• Dene's Blog
  • About Dene
  • Contact Dene
  • Dene's Recipes
  • Dene's Books
  • Dene's Classbooks
  • Gallery
  • Recommended Sites
  • FAQ & Tutorial
  Flight Paths

Hannah and Prayer

3/4/2021

0 Comments

 
Most of us know the story of Hannah who asked God for a son and promised to give him back.  She certainly made an amazing vow and an astounding sacrifice I can scarcely understand.  But do we consider her many examples in prayer?
            Hannah was the second wife of a man of Ephraim, a Levite (1 Chron 6:33-38) named Elkanah.  The story reminds me a bit of Leah and Rachel, except that Hannah  and Peninnah were not sisters, and Hannah, the favored wife, was far more righteous and God-fearing than Rachel, who stole her father’s household gods (Gen 31:19) and nagged Jacob to death about her inability to conceive as if it were his fault (Gen 30:1,2).  Going to God was Rachel’s last resort, after first badgering Jacob, then offering her handmaid (Gen 30:3) and finally using mandrakes (Gen 30:14), the aphrodisiac of the day.  You should take a few minutes sometime and read the meanings of her children’s names (by her handmaid) if you want a flavor of her mindset, and compare them with the names of Leah’s children.  Then of course, there was Joseph.  When God answered her prayer for her own child, she named him, “Give me another one.”  Look at the marvelous contrast of Hannah, who after asking for a child and receiving him, gave him up to God, with no promise that she would ever have another.
            Hannah shows us what prayer is supposed to be—not some halfhearted muttering of ritual phrases, but a “pouring out of the soul” 1 Sam 1:15.  She prayed so fervently that Eli, watching her, thought she was drunk.  As she told Eli, “Out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation have I spoken” v 16.  Her prayer life was such that her relationship with Jehovah gave her the confidence to tell him exactly how she felt, in the plainest of speech, evidently.  You do not speak to someone that way unless you have spent plenty of time with him and know him intimately.  Are we that close to God?
            She also teaches us what prayer should do for us.  Look at the contrast between v 10 and v 18.  Before her prayer “she was in bitterness of soul…and wept sore.”  Afterward, she “went her way and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.” 
            Of course, Hannah had the reassurances of a priest and judge that God would give her what she had prayed for, but don’t we have the assurance of the Holy Spirit through the word He gave that God listens and answers our prayers?  Shouldn’t we exhibit some measure of ease after our prayers?      In whom do we have our faith?  If the doctors say it is hopeless, do we pray anyway?  Do we carry our umbrellas, even though the weatherman says, “No rain in sight?”  Do we pray on and on and on, even when it seems that what we ask will never come to pass?  God does not run by a timetable like we do.  Hannah had the faith that says, “It’s in God’s hands now,” and she was able to get on with her life.  Life does go on, no matter which answer we get, and God expects us to continue to serve Him with a “thy will be done” attitude.
          “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” James tells us in 5:16.  Hannah shows us it works for righteous women as well.  Can people tell by our lives that we believe it?
 
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 to me, a strong tower from the enemy.  I will dwell in your tabernacle forever.  I will take refuge in the covert of your wings.  Psa 61:1-4
 
Dene Ward
0 Comments

Have You Stopped Praying?

1/14/2021

0 Comments

 
Sometimes I think in our efforts to be so careful about doing exactly what God has said to do, we ruin perfectly simple commands with all sorts of convoluted logic.  I recently heard one of those old notions again:  since we cannot pray 24 hours a day, “Pray without ceasing,” must mean to be in a prayerful attitude all the time.  When I was a child I never did understand that, but I assumed I would when I grew up.  I still don’t.  It says “pray,” not be in a prayerful attitude, and exactly what is a prayerful attitude anyway?  I know for a fact that you cannot be in a prayerful attitude 24 hours a day any more than you can pray like that.

Have you ever tried to play a 40 page Beethoven sonata from memory?  Believe me; trying to remember the fingering and the notes, not to mention getting the nuances just right, takes all the concentration you can muster.  How about singing German lieder?  As an American who does not speak the language, trying not only to remember words that sound like gibberish to me, but knowing when the “ch” sound is a frontward cat hiss and when it is a backward throat scrape, takes all the brain power I have.  I am sure that some of the things you do take equal concentration—one cannot do them and pray at the same time, nor even have a prayerful attitude.  And I defy anyone to have a prayerful attitude while he is asleep!

One of the works of the Holy Spirit was to take God’s words and put them into words we humans could understand, 1 Cor 2:6-13. The way to understand 1Thes 5:17 is simply to use words and phrases the way they are ordinarily used.

Suppose you have a checkup with your doctor.  He says your cholesterol and blood pressure are both up, and asks, “Have you stopped taking your medicine?  Have you stopped exercising?”  No, you tell him, but instead of believing you he says, “How can you lie to me like that?  I am standing right here in front of you and you are neither exercising nor taking your medicine at this very moment!”  I hope you would get a new doctor immediately because you certainly cannot communicate with this one.  You have not stopped taking your medicine because you still take every dose on schedule.  You have not stopped exercising because you walk every morning.  Nothing has caused you to change those habits.  Just because you are not doing it at that particular moment does not mean you have “ceased,” and anyone with common sense would know that.

How about a Biblical example?  Daniel prayed three times a day, Dan 6:10.  When his enemies tricked the king into making the law that anyone caught praying to anyone besides him would be cast into a den of lions, did Daniel cease to pray?  We all know he did not. He still prayed three times a day.

So the passage means “Don’t stop praying.”  If you begin to have one problem after another, don’t blame it on God and stop praying.  If unbelievers make fun of you, calling you a superstitious fool for believing in a higher power, don’t be embarrassed and stop praying.   If you have great successes, don’t start relying on yourself, forgetting that God can take it away in a flash--remember the great privilege you have, and don’t stop praying.  Pray without ceasing.
 
Bow down your ear, Oh Jehovah, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.  Preserve my soul, for I am godly. Oh my God, save your servant, who trusts in you.  Be merciful unto me, O God, for I cry unto you all day long, Psalm 86:1-3.
 
Dene Ward
0 Comments

Thy Will Be Done

9/1/2020

0 Comments

 
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, Matt 6:10.
            All my life I have thought of this in a passive sense.  I pray for something, just as the Lord did in Matt 26:39, 42, and then add, “But thy will be done,” as if God is the only one who is expected to do His will.  Then suddenly one day I thought, “Doing God’s will is the simple definition for obedience.”  If I am praying for His will to be done, I have an obligation to do that will myself.
            I cannot pray, “Thy will be done” if I look at one of his commands and say, “But God wouldn’t mind if…”  I can’t expect an answer to my prayers if my answer to His will is, “I do well at everything else and this is such a small thing.”  If I do not obey in even one instance I am not doing His will.
            So I did a quick little study.  I may have thought that “God’s will” had more to do with what He does, but I was wrong.  Notice the following.
            “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, Matt 7:21.  A lot of people out there go around doing “good deeds,” but if doing God’s will doesn’t come first, it isn’t worth a thing.
            For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother, Matt 12:50.  You are not in the Lord’s family if you are finding excuses for your disobedience.
            Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work, John 4:34    If you want to follow in his footsteps, doing the Father’s will must become an essential of life, every bit as much as food.
            If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority, John 7:17.  You can’t go around claiming to know and teach about Jesus if you are not obeying the Father.
            Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, Rom 12:2.  The only way to know God’s will is to change your life.
            For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, 1Thess 4:3.  You are not doing the Father’s will if you are engaging in sexual sins of any kind.
            Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, 1Thess 5:18. You are not doing God’s will if you are whining and complaining about your station in life, about your trials, about the suffering you must deal with, especially those due to your faith.
            For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised, Heb 10:36.  It isn’t always easy to do the Father’s will and the task is never completed.  One good deed doesn’t mean your work is finished.
            [God will] equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen, Heb 13:21.  No matter how hard it seems, he will see that you have whatever you need to do His will.  If you didn’t manage to do it, it was your fault, not His.
            The next time you end a prayer, “Thy will be done,” remember that you are as much responsible for that as He is.  If you aren’t willing to do His will in every aspect of your life, why should He believe you mean it when you pray?  And why should He do what YOU want, when you won’t do what HE wants?
 
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God, 1Pet 4:1-2.
 
Dene Ward
0 Comments

Meatballs

7/16/2019

3 Comments

 
It’s one of those recipes you don’t really like to admit that you use, especially if you have a reputation for baking from scratch or cooking multi-course meals for your anniversary dinner, meals like a leek and Swiss chard tart as an appetizer, an entrée of veal shanks with sage over polenta with broccoli rabe, ending with pear croustade in a hazelnut crust.  Somehow this recipe doesn’t fit into that mold.
 
             But once in awhile life gets hectic, stressed, entirely too busy, and you find yourself needing a dish for a potluck with exactly one hour to cook it and no extra time for much prep.  So then I pull out this three can, two bottle, two bag recipe, dump it all in a pot and go on with my life.  I have learned not to let it bother me when this stuff gets more raves than another recipe I spent six hours on.  I have also learned not to tell anyone what’s in it until they taste it because it is truly a weird concoction, but oh, so good.

              Those Party Meatballs, as the recipe calls them, have been my salvation more than once.  Sometimes we need something easy instead of something elaborate.  If it meets the need and is just as tasty, who cares?  There will be plenty more times for elegant three layer cakes and brined, crusted. herb-infused entrees.

              God understands that, too.  When I was very young I thought you couldn’t pray except at certain times, using certain phrases, making sure it was long and full of heavy, theological words and concepts, usually from the King James Version.  Why I thought that I don’t know.  The Bible is full of examples of people praying in all sorts of situations, all sorts of postures, long prayers, short prayers, prayers of profundity and simple prayers of just a few words.  Maybe that was the problem:  I just hadn’t studied enough myself.  All I had done was listen to what others told me.

              Now I know better.  Now I know that in the middle of a crisis I can send up a quick prayer for control, for calm, for an easy resolution.  I don’t always need an opening salutation, I can just say, “Help me, Lord.”  I don’t have to preface everything with my own unworthiness.  Usually in the middle of a problem, that is already on my mind anyway and God knows it just as well as I do. 

              I don’t have to find a quiet spot alone.  I can talk to God in the middle of a milling crowd if my child has wandered off and I can’t immediately find him.  In fact, I can scream to Him if I want to.  God understands if there isn’t time to hunt up a closet right now.  In fact, He is more than pleased that I think of Him first in trying circumstances.  He is thrilled that my relationship with Him can be so spontaneous.  There will be other times for reverence.

              God makes it easy for you to talk to Him.  People who have set up word and posture requirements, with ideological notions of “propriety,” are the ones who make it difficult to approach God.  He went to a lot of trouble and pain and sacrifice to make Himself available at any time in any circumstance. 

              You may not want Party Meatballs all the time, but when the time is short and the need is urgent, they will do just fine.  We certainly need lengthy times of humility and reverence in our approach to God.  But God also made a simple way for us when we need Him quickly.  Don’t let anyone mess with His recipe.
 
May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you! May those who love your salvation say evermore, "God is great!" But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay! Psalms 70:4-5.
 
For the recipe accompanying this post click Dene's Recipes on the left sidebar.
 
Dene Ward
3 Comments

Dancin' in the Fryin' Pan

6/5/2019

0 Comments

 
I thought it was just because I was a classical voice teacher who, since I live in a rural county in the South, spent a lot of time on diction--clean enunciation, and particularly those wide Southern diphthongs.  What is the point of singing if no one can understand the words?  So I thought it was just because I was sensitive to it that I kept noticing that I could not understand the words in a lot of pop music.  Finally, one day when the boys were playing a “Best Of…” tape in the car, I asked them, “Is he really saying ‘dancin’ in the fryin’ pan?’”
 
           “No, mom.  It’s dancin’ an’ prancin,’” accompanied by exaggerated eye rolls and head shakes as only teenagers can.

            Recently I discovered a whole website devoted to “Misheard Lyrics.”  I feel vindicated at last.

            But pop music is not the problem.  The singers are the problem.  Most of us can tell stories of our children just beginning to sing our hymns and the often hilarious mistakes they make.

            In the middle of the grocery store one morning, three year old Nathan said, “Sing the song about the sandals, mom.”

            “Sandals?  A church song?”

            “Yes.  All other ground is sinking sandals, other ground is sinking sand.”

            Lucas at the same age asked his grandfather to sing the song about the peas.  “He whispers sweet peas to me.”  And a few months later I heard him singing, “When the roll is called under the water.”

            Do you wonder if God has the same problem understanding our singing?  Not as long as we sing and make melody with our hearts, Eph 5:19, rather than muttering half-memorized words on automatic pilot.  What about our prayers?

            Once in a women’s class, a dear friend was praying and had trouble with a certain phrase.  No matter how she tried, it kept coming out backwards to what she intended.  Finally she just said, “Lord, you know what I mean!”

            Of course He does.  Why was that such a revelation and comfort to me?  Because we spend so much time legislating prayer, telling folks which person of the Godhead they can and cannot pray to, what things they can and cannot ask for, and what things they MUST say if they expect their prayer to get past the ceiling when the real problem is, we don’t pray enough.  No wonder!  Everyone’s afraid of doing it wrong.  Just as the Pharisees made the Law of Moses a burden (Matt 23:4), we are making what should be one of our greatest comforts in this life, a burden instead. 

            Just pray!  We have an intercessor, a mediator who is on our side and pleads our cases.  He is not standing their just waiting to stamp my particular prayer, “Disqualified!” and send it back unheard.  There are no misheard prayers in Heaven.
 
For there is one God, one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all…1 Tim 2:3.4a
And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.  Rom 8:27
These things says the Son of God…I am he who searches the reins and the hearts…Rev 2:18,23
 
Dene Ward

0 Comments

September 2, 1666--Fire Extinguishers

9/3/2018

1 Comment

 
The Great Fire of London began on the morning of September 2, 1666 in the home of King Charles II's baker.  By September 6, when the fire was finally put out, 80% of London had been destroyed.  You can read a lot about that fire on history sites, but I want to focus on this today:  In that fire they used something called a "squirt," a device similar to a bicycle pump that was first used on fires in the Middle Ages.  A nozzle was placed in a container of water and a plunger pulled to suck water up into the "well" of the squirt.  It was then directed toward the fire and sprayed out.  Sort of slow going for a real fire, don't you think?  Imagine if the king's baker had had a modern fire extinguisher in his home.  London might have been saved.

             We have two fire extinguishers in the house, one behind the woodstove at the edge of the kitchen and one in a back bedroom.  They have been there so long that I don’t even notice them any more.  In fact, when I think to look at them at all, it’s to dust them because “suddenly” they look like they have grown white fur.

              Fire extinguishers are great to have around, but let’s face it, they aren’t part of a beautiful decor.  They aren’t a handy item we use everyday like a coffee pot or a can opener.  They aren’t even a once a year need like my pressure canner—at least we hope not.  The only reason we have them is “just in case,” and we want that “just in case” to never happen.  We treat fire extinguishers more like necessary evils than anything else.

              I noticed something when we studied Psalm 99 in Bible class the other day.  [Speaking of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel] In the pillar of the cloud [God] spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings, vv 7-8.

              Those two verses contain everything we need to know about who can pray to God and expect an answer.  First God spoke to them.  They listened by keeping His testimonies and statutes.  Then God answered them.

              Those three righteous men did not treat God like a fire extinguisher.  He wasn’t there just for emergencies.  He was part of their lives on a daily basis as they followed His laws and prayed for help and forgiveness.

              The psalmist is careful to point out that these men were among those “who call upon His name” (v 6).   They were not the only ones chosen to receive this blessing.  Many others “called upon His name.”  That goes for us as well.  We possess His testimonies and statutes in the written form.  All we have to do is keep them, making God a daily part of our lives, and He will hear us just like He heard them.

              The problem comes when we try to make a relationship out of one phone call, so to speak.  If we never talk to God otherwise, or more to the point, listen, He won’t listen either.  If we ignore His law with impunity, going our own headstrong way, He won’t answer—not according to Psalm 99, and several other passages (Prov 15:29; 28:9; Isa 59:2; John 9:31, etc).  We’ve seen too many heart-tugging made-for-TV movies where the old reprobate turns around at a crisis and promises God he will be good if God will just hear him this once.  God does not bargain, unless you think you are a man of the stature of Abraham, who talked with God regularly instead of treating Him like a fire extinguisher.  More often than not, old reprobates stay that way.

              Now is the time to begin that relationship, or deepen it if you already have.  If we keep God behind the woodstove until He grows some dusty fur, we needn’t think He will pay a bit of attention when we holler.
 
As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear, says the LORD of hosts, Zech 7:13.

Dene Ward
1 Comment

Tornado Warning

5/24/2018

0 Comments

 
About thirty years ago, we awoke one Saturday morning to ominous gray skies and strong winds.  The forecast for the day made it dangerous to be out, so we called those we had invited for a singing that afternoon and canceled.  Instead of walking to the paper box, about a quarter mile down our driveway, Keith drove the car, and as huge, plopping raindrops began falling, parked it next to the front door when he returned.
            A few minutes later, he looked out the window by the table where he sat reading the paper and sipping a cup of coffee.  Something in his manner made me look too, but I didn’t see anything. 
            “Get the boys,” he said very quietly, “and go crouch down in the middle of the house.  Cover your faces.”  I did exactly as he said, unquestioningly.  He grew up in the Arkansas mountains, and he knew about things I had no experience with.  A few minutes later it was all over with.  What “all” was, I still did not realize.  The power had gone out, but we were still intact. 
            We stepped out of the house, and the hay barn across the field no longer had a roof.  Several water oaks and wild cherry trees were down on the long drive to the highway.  A large chinaberry had fallen right where the car had originally been parked before he decided to drive for the paper instead of walking.  It would have been flattened.
            Then we edged around the corner of the house on our bedroom side, and saw the worst of it.  A huge live oak had split.  Half had fallen on the power lines, but the line was still alive, wiggling and sparking on the ground.  The other half, its roots mostly out of the ground, leaned right over our bedroom.  We had no idea how long it would hold before it too fell and demolished our house.
            We called the power company immediately and they rushed out to take care of the live wire, but they had too many other calls to send someone to handle the tilting tree.  We would have to wait our turn.  Word gradually spread down the highway, and within an hour, two men who worked timber drove up with cables and chainsaws, and those two men, who were complete strangers to us, took the tree down safely and with no damage.  We thanked them profusely.  “That’s what neighbors are for,” they said, and off they went.
            A preacher friend who had been invited to the sing never got the message to cancel.  He showed up amid the raucous roar of chainsaws, and heard the whole story.  It impressed him enough to include it in a lesson on prayer and providence.  The people in the audience were not impressed.  Afterward they took him aside and scolded him.  “God does not act in the world today,” they reminded him.  He was astounded, and so were we.
            When we become so intent on exposing false doctrine that we blatantly ignore the truth, swinging the pendulum so far back that we miss it entirely, something is wrong with our perspective.  If God had no hand in what happened that day, then why do we bother to pray at all?  Do we not believe James? 
            “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” 5:16. 
            Do we not believe the book of Esther or the last 14 chapters of Genesis?  “God sent me,” Joseph told his brothers who had thought it was all their idea, and God continued to “send” Joseph through Potiphar’s wife, the baker and butler, and eventually Pharaoh himself.
            God spent much of the prophets talking about how He would work through the enemies of Israel.  “Ho Assyrian! The rod of my anger!  The staff of my fury is in his hand,” Isa 10:5.  God sent those Assyrians to punish Israel, just as certainly as He sent those two lumberjacks to save my home.  He did it because of the prayers I started the moment I saw that look in my husband’s eye, the moment I crouched on the floor trying to shield my little boys with my own body, the moment we saw that tree clinging to the pitifully few clods of dirt left on its roots.
            I will never believe otherwise.  In fact, why do we bother if we don’t believe it?
 
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. Psalms 145:18-19

0 Comments

Coreopsis Out of Place

5/10/2018

0 Comments

 
We first encountered a coreopsis when we planted several packets of wildflowers and a few sprang up along the edge of our mown field.   These two foot high plants held bright yellow ray flowers on bare stalks above lance shaped leaves.  “Tickseed” I found as its colloquial name because its hard flat black fruit resembles a tick.
 
             Although they still spring up here and there nearly fifteen years after that original planting, they are sparse and tend to congregate on the southern edge of the field, shining like the occasional light bulb in a sea of green grass and weeds.  They had just started blooming in early May when I spent my entire morning walk with Chloe talking to God about a particularly thorny issue.  I had just asked for what seemed impossible. 

              It has taken me years to reach this point.  The church of my day spent nearly its entire existence fighting false doctrines, certainly a noble cause.  False teaching can steal souls as easily as the temptations of an increasingly carnal culture.  But we often forgot to balance those teachings with the truth, jumping far beyond it to a place of certain safety, where we were so far from the ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing that we fell into the pit of despair instead.  Yes, miracles have ceased, but that doesn’t mean that God no longer works in the world or that my prayers will not be answered.  Yes, the Holy Spirit operates through the Word He inspired, but that doesn’t meant that I will not receive help from an avenue He has set in motion.  Providence, we call all of those things—normal natural occurrences that seem to come at the most opportune times.

              And so I was walking along the path, pulling my way with those now ubiquitous trekking poles of mine, along the back fence, probably fifty feet from the nearest--and loneliest--coreopsis, turning on its southwest side by a stretch where we had sown none of them, and none had ever before appeared.  When things do spread, they always go north-northwest, certainly never south, especially in the summer.  Yet suddenly, right there before me stood a bright yellow beacon where it should not have been.  It was so unexpected I came to a complete halt and called Chloe over, as if she too should have cared.  Coming as it did so surprisingly, just after that impossible request, I was instantly reminded that God can do the impossible, and my spirits soared.

              No, I am not a mystic, or a believer in such things.  But I am reminded of a sermon Jesus preached once, where it seems he glanced up and surely must have seen a flock of birds on the wing, so he said, “Behold the birds of the heavens,” and a few minutes later when he surely must have seen a nearby patch of flowers and said, “Consider the lilies of the field.”  Jesus had no problem at all using the natural world to teach His lessons.  Why can’t I use the natural world to remind me of lessons I need at a particular time?

              I have a friend who loves butterflies.  As she endures cancer treatment she often says, “God sent me a butterfly today.”  She had looked outside and seen one flitting around in her flowerbeds.  That butterfly reminded her that God cares for her, just as Jesus reminds us, Look at the birds of the heavens, that they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you of much more value than they? Matt 6:26. 

              God has created an amazing natural world to teach us if we will but pay attention.  Solomon used that natural world in the wisdom God gave him.  And he spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fishes. 1 Kings 4:32-33.  If we deny this creation of God its ability to edify and encourage, how are we any different from the pagan who denies that it proves God’s very existence in the first place?

              Pay attention to what lies outside your door today, the birds and lilies, the butterflies and the out of place, bright yellow coreopsis.  As it turns out, God did answer my impossible prayer that day, in almost exactly the way I had asked.  Who am I to try to explain that away?
 
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God," Mark 10:27
 
Dene Ward
 
0 Comments

April 3, 1973--Cell Phones

4/3/2018

0 Comments

 
We resisted as long as we could.  No cell phones for us.  It was not in our budget and we could live without one.  Then suddenly it became more important for me to be able to reach someone should I have an eye emergency, should I have an unexpected procedure at the clinic that made me unable to drive, or should I find myself unable to see well enough to get home, as often happens these days, especially in the afternoon.  Phone booths had virtually disappeared, and even that remedy was no longer available.  So we bought the cheapest flip phone we could find with a prepaid card for 60 minutes.  When I see these "wonderful" prices on TV for family plans that still run several hundred dollars a month I shake my head in confusion.  Ours costs us about $6.67 a month.

              Cell phones have come a long way.  The first phone call ever made from a handheld mobile phone happened on April 3, 1973.  Dr. Joel S Engel, a Motorola executive, made that call using a phone that was 23 cm long, 13 deep, and weighed 1.1 kg.  For those who are like me, that's 9+ inches long, 5+ inches deep, and about 2 ½ lbs, a little bigger and heavier than two one pound boxes of brown sugar fastened together.  But even as far as they have come, there are still issues.

              I tried to call Keith from the doctor’s office the other day.  I had just stepped out of the elevator and was standing in an enclosed “breezeway” between the bank of elevators and the eye clinic, lined with windows and a view of the city from four floors up.  The little screen on the phone showed “Calling work,” then suddenly switched back to the home screen.  I never did hear it ring on the other end.  I tried twice more but both times the phone stayed silent. 

              I knew I had called from that site before, so I stepped a few paces to the left and tried again.  This time I got a rough ring on the other end and Keith picked up.   We still had a difficult conversation between the phone connection losing every other word of his and him being so deaf that even an amplifier is not an instant cure, but at least we communicated the necessities—I had managed to make another trip into town without running over anyone or anyone running into me.

              Sometimes we have difficulty making connections with God, and usually that is our fault—we are standing in the wrong place. 
 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isa 59:2
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear, Psa 66:18.
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness, Deut 32:20.
 
              We overstate the matter, and miss the point entirely, when we say God only hears Christians.  He heard Cornelius’s prayer before he was converted, Acts 10:4.  God answered that “prayer of a sinner,” not with the instant forgiveness promised by televangelists today, but by sending Peter to preach the gospel, Acts 11:14, “words whereby you shall be saved.”

              The passages listed above were all said of people who claimed to be children of God, “children in whom there is no faithfulness,” yet people we would have called “believers” today.  Faithfulness involves dependent trust.  When God’s people in the Old Testament began relying on the gods of their pagan neighbors, participating in their worship, while at the same time claiming to worship him, he had them carried into captivity as a punishment.

              What are you relying on besides God?  Whatever it is, it stands between you and the connection you so badly need to help you handle life’s difficulties.  If you pray and pray and pray, yet still feel deserted by God, look around.  Are you standing behind a pillar of self-reliance?  Do you count your financial preparations as the ultimate security?  Do you look at the life you have led thus far and find yourself so completely satisfied with your efforts that you think you have salvation “in the bag?”  Security in the promises of God is one thing—arrogance and self-righteousness is quite another.  When we trust in anything besides God, we have become the same faithless children as those ancient Jews.

              God never tells us that life will be easy.  He never says that nothing bad will happen to us as long as we are faithful.  What he does tell us, is that as long as we rely on him alone, he will not forsake us.  He will give us the help we need to get through the tough times, and ultimately to the eternal salvation that will make this life look like a mere blink of the eye.

              Are you having a difficult time making a connection with God these days?  Take a step or two in the right direction, and suddenly the signal will become loud and clear.
 
And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on you…Oh Jehovah you are our God, 2 Chron 14:11.
 
Dene Ward
0 Comments

February 8, 1587 Decoding Specialists

2/8/2018

0 Comments

 
I used to wonder why Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded.  I never knew the whole story and to me she was always a victim, never a criminal.  Now I know better.
              Mary ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1549 when she was 6 days old.  She was educated in the courts of France and returned to resume her place as monarch at the age of 17, already a widow.  In 1565 she married her English cousin in order to reinforce her claim to the English throne after Elizabeth's death.  But over the next couple of years she became a focal point in several plots to overthrow Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was forced to put her under house arrest, even though she counted her a friend.
              In 1586 a major plot to kill Elizabeth was uncovered and Mary was found complicit and beheaded on February 8, 1587, thanks to the discovery of a coded letter she sent to her co-conspirator Anthony Babington. 
              Codes have been used at least as far back as Julius Caesar, who used a simple alphabetic code.  Mary's code was the type called "frequency analysis."  It depends upon the number of times certain letters are used in the language.  In English, E is the most common letter, T the second most, and A the third, etc.  By looking at the message, the cryptologist can crack the code when he sees how many times certain symbols are used.  They tell me it's simple math.  Well, math maybe, but not necessarily simple to me.
              On the other hand…  
            Before he was a year old, Silas started talking.  Sometimes I knew what he was saying and sometimes I didn’t.  For some reason he said, “Bear,” over and over and over.  He and another toddler at church carried on quite a conversation across the aisle with just that one word.  But there was no question at all what he meant when he looked across the room, spied Brooke, then smiled, held out both arms and said, “Mamamamamamama,” as he toddled across the floor.  No, he was not saying, “Mama.”  He was saying, “There is the most important person in the world.”  Then he looked at Nathan, pointed to the ceiling and said, “Up!”  No, that didn’t mean, “Pick me up.”  It meant, “Throw me up in the air as high as you can,” something he loved for his daddy to do.
              Mothers can decode better than anyone.  When Lucas was eleven months old, he had already been walking five or six weeks.  He often padded to the refrigerator, hung on to the door, and said, “Dee.”  That meant, “I want a drink, please.”  Nathan, at thirteen months, would hold out his biscuit half and say, “Buuuuh.”  (Pronounce that like the word “burr” but without the “r,” and draw the “u” out as long as possible.)  That meant, “Please put more butter on my biscuit so I can lick it off again.”  Needless to say, he only got a little dab of butter at a time.
              Marriages have special codes too.  “Are you wearing that?” could mean a lot of different things, depending upon the marriage.  In some it means, “I don’t like that outfit.”  In ours it means, “Oh, so I guess I can’t wear my blue jeans, huh?”  Relationships may be about communication, but that does not mean they are about hearing; they are about knowing what the words you hear mean.  Sometimes people decide they mean what they want them to mean instead of what they really do mean, and that can lead to all sorts of problems.
              Jesus is a specialist in decoding our words.  “He who searches the reins and the hearts” (Rev 2:23) can figure it out, no matter how awkwardly we phrase things.  We don’t have to worry about being eloquent in our prayers, about saying something that might be misunderstood or taken the wrong way.  People may do that, but our Lord never will.  He partook of humanity so he would understand the stresses we undergo and the turmoil they create in our minds.  He knows that things sometimes come out wrong, not because we are selfish or mean, but because we are anxious and distressed.  Isn’t that when we find ourselves talking to Him the most?
              Make a relationship with Him that will calm your worries.  Know that He is listening to your heart, not the inept words you sometimes utter.  Don’t worry about eloquence, just talk.  Let your prayers be a comfort to you today, not another source of worry.  That’s how a real relationship works.
 
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies, who is he who condemns?  It is Christ Jesus who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us…For there is one God, one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus, Rom 8:33,34; 1 Tim 2:5.
 
Dene Ward
0 Comments
<<Previous
    Picture
    Author
    Dene Ward has taught the Bible for more than  forty years, spoken at women’s retreats and lectureships, and has written both devotional books and class materials. She lives in Lake Butler, Florida, with her husband Keith.


    Categories

    All
    A Wives Series
    Bible People
    Bible Study
    Birds & Animals
    Camping
    Children
    Cooking Kitchen
    Country Life
    Discipleship
    Everyday Living
    Faith
    Family
    Gardening
    Grace
    Guest Writer
    History
    Holiness
    Humility Unity
    Materialism
    Medical
    Music
    Prayer
    Psalms
    Salvation
    Trials

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly