This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him, Ephesians 3:11-12.
 
            Ho-hum, I thought as I grabbed the concordance to look up yet another word in our study of faith.  Expecting to see that “boldness” was also translated courage, bravery, or some other obvious synonym, I found myself sitting up at attention instead. 
            This word for boldness here is not the usual word.  This one actually means boldness of speech.  In fact, the one Greek word is translated by those three English words more than once as in 2 Cor 3:12, “Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech.”  If you have a modern translation, as I did my ESV that day, you will miss it.  Pull out your old 1901 ASV and you will see the three word phrase.  Then pull out your King James, “ …we use great plainness of speech.”
            That means, according to that verse at the top, you can talk freely—and plainly—to God.  You don’t have to worry that God will take things the wrong way.  You don’t have to worry that God will misinterpret your meaning.  You don’t have to worry that He will take offense like some people who make a career out of getting their feelings hurt.
            When you are disappointed, you can talk to Him.
            When you are depressed and discouraged, you can talk to Him.
            When you are mad, you can talk to Him.
            When you want to ask why, you can.
            When you want to feel a little sorry for yourself, you can.
            When you need to vent, you can.
            God says, be plain, be bold, tell me what you need to tell me—I am here for you.
            That verse in Ephesians says we can do this because of faith.  If you don’t believe God cares this much for you, that He will listen to anything and everything, that He actually wants you to feel free to talk to Him, then somewhere your faith is lacking. 
            It isn’t faith to say, God doesn’t want to hear this.
            It isn’t faith to say, my problems are too small to bother God with them.
            It isn’t faith to say, God is busy with more important things right now.
            Faith speaks.
            Faith speaks freely.
            Faith shares whatever needs to be shared whenever it needs sharing—just ask Job.
            Tell God how you feel today.
 
A Psalm of David:  Hear my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I call unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me, A strong tower from the enemy. I will dwell in your tabernacle for ever: I will take refuge in the shelter of your wings. Selah. Psalms 61:1-4
 
Dene Ward

Three year old Silas has learned to pray, and often sits at the table, eagerly clasping his little hands together, looking back and forth at his parents, hoping they will ask him to say the blessing. 
            “Do you want to say the prayer?” his daddy asks, as if it weren’t obvious, and he gets a big nod and off we go. 
It’s never about the meal.  To him it’s about talking to God and saying thank you for something, for anything, for whatever happens to be on his mind.
            “Hey God!”  Read that the way an excited child would greet his grandparents, not the way a New Yorker would yell, “Hey Mac!”
            “Thank you for sisters,” although he has none, but one of his little friends does, so he wants to mention it.
            “Thank you for blue, and red, and yellow,” the colors of the containers he puts his blocks in.  He doesn’t complain about having to pick up his toys.  He thanks God for something to put them in, and that’s the one that really made me think.
            I wonder how many of our complaints could be expressed as thanks with just a little thought.  Dealing with rush hour traffic?  Thank God you have a car to drive through it in.  Complaining about the stack of ironing?  Thank God you have that many clothes to wear.  Griping a little about picking up your husband’s shoes?  Thank God he is alive and well enough to leave them in the middle of the floor.
            I thought about this again yesterday when I was blowing off the carport.  We didn’t have one for years, and sometimes I think that all getting a carport did for me was give me something else to keep clean.  But last week when one of our usual summer gully washers came through, I could unload the groceries and stay dry. 
            Then I came in and heaved a sigh at the extra dirty floor.  That happened because we saved enough money to buy a new vanity for the bathroom and the plumber tracked in sand going in and out. 
            Stop and think today about the things you complain about.  How many are caused by blessings you could have thanked God for instead?  How many extra chores do you have because God has provided you a home and a family?  I never had to wash diapers until I had babies.  Do you think for one minute I would have given them back? 
            If ever anyone had something to grumble about, it was Daniel when the other two presidents and the 120 satraps tricked the king into making the law against praying to anyone other than him.  How did he react instead?  And when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Daniel 6:10.  Surely if Daniel could say thank you at a time like that, we can in this relatively easy time in history.
            God is patient with us as we daily grumble our way through a life He has blessed in thousands of ways.  You have to go to work?  These days especially, be grateful for a job.  Gas prices too high?  You’re still buying it, aren’t you? 
            Maybe we should be a little more like a three year old.  “Hey God!  (I’m so excited to talk to you!)  Thank you for all you have done for me, for the things you have given me that I don’t deserve and forget to be grateful for.  For all those extra chores, because they mean you have blessed me beyond measure.  For all my pet peeves, because it means I am able to be up and around and go to those places where they happen.  For the fact that I have to work so hard to lose weight, because it means I have plenty to eat.  For people who get on my nerves, because it means I have friends and family and neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ—I am not alone.”
            Today look at everything you gripe about and find the blessing.  You will be amazed--and probably a little ashamed.  And maybe those gripes will go away, for at least a little awhile.
 
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1 Thes 5:18.
 
Dene Ward

In the past few years I have found myself fighting sleepless nights on more than one occasion.  Keith always tells me that when that happens to him, he sings hymns in his mind until he falls back asleep.  I have yet to find a better thing to do, unless it is praying, but often they are the same.  How many songs can you find in your hymnals that are nothing more than prayers set to music?  I have a feeling that most of David’s psalms follow that same pattern.
            I recently found a phrase in the middle of a scripture that made me smile, even though the context didn’t.  Still, I think pulling that phrase out of its context is not wresting the scriptures in this case.  “God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,” Job 35:10.  I wonder how many times those hymns have popped into our heads because a loving God sent them our way to help calm us and reassure us.
            The righteous sing for joy on their beds, Psalm 149:5.  After I found that verse, I began to wonder why “bed” was particularly mentioned, just as “night” was in Job. 
            Perhaps it is a metaphoric allusion.  We take to our beds when we are seriously ill.  I can get up and do things when I have a cold, but if I am really sick, I am in bed.  People who are nearing death are usually in bed, in fact, we call it the “death bed.”  In times of worry, when we try to sleep, we find ourselves tossing and turning in bed, just as I have done so often recently.  Why would we be inclined to sing at those times?
            Isn’t it obvious?  If we are God’s children, we have hope, we have a foundation of joy in our lives that keeps us grounded, and that joy often shows itself in song.  Even in prison, having been beaten and wondering what the morning would bring, Paul and Silas sang hymns of praise “at midnight,” Acts 16:25.  They weren’t in a comfortable bed, but the “nighttime” of trouble was upon them.  Even from childhood, aren’t we all just a little afraid of the dark?
            Do not think it strange that songs often come to us during these times.  Our God does not leave us desolate.  He gives us songs in the “night,” songs of comfort, songs of hope, songs of praise for his grace and love, songs of encouragement, songs of edification and even chastisement.  Those songs would not come to your mind without a God who cared enough not only to send his Son, but to send you songs in the times you need them most, in the night time of sorrow and fear and pain. 
            Often the grace of God comes in a song that keeps going round and round in your mind.  It’s up to you to sing it.
 
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. Psa 42:8
 
Dene Ward

My grandson came by for a quick visit recently.  I spent a couple of hours preparing the house, putting up the things that might hurt him and the things that could get him into trouble.  Then I put out the old toys his daddy used to play with, the “new” ones I had picked up at a thrift store, the crayons, a small plastic chair I had bought for him, as well as my old rocking chair, the one I sat in until I outgrew it.
            You are never really sure what a two year old will find interesting.  Their likes and dislikes change with every mood.  I picked up blueberries and chicken nuggets, two of his favorite things, at least the last time I was with him.  That doesn’t mean he will like them this time.  At least I know that about toddlers.  It would have been more helpful to have been able to remember well my own preschool days.  Then I might have stood a better chance of pleasing him.  All of that is entirely normal. 
            In fact, that is normal in every case.  If you could climb into the mind of the person you are trying to relate to, wouldn’t it be much easier to understand them and get along?  A long time ago, Job said the same thing about man and God.  There was no one who could “lay his hand on both” God and man, 9:33. 
            Which is precisely why the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us,” John 1:14.  The Hebrew writer says, “He had to be made like his brothers in every respect” so that he could become our high priest, our intercessor, the one who stands between us and God, laying his hand on both because he understands both worlds, 2:17.  Paul makes it plain in 1 Tim 2:5 that Jesus is the only one of the Godhead who fulfills that requirement--There is one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus.
            So now we cannot say, “No one understands.”  Jesus went through a lot of pain and sorrow and injustice and indignity just so he could understand.  Any time we excuse ourselves with something like, “Well of course he could overcome sin, he was the Son of God!” we are demeaning the sacrifice he made for us, and the things he bore on our behalf so he could be “the missing link” between our Father and his children.  We are saying that he doesn’t, and can never understand what it is like to be human.
            The Son of God is also the Son of Man.  He knows how we think, he knows how we feel, and he knows what we can and cannot endure.  He sits at the right hand of God even now, making intercession for us, Rom 8:34, because he searches our hearts and knows what is in them (v 27 with Rev 2:23).
            I may make a mistake about what will pique the interest of my two year old grandson.  Christ will never make the same mistake about us.
 
This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them, Heb 7:22-25.

Dene Ward
 

[We} ought always to pray and not lose heart, Luke 18:1
 
Someone told us we could write a book about all the things that happened in our move and no one would believe it.  Every other day brought a glitch of some sort.  How can all of these things happen during the same transaction?  Even seasoned real estate agents with stories to tell were amazed at ours.  And so for a full four weeks our prayers were fast and intense to the point of tears upon occasion.  While we pray with regularity, this was more than the usual.
            Eventually the pieces did fall into place in what seemed a Providential pattern, but not before turning them around every which way, trying every possible configuration of the puzzle.  And pray we did, asking, begging, pleading that the latest snag in the process would work itself out.  With His guidance, it did.
            God never tires of helping His children.  He wants us to show our dependence on Him.  He wants us to recognize our need of His help and care.  Some of the most biting, sarcastic sections of the prophets concern His people going to other gods for the very things Jehovah himself had promised, and for years had furnished.  Why were they expecting anything from a lifeless piece of wood or metal, He asked?
            He told them shortly before Jerusalem's fall to the Babylonians, On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth (Isa 62:6-7).  For the faithful few, the command was simple—pray!  Ask!  Talk to me, again and again and again!  We should give Him no rest either. 
          Bother Him night and day with your cares, your sorrows, your requests.  Pester Him with your musings, your questions, your meditations, just as you would a faithful mentor or loving parent.  I promise you, He won't mind at all.
 
I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live (Ps 116:1-2).

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving (Col 4:2).
 
Dene Ward

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

Every time I go outside Chloe comes running, tail wagging, waiting for me to scratch her head.  If my hands are full, she butts the back of my leg with her nose until I manage to free my arms, bend over and scratch her head.  If I am taking a load somewhere, she follows along, and I feel that little round nudge constantly all the way until FINALLY  (I am sure she is thinking) she gets that longed for scratch on the head. 
            This morning I suddenly wondered if I do that with God.  Am I so anxious for His attention that every morning I can hardly wait to talk with Him?  Or do I just leave Him in the back of my mind until I can find a spare minute, and if He is lucky, I might actually have a whole minute?
            Yes, Chloe is making a little pest of herself to get my attention, but do you know what?  It doesn’t bother me a bit.  In fact, I find myself hurrying to put down my armload so I can pat her even sooner.  It’s endearing to have a little creature want you so much.  Some days I go outside just to see her run up to me with that swishing tail, and actually sit down and spend a few minutes with her for no other reason than to be with her.  I guess that’s what happens when your children grow up and the dogs are all you have around to dote on.
            What was it Jesus said?  If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him? Matt 7:11.  I don’t for a minute pretend to understand how God feels about things, but Jesus gives us a hint here.  If I, an imperfect person who sometimes still allows sin into my life, can love my children enough to give them good gifts, if I can still care enough about a small animal to want to satisfy its desire for attention, what will God not do for me?  If that small child’s pestering endears him to me because it makes me know he wants to be with me, certainly if it can happen with an animal’s little nose bumping my leg, won’t my pestering do the same for God? 
            And to the other side of the question, if I act like God’s attention means little to me, why should He give me any of it when I decide I could use it?  My mother always says, “If I say to God, ‘I’m too busy for you right now,’ what’s to keep Him from saying that to me?”  I think she has a point there.
 
And he spoke a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, who feared not God, and regarded not man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came often to him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary. And he would not for awhile: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest she wear me out by her continual coming.  And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says.  And shall not God avenge his elect that cry to him day and night and yet he is longsuffering over them? I say unto you, that he will avenge them speedily. Luke 18:1-8.
 
Dene Ward

A couple of weeks ago Keith had an appointment with the audiologist at the VA hospital.  This meant he was late arriving to work, heading up highway 231 about 9:30 that Friday morning.  It takes awhile to park, go through the search checkpoints and all the gates.  He arrived at his office in time to hear the news that had just filtered back.
            A man in the town had stabbed his girlfriend and fled down that very highway at speeds far exceeding the speed limit and, with apparent intent, hit a van head on.  Both drivers were killed instantly.  It had happened at 9:40.  A ten minute delay anywhere along the road and one of those dead drivers might have been Keith.
            Many times we go through life thinking God has not answered our prayers.  Because we are self-oriented and earthly minded, we see only what happens to us or to others right in front of us.  But occasionally we are reminded that God is out there answering prayers we did not even know to pray. 
            So many have asked me how I can stay positive in the circumstances in which I find myself.  They do not know what I have been told. 
            Five years ago was not the beginning of all this.  It is the ending.  Many times, many different medical personnel, including three or four doctors famous in their fields, have told me that as severe as my problem is, they do not know how my eyes have lasted this long, how I did not have a crisis long before.  God has been answering those unsaid prayers since I was born.  He has not let me down; he has given me far more than anyone else in my position had any right to expect.
            So today, while you are wondering why God has not answered a prayer you have prayed, when you think He has forsaken you in a time when you need Him most, take a moment to consider all the prayers He has answered that you are unaware of.  He knows far better than we what we most need.  He is, in fact, answering your other prayers too, but He is not required to keep to your timetable or your methods.  Just trust Him.  He is there, working while you sleep, while you work, while you play, and while you plan all those big plans that so often exclude Him. 
            You may never realize what He has truly done for you today, but then just think how horrible it might have been if He hadn’t.
 
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen. Eph 3:20,21
 
Dene Ward

For thousands of years, people have tried to accurately predict the weather.  Beginning at least as early as the Babylonians in 650 BC, they have used things like cloud patterns, astrology, the movement of the winds, lunar phases, and even the "signs of the times" as Jesus mentions in Matthew 16:2,3.  The invention of the telegraph in 1835 finally put us in the age of modern weather forecasting.  Word of coming weather could reach a town almost instantaneously.  However, even that was sometimes too late for people to prepare adequately.
            In the mid-1800s, Francis Beaufort and Robert FitzRoy are credited with developing weather forecasting (meteorology) as a science.  As Royal Navy officers in England, they had many contacts in both the Navy and government so even though the press ridiculed them, their work gained the credence it deserved in a short time.  The first ever daily weather forecasts began to be published in the London Times on August 1, 1861.  The methods may have been upgraded, but almost all weather forecasting today is based upon the work of Beaufort and FitzRoy.  Yet weathermen have one thing against them—one really big thing.
            A few years ago we had a rainy winter, and then a rainy spring.  The summer isn't such a problem because the subtropical sun boils the water out of the ground fairly quickly in spite of constant afternoon thunderstorms.  But on cool days, even with much lower humidity than summer, puddles and boggy ground last much longer.  Rivers and creeks overflow.  Sometimes country roads become impassable.  Farmers lament their inability to get into the fields where there is standing water here and there and miry bogs everywhere else, and know that even if they could plant, the seed would rot in the saturated soil instead of germinating.  And all that water can breed mosquitoes almost overnight.
            So on a weekend when we had already measured over three inches of rain and a 90% chance of "heavy rain" was predicted for two more days, we were a little concerned.  We prayed hard for God to send us clear skies and no more rain.  That is exactly what He did.  The puddles dried fairly quickly, and the dark, wet ground began to look like pale gray Florida sand again. 
            And that is the poor old weatherman's problem.  For a week he had predicted heavy rains those two days, and he turned out wrong.  Was he wrong because his science was wrong?  No, he was wrong because he is not the one in control.  We make fun of him all the time—"He never gets it right"—which is probably not accurate in itself.  He does get it right fairly often.  But think of what he has going against him.  Think of all the Christians out there praying that he will be wrong, and a Heavenly Father who listens to His children and often does what they ask.  The weatherman doesn't stand a chance.  That he gets anything right is a notable thing, and once again only due to a Father who has ordered the world to run in a certain way, on a certain timetable of seasons, fronts, and heat waves.
            Or do we believe that?  I think I have some brothers and sisters who don't.   Then why do you pray at all, may I ask?  Maybe we don't get what we ask for because we don't truly believe it is even possible to receive it.
            Who do you believe?  God or the poor, old weatherman?
 
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him (1John 5:14-15).
 
Dene Ward

In his third epistle, John prays what has to be the most frightening prayer in the Bible.  Beloved I pray that in all things you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers, v2. 
            Have you ever wondered what might happen if God suddenly answered that prayer—that your body and your economic life may be as healthy as your soul?  Those of us who prosper financially, might suddenly be living a hand to mouth existence, while others who can barely make ends meet might find their bank accounts overflowing.  Are we more concerned with our IRAs, annuities, and money market accounts than with the unfathomable riches of Christ, Eph 3:8?  What was it Jesus called the rich man who was more concerned with his physical wealth than his spiritual wealth?  You fool!  This night is your soul required of you, and all the things you have prepared, whose will they be then?  So is he who lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.  Luke 12:20,21
           But what about the physical health angle of that prayer?  Some of us who are fat and sassy might instantly become pale and emaciated.  Some of us might even fall over dead!  But there might be others, frail and chronically ill, who suddenly become as hale and hearty as the great athletes of the world.
            If we want to be able to pray John’s prayer, we need to get our souls in shape.  Do they get the proper nourishment or do they fast several days a week?  Do our souls have to be force-fed?  Do we “exercise our senses” every day, “discerning between good and evil,” or do we sit like couch potatoes, taking in with a glazed look everything the world has to offer?  Are we willing to take our medicine when we need it, or do we deny our faults and blame everyone else as if that will make them go away?
            If a righteous man stands up Sunday morning and prays this prayer fervently—that everyone there will suddenly be as prosperous in wealth and healthy in body as they are in soul--will we jump up and beg him to stop because we know the results of the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, James 5:16? 
             Think about it; it might change your life.
 
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father from whom every family in heaven and in earth is named, that he should grant you according to the riches of his glory that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.  Eph 3:14-19
 
Dene Ward