Flight Paths

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps, Matt 25:1-4.

Every time we hear this parable the same point is made—it was foolish to have no oil for their lamps.  But one thing has always struck me from the outset of this little story.  Why were they carrying lamps in the first place if they didn’t also pick up some oil?  It’s like carrying a gun in a dangerous place but no ammunition.  It’s like carrying a hair dryer to a primitive campsite.  It’s like peeling a five pound bag of potatoes with no pot to cook them in.  Why bother? 

Does that mean the story isn’t valid?  Nope.  I see those same foolish people every Sunday.  They get up early to come to church and sit on a pew and a listen to the preacher—but they have made no commitment to God, to their Lord, or to their brothers and sisters.  They do absolutely nothing all week long—no Bible reading, no praying, no serving.  They live exactly the way they want to live, and usually don’t get caught.  Or maybe they are relatively moral, having been taught by their parents to be good people—not because God requires righteousness of His servants.  In fact, God is the last person on their minds in every decision they make.

What’s going to happen when the trumpet sounds?  They will suddenly realize they did not bring any oil.  They carried a lamp every Sunday and somehow thought it would light itself or give off light simply because it was a lamp, or who knows what irrational reason. 

You know that word translated foolish?  It means “stupid.”  It’s the word moros.  Look familiar?  I think it’s the word we get “moron” from.  Don’t be a moron.  If you plan to carry a lamp, put some oil in it.  And, according to the parable, carry some extra.  Sitting on the pew never has saved anyone, and it won’t save you.

​“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. ​Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause, Isa 1:11-17.

Dene Ward

I have been a regular subscriber of several different cooking magazines for many years.  When we moved I let a couple of subscriptions go and I have had a lot of fun going through the older issues to discover recipes I never even tried because there were simply too many to get to in a month’s time.  One of those recipes was for Two Fat Biscuits. As you might suspect, the biscuits use two different shortenings—both butter and lard.  Finding the lard eventually required an Amazon order, but finally I was able to give this recipe a whirl. 

 I looked through the ingredients a little more carefully and immediately had misgivings.  What was said to make 9 biscuits required 4 1/2 cups of flour!  I have made biscuits for well over 50 years now and my usual recipe that produces about 8 biscuits, uses only 2 cups of flour!  What was up with these biscuits?  Must be something about the two fats, I thought, or something in the procedure that changes things somehow, so I kept on going.

 First, you chop both the butter and lard into half inch cubes and freeze them.  Well, that’s a nuisance, but I worked on the rest of the meal while the cubes sat in the freezer for the requisite 30 minutes.  Then you put them in the food processor with the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar (I never put sugar in my biscuits, but I was being very careful with this recipe).  When I turned on the food processor, it only took a couple of spins for the cubes to get caught under the blade and stop the whole thing!  I unplugged it, fixed the problem and tried again—only to have the same problem.  After a good dozen tries, I gave up and dumped it all into a large bowl and went at it with a pastry blender.  Nope, the cubes were too frozen.  Usually a recipe like this will tell you to keep cutting the flour into the fat(s) until it “looks like peas.”  Well, mine looked like overripe lima beans, but it was the best I could do.

 Next came the buttermilk and I experienced another “are you kidding me?” moment.  One and a quarter cups, the recipe said, for four cups of flour?  I ended up just as I thought I would—with a pile of dry crumbs.  By this point I was going on instinct.  I kept adding buttermilk—at least another half cup—until the crumbs became a dough I could pat out and cut.

 But wait!  We have another problem.  The picture showed the nine biscuits on an 11 x 7 sheet pan.  I looked at the mound of dough and thought, “unh, unh—cannot possibly fit.”  Yet I got out my pan, cut the dough exactly as told to and put the resulting biscuit behemoths on it.  25 minutes the recipe said, but I no longer questioned my intuition—I knew it would be longer. I also thought the biscuits would grow completely together.  That was the only thing I was wrong about, though they did get within an eighth inch of each other.  At the 32 minute mark, they were done enough, but I did worry about the one in the middle. 

 What I learned from that experience was to “trust my gut.”  After nearly 60 years of cooking and baking I have a pretty good idea of what will and won’t work.  Knowledge and experience will do that for you.

 May I suggest that the same is true of the Bible?  Read it.  Over and over, again and again, every day of your life.  When you know something that well, false doctrine will not be so likely to fool you, in fact; it will jump right out at you.  Something inside you will say, “This isn’t right.  This isn’t the God I have learned through His Word.  Let’s check this out before believing it and certainly before sharing it.”  God told His people that if a prophet told them something other than His Word, or lived a life contrary to His Word, that he was a false prophet and they should not listen to him (Deut 13 and 18).  That means the obligation is upon us to know His Word and through it to know Him.  Falling for false doctrine is simply inexcusable.

 Those biscuits tasted pretty good once I fixed all the problems with the recipe, but I will never follow that recipe again without considerable adjustment, adjustment that experience has taught me.  Now is the time to get that experience with God and His Word before someone hands you a recipe that will lead you to disaster.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness Eph 4:17-24

Dene Ward

 Before we were even a country, two families had a dispute about the boundary line between their lands, the Penns and the Calverts.  Eventually it led to actual violence at the borders, including an eight year conflict called Cresap’s War.  Finally the families hired Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, English astronomers and surveyors, to settle the matter, resulting in what is now the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, plus what would become West Virginia and Delaware.  Neither family got all of what they claimed; they both gave up ground.  We now know the line those men created as the Mason-Dixon line, a line which separated the North and the South during the Civil War.  (Smithsonian Magazine, May 25, 2017)

 It seems that people are always fussing about something.  Even in the early church, in a time when their unity was crucial, someone always found something to pick a fight about.  All of those people who had come for the Jewish holidays but wound up spending far more time than expected when they heard the gospel and believed, being baptized into that first group of Christians in Jerusalem, found themselves short of funds.  They had probably saved all year for the trip, and had left behind homes, businesses, and other assets, expecting to return home as soon as possible.  Staying in Jerusalem meant no work for many, and no way to feed their families.  Many sold lands and made huge donations to feed those families, but someone evidently saw and made a difference between the Jews who lived in Palestine and those who lived elsewhere in the world:   Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution Acts6:1.  Hellenists, mind you, were still Jews—they were just Jews from somewhere else.  “Somewhere else” has long been a source of trouble for many.  Remember in the Law God had to make sure He told His people to be kind to the “sojourners,” people living in the Promised Land temporarily.  Some of His people didn’t like that.

 Then, of course, once Gentiles were made part of the new kingdom people had issues with that.  “Well, I guess it’s okay, but they need to be good Jews first.”  At least that is the gist of the feelings—read Acts 15 and Galatians, especially.  Then in 1 Corinthians we find people creating groups over who baptized them and even who had which spiritual gift—”as if you had anything to do with which gift you received” Paul tells them, more or less, in 1 Cor 4:7. 

 The last great prayer Jesus left us with spends much of its time on this very topic, unity:  that they may be one even as we are one John 17:11.  And why is it so important?    That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent meJohn17:21.  A lack of unity will impede the great mission that the Lord gave His kingdom—saving the world.  If we are busy fussing and fighting among ourselves, why should anyone else want to join us?  And what a monumental waste of the precious time we have been given to complete the job.  It is nothing short of selfishness and arrogance to put our differences and preferences and opinions ahead of the commands of the Lord to go and teach, and make disciples.

 If you are seeing differences between you and a brother or sister in the Lord, fix it now.  You do not want to have to explain your refusal to do so to a Lord who gave up everything for you.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise Gal3: 28,29

Dene Ward

Sometimes the people who become involved in prison ministries are too idealistic.  They wind up being taken advantage of by the very people they are trying to save, usually because those people see that idealism and know exactly how to exploit it.  Either those idealists become disenchanted and leave the field entirely, or they learn a little pragmatism—they become adept at recognizing the signs and usually avoid being manipulated.  Keith has been working with convicted felons for a long time, so he knows exactly how to deal with them.  First as a probation officer, then a classifications officer, and now as a volunteer Bible class teacher, he has learned to read his audience fairly well.

 “But has all this work ever resulted in anything good?” someone asked once.

 Well, besides the lives that he has influenced for the better, the young men who have learned a little self-discipline and gotten good jobs and become good citizens—and there were a few—besides that, many have become Christians and useful members of the Lord's body.  You should see the surprised looks when I mention that.

 And here is the thing that might surprise you more.  The larger problem when this happens is wondering how the brethren will receive such a one.  In one place we lived, the church found out we might possibly have a newly released, and newly baptized, ex-convict among us and they were not happy at all.  We heard comments ranging from, “I won’t ever allow myself to be alone with him,” to, “I don’t want him around my children.”

 Reminds me a little of Acts 9:26:  And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.  Yes, a murderer had come into their midst and they didn’t want to have anything to do with him.  In fact, this man had seen to the deaths of their very own friends and relatives.  Their fear and loathing sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

 But not to Barnabas.  He took that man around and assured everyone that he had changed.  Did he know him better than they?  Not that I can tell from any reading I’ve ever found.  He did not know Saul of Tarsus from Levi of Persepolis.  What he did know was his Savior and the power of his gospel.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes… Rom 1:16.

 And the more our culture becomes like the culture of that time, the more likely that we will not be dealing with upstanding middle class nuclear families when we evangelize, but with people who come to us with immoral backgrounds, with addictions, and with criminal records.  Or know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you… 1Cor 6:9-11.

 And it will be up to us to show them that we truly believe the rest of that citation:  but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God. 

 We talk a good fight when we talk about “God saving me, the sinner,” and how we don’t deserve our salvation and need the grace of God, “just like everyone else.”  But too often there is an exception clause in our thinking.  The Lord has made it perfectly clear through his brother James, murder equals adultery equals prejudice (James 2:8-11).  The same law says they are all sin.  None of us will be a step ahead of our brothers with convictions on their records when we stand before God.  We have all been washed, sanctified and justified, and we will all be judged “as we judge others.”

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Jas 2:13

Dene Ward

A few mornings back Keith and I took our last cup of coffee to the carport and sat in our nylon lounge chairs, the kind with the attached pillow you can flip over the back if you do not care to use it. We did use them, both of us, and leaned back, watching the mockingbird flit back and forth to its nest in the bloom-laden rose trellis and the hummingbirds guard their two feeders like Fort Knox. A couple of squirrels ran along the “highway,” a route they use every day from one live oak top to another, down the limbs and across the fence.  Off in the distance a hawk screamed, a rooster crowed, and a wild turkey gobbled.  Occasionally we flipped a treat out for Chloe to chase.  It was still the middle of spring, cool and bugless, humidity low for a Florida morning, low enough that the scent of jasmine reached us from the vine 75 feet down the drive. 

After twenty minutes or so, we got up to start our morning. As soon as Keith stood, a snake slithered out from under his pillow, down the back of the chair and dropped onto the carport. Our chairs are only six inches apart. If that thing had stuck its head out between us from under the pillow, judging by the roar when he saw it, Keith might have had a heart attack, and I might still be running.  Talk about “Flight Paths”—I would have made a good one.

Guess what we do every morning now?  That’s right. We flip those pillows back and look under them before we sit down.  People say habits are hard to break.  We didn’t have a bit of trouble breaking ourselves of sitting down before we looked.  Depends upon the motivation, I guess.  Maybe that’s why we have such a hard time breaking ourselves of sinful habits—we enjoy them too much, or we just don’t think they are that important.

From another perspective, we didn’t have a bit of trouble creating a new habit either.  Same reason—motivation.  I really do not want to think about a snake lying under the pillow I am leaning my head against, or the possibility of it slithering down my back, do you?

So why can’t we make new habits to rid ourselves of that besetting sin in our lives?  Can’t I learn to pray for self-control before I leave the house when I know I have trouble behind the wheel?  Can’t I learn to recite a few passages about longsuffering and kindness just before I walk into a meeting with that particularly obnoxious colleague?  Can’t I learn to avoid situations that I know will tempt me instead of purposefully putting my soul in harm’s way?  Of course I can, if I care enough, if I believe God would want me to do so, if I think of Him instead of me and my stubborn will. 

AND, if I believe that Satan is real, that he is out there trying to find a way to make me fall.  He is, you know.  He is right under that pillow, waiting for you to sit down without a care in the world and lean your vulnerable neck back into reach of his fangs.

Change a habit today.  LOOK! before you sit down.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Rom 13:14

Dene Ward

I sat by the window today and marveled at the birds that had come to my feeder—the usual cardinals, titmice and chickadees, plus two kinds of doves, a wren, four catbirds, dozens of sparrows, a small flock of brown-headed cowbirds, a painted bunting, two goldfinch couples, a few pine warblers, a yellow-rumped warbler, new to the group this year, and a hummingbird buzzing above them all at his own special watering hole.  All these on the same day and that’s not all just in the past week.  We even had a ring-nosed gull drop by yesterday.

 What may be the most satisfying is seeing those we can recognize from times past.    Remember the cardinal with the broken wing?  He kept coming back for well over a year.  It has only been the past month or so that we haven’t seen him and it may well be he has lived out his lifespan, but he lived it far longer and better for coming here to fill his plate, heal, and grow strong again. His wing was never quite straight after his mishap, but it grew plenty strong enough to fly him where he needed to go. He wasn’t the first sad and sick bird we have had.  You may remember the one-legged sparrow, and the brewer’s blackbird that was left behind when her flock flew northwest again—she was too sick to join them.

 I wonder what God sees when He looks out on His “feeder.”  We forget, I’m afraid, what our lives were like when we decided to take Him up on His offer. The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; ​to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified (Isa 61:1-3).

It is too easy, when life has taken a good turn and we are so much healthier in spirit, to think it might possibly have been our own doing.  He is the one who comforted our mourning, who gave us a garland to replace our ashes, who took away our spirits of heaviness and gave us the oil of joy and a garment of praise (Isa 61:2,3) to replace the sackcloth life had thrown on us.

 The Lord came looking for us at the worst time of our lives, and because of that we now live in the best times, no matter what our physical circumstances may be.  We were all bruised reeds, but with tenderness and care He granted us the greatest of gifts, a spiritual healing that is eternal.  It is right to praise Him, to stand in awe, and to marvel.  But once in a while it wouldn’t hurt to remember the broken wings, the near fatal spiritual illnesses, the missing pieces of our hearts that He restored and what it cost.  Maybe our healed wings stay a little bent just to remind us where we were and what might have been without His amazing love.

 And always, we need to look for the others who need Him too.  There is room on the feeder for as many weak, sick, and dying birds as we can bring with us.  And then He can look with satisfaction one day on those who laid their burdens on Him, who allowed Him to care for them, who accepted His offer of love and grace.  And together we can marvel for Eternity.

Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry, nor lift up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth. Isa 42:1-3

Dene Ward

 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth . And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood  Gen 7:6,7. 

I have missed this for decades and I bet you have too.  Noah was 600 when the flood began.  Now back up into chapter 6 of Genesis.  Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years” Gen 6:3.  Most commentaries believe this means that from that time God would wait 120 years before the flood came.  Noah had that long to build the ark and be “a preacher of righteousness,” as Peter calls him in 2 Peter 2:5.  That means he was 480 when God told him about the Flood. Now here is the interesting thing:  Noah did not have his first child until he was 500 years old, Gen 5:32.  That means that he and his wife knew for 20 years that the world was so wicked that God was going to destroy it in the foreseeable (for them) future, yet they had the faith to conceive and raise three righteous sons.

 How many Christians have you heard say that they were not going to have children because of how wicked the world was?  Maybe not often, but in my lifetime at least three or four couples or individuals have told me that or asked my opinion about it  In Noah’s day, it wasn’t just a wicked world.  It was a completely wicked world.  God only found eight to save, a fact Peter states in each of his epistles, 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:5.  Their world was, according to Moses, “only evil continually” Gen 6:5.  Yet they not only brought children into it, they successfully raised them when, if anyone had an excuse not to do so, they did.

 If Noah and his wife could do it in a world like that, surely we can do it now.  At least this world has more than 8 righteous people in it, and I know a few others who may not sit on a pew with you, but are still good and decent people.  In our North Florida home, we had some pretty wonderful neighbors.

   If the state of this world causes you to do anything, it should cause you not to avoid having those children but to be especially diligent about how you raise them, like their souls depended upon it because, even if this world is not as bad as Noah’s, they still do. 

...when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water1Pet 3:19,20.

Dene Ward

Lucas lives five minutes from the beach.  On our first visit we drove across Santa Rosa Sound and strolled the white sand beach, watching the sandpipers’ maniacal little legs dodging the last remnant of a wave as it crept across the shiny wet sand, and looked across the emerald green water for the first sign of a dolphin breaking the surface while the seagulls screamed overhead hoping for an errant crust or dropped crumb.  We plodded along, our feet sinking into the mud, leaning into westerly winds that would blow the curls right out of your hair, our words caught just as they slipped out of our mouths and blown away like dust bunnies in a fan.

We weren’t alone.  Pale-skinned tourists in floppy sunhats scoured the beach for shells.  Children played tag with the waves.  Older tweens and teens, their hands and legs breaded with sand, carried pails of mud for sandcastles and sculptures, and gathered shells and driftwood for ornamentation.  Lovers of all ages strolled hand in hand, eyes only for one another.

Condos line the beach, ten or more stories of glittering glass reflecting the sun, balconies furnished with umbrella-ed tables and cushioned chairs and potted plants of the sort than can tolerate the sun, the heat, and the salt spray that constantly drifts over the narrow spit of land between the surf and the sound.

“Wonder what one of those costs?” we often ask, telling ourselves we would never tire of the view and the calming rhythm of waves pounding the shore again and again and again.

But guess what?  Before long we’d had enough and we piled back into the car for the five minute drive back to the apartment.  The first time we visited, we walked on the beach three times in three days, but soon it was down to one almost obligatory visit, and this past visit?  We didn’t go a single time.

It’s easy to get used to things.  When we moved to Illinois for two years, I saw snow for the first time in my 21 years of life.  Guess who was out playing in it, digging tunnels through eave-high drifts, throwing snowballs with mittened hands, and building snowmen?  All of our neighbors stayed inside where it was warm, peering through their blinds at the crazy people from Florida.

A few weeks ago a YouTube video went viral.  It pictured something not often seen these days—a young man helping a poor, elderly woman check out in a grocery line one item at a time because she was not sure she had enough money, and doing it with patience, respect, and kindness.  Isn’t it sad that something like that has become so rare that, just like a landlubber at the beach or a Floridian in the snow, everyone stops in their tracks to look?

And isn’t it sad that some Christians need the example that young man set?  Giving courtesy and respect where it is deserved and even where it isn’t, yielding our rights, speaking with kindness, affording others the right to make the same mistakes we do without incurring our wrath, and realizing that not everyone operates on OUR timetables—THAT should be so common among us that no one gives it a second thought and certainly wouldn’t take a video of our actions as something rare—even behind a steering wheel.  Instead, we pat ourselves on the back for doing these things once every now and then.

We should be like the waves incessantly breaking on this world with mercy, grace, and kindness, whether the shore is rough and rocky or flat and smooth.  No one ever questions whether the next wave will come.  It rolls in again and again, over and over and over without a break in the rhythm, so regularly that no one stops to say, “Look!  Here comes another wave.”  If it didn’t come, it wouldn’t be a wave.

Are you a wave, or just an occasional splash?

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:12

Dene Ward

It must be a Southern thing.  We have a tendency to call the people we love after food—honey, honey pie, honey bun, and honey bunch; sweetie, sweet pea, and sweetie pie; muffin, dumplin’ and punkin’, baby cakes and cupcake, sugar and sugar plum.
 
  Speaking of sugar, that’s my favorite term for hugs and kisses from little ones.  Whenever a child is in my lap, I will kiss the top of his head every 15 seconds or so and not even realize it. My own children probably have indentations there from several thousand kisses a year, just counting church time.  My grandchildren are learning it now.  And they love it.  I remember kissing Silas’s cheek once when he was two and having him run to his mama to tell her, “Grandma got sugar!” with a big grin on his face.
 
  Little Judah especially loves the sugar game.  The last time we were together after I had leaned over and gotten some “neck sugar” and “cheek sugar,” he grabbed his buddies and started kissing them.  First Tiger, then Marshall, and finally he even balled up a wad of blankie and gave it a kiss.  “Are you getting sugar?” I asked, and he smiled his contented little bashful smile and nodded his head yes.
 
   Children revel in the knowledge that they are loved.  It feeds a healthy self-esteem and gives them the feelings of security needed when they are out there trying things out and learning about their world.  Failure doesn’t matter when you are loved.
 
  And that is why a patently obvious love is absolutely essential to discipline.  If you are the kind of parent you ought to be—setting boundaries and punishing inappropriate behavior from early on—your child needs to know that you love him more than life itself.  He needs to hear those words and feel the warmth in your voice and your arms and your heart.  Then it won’t matter that you punished him yesterday.  He will know you love him and will try even harder to please you.
 
  It isn’t all hugs and kisses.  The older they get, the less that works.  But you can still show it with words of appreciation, pride, and approval.  Have you ever told your children how much it means to you when they behave in public?  How wonderful it is that you don’t have to worry what they might do in someone else’s home?  What a special gift it is in the middle of a stressful situation to know they are one thing you don’t have to worry about, that you can take them anywhere any time and they won’t act up, that it makes you want them with you even more?  Do you think that saying those things might help them behave a little better?
 
  If all they hear are complaints, growls, screams, and great heaving sighs of frustration and anger, all of them hurled in their direction, what do you think they will think about your feelings toward them?  Even when they are very young, they can feel the tensions.  Even when they do not understand the words, they will know something isn’t quite right.  And they will always think it’s their fault and that’s why you don’t love them.  Even when it’s your fault for not having disciplined them correctly or soon enough.  Three or four hugs will get them past a deserved and justified spanking.  It will take thirty to undo the hurt of an angry, sarcastic parent.
 
  The last time Silas was with us I told him how proud I was of him, the way he took his medicine without fuss, the way he sat still in church and behaved in Bible class, the way he always brushed and flossed his teeth without having to be told.  I told him how proud I was of how he took care of his little brother.  He looked up at me the whole time, his attention never wavering, with his eyes shining and a big smile on his face. 
 
  “I love you, Grandma,” he said.
  
  And of course, I got some sugar too. 
  
 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him…and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, Ps 103:13; Titus 2:4.

Part 3 in the series by guest writer Keith Ward.  

Paul addresses the issue of yieldingness in this sequence: wives, husbands, children, fathers, servants, masters (Eph 5:21-6:9).   No one has the right of way.   Peter's list is shorter:  servants, wives, husbands (1Pet 2:18-3:7).   But, Peter adds an intensifier to both the command to the wife and that to the husband, "In the same way."  Our first question must be, "In the same way as what?"

If you have read the text quoted at the end of each of the devotionals in this series and noticed the emphasis, you know that a wife is to submit to her husband just as the servant is to submit to the unreasonable master and consequently, the husband is to live with the wife in an understanding way and honor her in the same manner as the wife and servant perform their obligations—whether she is good or bad, sweet or a terror. 

The older translations say that the servant must be in subjection not only to the good and gentle master, but also to the "froward."  A strange word that really underlines the extent of one's subjection.   Satan answered God that he had been "going to and fro in the earth" (Job 1:7 KJV).   I have been blessed with supervisors who were "to-ward" me and getting the job done.  I have been cursed with a few that were opposite or "fro-ward" in their attitude about me.  My obligation before God to both types is to submit.   We men tend to find this much easier to accept in 1Pet 3:1 than we do in 1Pet 3:7.   We wish to exercise our headship and cause her to conform to our desires.   Instead, we must use our headship to yield in a way that will draw her in toward becoming the wife God wants her to be.  Remember the last lesson, God never told the husband that he was the head of the wife.   He commanded the husband to love the wife. 

God's instructions through Peter are to "dwell with your wives according to knowledge." That is without question the hardest command in the Bible.   Numberless jokes have been told about the difficulty of understanding women, but for God this is no joke.  He expects the husband to work at it until he understands his wife.   Our biblical examples of married life are few: clueless Elkanah who was unaware of or ignored the tensions in his own house (1Sam 1:8); Jacob who did not realize that Leah was the godly wife until the later years of their marriage (Gen 49:31); David who cut through Michal's complaint to the contempt in her heart (2Sam 6:16).  We are left to make our subjection to the needs of our woman into the concrete examples of God's principles.

We cannot treat this as a minor matter.  If we fail to honor our wives as this verse commands, our prayers will be hindered.   I NEED my prayers for forgiveness to get through loud and clear.   No doubt we already understand that women are different and what would honor one man's wife would not be a blip on the radar for another's wife.   If this makes no sense to you, read "The Five Love Languages" 3 times, the last one with your wife, chapter by chapter with discussion between you about every page.  Men, we must consider our woman and her personality and her character with a view to helping her as the weaker vessel, with the goal of her salvation.   And, our own salvation depends on our ability to do so.   (Unless you think you can make it without prayer!)

Just as being a help to you will be different for your wife than had she married a man in a different profession with a different personality, dwelling with her according to knowledge is unique to you two.   When we consider all that Christ did for his bride, we should at the least be willing to read books to learn about women and to learn to improve our relationship.   We should learn to do things we are not comfortable with for her.   We should meditate on her emotional needs and ways to adjust to fulfil them.  Above all, we should listen.  And, if this seems too great a task, remember, "Subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ (Eph 5:21).

Some men only notice when their wives start screaming and crying and throwing pots and pans.   Then they are shocked for they had no clue there was a problem.   If the wife is too godly to act that way, the husband continues in a clueless way grinding her spirit to nothing.   How can a man claim to follow the Savior who became one of us in order to intercede for us, yet not listen to his bride?  If God purposed the church to be Christ's bride before creation, should not each man be gathering data and purposing to create in his wife the parallel to the Church (Eph 3:10-11)?  Is not the goal to become one, and can that be accomplished without mutual effort?  What if Jesus listened to our prayers the way we notice our wives' problems, complaints, and desires?  In fact, 1 Pet 3:7 promises exactly that! 

Jesus gave himself up to set apart the church to be a present for himself (Eph 5:25-27).   His mission was to cleanse the church to be without spot and blemish, a holy bride to himself.   To accomplish this he first became whatever it took on his part, servant, flesh, human (Phil 2, Jn 1).   Then he began to shape the church: he did not browbeat or demand; he washed her with water and the word.   He thoughtfully fashioned words that would transform her into the present he desired for himself.   God through Paul commands husbands to do the same for their wives. 

If husbands believe their role is merely to be the provider, they are carnal, having little spiritual understanding.   Physically providing food and shelter is the least of his duties.   Giving honor to her as the weaker vessel means to work with her spiritually to build her up to walk beside her husband spiritually.  He must know her spiritual and emotional weaknesses and help strengthen her and protect her as "heirs with you of the grace of life."  He must meditate and thoughtfully fashion words that will transform her into the present to himself that he wishes her to be.   He cannot do this with force but only with the same self-sacrificing kind of love Christ used to transform the church.

It is a shame on husbands that in many (if not most) families, it is the wife who is the spiritual leader: she helps the children with their Bible lessons, she makes certain all are ready for church on time, she insists that nothing interfere with church, she reminds him that he has a certain duty this Sunday so he can prepare.  He simply attends.    Such a one is not a head like Jesus is head, no matter how bossy he is.   [Ignoring these duties to preach and teach the gospel is no less carnal than failing them for other reasons.]

That ceremony did not make you a husband.   However many years "on the job" has not made you a husband either.   Only the considered imitation of the love of Christ for the church will make you the husband of your wife. 

Dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman…as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life.

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.  (1Pet 2:18).

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, (1Pet 3:1).

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.  (1Pet 3:7).

Keith Ward