This morning I sat outside by the remains of last night’s fire, drinking my last cup of coffee and petting the dogs.  Suddenly I heard the hawk in a tree just across the drive.  This was the closest he had come in awhile.  I do not know if it was the first hawk that grew up on our property, or his son or grandson, but it was one of those I had talked to as he sat in his nest as a baby.  He would never have gotten that close to me otherwise.
            No other bird would have talked to me that way either.  He didn’t call out with the loud, echoing cry of a mature hawk, but with the baby sounds he used to make way up in his nest as I talked to him, the same sounds he always greeted his parents with when they brought him food during the day.  This was intimate hawk talk, not formal hawk talk.  He still recognized me from his baby days, and knew I was a friend.  He knew he could let down his guard and be that little baby hawk one more time.
            Sometimes I get tired of being grown up.  I get tired of being the mature one who is always supposed to know what to say and how to say it.  Sometimes I want to be the little kid who can run to a great big grown-up, spill my heart, and have him tell me everything is going to be all right.
            That is exactly what we can do with God.  Job said, My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul, 10:1.  Job said he could tell God everything, no holding back—“free course.”  David said, I pour out my complaint before Him, I show Him my trouble, Psa 142:2.  Both of these strong men of God had moments when they let it all out, just like little children who are afraid and don’t understand.  Why do I think I need to be any better than they?
            My children used to come to me with their troubles, usually small, inconsequential things.  But to them, those things were HUGE.  I never acted like they were silly to worry over them, but did my best to comfort them, and even fix the things I could fix for them.  Most of the things we find ourselves going to God with are inconsequential in His grand scheme of things, but He still treats them as important because they are important to His children.  He will listen to even the smallest concern, the pettiest, even the selfish ones, as so many turn out to be. 
            We never need to hold back with God, especially now, because we have a Mediator who understands how those small things can seem so large. We can run to God any time we need to, and talk as a child to a Father who listens and who cares.  It’s okay to have a little baby talk with God.
 
For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one who has been in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help in time of need, Heb 4:15,16.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
 Pet 3:21 “Wherein few, that is eight souls were saved through water.” 
 
The NASB erroneously translates this “eight persons were brought safely through the water.”  This may suit those who do not believe baptism is essential to salvation, since the next line is, “which also after a true likeness does now save you, even baptism.”  Are we “brought safely through” baptism?  The Holy Spirit inspired Peter to write that Noah was saved by water, not that he was saved from water.  So, if Noah was saved by the same water that destroyed the world, what was he saved from?
 
When God surveyed the world of Noah’s day, he saw nothing but wickedness.  Only Noah found favor in God’s eyes.  After Noah preached 120 years and with the ark a growing monument to the sincerity of his plea, only 7 other people believed and entered the ark.  1 year, 10 days later, they entered a world that was clean and pure, all the wickedness washed away -- exactly what baptism accomplishes for sinners.
 
God made a promise that he would never again destroy the world by water, and set a rainbow in the sky to be a sign of that unilateral covenant.  God planned to resolve the issue of sin in another way.  We tend to think that the rainbow marks an ending, but God intended it as a beginning, the hope for a world washed clean from sin. 
 
Thousands of years later, Jesus died on the cross as the fulfillment of the hope inherent in the rainbow:  that God would solve the problem of sin by means other than destruction.
 
Just as the rainbow shone with the pledge that God would never again destroy the sinful world by water, each week we take the Lord’s Supper to remind us that God fulfilled the rainbow covenant in Christ.  This bread and this fruit of the vine shine with the colors of the hope of forgiveness; not an arc of reds, blues, yellows, greens but one of redemption, adoption, reconciliation, righteousness. God made a covenant in Christ.  These emblems are the signs of that covenant to us.
 
"“This is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you." (Isa 54:9-10).
 
Keith Ward

I bet you have no idea how many things you take for granted.  How many times a day do you turn a knob or push a lever and expect water in one form or another and would be completely flabbergasted if it did not come?  How many times do you flip a switch and expect light?  How many times do you toss something in the trash knowing that someone will come take it away for you?
            Living in small rural counties for over forty years has taught me better about those things.  The power goes out for sometimes no apparent reason and when you have a well, no power means no water either.  Garbage pickup is non-existent so you haul your own and suddenly become very aware of all the trash you generate and try to make it less.  So we were expecting all the paperwork involved in transferring those services from the previous owners of our new home and not upset by it or the deposits.  We were simply grateful to at long last have these sort of services on a reliable basis.
            But the post office completely let us down.  Even though we had filed change of address in a timely manner, there is no contingency for people who are between closing on the old property and closing on the new.  Surely millions like us exist, needing the money on the old to pay for the new, and thus several days with no address.  Would they hold our mail in our new city?  No, they would not.  It would all be "returned to sender."  Since we were expecting three or four bills, including credit card and car insurance bills, we were left scrambling, trying to find out how much we owed and where to send it.  Despite its slogan ("neither rain nor snow…"), it will be a good while before we take daily mail delivery for granted again.
            Even if you think you are better than most, I guarantee there is something you take for granted, a blessing that comes from God.  We may all have our troubles, but as Jeremiah reminds us, we would have only the bad and nothing good at all if it weren't for God (Lam 3:22), something he said in the middle of famine, disease, and the destruction of Jerusalem.
            Do you have a home, regardless its size and amenities?  Do you have a family?  Do you have food on your table and clothes on your back?  Can you travel to work in relative safety?  (Do you even have a job?)  Do you have the medicine you need?  Can you pay for your true necessities, if not for all the high tech gadgets you think you "deserve" simply because everyone else has them, and do you take all this for granted as if God owed it to you, if you even think of Him at all in relation to them?
            Yes, we should also be thanking God for all these relatively minor things which we too often treat as the most important of all, more important even than salvation from sin and rescue from an eternity in Hell.  But that should then lead us on to recognition and gratitude for those grander spiritual gifts which we too seldom think about, and thus, too often take for granted.  When the time comes that they suddenly loom in our consciousness, we may find ourselves wishing we had been more aware and more grateful, and hoping it is not too late.
 
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning (Jas 1:17).
 
Dene Ward
 

Magdi was the first dog we ever had that would not only chase a ball and bring it back, but catch it in the air like a fly ball, or chase a ball on the bounce, leaping four feet into the air to catch it.  If you said, “Bring me a ball,” she ran to the nearest one, picked it up, and brought it to you.  If you said, “Give it to me,” she would drop it on the ground next to your feet or place it in your hands if you bent over.  It was almost as if she really understood English.
            She also loved to play “soccer,” chasing a soccer ball around the field, then guarding it when one of us ran up as if to take it away, and take off again after she caught her breath, even balancing it on her shoulders or head or nose as she ran.  She had a large exercise ball, nearly a foot higher than her shoulders, that she would treat the same way.  Once in awhile, it rolled so fast that as she tried to jump up to grab it, it threw her over the top.  She would simply get up and go again.
             As she aged, her bones and joints steadily betrayed her.  She drug one hind foot occasionally because it hurt too much to pick it up.  Her knees were swollen and stiff and some days she didn’t even try to get up when we went outside; she simply looked up and gave one floppy tail wag—thump, glad to see you, boss.  She stopped racing to the gate to greet us when we came home, but if we had been away awhile, she would slowly walk until she got there.  I always felt so bad when we closed the gate and started down the drive before she made it.  She had to turn and retrace those several hundred steps, but if we stood and waited at the door, she would eventually make it for a pat on the head and the words she wants most to hear, “Good dog.”
            Pick up a ball, though, and her ears stood up even if she did not.  If you bounced it, she rose to her feet, though a bit unsteadily, and stood poised ready to run.  We learned to merely toss it, rather than throwing it as hard and far as we could, and she hobbled after it, all thought of pain and age and weariness abandoned. 
            One day Keith blew off the roof, leaving piles of leaves around the house, and wads of moss clinging in the topmost branches of the azaleas.  I spent the next morning trying to “rake” it down to the ground.  Magdi thought I had something--something that might be interesting, like a snake or a lizard--and she was up instantly, running from bush to bush, even standing precariously on her aching hind legs, trying to help me get whatever it was I didn’t want in those bushes.  She had “taken care of” many snakes and lizards over the years, as well as moles, tortoises, armadillos, and possums.  It was her job, and since all these eye surgeries started, she took her duty as my protector much more seriously.  Despite her creaking joints she was ready to work and if necessary, rescue me from whatever monster lurked in the azaleas.
            I have been reading through the Old Testament laws concerning the elderly lately for some classes I have been teaching.  What has become most apparent is how carefully God made arrangements for those and other equally helpless people like orphans and strangers, to be taken care of.  Did you know that the penalty for oppressing a widow or orphan was death (Ex 22:22-24)?  Did you know that sin is listed in the same category as adultery and witchcraft (Mal 3:5)?  Truly we need to take this more to heart than we usually do.
            But I also noticed God’s expectations for those same people themselves.  The older men and women are to train the younger (Titus 2).  In times of struggle they should be fonts of wisdom, not buckets of bitter resentments and regrets.  In the midst of fiery disputes they should be sources of temperance and cooling thoughts not fanners of the flame.
            As to the widows indeed, widows with no family who had met certain qualifications and were still able-bodied, they were to pledge themselves to work for the church in return for monetary support.  All those women were over sixty mind you, yet God said if they could still work for Him, they should, (1 Tim 5:9-12).
            What about Anna?  She stayed at the temple, prophesying every day.  She might possibly have been one of those women who worked there (Ex 38:8), even though she was over eighty.
            Simeon, who was also elderly, was still actively searching for the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple that first time.  The Spirit sent him that special day not only to see the answer to his many prayers, but to testify to the identity of the young babe.
            People of God work for God and serve Him as long as they possibly can.  Working for God takes one’s mind off himself, off her own problems and pains.  As long as I can, I should do what I can, perhaps adapting to new circumstances, but never sitting back and saying, “Well that’s it, I’m done.”  I have known mortally ill Christians who were still talking with people who needed help, still holding the hands of those who came to visit and cheering them up instead, while only days from death. 
            I know an old dog who still loved to play, despite her age, who still wanted more than anything to please her masters. At one point I thought she would probably die with a ball in her mouth, trying to bring it back for one last throw. Magdi never dropped the ball for us.  I hope I never drop the ball for the Lord.
 
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of Jehovah; they shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and green to show that Jehovah is upright; He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him, Psalm 92:12-15.
 
Dene Ward

Our identity and relation to God is probably the reason the unregenerated world does not recognize us…The world does not know us and even manifests hostility toward us.  But it is not surprising.  The world did not know God, and it is precisely for that reason that it does not know His children.  In fact, it would be a bad sign were the world to heap its accolades upon us. 

L. A. Mott, Jr., Thinking through John's Epistles

I hate packing for a trip.  I hate unpacking when I get home worse.  That is one thing so exciting about the trip to Heaven.  I won’t have to do either one!
            And you know what?  When we decide to make that move into the kingdom, we don’t have to pack for that either.  In fact, Jesus wants us to leave all our baggage behind.  Not just our lives of sin, but all those biases that keep us from seeing clearly. 
            Sometimes I let the difficult times I have been through color my view of everything else.  It can affect how I view my brethren, always expecting the worst and even looking for it.  It can affect my faith so that I cannot totally surrender my life to God; I feel a need to “help Him out” just a little.  It can affect my view of the kingdom itself, so that I want to protect it by building walls closer inside to help keep it pure, and even make me less than welcoming to others who need a haven.  It can make me too sober, too serious, too unwilling to crack a smile and rejoice! 
           I may have fought some serious battles for the Lord, but that does not make me the only good judge of what is and is not good for the health of the kingdom.
           I may have come from a religious group that does many things contrary to the law of Christ, but that does not mean that “what those people did” is the authority for deciding what God’s people cannot do.  95% of rat poison is good rat food; otherwise the rats would never eat it!  So what we do may in some cases match what they do—the scriptural parts anyway. 
           I may have learned that a doctrine is unscriptural but that does not mean that a full 180 degree turn in the other direction is necessary.  We often overreact just to make sure we do not do something wrong, and wind up being wrong in the opposite direction.  The Pharisees were good at that.
        I need to remember that I should come to Christ with empty hands, bringing nothing from the old life.  Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold they have become new.  All the old things have changed to new things.  No old baggage to deal with any longer.
           If I truly have faith in my Lord, I don’t need anything from that old life.  It’s a little scary, but that is the nature of trust, isn’t it?
 
Peter began to say to him, Lo we have left all and have followed thee.  Jesus said, Truly I say to you, there is no man who has left house or brothers or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life.  Mark 10:28-30        
 
Dene Ward

If you want to understand the title of this series, stay in someone else's home between the closing of your old home and the closing of your new one.  For us it was 12 days in the home of our son and daughter-in-law.  Certainly they could not have been more welcoming and sympathetic hosts, but because of my upbringing—what Mama taught you always sticks—I was constantly aware of the extra expense and schedule disruption we were causing.  And so we tried to help with chores, buy a few groceries, and as much as possible, stay out of the way, even as they tried to include us in their family routines and guide us through the business end of moving, which they had done much more recently.
            It worked out as well as it could, I think, but it made me wonder if our attitudes toward this world and this life wouldn't benefit from the same consideration.  We have a tendency to view things in a proprietary manner—it's MY world, MY life, MY home, MY opinions and feelings.  No, it is not, not if you are a servant (slave) of God.  …It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me…Gal 2:20; always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2Cor 4:10-11); that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God (1Pet 4:2).
            My home should be a place where God rules, not "the man of the house," certainly not the children.  My life is run by God's laws, not my likes and dislikes.  I don't even get to think what I want to think (Phil 4:8).
            Service is, by definition, neither easy nor convenient but, like being offered hospitality in such a generous and loving way that gratitude springs forth almost spontaneously, the same should happen in our attitude toward God.  He allows us to live in this world, the world HE created and owns.  He blesses us in a life we do not deserve, especially in this culture.  The least we can do is live in a way that acknowledges the fact that this world is not our home.  In fact, it is not ours in any way at all.
 
A Psalm of David. The earth is Jehovah's, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? And who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, And hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from Jehovah, And righteousness from the God of his salvation (Ps 24:1-5).
Dene Ward

For three weeks we have been purging and packing.  The purging is by far the most difficult job.  We have found little bits of unblemished board that we were sure "might come in handy;" every tote bag from every music teachers' convention I ever went to with the label of a well-known music publisher splashed on the sides of each; the last four purses I replaced but couldn't bring myself to toss; jars and containers of all sizes that I just knew I could store something in someday; remnants of every roll of wrapping paper I ever bought and was too cheap to toss even if they couldn't even wrap a marble; piles of scratch paper, card stock, and old green and white lined, side-hole-punched computer paper from sometime in the—80s?  Be careful what you hand us for the next few months.  It has become our habit to toss without even looking first. 
            Our priorities have become completely re-oriented.  If I have forgotten I even owned it, why keep it now?  If we haven't used it in the last thirty years, what makes us think we will use it when we don't have even close to thirty years left?  So we will live much leaner lives from now on, I think.  We know what we need and it isn't really very much.
            The last time this kind of thinking happened, Keith had come within a literal half inch of dying.  No one could believe he was still alive and everyone finds the story nearly impossible to believe when he tells it now.  Do you know how quickly our priorities changed then?  Suddenly, it wasn't about things at all, nor anyone else's opinion of us, nor even dreams for the future. We had nearly lost that future and all we really cared about was having one of any kind at all.  Nothing much irritated us or bothered us.  We walked around our property, enjoying the birds and the flowers and the trees.  We breathed deeply the jasmine-scented air and thought it the best aroma we had ever smelled.  We prayed deeper, stronger prayers, not just of thanksgiving, but prayers for more time to serve God and our brethren.  Suddenly we knew what mattered like we never had before.
            And preparing for this move has brought us the same clarity.  The memories of this place will always be special.  This is where we brought up our boys.  This is where we learned to trust God implicitly because of all the hurdles this ground put in front of us.  And this is where we grew stronger than we would have in an easy place.  But it's just a place, a time in our lives that is now gone.  A new phase begins and we pray that we will learn more from it, and that we will have time to serve others whom we may never even have met yet.
            Check your priorities before it's too late.  What really matters to you?  Is it all the "stuff" of life, or is it what you do with your life, no matter where you live it?  Put the "stuff" aside in your heart, if not in your home, and concentrate on living a spiritual life, a servant's life, a humble life of trust in the God who will never forsake you, the God who will ultimately give you a home better than any you could even imagine.  After all, this world is not my home, and it was never meant to be.
 
And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you (Ps 9:10).
 
Dene Ward
 

Thirty-three years ago we moved onto this "back forty," across a grassy stretch between two fences, over a low rise deep into the live oaks, around the moss-laden corner and down the hill to what had last been a watermelon field.  We mowed it little by little, landscaped it with a wheelbarrow and a shovel, and began planting—a garden first, then roses, azaleas, blueberries, grape vines, crepe myrtles, daylilies, amaryllises, jasmine, jessamine, and finally, a few annuals.  Then came the trees—a few oaks, including a huge acorn we brought back from a camping trip in north Georgia, a sycamore, a maple, a couple of apples, a peach, and then two pecan trees, right in the middle of the west field.  Finally we had our dream property, but nature refused to cooperate on a few things.
            First the apple trees died, then the peaches.  "Too close to oak trees," the county agent said.  Now the blueberries have stopped bearing, and yes, they are right next to what used to be a small oak—but that was three decades ago.  It now towers over them.  And the pecans?  They might be six feet tall after all these years, and we haven't had the first pecan.  "Too close to the pine trees," we were told, pines that at the time were hardly more than fat sticks in the ground, but are now well over forty feet tall.  "They have ruined the soil for pecans."
            So what can we glean from this?  What are we surrounding ourselves with?  What has "ruined our soil?"  What has made us completely unfit for the kingdom?
            The first thing that comes to mind is, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, you make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. (Matt 23:15).  If we aren't careful, we can stunt the growth of new Christians.  Barnes says the Jews did this by converting for the sole purpose of inflating their numbers and then not teaching the former pagans how to live by God's law.  Add to that, when a hypocrite converts someone, just exactly what does he probably teach them to be?  Another hypocrite just like he was.  So in either case, we have left them as weak pecan trees in the midst of stronger pines who ruin the soil in which they have been planted.
            But let's not forget the obvious application.  Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals. (1Cor 15:33)
            This is not about whether or not you should go out into the world to make contacts and teach.  Of course you should.  But soil is where a tree gains its nutrients and its life-giving water.  When I talk to my neighbors, when I work with my colleagues, where do I go for sustenance?  Do I stay with them and imbibe their values, or do I return to my core group, to my support system, to regain my strength?  Am I careful to monitor myself for signs that I may be taking in the wrong kind of nutrition and passing it off as "seeking the lost?" 
            The area in which we plant ourselves should have access to light, not be dwarfed by taller, stronger trees who smother us in their own values.  WE need to be the oaks, not the pecans, the ones who influence the weak, not the other way around.  Just who is influencing whom in your case?
            Stop and check yourself today.  It did not take us thirty years to know we had a problem with these trees.  When a five foot tall tree has not grown an inch in a year, something is amiss.  Have you grown?  Have I?  Are we better than we were five years ago?  Or do we still fight the same battles in the same way with the same meager results—or even fail? 
            So ask yourself, who had you rather spend time with?  Who do you go to for advice?  Who influences your behavior more than anyone else?  If the answer is NOT "godly brothers and sisters," maybe you are nothing more than a stunted pecan tree.  If you think those towering pines and oaks who are affecting your growth have any real respect for you, you are sadly mistaken.  They see you for what you are—a weak, scrawny pecan tree.  So does God.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. (1Cor 3:18)
 
Dene Ward

Isn't it funny how one day something can be great and a day or two later, the same thing can be so-so or even downright bad?
            We are in the middle of trying to empty our freezer and fridge the last two weeks before we move.  I never realized how successful I was at creating a well-stocked pantry.  Some things I have given up on using up—I already packed the 15 pounds of flour and four boxes of tea bags I had.  But the cold stuff is a different matter.  And so I have been opening the freezer door, then the fridge door, pulling things out willy-nilly and doing my best to use them up.  These days, a good meal is defined as one that uses up a lot of ingredients.
            One day I pulled some leftover ham out of the freezer along with half a bag of cubed frozen hash brown potatoes.  As it happened I also had 2½ pounds total of at least four kinds of cheese.  Then I found a pint of fat-free half and half and the brain really started working—cheese sauce!  So before it was over I had a ham and potato casserole with a sauce containing about ¾ pound of cheese and the last half cup of sour cream and a few seasonings I could still scrounge up.  My countertop was piled high with empty containers and bags.  A great dish, I thought—before I had even tasted it, because at that point, it was how much I had used up that counted, not how it tasted.  I was looking at success through completely different eyes.  Which is exactly what God expects of us. 
            How do we define success?  Is it all about the home we live in, the number of vacations we can take, and the kind of car we drive?  That is not God's idea of a successful life.  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit (Rom 8:5).  God expects us to look at life through spiritual eyes, recognizing the things that truly matter, the things that are eternal.  And so we can judge a life lived in a modest home with few expensive belongings as being a great success if the spiritual health of the family is in tip-top condition.
           When my parents passed away, they lived in a small, two bedroom house in a small retirement community.  They had one vehicle, a Ford Tempo.  They ate out every Sunday and that was the most expensive entertainment they took part in.  Some people would not be impressed.  Yet all of their children were Christians and married to Christians.  All of their grandchildren were Christians and the married ones were married to Christians.  When they passed they had a hope of Heaven, hope in the way the Bible uses it—full assurance and expectation.  That is what I call a successful life.
           So I will keep on coming up with crazy meals out of my freezer and fridge, and the more empty they get, the more odd they will get.  But if we can use up all that food before we leave, they will be considered successful meals, whether they taste good or not.  And we will understand better than ever that we should be careful how we view this world, and not let our culture's view of success be our guide.
 
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:1-4).
 
Dene Ward