A long time ago, a local farmer allowed Keith to milk his cow.  The farmer furnished the cow and the feed, while Keith furnished the labor, and we split the milk.  Our cut was usually a gallon a day, which was good with two boys who drank it by the quart.  I also used the cream to make our own butter.  There is nothing quite like a Southern pound cake made with homemade butter, homemade sour cream, and eggs fresh out of the chicken that morning.  Our mashed potatoes were so creamy you might as well have troweled them onto your hips, and the homemade ice cream so rich it had flecks of butter in it.
            When a dairy cow needs milking, it needs milking, period.  Keith was away overnight once, not due back till late afternoon the next day.  All I could think about was that poor cow.  Having nursed babies, I understood her pain.  Surely I could take care of this, I thought, and help both of them.
            This cow was known to be a kicker.  She had only recently gotten used to Keith, finally allowing him to milk her while she ate feed from the trough.  I knew the drill, so I got a bucket of feed and headed for the corral.  I also knew her penchant for kicking, so I put on Keith’s jacket and hat before I left the house.  I thought I would look and smell like him and she would never know the difference.
            As I headed for the stall she saw me coming, and began a slow walk in my direction.  I made my first mistake.  Keith always called her with the same phrase every day, so I did too, lowering my voice as much as possible.  The cow stopped and looked at me across the fence railing.  For a few minutes I thought she had me, but I held up the bucket so the scent of the feed reached her on the breeze, and she started walking again.
            After that I kept my mouth shut.  I simply poured the feed into the trough and waited for her to put her head down.  Then I reached out and started milking.  Instantly her head was up again, and she looked over her shoulder at me.  I stepped back, keeping a careful eye on her hind legs, ready to jump if she looked like she was even thinking about kicking. 
            For a long moment we stood there eying one another.  Finally, she gave a snort and shake of the head.  The jig was up, as they say.  For all the world it looked like she was saying, “I really need this right now, so go ahead.  But don’t think I’m not on to you.”  She put her head back in the trough, and I began milking again.  It was a compromise.  She gave me just enough to get the pressure off her aching udder, but not enough so I would think she had not seen through my disguise.  A quart later, she stepped back from the trough, and I took both the hint and the milk into the house.  When Keith got home, she gladly let him finish the job.
            Isaiah had a lot to say about this same point.  If a cow—a dumb unreasoning animal—can know its master, why can’t we so-called intelligent human beings recognize ours?  If a donkey knows where to get its sustenance, why can’t we figure out who we must depend upon? 
            Have you ever seen a cow path?  Cows learn when it is time to head for the barn, and they take the shortest route every evening at the same time, following one another down the path, until it is beaten from their hooves and so obvious anyone could follow it.  I look around our world every day and marvel at how many smart people don’t seem to have a clue where the path is, and what’s more, brag about it.  Then I look at God’s people and cry for all the ones who claim to be His children, but act the same way.
 
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.  The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not consider, Isa 1:2,3.
 
Dene Ward

Every afternoon following our midday meal, we walk our property, counting new blooms on the roses, smelling the jasmine, and looking beneath those large scratchy leaves for new squash blossoms.  Usually I end up with a handful of wildflowers, blooms so tiny I cannot see them until Keith hands me one I can pull up close.
            Do you know what I see?  Blooms of all colors--red, pink, blue, white, yellow, orange, purple in all shades and combinations—and shapes—bells, tubes, bowls, cups, stars with five or six points, some flared, some rayed, some as complex as orchids.  And did you know that even the stems are different?  Some are wiry, some are leafless, some are hairy, some sprawl and others stand up straight, and some are square!  Some of these flowers are exquisite, but most of us don’t know that.  We’ve never taken the time to bend over and really look.
            A long time ago a woman who has since become a close friend, told me that looking across the pews at Keith had made her think he was stern and unapproachable, and so she had decided to make it a point to get to know him.  It wasn’t really Keith’s fault.  He has large, piercing blue eyes that look like they’re boring into you, a strong Roman nose, and a voice that, because he is profoundly deaf, is always in projection mode.  Even when he isn’t, he often sounds disapproving, and is always loud, which is often translated “angry.”  A lot of people just go with that first impression.  This woman did not, and she proclaimed that year of getting to know him “delightful.”   I wonder how many others have missed out on that delight, how many have formed an opinion, and kept it despite what others might have said.
            How many do we overlook?  The elderly because we think them dull and uninteresting?  The teenagers because we’ve branded them all shallow and naïve?  The disabled because we think they have nothing to offer?  The scholarly and intellectual because we think those dry old men can’t possibly know how to have any fun?  The ones who seem so well put-together that we think they wouldn’t possibly want anything to do with “someone like me?”  None of these judgments is fair.            
          Jesus told the Jews, “Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment,” John 7:24.  Maybe I should take the time (sacrifice) to bend over (be humble) and examine (make some effort) a few wildflowers out there, instead of passing over them (negligence) as if they weren’t worth my trouble (arrogance).  When I think of it that way, I finally understand why judging by appearance is NOT righteous.
 
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”  1Sam 16:7      
                          
Dene Ward

It has sat there for about a month now, an old birdseed sack that we saved for hauling all those unsolicited catalogues to the dump.  It's impossible to burn them in the burn barrel and they fill up the kitchen garbage in just a day or two, so off to the dump they go every time Keith hauls the garbage cans off.  In the country, in a poor rural county, there is no garbage pickup—you do it all yourself.
          Because it's such a laborious task, and the truck had been in the shop for about three weeks, that sack became part of the landscape.  When Keith finally loaded up the cans, he walked right past where it sat in the corner of the porch and left it there.  He didn't even noticed what he had done until the next morning.  There it was, full of seed catalogues, women's catalogues, Land's End and L L Bean, a couple of Baker's Catalogues, and half a dozen Harbor Freights and Cabela's, still sitting in the corner waiting for its trip to the dump.  And now it will wait another month, probably.
          Which all reminds me of my personal Bible study.  I have read the Bible through more than half a dozen times.  Yet it never fails that when I am studying something I find a passage that seems brand new to me.  "I have never read this before," I will tell myself, as if someone could possibly have come along one night while I slept and put it in there.  Of course I've read it, but it had never stood up and waved at me before.  Can I give you a couple of really easy study tips this morning to help you avoid this?
          1.  Read more slowly.  We all mean well when we plan to read the Bible every day.  But too often, we find ourselves saving it for last, or for the few minutes we have between other chores, and just zip right through it to get it done.  Don't.  Read for the time you have.  God didn't put those chapter divisions in there anyway, so if you have to stop in the middle of one, so what?  Far better to try to read by paragraph (subject), S-L-O-W-L-Y.
          2.  Ask yourself questions while you read.  What did that just say?  Who is he referring to?  Where was he when he said/did this?  What does that word mean?  Where have I heard this name before?  What does this have to do with what I just read in the last paragraph?  What did that command mean in that particular culture?  That will automatically slow you down, and make you think about what you are reading, which, in turn, will help you remember it.
          3.  Read from a version you are unfamiliar with.  I am always looking for large print Bibles these days.  I found a Holman with the largest print I had ever seen—Giant Print, I think they call it.  After checking with some people I trusted who said it was as reliable a version as most any other modern one, I picked it up.  When I started reading, I could hardly put it down.  "It does not say that!" I said out loud more than once.  But when I picked up my old favorite American Standard (1901) that my father had when he went to Florida College in 1946, I found that I was wrong.  It most certainly did say that, just not exactly in the words I expected.  And that small change made me notice much more than I ever had before.  I learned more in a few days than I had the entire month before.
          I hope this helps you in your study.  We all mean well when we pick up God's Word, but let's not treat it like the sack of trash in the corner, something that's always there and thus, goes unnoticed.
 
For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.  (Deut 30:11-14).
 
Dene Ward

We live on wooded property—spreading live oaks, pencil straight slash pines, red and silver maples, fast-growing sycamores, sweet gums with their spiky balls, wild cherry and water oaks, both of which will split and fall at the least breeze.  When I walk Chloe around the perimeter I dodge fallen limbs, both deadfall and green, every ten feet or so.  Sometimes I find larger limbs that have fallen overnight, and once one fell right in my path just seconds after I had passed. 
              Often in the night, especially a windy one in the spring or fall as fronts pass through, I hear limbs hit the roof.  They are surprisingly loud and I awake expecting to find something large and heavy only to waste Keith’s time as he climbs the ladder to discover a two foot long twig no bigger around than his thumb.  It certainly sounded bigger than that!
              A few months ago, after a particularly windy winter storm, Chloe and I came upon a fallen pine limb, three feet long maybe and about two inches in diameter.  This one, though, was not lying on the ground.  The wind had cast this one with enough force that it had stuck straight into the ground through the sod.  I pulled it out and a full six inches of it was below the surface.  Imagine if that one had come hurtling through the sky at me as I walked by.
              Words are a bit like fallen limbs.  You never know who they will hit and how.  We are often just as careless as the wind in hurtling them about.  We may think the only one who hears is the one we are addressing.  We may think that everyone knows us and understands how it is meant.  We may think that what was said was perfectly innocent and completely impossible to mistake for something bad.  We may be very wrong.
              Yes, people need to listen with as much charity as we need to speak.  The Bible, particularly the wisdom literature, is full of cautions not only about how we speak but how we listen.  Even Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear.”  Hearing involves maybe as much responsibility as speaking. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others, Eccl 7:21,22.
              But just maybe we could stand to be a bit more careful in our speaking.  Words can hurt, and unlike physical wounds, may never heal.  What sounds like a twig to us may sound like a massive branch falling on the roof to the hearer.  And a multitude of the same kinds of words has an effect that is hard to erase.  What kinds of words do I use the most?  Praise or criticism?  Thanksgiving or complaining?  Encouragement or rebuke?  Tough love is necessary and is necessarily painful, but do I ever practice any other kind?  Are all my words, or even just the majority, “tough?”  And am I proud of having that sort of reputation?  Do people cringe when they see me coming?
              Those things I can control, but what about the things I say that are not meant to harm, but still manage to do so?  What about things I toss off without thought, directed at no one in particular, but that, like a fallen limb, accidentally come close to someone else’s heart?  Yes, for those who are mature, we can go back to the responsibility laid on hearers in that Ecclesiastes passage and in Jesus’ and the apostles’ words about being quick to judge, but what about the perfectly innocent babes?  What about young impressionable Christians? 
              If I shoot a gun into the air, the bullet will land somewhere, and my having shot it will make me accountable to the law of the land.  Will God’s law hold us any less accountable for the spiritually injured? 
 
I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned, Matt 12:36,37.
 
Dene Ward

We live in a rural county.  We have no garbage pickup.  Instead we have dumpsites at several places with recycling bins and a dumpster for household garbage.  We have to haul our own trash.  Ask yourself how much trash and garbage your family generates in a day.  How many garbage cans do you have outside and how many times can you empty the trash indoors before your outside can is full?  Now, how often would you like to drive several miles to dump your trash, and how many of those big trash cans will fit in your car?  You now know one reason most of the folks out here have a pickup truck!
              But this also explains the burn barrel.  We keep two receptacles in the house—one for wet garbage and one for burnable trash.  The more we can burn, the less often we have to cart garbage cans down the highway.  We put everything we possibly can in that box of trash—junk mail, out-of-date documents, bills, and receipts, cardboard boxes, empty plastic containers and lids, plastic bottles and bags, old rags, irreparable clothes—everything that will burn, or melt and then burn.  Don’t talk to me about recycling.  We recycle in several other ways, and this practice saves gas.
              But let me ask you this. Would you ever put anything important in a burn barrel?  Of course not.  Do you know what God thinks of this world?  He has his own burn barrel, and this world is what He plans to throw in it.
              We need to remember that.  Too often we become enamored of the very things God will ultimately destroy.  Some of our favorite things in life are sitting in God’s burn barrel.  Even when we think we have our priorities straight, we often do not.
              I remember telling my little boys that one day we would take a month long camping trip out west.  We would show them all those beautiful national parks they had only heard about.  They could look across the Grand Canyon, watch Old Faithful erupt, and stand in a place where the mountains rose peak after peak after peak with no signs of modern man—no power lines, no sounds of traffic, not even a tangled skein of contrail in the perfect blue sky--a place where a thousand years before some native had stood and enjoyed the same view.  It never happened.  We never had the money or the time.  They are grown now and can understand the pressures of life, making a living, paying the bills, meeting one’s responsibilities to others, but I have always felt bad about missing that trip.  We managed one or two other things while they were still at home, but never that one.
              But remember this, no matter how good a plan it was, how good the values we were trying to instill with an appreciation of God as the Creator of all that majestic beauty, God Himself doesn’t think that much of it.  It’s temporary.  He plans to destroy it all.  The things God meant for me to teach those boys were things I could teach any time, any place, no matter how much money we did or didn’t have. 
               The Bible is full of people who did not have the right priorities—Esau for one, who sold a birthright for one meal.  The Hebrew writer calls him “profane” (Heb 12:16).  Paul talks about having a “mind of the spirit” rather than a “mind of the flesh” (Rom 8:4).  And why?  Because Jesus’ kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18:36).  It is “not meat and drink” (Rom 14:17).  So many things we allow ourselves to become upset about simply do not matter.  Traffic jams?  Noisy neighbors?  Pet peeves?  Even the trials of life—precisely because it is this life we are becoming distracted with.
              For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is perdition, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Phil 3:18-20.  Yes, Paul says that when I let things of this life upset me to the point of distraction that my “god is my belly.”  I am not supposed to be minding those earthly things.
              So today, think about God’s burn barrel.  He has a place for the things He plans to destroy, just like I do, one that gets too full too fast.  God’s burn barrel holds things like wealth, possessions, awards, careers, opinions, irritations, Jimmy Choo shoes, stock portfolios, time shares on the beach, cabins in the mountains, camping trips out west—even this earthly tabernacle that so many try to keep looking young.  They all go in the barrel at the end of the Day.  And God will light the fire Himself.
 
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed…Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace, 2Pet 3:10-14.
 
Dene Ward

I am not a gun nut.  I don’t know a whole lot about shooting.  But I do know some things that should be obvious, yet apparently are not.  When you shoot a gun, the bullet has to come down somewhere.
            We live in the country.  That means we do not have to worry about the laws against discharging a weapon in the city limits.  Since we have a lot more poisonous snakes, rabid coons, and bobcats ravaging the chicken coops than they do in town, that is a good thing.  Still, we must be careful.
            One reason many people use shotguns out in the country is that the load will scatter and not do much harm after a few feet.  If you shoot a rifle, you must constantly be careful of what is behind your target and the pitch of your gun barrel.  It must be pointing down so that if you miss your target, the spent bullet will hit the ground harmlessly not too far beyond.  If you miss what you are aiming at, the bullet keeps going until it either runs out of energy or hits something else.  And yes, even those supposedly harmless shots they fire in the air in all the old Westerns do eventually come down, and can still kill someone.  Evidently people who are not gun nuts, and certainly not physicists, write all those scripts because they regularly show their ignorance in these matters. 
            Words are like that.  Too many times we become angry, carelessly “shooting from the lip” or firing a few verbal bullets into the air, unaware of how those words may hurt those who may be within earshot.  Even words meant only for ourselves can cause damage to others when spoken aloud—there is always the chance that someone else will hear.  If a target needs a well-chosen word, chances are something spoken in haste was not well chosen anyway.  I need to keep it to myself until I am certain my aim is correct, the background is clear, and no one else is in danger.
            Just like a bullet, a word can come to rest in the heart of an innocent bystander.  Be sure you don’t make a tragic mistake.
           
I tell you on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned, Matt 12:36,37.
 
Dene Ward

When we first moved here, the land was a pristine wilderness.  We were the only ones back here in the woods, half a mile off the highway.  People often asked, “How in the world did you even find this spot?”  If it hadn’t been for the sign on the highway, we never would have.

            Fast forward a few years.  The deeds on the rest of the parcels of acreage are finally clear and others have bought and moved in.  Oh, for the money to have bought it all way back then…

            As you come down our drive now, you pass one plot in particular where you wonder if you missed the “Junkyard” sign.  Empty fertilizer sacks, empty feed sacks, broken buckets with all their pieces, torn potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers, shattered plastic milk jugs, toys in various states of disrepair, gardening tools, rusty tractor parts and old horse trailers, torn screen segments, pieces of hose draped over fences, broken down appliances, seldom- or no longer-driven vehicles including a burnt-out semi tractor, and piles of pure garbage dot the landscape.  I knew we were in trouble the first week these folks moved in, when a used disposable diaper sat in the yard for days, and then they mowed over it, scattering it to the winds. 

            When you say anything to them, the standard reply is, “This is our land.  We can do with it what we want.  It’s no business of yours.”

            But it is, and do you know why?  Because every time the wind blows I must go around with a trash bag and pick up the litter than blows over or through the fence onto our property.  Every time a strong rain comes, more is washed down around the gate.  And should we ever decide to sell, the mere fact that any prospective buyer must go past that mess to get to us, will lower our property value.  Keith explained this last fact to them one day, and they said, “Huh?  Why?”

            Do you know what?  Sometimes I also fail to see how my life is anyone else’s business.  It’s easy to say, “This doesn’t hurt anyone, so why can’t I do it?” or, “Why does it matter how I let my attitude show?  They can just ignore me.”  In real life, that is impossible.  I do affect everyone who comes into contact with me.  I can make their days better or worse.  I can say something that will help or hinder.  I can do something that comforts or hurts.  What I cannot do is something that has no affect at all—it is simply impossible.

            My trashy neighbors have actually done me a lot of good.  I find myself thinking about these things more and more, wondering whom I am affecting every day, and hoping it is for the good.  I hope hearing about them will help you today too.
 
Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.  For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, 1 Cor 5:6-8.
 
Dene Ward

For the past few years wild blackberries have been rare.  The vines are there, full of their painful and aggravatingly sticky thorns, but the fruit dries up before it can fully ripen.  First the drought of the late 90’s, and then the following dry years of this regular weather cycle of wet and dry have meant that when the time is right, usually early to mid-June, there is nothing to pick. The few that might have survived are devoured quickly by the birds.
 
           This year Lucas found some on a nearby service road, and Keith picked enough for one cobbler for the first time in years.  Probably because it has been awhile, I think that was the best blackberry cobbler we ever had.  Maybe next year I can make jelly too.

            Blackberries are a lot of trouble.  The thorns seem like they reach out and grab you.  I have often come home with bloody hands and torn clothing—you never wear anything you might wear elsewhere when you pick blackberries.  But that is not the half of it.

            You must also spray yourself and your long-sleeved shirt prodigiously with an insect repellent, and tuck the cuffs of your long pants into your socks.  No matter how hot the weather, you must be covered.  Without these measures chiggers will find their way in and you will be revisiting your time in the woods far longer and in more unpleasant ways than you wish.  Ticks are also a problem.  Make sure you pick with someone you don’t mind checking you over after you get back home, especially your hair.  More than once I have had a tick crawl out of my mop of curls several hours later. 

            Finally, you must always carry a big stick or a pistol.  I prefer pistols because you don’t have to get quite as close to the snake to kill it.  Birds love blackberries, and snakes like birds, so they often sit coiled under the canes waiting for their meals to fly in.  Keith has killed more than one rattlesnake while picking wild blackberries.

            Because of all this, since I have Keith, I seldom pick blackberries any more—I let him do it for both of us.  Especially since I stand for hours in a hot kitchen afterward, it seems a fair division of labor.  When I am making jelly, straining that hot juice through cheesecloth to catch the plenteous seeds and ladling that hot syrupy liquid into hot jars isn’t much easier than picking them.  But wild blackberries are worth all the trouble.  Their scent is sweet and heady and their taste, especially in homemade jellies, almost exotic. The purple hands, teeth, and tongue blackberry lovers wind up with are worth it too.   If all you have ever had is commercially grown blackberries and store bought blackberry jelly, you really don’t know what they taste like.     

            Why is it that I can make myself go to all this trouble for something good to eat, and then throw away something far more valuable because “it’s not worth it?”  Why does teasing my taste buds matter more to me than saving my soul?  How many spiritual delicacies have I missed out on because it wasn’t worth the trouble? 

            Serious Bible study can be tedious, but isn’t having the Word of God coming instantly to mind when I really need it worth it?  When I have taken the time to explore deeply instead of the superficial knowledge most have, isn’t it great in the middle of a sermon or Bible class, to suddenly have another passage spring to life right before my mental eyes?  “So that’s what that means!” is a eureka moment that is nearly incomparable.  And while increased knowledge does not necessarily mean increased faith, faith without knowledge is a sham.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Rom 10:17.  The more scripture you know, the stronger your faith because the more you know about what God has done for us, the more you appreciate it and want to show that appreciation by the service you willingly give.

            So many other things we miss out on because we don’t want to go to the trouble—cultivating an active prayer life, socializing with brothers and sisters in the faith, helping a new Christian grow, serving the community we live in simply because we care--while at the same time we go to all sorts of trouble for earthly pleasures—sitting in the hot sun on a hard bench amid crude, rowdy people to watch a ball game; searching for a parking space for hours then walking ten blocks in high heels for a favorite meal at a downtown restaurant; standing in long lines at an amusement park, while someone else’s ice cream melts on your shirt, and at the same time juggling your own handfuls of fast food, cameras, and tickets, and trying to keep up with rambunctious children.  All these things are “worth it.” Did you ever ask yourself, “Worth what?”  And how long did that pleasure, or whatever your answer is, last?

            I would never go to the same amount of trouble for rhubarb that I do for blackberries.  That doesn’t mean I don’t like rhubarb—I make a pretty good strawberry rhubarb cobbler.  But rhubarb cannot match blackberries. Spiritually, we too often settle for rhubarb instead of blackberries. You can always tell the ones who don’t “settle”—the “purple” fingers from handling the Word of God, and the “purple” teeth and tongues from taking it in on a daily basis and living a life as His servant, give them away.
 
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life, 1 Tim 6:17-19..
 
Dene ward
 

              We live on a slope.  The grade is gradual, so gradual you don’t really see it until it rains one of those sub-tropical downpours for which Florida is famous.  When four inches comes down in less than an hour, the property becomes a river two or three inches deep flowing downhill to the run, just past the property line.

              After the rain stops, the draining continues, though it slows to three or four tributaries and eventually two larger “rivers.”  One runs through the front yard, between the bird feeders, down around the house, across the septic drain field and off the property.  Another slants southeast through the PVC pipe culvert Keith installed under the road thirty-four years ago, down the berm on the top, north, edge of the garden and on east.  

              Usually within a couple of hours most of the water has drained, but puddles still fill a few low areas, and you learn where and how to walk for the next day or two.  On sandy land, the puddles dry up quickly, unless it’s the second weekend in a row with a four inch toad strangler.

              We learned early on to avoid those low spots for several days.  We first met one of our neighbors when we asked him to pull our car out of the mud with his tractor at least three times in one week.  Two months ago, for the first time in many years, he had to come down and do it again.  I knew what had happened when, after two deluges in one week, I heard the truck engine roar and looked out the window to see the back tires spinning and mud flying ten feet behind them.

              When you are stuck in the mud, you can’t move.  The wheels may rotate but all you do is dig ruts and uproot grass.  The harder you press the accelerator, the deeper the ruts and the less you move.  Even rocking the truck back and forth becomes impossible.

              Sometimes we get stuck in the spiritual mud.  It comes first with complacency.  We are happy with what we know and where we are, so we sit down, clasp our hands, and contentedly lean back with our feet up on the desk.  Proverbs speaks of the results of being a complacent “sluggard.”  Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall your poverty come as a robber, and your want as an armed man, 24:33,34.  Tell me the same thing won’t happen when we stop working on our spirituality.

              It isn’t just a matter of continuing to learn, though that is important.  An older woman in one of my classes has expressed appreciation for the new things I teach her.  “At my age it’s hard to find something new,” she said, “but you have given me that and it’s wonderful.”  Yes, the older you are, the more difficult it should be to find something new to learn, so you certainly cannot sit back and fold your hands in slumber—you must work even harder to find those things and they will be even deeper than the “first principles,” and require yet more thought and labor.

              But it is also a matter of progress.  I see people who haven’t changed one whit in thirty years, who still fight the same battles, who still fail the same way again and again.  I see people who still gossip, who still judge unfairly, who are still oversensitive and too easily offended.  I see people who still have their priorities upside down instead of finally learning the higher value of the spiritual over the carnal.  I see people who have come no closer to mastering self-control than when they were young and foolish—they just become too weary to go at it in their old age and that is all that has moderated their passions.

              So today, check to see where you stand—or wallow.  Are you stuck in the mud of worldliness and pleasure?  Are you glued in the mire of wealth and possessions and financial security?  Are you floundering in the quagmire of man’s philosophy and false theology?  Pull yourself out and start moving again.  If you cannot do it alone, call a neighbor to help.  That’s why God put us all here together. 

              And when the storms come into your life again, use your head—stay away from the low spots.  Find the high ground of spirituality and keep on climbing. 
 
I waited patiently for Jehovah; And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: Many shall see it, and fear, And shall trust in Jehovah. Psalms 40:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

It happens every time Keith and I walk the property.  Suddenly I find myself pushed into the rough while he walks the path.  I learned a long time ago to just push back and he immediately realizes what he is doing.

              Keith was raised in the Ozarks, born in a farmhouse in the back country, down a rocky lane and across from a cow field lined with wild blackberries, a steep hill rising straight from the back porch.  As a boy he walked the woods, his feet naturally finding the easy way among all the stones, limbs, and golf ball sized black walnut hulls and acorns as he gazed upward into the trees.  If he doesn’t actively think about what he is doing, his feet still do that from long ingrained habit.  He’s always embarrassed and aggravated with himself when he realizes what he’s done to me, and he appreciates the nudges when I find myself knee high in briars. 

              Life is a little like that.  Most of us live everyday muddling through as best we can, oblivious to anything but our own cares, our own needs, trying to make things run as smoothly as possible.  What makes “a bad day” for us?  When things don’t go smoothly—a malfunctioning coffee pot, a stubborn zipper, a flat tire on the way to work, a traffic jam that makes us late when we had left in plenty of time, a spouse or toddler who had the ill grace to wake up in as foul a temper as we did. 

              It takes active thought to control your selfish impulses and consider others.  It takes effort to accomplish the difficult—self-control, self-improvement, compassion for people who, like us, don’t deserve it.  But that’s exactly what our Lord expects of us.  This is exactly the example he left us.

              Even under a weight of responsibility none of us can imagine, he gave his disciples his careful attention and encouragement.  Even in tension-filled situations he showed compassion to both the sick and the sinner.  Even in tremendous pain and weakness, he remembered his mother and forgave the pawns of a murderous mob.

              If Jesus had looked for the smooth way, none of us would ever have hope of one.  But if all we look for now is the smooth way, we may as well enjoy it while we can.  It’s the only smooth way we will ever have.
 
Enter in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. Matt 7:13,14.
 
Dene Ward