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            When we camp we eat more convenience food than any other time of the year.  When you are trying to pack a week’s worth into one cooler and two 2 x 1 x 1 ½ foot plastic containers, and when there is no place to put leftovers, a packaged pasta or rice mix and a small can of vegetables is the perfect-sized accompaniment for whatever meat Keith is grilling that night.  Let’s face it, an inch thick rib chop, seasoned with herbs and spices and cooked over a wood fire is the star of the show anyway.

            As for dessert, store-bought cookies are a staple.  However, my family is spoiled by homemade cookies so just any old Chips Ahoy won’t do, not even Oreos.  So we splurge a bit on the cookies. 

            A box of Walker’s Pure Butter Shortbread Bars, imported from Scotland, are a favorite.  Melt-in-your-mouth-rich with the flavor and mouth-feel of real butter, and barely sweetened, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of instant hot chocolate—another camping necessity. 

            Another standby is any Pepperidge Farm cookie, depending upon what’s available when I hit the stores the week before a campout.  Walker’s Shortbread makes them look like a bargain, so I buy two kinds rather than just one.  If you have ever had any, you know they come in fluted paper cups, like big, white, muffin pan liners, either nestled in a variety box or stacked in a tall foil-lined paper bag. 

            To minimize the amount of trash we need to stow away from the coons, possums, and bears, we usually toss anything that will burn into the campfire as we finish its contents.  On our last trip we tossed the cup from the first layer of Chewy Fruit and Nut Granola Cookies into the fire.  Somehow in the draft of the fire it landed right side up in the middle of a scrap board Keith had just thrown in as well.  Both sat right in front of an oak log that had coaled up on the bottom, but not yet begun to burn.

            Temperatures were in the forties that night, so we had a good hot fire going with backlogs to reflect the heat our way and glowing embers several inches deep.  Ordinarily a thin piece of paper in a fire like that won’t last five seconds, including burn time.  Because of how it landed, that little cup sat there five full minutes.  Once, a gust of wind tried to blow it into the fire, but the fire’s updraft on either side of it pushed it right back to the middle of the board.  Only a small dark singe mark on its pleated edge showed how close a call it had been.

            Finally, though, the board itself began to burn from either end and the flames crept inexorably toward the paper cup.  Suddenly, in one rapid whoosh, the cup caught fire and was gone in less than a second, its final glowing ash floating into the air before finally winking out in the cold black above.

            Too many times we are like that little fluted paper liner.  We get ourselves into a place we have no business being, into circumstances that should have ended badly.  Yet because God is good, we are saved from the world of hurt we deserved.  Then, instead of appreciating the second chance and removing ourselves from that dangerous place, we stay there and gloat.  “See?  Nothing happened.  I’m just fine.  I told you I could handle it.”

            We sit there smug and confident, certain that everyone who cautioned us was wrong, while disaster sneaks up closer and closer.  In fact, we reach a point where the danger around us seems normal.  We no longer even notice.  We may have a close call or two, but for so many it just adds to the feeling of superiority instead of waking us up.

            And so suddenly, one day, we are gone in a flash—without warning it seems.  But no, we had just become blind to the warnings all around us, fooling ourselves into believing we were safe, while everyone else saw the fire creeping in from all sides.

            Pay attention to where you are today.  Take a mental step back and see the whole picture, not just the safe little ledge you think you have built.  Listen to those around you who can often see much more clearly than you can in the midst of all that smoke and glare.  They wouldn’t say anything and endure your scorn if they didn’t care.

But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, Jude 20-23.

Dene Ward

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

“In other words, compassion in ministry is not so much the characteristic of a certain type of personality, as the characteristic of the person with a certain set of priorities.”  D. A Carson in Jesus’ Confrontation with the World.

This is true, not because a scholar said it, but because it summarizes the Bible truth on the subject (1 Pet 3:8, 1 Jn 3:17).

A number of conclusions/observations follow:

First, if I am not compassionate, it is not because I was born that way or “just the way I am.”  It is because I choose to not have the proper priorities in my thinking about others.

Next, Jesus’ compassion on the woman at the well illustrates.  He was hungry, tired.  He saw her need and was so energized by helping her that the Twelve were amazed and he said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  The apostles learned a compassionate heart in three to five years. Think on that the next time a class teacher says they were slow to understand.  I have walked with Jesus about 50 years and find myself somewhat short of where I need to be in this regard.  How about you?

We do not need a personality transplant.  We need to re-set our priorities. A lot less than 5% of the NewTestament concerns the worship and work of the church.  Yet we spend most of our time and energy as Christians there!  Jesus’ compassion flowed when among the people: sinners, workers, crowds, the infirm.  WE NEED to get out of the building.

Peter summarized Jesus’ life, “He went about doing good.”

 Certainly, Sunday worship must be right, by the pattern.  But Christianity is the life everyday and must be marked by doing good for those who do not deserve it just as we did not deserve God’s goodness.

Our priorities fuel our compassion…or lack thereof.  When much of our energy, time, and conversation concerns house, health, career, the kids’ ball schedule, and social engagements, even if we are engrossed with teaching a wowser of a Bible class in order to impress folks with our ability, compassion is a sometime thing.  When our priority is people: to show kindness, to help, to listen, to reprove the works of darkness, to shine a light to guide; when we commit each day to greet each person with the love of God which was shed in our hearts, then compassion flows naturally as it did from our Lord and example.

What is your priority?

Whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and [whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. (Phil 3:19)

Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; (Col 3:12)

Keith Ward

The first time he said it I was confused.  The second time I was a little miffed. 

            “We’re going home,” Keith told someone of our upcoming visit to his parents’ house in Arkansas.

            Home?  Home was where I was, where we lived together, not someplace 1100 miles away.

            I suppose I didn’t understand because I didn’t have that sense of home.  We moved a few times when I was a child, and then my parents moved more after I married.  I never use that phrase “back home” of any place but where I live at the moment.  But a lot of people do.  I hear them talk about it often, going “back home” to reunions and homecomings, visiting the places they grew up and knew from before they could remember.

            But what was it the American author Thomas Wolfe said?  “You can’t go home again.”  Wolfe died on September 15, 1938.  His book of that title was published posthumously on September 28, 1940, and those words have come to mean that you cannot relive childhood memories.  Things are constantly changing and you will always be disappointed.

            Abraham and Sarah and the other early patriarchs did not believe that. 

            These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. Hebrews 11:13-14.

            That phrase “country of their own” is the Greek word for “Fatherland” or “homeland” or “native country.”  Those people believed they were headed home in the same sense that Keith talked about going back to the Ozarks.  Some question whether the people of the Old Testament believed in life after death.  They not only believed they were going to live in that promised country after death, they believed they had come from there—that it was where they belonged.

            That may be our biggest problem.  We do not understand that we belong in Heaven, that God sent us from there and wants us back, that it is the Home we are longing for, the only place that will satisfy us.  We are too happy here, too prosperous in this life, too secure on this earth. 

            Try asking someone if they want to go to Heaven.  “Of course,” they will say.  Then ask if they would like to go now and see the difference in their response.  It is good that we have attachments here, and a sense of duty to those people.  It is not good when we see those attachments as far better than returning to our homeland and our Father and Brother.  Paul said, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, - if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better: yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake. Philippians 1:21-24.   Paul knew the better choice.  Staying here for the Philippians’ sake was a sacrifice to him, a necessary evil.

            Heaven isn’t supposed to be like an all-expenses-paid vacation away from home—it’s supposed to be Home—the only Home that matters.

            How do you view Heaven?  The way you see it may just make the difference in how easy or difficult it is for you to get there.

 
Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight); 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 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Dene Ward

NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page on facebook.

            I was in the middle of making an excuse the other morning when suddenly I heard myself.  Yes, I was tired, I had a headache, and serious things were whirling around in my mind.  So surely my snappy tone of voice was understandable, wasn’t it?

            Let’s check this theory out.  Jesus is supposed to be my example.  Simply making the claim to be his disciple means I try my best to do what he would do.  So if I look at what had to be the worst time of his life on earth, the last twenty-four hours, then I can measure myself against the true standard.

            Over the Passover meal, when his disciples were once again arguing about who would be the most important in the kingdom, he finally lost his cool. “Shut up!  I have more important things on my mind than dealing with your petty concerns right now.”

            He was so concerned about the upcoming trials he would need to endure, he never once thought about what they might be going through, and left them to their fears and confusion.  “Grow up!” he told them.  “It’s high time you figured this out for yourselves.”

            When one of his best friends betrayed him, the other apostles were still murmuring among themselves about who it must be.  “Be quiet,” he said.  “This isn’t about you.”

            He was obviously in tremendous pain as he hung on the cross, so how could he even begin to worry about his mother and her care?  “Can’t you quit that sniveling?  You’re only making things worse.”

            Well, that’s how it might read if it were me going through those trials.  Instead, Jesus left an example that shows me there is no excuse for poor behavior.  Despite what he was going through, the like of which I have never had to endure, he kept his thoughts on others.  He kept his voice tempered.  He kept his actions loving.  Not even his enemies suffered a tongue-lashing of the type I find so easy to dish out when I am upset or do not feel well.

            For you see, God does not allow trials in our lives so we will have excuses for sin.  He allows them so we will grow and get stronger.  When I excuse my behavior because of what I am going through, I fail the test.  Unless I recognize where I failed and determine not to do it again, I will not get stronger; I will only get weaker.  In the process I will make it more likely that the next time I will fail again.  And again.  And again.  Till there is no more need for trials at all because Satan has me exactly where he wants me, and I am too weak to even think about fighting back.  Even those I claim to love will know to stay away from me when things are not going well, and so my last avenue of help is also gone.

            The sad truth of the matter is the one who is best at making excuses is one poor excuse for a Christian.

For hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps:  who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:  who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously:  who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.  For you were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls,  1 Peter 2:21-25.

 
Dene Ward

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            We have put up several new feeders and the bird population has exploded.  We see more new kinds and more of them than ever before.  We have also seen a few new bird antics as well.

            Yesterday we looked out in time to see two doves running around the pole one of the feeders hangs from.  While cardinals and titmice usually fly the four feet up from the ground to the feeders, the doves are content to peck off the ground what falls, and a great deal does.  Pick up the binoculars and watch the seeds fly every time one of the birds “on high” pecks at it.  Meanwhile, down below, the doves revel in the raining plenty.

            Except those two.  For several minutes they chased one another around and around and around that pole, the one trying to shoo the other away from the free meal.  Occasionally the one in front got far enough ahead to stop and peck a seed, but the one behind, running literally ankle deep in food, never got a bite.

            Kind of reminds me of a few Bible classes I have sat in.  Two men wrapped up in their own opinions, chase one another around in circles with their “logic,” and neither one of them get any of the spiritual nourishment being offered that morning.  Or one man desperately tries to have his meal while another of differing opinion cannot allow it and pursues him with “arguments about words.”  In fact, if the man isn’t careful, he will usually be cornered right after class as the chase continues.  Like those two birds I watched that day, neither one is fed, despite the banquet laid right in front of them.

            Paul calls that sort of behavior “carnal” and immature, 1 Cor 3:1-3.  He equates it with orgies and drunkenness, Rom 13:13.  James puts it on a par with “every vile practice,” 3:16.  All of them link quarreling with things like jealousy, envy, hostility, and selfishness.  James even adds murder and adultery to the mix, 4:1-4.  It is one thing to have a spirited discussion of the Scriptures.  It is another entirely to refuse to consider new ideas, clinging to beliefs out of pride or dismissing a point simply because of who presented it, all cloaked in concern for words and their correct meanings while patently ignoring basic spiritual concepts like Divine authority and holiness. 

            Our spiritual meals are presented to help us glorify God, not to exalt ourselves over others.  They are food for the soul, not ammunition for the spiteful.   They are nourishment for the kind, not fodder for the vindictive.  If all we can do is chase one another in circles with the Word of God, we don’t deserve to hold those sacred writings in our hands.

            I laughed at those two stupid doves under my feeder.  Then I just shook my head and sighed.  I have seen too many Christians just like them.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatians 5:14-16.

Dene Ward

NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page on facebook.

            I have an unusual first name.  Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes not.  When I was a child and someone told the teacher I had done something, I could not say, “It was the other Dene, not me.”  There was never any question which “Dene” it was because there was never any other “Dene.” 

            On the other hand, I remember the year that Miss America was Debra Dene Barnes.  Now that was exciting.  When someone asked how to spell my name, I just said, “You know, like Miss America does.”

            In a new doctor’s office I can always tell when it’s my turn before the nurse even calls me, poking her head out the door with file in hand—she always hesitates.  I have been called “Den-ay,” “Dee-nah,” even “Danny” once.  You can always tell who learned to read with phonics—long “e” plus silent “e” always equals the correct pronunciation. 

            Sometimes I wish I had chosen to go by my middle name, Teresa.  At least all these doctor appointments would have been easier on everyone.  When I was young, I even looked like I thought a “Teresa” ought to look—long curly black hair.  Now I just look like Mother Teresa.

            Some time ago, I started pronouncing it by the pet name my parents always called me, and which Keith has taken up, “Denie.”  For some reason, when people look at “Dene” that makes more sense to them.  And so “Denie” I have become, though still spelled “Dene.”  It is still fairly unusual and I cannot hide behind the anonymity of a common name.

            Names have always been important to God.  He has even changed people’s names to suit himself when he thought it was important.  But far more important is for us to be called by God’s name.

            Under the Old Covenant people understood that being called by God’s name offered them protection (Deut 28:10).  They understood that being called by God’s name meant bearing the responsibility to act in certain ways (Isa 63:19), and that wearing his name was not permission to wander from his commandments without consequence (Jer 14:9ff).  

            But it also meant that He would have compassion on them, that He would love them even while they sinned, and that He wanted their repentance as much as any Father could want his wandering child to return home. 

            Today we still wear the name of God, Christian.  Wearing that name still means all those things it meant so long ago.  Are we living up to the responsibility that demands, or is God out there calling us back home?  After all, in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven that is given among men, wherein we must be saved. Acts 4:12.

Fear not; for I am with you: I will bring your seed from the east, and gather you from the west;  I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth; every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, and whom I have made. Isa 43:5-7

Dene Ward
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            Nothing annoys me much more than a chirping smoke alarm.  Yes, yes, yes, I tell it.  I know you need a new battery.  I will get to it as soon as I can.

            Maybe it’s because I am the only one around here who even needs the smoke alarm.  Keith not only can’t hear the chirping, he can stand under the thing when it goes off and not hear it.  So I am the one it nags, over and over and over.  But yes, we change the batteries.  As long as I am in the house I can wake Keith up and get both of us out in time should a fire start.  Still, that little chirp is really annoying.

            Warnings are often annoying.  How about the various beeps in your car?  For us, it’s just the ding-ding-ding when you leave the keys in, but I have friends whose cars ring, buzz, beep, or whoop-whoop-whoop when they back up too close to something, pull in too close to something, swerve a little too close to the lane markings, let their gas tanks get too low, open the wrong door at the wrong time…  Honestly, I don’t know how they stand to drive at all.

            But only a fool ignores warnings.  And there are quite a few of them out there—fools, that is.  Just try warning someone about losing their soul, and you may well lose a friend.  They get mad, they strike out with accusations about your own failings, they tell everyone how mean you are.  Trouble is, ignoring the warnings won’t get them anywhere they want to go. The danger is still there.

            If I don’t answer the call of the chirping smoke alarm with a new battery, I may very well burn to death one night.  Telling everyone how annoying the thing is won’t change that at all.  If I don’t answer the warnings of someone who cares enough about me to brave losing his reputation and being hurt, my end won’t change either.  It doesn’t matter whether I thought he was mean or whether he needed a warning just as badly as I did.  I know the first reaction is anger.  I’ve been there myself.  But anger never saved anyone, nor accusations, nor whining and fussing about my hurt feelings.  There is a whole lot more at stake than a few feelings.

            Heed the warning when you get it, no matter how you get it or from whom.  It may be the only one you get.  People aren’t like smoke alarms.  Not many of them will put up with your bad reactions.  They’ll either stop chirping, or never chirp again.  Then what will you do when the fire starts?

"Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life,  Ezekiel 33:2-5.

Dene Ward

NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page on facebook.

Psalms 74 and 79, along with the books of Lamentations and Habakkuk, which are also national psalms of lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, will make you cringe in their horrific detail of destruction.  Women and young girls raped, leaders hung up for all to see, the Temple in ruins, dead bodies lying everywhere, far too many for the few left alive to bury. 

            Psalm 74 lists sacrilege after sacrilege:  God’s enemies standing in the meeting place; the intricate and artistic carvings of the Temple chopped to pieces by heathen axes, the sanctuary on fire, the dwelling place of God razed to the ground.  Psalm 79 uses opposites to the same effect:  the holy defiled; Jerusalem in rubble; God’s servants as carrion; and blood flowing like water in the streets.  Imagine seeing all this one horrible morning and then speaking to God in these words:  Help us, O God of our salvation, 79:9.

            God of our salvation?  How could the psalmist possibly use that description?  Where in all this nightmare does he see salvation?

            The poet understood this basic truth:  even in this dreadful event, God is still seeking the salvation of His people.  He could still see a Father’s love behind the most severe discipline.

            Again in Psalm 74, the psalmist says, Yet God is my King of Old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.  Not just in the midst of the earth, but in the middle of all this horror, he can still see the true nature of God.

            Habakkuk in his lament ends with the same thoughts:  For though the fig-tree shall not flourish, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labor of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no food; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Hab 3:17-18.

            What do we see when evil befalls us?  If all we feel is the pain, if all we see is the sorrow, Satan already has a foothold.  We must learn to use what happens in our lives as a steppingstone to Heaven, a lift to a higher plane of spirituality. 

            Surely it isn’t always punishment from God as it was for those people, but then it becomes even more important to see events in the correct way.  We are in a world that is temporary, that is tainted with sin.  Of course we will have problems.  Are we so naïve as to think that something Satan has poisoned will ever be good?  Jeremiah tells us in his lament, that if it weren’t for God there wouldn’t be anything good left in this world at all, Lam 3:22, and we have no right to expect it to be any different. 

            If I cannot see the salvation of God even in the midst of trials as Jeremiah did, I am blind to who He is.  He is there, helping us prepare for a world where those things will be no more.  If I rail against Him when the trials come, I do not know Him.  Illness and death are the tools of Satan to lure us away, but with faith and the proper perspective--seeing the God of our salvation instead of the God of our pain--we can use Satan’s own tools against him as a road to triumph. 

            It is better to depart and be with the Lord, Paul said, Phil 1:23.  To die is gain for a Christian, v 21.  “O death where is thy victory, O death where is thy sting?  The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the Law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Cor 15:55-57)  If I see death as the victor, I am giving myself away—showing that my perspective is indeed unspiritual, immature, and faithless.  

            Is it easy to have this perspective, especially in the middle of a traumatic life event?  No, because we are still in this flesh.  But while in this flesh the Lord Himself conquered all these things and expects us to follow His example, as difficult as it may be.  And He gives us the means to do it. 

            He is and always will be the God of our salvation.

But as for me, I will look unto Jehovah; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me, Mic 7:7.

Dene Ward

NOTE:  There is a facebook page called "Flight Paths" where you will find quick links, as well as announcements about new books and speaking engagements, and tips for using this blog.  All you have to do is "like" the page on facebook.

I saw a new tech at the eye clinic the last time I was there.  Most of the others know me by sight and name, but this one couldn’t pronounce my name, so I knew she had not been there long, and certainly I had never been prepped by her before. 

            She nearly dropped my chart and said, “Wow!  This is a huge one.  Have you been coming here all your life?”  No, just eleven years now.  If I had been going there my whole life, the chart would have been in volumes instead of just three inches thick.

            You see, everything to do with my eyes is in that chart—every test, every procedure, every surgery, every referral, every appointment of which there have been as many as three dozen in one year.  The doctor regularly writes two or three pages of notes at every visit. 

            That always makes me think of that other book being written that does cover my lifetime.  I know there are pages in it I would love to remove.  If I want them removed, imagine how a holy and righteous God feels about them.  Doesn’t that make it even more amazing when we realize that He has taken out so many?    I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you, Isa 44:22.   I hope when He finished blotting out the bad, it wasn’t totally empty, that there was at least a page or two of good left.

            We sometimes seem to have that mistaken belief, that God has all the good stuff written on one side and all the bad written on the other, and that as long as there is more good than bad, we’re safe.  Wrong.  If He has any bad pages left, that means we haven’t repented of those evil things.  Sin is so bad that it only takes one unforgiven sin to cost us our souls.  When I say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in his iniquity that he has committed, therein shall he die, Ezek 33:13.  We simply don’t understand the enormity of sin when we treat any of them as small and inconsequential. 

            The next time you visit the doctor, take a look at that chart.  How large is it?  Imagine one a hundred times bigger, and then remember that probably a million or so pages have been removed due to the grace of God, and rejoice.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works…And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire, Rev 20:11,12,15.

Dene Ward

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