence while I walked.  Magdi headed for him every time we got close and barked and jumped at the fence until I was safely by.   Then she followed after me, and stayed at my heels until the next lap brought us back to the fence, where she repeated her performance.  Once he lifted the front bucket right at her, and she slowly rose on her hind legs, barking even louder, till he put it back down.  The way my forty pound red-headed protector takes such good care of me warms my heart, especially since she is so afraid herself of those vicious green monsters that inhabit our fields and woods!  I don’t know how she knows that I am not quite up to par, but she is making it her business to watch out for me.

As heartwarming as all that may be, it is nothing compared to the assurance I have that my Heavenly Father looks out for me.  The evidence I have in the past few years alone is amazing, but all I have to do is open His Word to see the most astonishing care of all—He gave His Son for my soul.

For I am persuaded that neither death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.   Rom 8:38, 39.

Dene Ward

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase, 1 Cor 3:6. 

We should probably talk some more about that discouragement issue because it never goes away.  You teach and teach and teach; you invite at every opportunity that comes along; you serve and reach out, and yet it seems like nothing comes of it.  If you aren’t careful, you stop trying.  It isn’t doing any good, is it?  That is not for us to say. 

I told you before of the young woman I tried to reach so long ago.  Just because I have no contact with her now, doesn’t mean nothing came of it.  I remember having discussions during free periods in high school.  I took friends to Bible study with me.  I wrote essays in English class that I knew would be passed around the class for comment.  I have never seen anything come from any of that, but as Keith often says, I don’t need to be whittling on God’s end of the stick.  He is the one who gives the increase.  When I start meddling in His affairs, I become disheartened.  If I stick with my own end, I will stay too busy to worry about the results.

I suppose my biggest dose of discouragement came a couple of years ago.  Some new neighbors had moved in a few years before and she and became friends.  I easily recruited her to a local community service club, but anything religiously oriented was a different story.  So I invited her to a coffee at my home where she met some of my church family.  So far, so good.  I invited her to our women’s Bible study, and immediately she distanced herself.  Too much too soon, I thought, so I had a church friend whose decorating ability she had shown interest in, invite her to lunch at her home, along with another church sister.  An instant yes, but then as the day approached my neighbor suddenly developed something else she had to do.

So I backed off again.  I still mentioned the church to her as often as possible, telling her how wonderful they were.  I made sure she knew about all the help I received after all the surgeries, and she was genuinely impressed so I invited again, including a written invitation.  Still nothing. 

Then one day, her husband called to tell me she had died without warning.  No one even knew she had been sick.  In fact, we had talked on the phone just three days before.  It was like a kick in the stomach.  I do not believe I have ever felt quite so discouraged in my sowing duties.

That is exactly what the enemy wants, and that is exactly why you need to stop worrying about God’s end of the stick.  When the depression is accompanied by grief it is especially debilitating.  All you need to remember is this:  Just. Keep. Sowing! 

Since that time I have suddenly had more opportunities to speak to people.  God is encouraging me, I thought, so I have tried to do my part as well.  I am anything but the Great Evangelist, but here are a few things I have tried.  Perhaps you could add a few more tips at the bottom.

When I have the car maintenance done, I purposely make the appointment right before ladies’ Bible class so I can use the shuttle service to the class if it is available.  You would be surprised how many drivers want to know what I will be teaching, and then ask about the church.  I have even managed to give out a few tracts.

When I buy my groceries I do it before Bible class and then have the bagger put the cold things into my cooler.  “I have to teach a Bible class before I go home,” I explain, and that has led to conversations too.

I carry my Bible and my notebook to doctor’s appointments and write these little essays there.  As many appointments as I have, surely someone will be interested some day.  Even the cleaning lady recognizes me now.

I have no idea if any of these things or others I do will bear fruit, but I do “consider him faithful who has promised,” Heb 11:11, and He promised to see to the growth of the seed if I just sow it.

Don’t become depressed when you don’t see results from your work.  That part is none of your business.  Just keep sowing the seed.  You do your part, and He will do His.

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 1 Corinthians 3:5-8.

Dene Ward

Last spring we watched a hawk couple build a nest right over our garden.  Every day we were out planting and watering, they were carrying twigs trailing Spanish moss up to the lowest fork, thirty feet up the pine tree just east of the plowed plot of dirt we work all summer.  By the time our plants were poking up through the dirt, the mother was sitting on the nest.  She sat so low and blended in so well, it took a pair of binoculars and a steady hand to see her at all.  The father faithfully brought her food every evening, and would often sit on the branch next to the nest as she sat on her eggs. 

About four weeks later, I saw the mother hop off the nest one morning and a day or so after heard tiny cheeps as I stood under the tree.  In a few days, a white downy head appeared, and soon another one.  The next three weeks we watched as the parents brought them food, kept them warm, and at times sat on the rowdy babies so they would not fall out of the tree!  Soon both babies were sitting up in the nest, at times peering over at me while I picked, hoed, watered, and all the other chores involved in gardening.  They were getting so big it took both parents to bring enough food, and their white down was turning brown.

And then one morning, one of them was gone.  At first it did not go far.  It sat in the trees across the fence from the nest-tree.  It was bigger, but had more muted coloring, so we assumed it was a female, and big sister would call out to her little brother all through the day, telling him he could fly too, or so I anthropomorphically presumed.  Then big sister and parents were gone most of the day, mom and dad teaching the first one how to hunt, and only coming back in the evenings to feed the smaller one in the nest, who always greeted them with the most pitiful little squeaks of happiness. 

He seemed so lonely I started talking to him every morning when I was out, and he usually sat up, cocked his head back and forth, and peered over the edge of the nest at me, until I went inside.  I assumed he would be flying in a day or so, but no, after a week, he was still there.  He often flapped his wings, big, strong wings I knew could carry him easily, but he seemed afraid.  In fact, one morning he hopped out of the nest onto the limb and lost his balance.  It was funny to see him wave his wings like a human waving his arms in circles, trying to catch his balance—and he did, and hopped back in that nest as quickly as he could.

Then about ten days after his big sister flew, I went out to the garden and the nest was empty.  I felt like his mother, not knowing whether to cheer or cry.  I was sure he was gone forever.  Then suddenly I heard him, and there he sat in the same tree, but fifteen feet higher!  He stayed there the whole time I was out in the garden, but in the evening he was gone. 

The next morning, I walked my path and heard him again.  High in the air he circled over me then settled on a limb only 7 or 8 feet off the ground, and directly across the fence from where I stood, calling to me.  As soon as I reached that point in my walk and started talking, he hushed and sat there cocking his head again, until I told him it had been nice talking with him, but I really needed to finish my walk and today’s garden work.  He called awhile longer while I walked, sometimes changing trees to be nearby, but eventually flew off. 

Every day that summer he would come back in the mornings and find a tree near me so we could talk awhile.  He eventually figured out where I disappeared and once landed on the roof of the porch where we could see him and he could see us through the window while we ate.  Then things happened.  I had some surgeries, some complications, and for a few weeks was unable to walk.  He disappeared and winter came.  Now I knew he was gone for good.

Late in January I heard him outside one morning.  Yes, when you have heard one hawk often enough, you can actually tell him apart from the others.  I ran outside and called out to him.  He stopped and listened, then flew away.  It had been long enough, I suppose, that his natural fear of man had taken over, but it was still a nice moment in the day.  But ever since that day, if I am late getting outside to walk, I hear him calling from high in the sky, and he flies overhead for most of the time I am walking.  He will not let me get close, but he will land in trees close to the house to call at least, until I come outside.

I think God allows natural things to happen when we need them—things that encourage us, that help us overcome a temptation or get past a bad moment in the day; brethren we see in our day in unusual places, paths that cross when they can most help one another.  I am a long way out and not likely to have those sorts of things, but maybe God has sent me this hawk.  I know he reminds me of one of my favorite passages in the Bible—even though he is a hawk and not an eagle.  But we will never get the benefit of those providential things if we are not paying attention. 

So be aware today of the things that happen, the people you see, and the thoughts that cross your mind—maybe even that hymn that goes round and round in your head like a broken record.  Maybe it was Heaven sent.

They that wait on Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.  Isa 40:31 

Dene Ward

A long time ago a young woman I had met in the small town where we lived, asked me for some advice.  Her marriage was suffering and she didn’t know what to do. 

I was too young for her to be asking me, but she had found out I was “a preacher’s wife,” and thought that automatically made me a font of wisdom.  When she finally asked her question, my answer came easily (and with a sigh of relief).  The problem was a perfect fit for a scripture in Corinthians and I simply had her read what the inspired apostle said about it.  I didn’t have to say a word.

Her mouth hung open in shock.  “That’s the answer,” she said.  “But why haven’t my own church leaders been able to show me this verse?”  It was not a difficult passage to find.  Anyone who has grown up attending Bible classes in the church would know where to find it. 

The fact that men who called themselves her spiritual leaders could not help her with the same passage gave me an opening, and we began a Bible study that lasted several weeks.  I was far too idealistic.  I thought when people saw it in black and white, they would instantly change, and that left me wide open for hurt and discouragement.  We finally reached a point where her conscience was pricked and she was floundering about, wondering what to do. 

“Would you come again next week and talk to my church leaders too?” she asked, and what could twenty-two year old me say, but “Of course, if you don’t mind if my husband comes with me.”  She agreed enthusiastically.

All of us met the next Tuesday evening at her home, me with all sorts of great expectations, and an hour long discussion ensued.  To make a long story short, they simply told us that they had more faith than we did because they would accept a piece of literature as inspired which contained neither internal nor external evidences, the kind of evidences that make the Bible obviously true.  I was flabbergasted, and learned my first lesson—some people will believe what they want to believe, not what is reasonable to believe.

The next week I went to her home on Tuesday morning for our usual study.  She met me at the door and, with tears in her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry.  They told me I can’t study with you any more.”

“But don’t you want to?  I helped you when they couldn’t.” 

“I know,” she said.  “But they are my leaders, and I have to obey them.”

Talk about discouraging.  What do you do when someone who is good-hearted and clearly sees the truth allows herself to be taken in by people who obviously cannot—or will not--even help her with her problems?  It isn’t just the stubborn and willful who reject the word of God, another new lesson for me to learn.  In fact, it takes strength of will to accept it when it means you must stand against friends and family, and when your life will experience an instant upheaval. 

So here is the main lesson today:  Be careful whom you trust.  Be careful whom you allow to direct your path, and have the gumption to take responsibility for your own soul.  If someone who wanted the truth could allow it to slip through her fingers so easily at the word of people who were never there for her until it became obvious their numbers might go down, it could happen to you too.  The religious leaders in Jesus’ day looked down on the people with scorn (John 7:49), yet those very people followed them right down the road to Calvary, berating a man who had stood up for them more than once to those same leaders, pushing him to his crucifixion. 

And here is another lesson:  don’t let your idealism make you vulnerable to discouragement.  I will always remember that young woman.  We moved far away not long afterward. As far as I know she stayed where she was religiously, and never found her way out of it.  But I do have this hope—I planted a seed.  God is the one who sees to the increase, 1 Cor 3:6.  Don’t ever in your mind deny God the power to make that seed grow.  I am not as idealistic as I used to be, but I still hope that someday I will meet her again, standing among the sheep.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. 2 Peter 2:1-3

Dene Ward