There are times in a person's life that you are so confused that (as Ken would say) you don't know if you've found a rope or lost a cow.  I am in one of those times.  My two daughters want me to move to the Edmond area to be close to them, but I've lived in Pryor all my life--except for the Marine Corps years.   My church, my friends, my plumber(!!!) etc. all come when I need them.

The thing I know for sure--at such times as this--is that I want the will of God in my life.  But what is his will???   I need to do something to make it easier for my family to deal with me and my two dogs when I have problems with my arm.  Timing.  Is now the time to move??  I am like every other aging parent out there.  I don't like change.  I don't like change.  I don't like change.

Psalms 143: 10 "Teach me to do your will; for you are my God:  your spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness."

I adhere  do the doctrine of "If you are confused or unsure, wait."  

God is never confused or unsure.  We just have to depend on Him.  Or we will end up like Christian in the book "Pilgrim's Progress" and fall into the Slough of Despond.

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1 John 5:11-13 "  These things I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God...."

John, the "beloved disciple" is writing to you and me.  He is writing to every believer.  All of the faithful in God.  He wants to say something that will encourage us--and all people down through the ages.  He continues:

"...that you may know that you have eternal life..."  He was speaking as an expert!!  He wanted us to know.  He uses the word "Know" over and over in this short letter.  Even those who were disciples and followers of Jesus had days when they wondered if it was true--would they have eternal life?

Some of the Jewish leaders taught that there was no life after death.  This was a big obstacle for people to rethink.  The idea of eternal life was exhilarating.  It is exhilarating to us as well.  It is our hope.  Of course you want to be sure where you are going to spend that eternal life.

Then, speaking to those of us who believe, John continues the sentence.  "...and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God."

The three parts of the verse are.  1.  He is writing to Christians.   2.  He wants us to know that we have life eternal.  3.  He wants us to believe.

But if you are writing to believers, why would you want to encourage them to believe?  The entire verse seems circular.  But John recognizes that the entire idea of God coming to earth to die for our sins to give us eternal life with Him is almost too good to be true.  He wants to strengthen our faith.

Mark 9:24  "...Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

It is unbelievable that God would die for us.  Just because He loves us.  The step from unbelief to belief is faith that God will do what he said he would do.  Give us eternal life.  Thank God.

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I'm afraid to get on the scales.  In addition to all the Christmas cookies, Becky cooked a Prime Rib Roast on Christmas Eve with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.  That was bad enough, but she makes pies from scratch--real crust.  And she made four of them.  Mince, lemon and two pecans.  I ate pie for breakfast for four days.  When I wasn't eating banana bread.   I'll think about the scales tomorrow.  I can't face it yet.

I had gone to Edmond because my arm is infected again.  Nobody seems to know why it keeps doing this every three months.  It's discouraging.  Six times in eighteen months.

The difference between discouragement and disappointment is that with disappointment, there is the hope that you can get a "do over" and things will turn out differently.  But discouragement is a type of "end of your rope" feeling.  You really don't know what to do.

The only thing that I can think of that is good about all that is that it gives all of us an opportunity to comfort other people who are discouraged.  We've been there and we do understand.

I bet God gets disappointed (and discouraged as well) with the world.  Some of the people on earth get a "do over" because of God's mercy.  It really makes you want to avoid doing the same wrong thing twice.  You may not get another "Mercy".  But with some people--those who consistently do wrong--he is totally discouraged.  They do the same wrong things over and over and have no intention of coming under His authority.  And He sees their hearts.  He knows their intentions.

When you love someone, you don't want to hurt them.  If you love God, you don't want to hurt him or embarrass him.  You want to please Him.  I don't understand those who profess to be His children and intentionally cause Him pain.  Our hours on earth are but a drop in the ocean of eternity.

Jesus said, Luke 9:23 "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me."  Luke was a physician and like a good doctor, he gave us the perfect and exact prescription for being a Christian.  The other Gospel writers left the word "daily" out.  We need a dose of denying ourselves and "Coming After (second)" every day.

Sheepherders were at the very bottom of the economic and social scale in the Jews community.  They were dirty, and they couldn't keep the laws of ritualistic washing required to be accepted in society.  They were probably declared unclean.  Much like lepers.  And yet, those were the very people that God chose to be first at the manger.  One more example of how those that we might reject, God chooses.  The gospel is for the whole world.

Luke 2:8-9 "There were shepherds... abiding in the field…and lo, the angel of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid."  The angel told them where to find the baby and then the multitude of angels praised God and went away into heaven.  That would be enough to scare me to death.  Luke 2:15 "…the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing…" Knowing human nature, there must have been a crowd following these fellows by the time they found the manger, because Luke 2:17 tells us that the shepherds began telling everyone what had happened to them.  Mary and Joseph probably told the shepherds their stories as well.  All of them had seen angels.

 Our pastor said that the shepherds did three things right.  The first was that they sought God.  They said, "Let's go…and see this thing…with haste."  Jer. 29:13 says that if you seek him you will find him.  They found him, and were awe struck as they told Mary and Joseph what had happened and why they were there.  Mary and Joseph had just been through a horrible ordeal.  A long trip, no place to stay, Child birth and the filth of a stable.  The shepherd's story lifted Mary and Joseph's hearts.

The second thing was that they immediately told the story to others.  Luke 2:18 "And all that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds."

The third thing was that they worshiped Him and praised God.  Vs 20, "The shepherds …glorified and praised God for all the things that they had seen and heard…"  If we do those three things: Seek, Tell, and Worship, then we have received the message of Christmas in our hearts.

In the first Epistle of John, John uses the word "write" or "written" fourteen times.  He is telling the people that he (John) is putting his words on paper for a reason.  He says "…these things I write to you that your joy may be full." John 1:4   (Joy to the World, the Lord is Come!)

He wanted them to hear from a first hand witness--who knew, touched and listened to Jesus--the wondrous gospel story.  He continues in vs. 5 "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare (write) unto you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all."

Recently in church we sang the Christmas chorus, "I Have Seen the Light…shining in the darkness…bursting through the shadows…delivering the the dawn.   I have seen the Light…whose holy name is Jesus…His kingdom is forever…He reigns on heaven's throne.

The melody to those words is beautiful.  If you haven't ever heard it, well, Google it!!!

He truly is the light of the world.  In the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied the coming light in Is. 9:2 "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined."  Good news for everyone.

And we are to reflect that light.  Matthew 5:14 "You are the light of the world…" and in Acts 13:47 "I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth."

Light breaks through darkness so that the eyes can see.  The world is stumbling around in the dark, trying to find meaning and direction.  They need light.

Turn the switch on for somebody.  You don't have to win the whole world.  One person will do.   Tell them what Jesus has done in your life.  You don't even need to know scripture to do that.  Shed light.

Santa Claus
Frosty the Snowman
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
The Christmas Elf
The Grinch, etc. etc.

What happened to Jesus?  What happened to the Nativity?

I went to the "Castle" in Muskogee the other night. There were over one-hundred huge blow up Santas, Micky Mouse with reindeer, ducks, snowmen, and on and on.  There were two or three barns, but no Jesus.  No Nativity.  Santa was leaning out of the barn.  Ho, ho, ho.  I couldn't help but wonder why you would have a barn with no Baby in the Manger.

Did we give up the battle?  Have we lost the war on Christmas?  What is the problem with the Christ in Christmas.  It seems like the whole world is afraid of being politically incorrect or offending somebody.  It might hurt sales.   Offend them.  Christmas is ours.  It is the reason we have a time of giving.  It is the reason for the whole shebang.

I try to spend my dollars at stores that honor Christmas.

Happy Holliday?  No thank you.

Read the Christmas story when you give your family their presents this year.  Three or four minutes to explain the reason for Christmas.  They sure won't get it in the media.  Matthew 1:18-2:23                                                                                                                                  

I think that I have hit all the high points in Hebrews.  You know that reading my blog is no substitute for reading Hebrews yourself.  I encourage you to do that.  My favorite Bible to read--just for the joy of reading--is the Living Bible.  It isn't a translation.  It is a transliteration.  It puts everything into words of today.  How we would say it if we were writing it.

I no longer put up a tree.  I have three little trees that I set on the buffet and on the entry table. When it was just Ken and me, I quit decorating.  I try to go to one of my children's houses every year.

I was thinking of Christmas times in the past, and one of them stood out in my mind.  It was the year that Chatty Cathy was all the rage.  She had a pull string that activated her voice.  Finding one was hard.  Everyone sold out.  Finding three was harder.  My mom and dad had come to Virginia for Christmas that year with my four year old sister.  (She was a very unexpected bundle of joy.  I was 21 when she was born.)  My two girls were four, and five.  (Becky and Lisa--my sister--were born seven days apart.) After days and days of looking, we finally found three Chatty Cathys.

Becky--who always wants to know what will happen if she tries something--pulled out the string and cut it off.  Chatty Cathy only got to chat for a couple of minutes.  That was the shortest-lived Christmas present anyone in our family ever got.  All that effort to find a Chatty Cathy for her!!  All that was left was a good story.

We look for those special gifts because the wise men brought precious gifts to Jesus.   I love the phrase that was coined a few years ago, "Jesus is the reason for the season."  When you bought something, some of the stores put your purchase in a bag that had that printed on the outside.

I always say, "Merry Christmas" at the checkout stands.  It may be the only time they hear it anymore.  If they say "Merry Christmas" back to me,  I say, "Jesus is the reason for the season."  I usually get a smile.  Join me.  

Finally, the writer of Hebrews gives up on telling us about the people of faith individually.  He must have realized that he would never finish his letter if he didn't consolidate what he was saying.  So he listed Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthae, David and Samuel and all the other prophets in one single verse.  Hebrews 11: 32.

We are most familiar with the stories of King David.  We know that the Christ was to come as the King of the Jews, the Messiah--of the lineage of David.  And at this time of year, you remember that the prophecy of Christ's birth was foretold to be in the City of David--in Bethlehem.  Joseph and Mary left Nazareth to travel all the way there to be taxed--most probably on foot.  And she was at least eight and a half months pregnant.

Joseph should be listed as a man of faith in my opinion because he lived his faith in spite of public opinion.  He believed the angel's message concerning Jesus.  He had faith in God.

Of course, all the Jewish people thought that the Messiah would be King of the Jews and overthrow the Romans.  They were waiting on an earthly King.  They were looking for a King like David who would once again put Israel on the map.  Jesus didn't fit the bill.  One day they were waving over him with palm leaves singing "Hosanna"and the next day calling for His death.  He was a great disappointment.  They had thought that he was the one.  He was.  But not what they were looking for.

He is our King, but His kingdom is not of this world.   We are his people.  And now, "…they (we) desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their (our) God: for he has prepared for them (us) a city."  Hebrews 11:16

Matthew 25:34 "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:"  That's where we're going!!

He's a felon.
She's a liar.
He's an embezzler.
She's a thief.
He's a cheater.
She's a harlot.
People are labeled by the sins they have committed.  And sometimes it is hard to rise above them.

A harlot.  That's what Hebrews 11:31 has to say about Rahab.  She is listed as one of the people of faith, but identified by her sins.   However, Rahab was elevated to a new status.  A woman of great faith.  Remembered along with Abraham and Moses.

James, the half-brother of Jesus said in James 2:25 "Likewise, also, wasn't Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out  another way?"

So don't despair if you have been labeled.  There is redemption.  Everything in her past was wiped away when she took a step in the right direction and hid the Israelite spies.  She had heard about their God and had believed what she had heard.  Her faith was so strong that she put her own life in danger to hide them on her rooftop.

They told her to let a red piece of cloth hang from her window, and when they invaded everyone would know which house was hers.  She did.  And saved not only her life, but the lives of her family.

When you have faith in God, and live your faith in front of your children and grandchildren, there is a very good chance that you will be able to save your family as well.  Rahab did.

The ages of the women in my Sunday morning Bible class are for the most part over sixty five.  We have a few younger women.  One in particular--Sandy--has taken us under her wing.  She bakes banana nut bread for each of us every now and then.  For absolutely no reason at all except she likes us.

At the end of a person's life, they have fewer contacts, fewer activities, and many are alone.   It feels good to have a younger person treat you like you are special.  I am eating banana bread for breakfast this week.  Yum.

Simple kindness is something that all of us can participate in.  The only requirement is that you look around you for someone who is going through a hard time.  Or through a happy time.  Or any kind of time.  

One of the younger women in my church--Amy--sends me a card in the mail every week or two.  It's fun to get a real letter in the mail.  Most mail is junk.  When you go to the mailbox and see a hand written address on an envelope, you know someone was thinking of you.

I was raised in a time when everyone wrote letters and put them in the mail.  Hardly anyone does that anymore.  I have letters that people wrote from years and years ago.  A letter is real.  You can touch it.  You can save it.   Email is quicker, but not the same.  Nobody that I know writes newsy email letters.

I am glad that they didn't have email back when the Bible was written.  Someone would have deleted it for sure.

Hebrews 11:24-25 "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."

Which is followed by an account of some of the ways he proved his faith:

He forsook Egypt, his wealth and his position
He kept the passover
He sprinkled blood on the lintel so that the death angel would pass over
He led hundreds of thousands of people out of Egypt.  (Crabby, unhappy people)
He passed through the Red Sea on dry land
He led the Israelites to (not into) the promised land

Can you imagine being a prince in the house of Pharaoh and choosing the wilderness, dust, and forty years of wandering instead?  Moses is a huge example of faith.  He is larger than life.
And after all that, he made one mistake and God didn't let him lead  the people into the promised land.  You would think that after God made an example out of Moses' mistake that the people would do what God wanted them to.  But no.  They didn't.  Every generation is a new group of sinners.

Sometimes we get the idea that the people in the Bible were special.  But they were flawed, just like you and me.  They were ordinary people who did extraordinary things.

When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, He told Moses that he was on holy ground.  But the thing that made it holy was God.  Any old bush would have done.

God can use anyone.  All that is necessary is a willing heart.

The next three generations of men after Abraham that are named as men of faith are Isaac, his son Jacob and Jacob's son Joseph.  Hebrews 11:20-22.  Abraham had quite a family.  After Isaac had Jacob and Esau, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of beans.   What a guy.  Hunger before heritage.

The oldest son (Esau) was due to get everything.  Jacob tricked his father Isaac into thinking he was Esau so that he could fool him and get the heir's blessing.  Then he had to flee for his life.  It was years before he could go back to his home.

Jacob had twelve sons and as far as I can find, one daughter--Dinah.  You remember that ten of the sons threw Joseph into a well, then sold him as a slave.  They were jealous of his father's affection for Joseph.  (There is a book of factual-fiction about Dinah called, "The Red Tent."  I found it interesting.)

But God had a plan.  And Joseph trusted God.  He became the top government official in Egypt and many years later was joyfully reunited with his brothers and his father.

That is a very rough sketch.  I share it simply to encourage you that if your family has problems, don't despair.  Just keep trusting God.  He has a plan.  Abraham had no idea how everything was going to turn out.  Neither did Isaac or Jacob.  And I am sure that Joseph had a lot of bad days as an Egyptian slave.

Life is short.  We live by faith. Hebrews 11:13, 16 "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly:  wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he has prepared a city for them."  We are strangers on this earth.  Pilgrims.  Our hope lies in the promise of God that we will spend eternity with him.  He has prepared a city for us.  I plan to live there forever.

There are quite a few verses in Hebrews about Abraham--the father of the Israelite (Hebrew) people.   The greatest example of his faith was when God sent him to sacrifice his only son Isaac--which was a picture of the sacrifice God would make with his only son, Jesus.  God provided a substitute for Abraham , but up to the last minute, Abraham was ready to do what God had asked him to do.  In the same way, God provided a substitute for us.  His son Jesus.

Of course, God had no intention for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, only to test Abraham's faith.  Isaac was the son of the promise God made to Abraham (and Sara) that he would be the father of many people.  Without Isaac, there would have been no future.  Abraham was an old old man and his wife Sara was way past the age of child bearing.

The fifth person of faith is Sara.  Hebrews 11:11 "Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him (God) faithful who had promised."  Sara had her doubts.  Her faith wavered in the face of the impossibility of her situation.  So she sent her hand-maiden Hagar in to Abraham because she felt like she (Sara) was too old to conceive.

Big mistake.  You can't help but wonder if the entire Arab-Jewish animosities would never have occurred if Sara hadn't had a moment of weakness in her faith.  But Ishmael was born to Hagar.  He became the father of the people of the desert.  And the Jews and the Arabs have been at war ever since.

We all make mistakes.   Sara had a moment of weakness and tried to do God's job for him.   The fact that Sara is listed as a person of faith in this chapter shows us that God forgives us.

Ishmael and Isaac.  Arab and Jew.  At war forever.   I have heard people in government say that Christians do not believe there will be peace in the Middle East.  Duh.  They need to read history.  Biblical history.  I haven't put my faith in government.  My faith is in God.

I have been writing about the faith chapter in the book of Hebrews.  And as I was thinking about men of faith, I couldn't help but share with you (yesterday)  some of the story of my dad and his brother.  They were the two greatest men of faith that I have known.  Kind, caring, giving…so much like Jesus.  Men of faith.  They lived their faith up to the day that each of them left us in death to see their faith fulfilled.  People like that are such a witness to us.  They strengthen our own faith.

After the writer tells us about the faith of Abraham, he speaks these words in Hebrews 11:13 "These, (the men of faith) all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."  Men of faith look afar off, they are persuaded, they embrace the promises of God.  The world looks on men like that as strange.  They live what they believe.

Those of us who believe God's promises don't think that they are strange at all.

There is such peace in knowing people like my dad and his brother.  They were both quiet men.  Unassuming, gentle, and generous.  Confident that what God had promised, God would do.

I can still see my dad--after he had given up on getting all of us together for family devotions--wandering from room to room with the Bible in his hand, reading out loud.  He would start reading in his bedroom, then move through all the rooms in our house one by one.  Everybody got some of it.  He got all of it.

Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains.  Dad's three children are also practicing people of faith.  I think he did okay.  

When my dad (Elmer) was seven, his dad was murdered.  It was the wild west.  Everyone wore a gun.  His dad was a cattleman and had been very wealthy in the late eighteen hundreds.  After he was killed, my dad's mom married again and her new husband absconded with everything.  Leaving her penniless.  Oklahoma wasn't even a state.  The law was an abstract idea.  She got a job as a cook, my dad started working, and they made it--but it was tough.  He was just a kid.

He was the seventh son.  Three were already dead, one (Harvey) was very sick, and the other two were grown and gone.   Oklahoma was dry at the time, and  the two oldest brothers had rigged their dad's car to haul booze in a secret compartment under the car.  They were bootleggers.  Later they got jobs, but for a while, they ran liquor.  Do you have any characters like that in your family?

It is a miracle that my dad turned out to be the man that he was. After a year or two, their mom opened a restaurant and the boys slaughtered hogs, cured and smoked the bacon and hams, cooked, washed dishes, served the food and whatever else needed to be done.

Harvey grew up and became a devout Catholic.  My dad became a saint in the Baptist church.  Both of them were very Godly men.  I have always wondered about the circumstances of the older two sons--raised rich--and the younger two sons who were raised poor.

Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit: For their's is the kingdom of God."  That doesn't mean you have a weak spirit, it means that you are trodden down by circumstances but still trust God.

Those two brothers are now citizens of the kingdom of God.

There's an interesting verse about Noah in Heb. 11:7, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark…"

God is always warning us.  In his Word.  We should be afraid of the outcome if we disobey.   But there is a funny thing about the human race, we always do the wrong things.  It's in our nature.  A mother has to teach her children to do what is right.  Don't bite.  Don't push.  Don't kick anybody.   Don't throw rocks at people.  Etc., etc.  You don't ever have to teach a child to do wrong.  They do that naturally.

The Bible says that we come from the womb telling lies.  But God gives us a solution.  He speaks to us in his Word.   Psalms119: 11 "Your word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you."  All sin is against God.  You may involve someone else, but ultimately you break the rule that God made.  Not the rule of the world.  The world doesn't care how you turn out.

Romans 4:22-23  "…being fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able also to perform.  And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness."

You either believe that God knows what he is talking about and by faith follow his path for your life.  Or you believe the Bible doesn't really mean what it says.

Look around you.  Who are the people that have peace in their lives.  Even in the midst of horrible circumstances.

You don't become a better person by sitting around thinking about it.  You have to determine to do better.  Pull yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps and get on with it.  

Science has it's place.  It just doesn't address the issues of guilt, sadness,  joy, hope, thoughts.  Every time I read about a new scientific discovery, I think:  God did that.  It's been there all along.  Every thing that science discovers was put there by God.  Absolute truth never changes.

The third man of faith that is mentioned is Noah.  Can you imagine how he must have felt as people ridiculed him day after day.  They were living in a dry land and Noah is building an ark.  He got up every day for years and years and pieced boards together.  But Noah had made a decision somewhere in his past that the rest of civilization had failed to do.  Noah had put his trust in God.  If God said it was going to rain, well, it was going to rain.  It's just a matter of when.  That is simple faith.

When I get up in the morning and go out to get the paper, I always do two things.  First, I look up and praise God for the weather--whatever it is.  Even if I am getting soaked.  The other morning, the sky looked like it did back in the forties.  Before smog.  The stars were like crystal pieces of ice in the sky.  The milky way was stellar.  If you don't have rain, you don't know how to fully appreciate a clear sky.

Second.  I turn and look toward the East.  I am always wondering whether today will be the day.  Some people think the second coming is a pipe dream.  For me, it's a reality.   Christ said he was coming back.  I believe it.  That's faith.  In addition, I get to see the sun come up, and the magnificent colors that God has painted while I am wondering about it all.  My faith is not a fire insurance policy.  It is a rock on which I have built my life.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.  The evidence of things not seen."  That's how our writer starts the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

Substance.  Evidence.  You see it in the lives of those who have given themselves to God through faith in his Son.

I have written over five-hundred blogs.  This is like a diary.  In reverse.  I'm telling you things that happened to me in the past.  And things I have learned through the years.

My grandson Brady is three.  His mom said he loves bugs and creepy crawlers.  The other day he saw a grasshopper.  So he got down on his knees and said, "Hello, little fella.  Wha'cha doin?"  Children are so innocent.  Jesus said that if we aren't like little children, we won't see the kingdom of God.

Our faith must be simple as well.  Hebrews 11: 5 "Enoch was translated that he should not see death…for before his translation …he pleased God."  I told you that I want to please God.  I read the Bible so that I can know what is pleasing to him.  It is our guide book.

In the very next verse (vs. 6), the writer of Hebrews says something profound. "But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

Science tries to find the origin of life.  And fails.  Science doesn't explain where this is all occurring.  Or where it all came from.  Or what was the first source.  Science also doesn't give us an explanation for our sin.  The world would say, "There is no sin.  If it feels good, do it."  But we know.  In our hearts.

But the Bible is simply the truth.  John 1:1, 3 "In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life; and life was the light of men"

We get to choose.  Science--which is ever searching but never arriving at final truth.  Or the Bible--which simply tells us the truth.  And it rings a bell in our hearts.  That's faith.  We choose faith.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.   It is so much fun having family together.

The Jews to whom the New Testament letters were written had a rich heritage.  They knew the stories of their ancestors and held the faithful forefathers in high esteem.  So when Jude mentions Enoch, those to whom his letter was written already knew all about him.  Jude must have gotten his information from other letters that were lost, or from oral tradition, because he tells us things that aren't recorded in the Old Testament. He calls Enoch a prophet.

What Jude tells us (Jude 1:14-16) is that Enoch told the people of his time that they were ungodly.  And that their deeds were ungodly.  Jude is concerned about the people who have come into the church and have began to divert the simple truth of salvation.  He uses Enoch as a godly example.

He tells us in Jude 1 that Enoch said that these people are constant gripers.  Never satisfied.  Doing whatever evil they feel like; showing respect to others only to get what they want.  Sounds like us.

We gripe.
We are never satisfied.
We want to do whatever we want.
We manipulate people for our advantage.
Why in the world do we think God will approve of us.

Enoch pleased God.  I keep trying.  I can't think of anything better than to please God.  I'd like to be like Enoch and just vanish to heaven and not have to go through anymore misery to get there.

The second man of faith that is mentioned is Enoch.  Hebrews 11:5 "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him:  For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."

There is some confusion concerning Enoch's forefathers.  In Gen. 4: 18 we find that Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.  But the genealogy doesn't match the person named in Genesis 5:18, and 22. "Our" Enoch is named as a great-great-great grandson of Seth.

The Old Testament mentions him in only one sequence of verses:  vs. 22-24,  "And Enoch walked with God…he begat Methuselah…and lived three hundred and sixty five years…Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."  That's it.

Not much information.  What we know is that he was of the linage of Seth; he was the father of the oldest person in Bible history (Methulselah);  he walked with God; and God took him (the New Testament says translated him).  He didn't have to die to be with God.  His life was a walk with God.  That's it.

He is mentioned in Luke 3:37 as Luke gives the linage of Jesus Christ, all the way back to Seth and Adam.  And he is mentioned once more in Jude 1:14-15 "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these (I'll explain what "these" were tomorrow), saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed…"

Enoch was a faithful man.  He walked with God.  That means you put one foot in front of the other and head in the right direction.  One step at a time.

 The Bible I am using has 1,146 pages of print.  The record of the first murder appears on page 4.  It didn't take long for a killing to take place.  Adam and Eve had Cain, then Abel.

All we know about Abel is that:  1. He was a shepherd.  2.  He brought a sheep as a sacrifice to God.  3.  God declared him righteous.  4.  Cain killed him.    What a mess.  It could have been so different.

Adam and Eve had another son (Seth) who is much more prominent in Biblical history.  But the writer of Hebrews chose to recognize Abel as the first man of faith.   In Matt. 23: 35, Jesus himself speaks of Abel.  "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel…"  In Hebrews 12:24 Abel is mentioned again. "…to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that (blood) of Abel."

That's all we know.

Except that in the greatest chapter on the subject in the entire Bible, Abel is the first person on the list of faithful men.  He didn't know Jesus.  He didn't have anything written that he could refer to.  He didn't have a church.  He didn't know much.  But he knew God.  Adam and Eve did one thing right--they told Abel about God.  And Abel believed.  He had faith in God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

We are saved the same way.  By our faith in the sacrifice that God has provided for us.  Jesus.  All salvation--Old Testament and New--is the very same.  By faith.  Faith in the promises of  God.  John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."  God will declare us righteous because of the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

When I was going through the book of Hebrews, I got to the eleventh chapter and was pretty overwhelmed with what to say.  It is the greatest chapter in the entire Bible on faith, but there were so many names of the Old Testament characters that I just skipped most of it.  Now I think I would like to go back and cover some of the reasons that those particular people were named as people of faith.  The chapter begins:  "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen."

And then the litany of the faithful patriarchs begins--with Abel.   Heb. 11: 4 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous…"  His parents-Adam and Eve--had failed.  But Abel was declared righteous by God.   Genesis 4:2-5a "…and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord.  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the the fat thereof.  And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect…"  Why?

The Bible doesn't tell us.  The rules of sacrifice had yet to be given to Abraham, or Moses.   But God covered Adam and Eve with animal skins when they sinned--which was the first time an animal had been sacrificed.  (Gen. 3: 21 "…the Lord God made coats of (animal) skins, and clothed them."  Up until then, they ate the fruit of the trees in the garden of Eden.    God sacrificed an animal to cover their sin.  God must have told them why he expected a blood sacrifice.  What it represented.  Abel complied.

It makes sense.  All sin has to be covered by blood.  In the Old Testament it was the blood of lambs, doves, etc.  In the New Testament sin is covered for all time by the blood of Jesus  The Lamb.

So Cain thought that grain would be good enough.  God didn't.  It made Cain so angry that he killed Abel.  And when God came looking for him, Cain said those famous words, "Am I my brother's keeper?"  The answer is, "Yes."  We are our brother's keepers.

Raising children is tough.  You don't know what you are doing.  You are really just winging it most of the time, learning as you go.  Using the Bible as your guide--but it doesn't cover the fine points!!

One day, after Scott, Becky and Pat were grown and gone, Jonathan told me he wanted to talk to me.  Jon doesn't talk much, so my ears perked up.  We went into the living room, sat down, and I started getting nervous.  "Mom," he said, "I want to tell you something.  But you can't say anything.  You have to just sit there and listen.  I'm going to do something you won't approve of, and I don't want to do it behind your back."

"I don't know if I can do that!!," I said  All sorts of things had popped into my mind.

"Okay," he said--and he got up and left the room.  "Wait," I yelled.  Wait."  And he said, "Promise?"  So I promised that I would just listen.  That I wouldn't say anything. (Better than not knowing.)

"I am president of my Senior Class," he said.   "And tonight my friends--about fifteen of them--are going to climb the water tower with me and paint it.  I'm going up first.  We are probably going to get caught.  I didn't want the police to call you without you knowing in advance what was going on."

The police called.  But since one of the boys was the son of one of the policemen, they all got off with just a warning.  I guess since I knew beforehand what they were going to do, that I was an accessory to their crime. But the Bible doesn't cover water towers.  A promise is a promise.  I kept my mouth shut.  It is pretty neat to have a kid that doesn't want to go behind your back and do something he knows you won't approve of.  Sometimes, even when they are wrong, their hearts are right.

Psalms 127:3-5 "…children are an heritage of the Lord…as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man…happy is the man that has his quiver full of them…"  I've got four.

Yesterday was a day full of disappointments.  Have you ever had a day like that?  I think the secret to not being disappointed is to let God be in charge of everything.  I am a control freak.  But before the day was over, I was okay.   Disappointed, but okay.

It started because I had decided to put a bid in on a house close to Scott and Stacy.  The owner accepted my offer.  The contract was ready to sign--then he sold it to someone else and never came back to me for a counter offer!!  I had already hired a subcontractor to make some changes.   What happened???  I finally decided that God was in control and I needed to chill out.  It's just a house.

Then I went to see the specialist.  The one that had told me that as soon as all the blood work was back, that there might be something we could do about my arm.  There wasn't.  It didn't turn out that way.  I just have to live with it.  I have to be more careful and not scratch my arm.  That's the way it is.  But I have an arm.  I have good eyes.  I can hear.  I can walk.  I have a purpose.  I have fingers.  I play the piano for my church.  I teach a Bible class.  I have wonderful friends and family.  And all of you.

To top it off, the day was Nov. 19.  One year since Ken died.  Oh well.  Might as well get it all over on the same day.  I do miss him.  He would have said to me, "That's the way it is.  Get on with it."  He always just put one foot in front of the other and kept on keeping on.

My grandson called me awhile ago and asked me to "go hang out" with him this evening.  I think I will pull a Scarlett O'Hara and think about my disappointments tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.  And God hasn't failed me yet.  When your grandson wants to spend the evening with a grandmother that is fifty years older than him, things can't be that bad.

I Timothy 6: 7-8  "For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world;  But if we have food and clothing, with these…be content."

Four years ago my church split in two, and two hundred and fifty people started a new church.  It was so hard.  I had grown up in my old church.  Baptized there.  Married there.  My children came to Christ and were baptized there as well.  My daughters were married there.  I taught Bible there for forty years. Ken's father was pastor there in the nineteen-forties.

But my new church is finally coming together.  We got a pastor a few months ago.  He is wonderful.  One of those people who loves people and truly cares about them.  He was a missionary in Cambodia for many years.   Now he is here with us.  It's our gain.

He has interesting sermons,  but I still go to sleep in church sometimes.  It's not his fault.  I don't think it's mine either.  It's just a factor of the mileage on my body.  I've found that if I write down the points he is making, I concentrate better.  He is very organized in his teaching and easy to follow.  I am so very thankful he is here.

You can listen to dynamic preachers on television.  But you can't build a church if the only thing you have is a dynamic speaker.  You need a shepherd.  Someone who is there in times of trouble and times of joy.

Matthew 9:36  "But when he (Jesus) saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."

Every church needs a shepherd.

When Scott married Stacy, he had two boys and she had two girls.  I got the absolute best two granddaughters and daughter-in-law in the world out of the deal.  Blended families can sometimes be difficult if not impossible.  But this one is awesome.  And the thing is, all three girls love me, take care of me, have me over for dinner often and volunteer to do my shopping for me.  They even come to my house and put fitted sheets on my bed.  (I no longer have the hand-strength to pull those corners on.)  All I have to do is call one of them and say, "I need a little help," and they come on over.

And of course Scott hooks up my back-flow-preventer every spring and takes it off in the fall so it doesn't freeze.  And changes lightbulbs.  And air filters.  And hooks up the hoses in the spring and rolls them up and puts them away in the fall.  And plants my garden.  He even buys the plants.  (I don't think he trusts me to get the right ones.)

You know, you can't make someone love you.  It is a gift they give you.  I am so blessed.  Stacy has been trying to get me to sell my house and move into town next door to them.  "So I can take care of you," is what she says.  Truth is, I don't need anybody to take care of me.  But it sure is nice to know that if  and when I do need something, she and the girls are there for me.

My other three children are two and a half hours away.  But if I need them, they come.

Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

In the Old Testament,  Ruth says to her Mother-in-law Naomi, "Intreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for wherever you go, I will go; and where you live, I will live.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God."  I can only imagine how wonderful Naomi felt at such a declaration of love.  She had Ruth.  I have Stacy.

I have the will power of an ox.  But.  I have the attention span of a gnat.

Ken was one of those people who, when he started something, he finished it.  And nothing would distract him.   He just kept plugging away until the job was done.  It drove me nuts.  "Can you come help me?" I would ask.  "When I get through with what I'm doing," he would answer.

I, on the other hand, can only stay hooked up on a task for a short time.  Then I have to do something else.  My ox-will-power sees that I finish all my projects, but not all at once.  I will have five or six things going at a time.  But every day I finish something.  Yesterday it was the dressing for the turkey--which is now in the freezer.  Then I did the cranberry sauce.  Then I read a book.  I hold the things I like to do--like read--out in front of me like a carrot in front of a horse.  It helps me keep plugging.

I think we are all supposed to be doing things.  Useful things.  It took me three or four days to make the dressing.   Get out the recipe.  Stop.  Get out the pan.  Stop.  Bake some cornbread.  Stop, etc.  I just kept stopping.  And starting.   And eventually I got there.

• Psalms 92:4 (KJV)

  "For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands."
  
  
  God finishes what he starts.  He doesn't tune in and tune out.   He is working in our lives.   All the time.  "Stop" is not in his vocabulary.   

Thank God that tomorrow I am going to get these tubes out of my chest.  I will be normal once more.  One of my dearest friends (who happens to work for Home Health) has come every morning at 6AM, then at 2 and lastly at 10PM to hook me up and give me the antibiotics.  Every morning and evening on her own time.  I'm not sick.  I don't hurt.  I'm just irritated (mad) with my condition.  How in the world did Paul say, "…for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."  Phillipians 4:11

I'm going to have to work on this "contentment" thing.  Contentment is not my nature.  But If I read that scripture correctly, it says that Paul had learned contentment.  I've got some learning to do.

My situation is just an inconvenience.  Paul's was torture, beating, and finally death at the hands of the Romans.  But he kept on doing the job that God had given him to do.  His condition didn't dictate his service and letter writing.  I am very thankful that in the midst of persecution Paul wrote letters.  What would we do without his letters.  They are a huge part of the New Testament.  We have more words about Jesus from Paul than we do from anyone else in the entire Bible.

All the writers of the New Testament wrote about Jesus, but Jesus din't ever write anything about himself.  And yet, Jesus is what the Bible all about.  He is the one we want to know about.  He is the one we need to know about.  And Paul tells us about Jesus better than any one.

So.  Concerning "learning" something that God wants you to learn, in verse 9, Paul says, "Those things, which you have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do:  and the God of peace shall be with you."  

So I will have to work on the first thing--learning--and then Paul says I can receive peace.  I can try and be like Paul.  Because all the doctors who have treated me feel like my arm will get infected again.  And again.  I've got to learn contentment.  It's hard.

I have lived under twelve Presidents.  An even dozen.  Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnston, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

I have lived through the media, Republicans, Democrats and the public, ranting and raving about how terrible the President was.  All of them.  And yet, each one has brought us something that has lasted and been good.  I am personally grateful for the G.I. Bill.  Thousands and thousands of returning GIs (from WW2 especially) were able to go to college, get degrees, and make more money and pay higher taxes for the rest of their lives.  It was a program that was paid back dozens of times over in increased taxes.  The more you make, the more you are taxed.  Everyone won with that one.  Ken did--he taught on a college campus for 28 years because of the G.I. Bill.

The interstate highways.  Eisenhower saw the wonderful roads in Germany and put into action a program to connect our nation.  If you didn't live in the forties, you don't know how horrible it was to go somewhere on two lane (or one lane) dirt roads.  Highway sixty-six was about all we had.  It took days to get anywhere.  I wrote to you about my dad patching tires over and over as we tried to make the trip to my grandmother's house.  Now we take interstate roads for granted.

As we swing from the Democrats to the Republicans (nobody seems to like what they have had--for almost any four years of a presidency--and we are constantly changing back  and forth), we sometimes forget that the Bible says to pray for our leaders.  Whoever they are.  This is a wonderful, blessed country.  It has been interesting to watch history unfold in my life.

Paul said:  (and they were under a Roman dictatorship) Romans 13: 1 "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.  For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God."

God determines the future.  His plan is in motion.  He has told us the final outcome--not what is going on between now and then.  Politics just determine who we get to vote for and gripe about.

One of the men at the reception had lost a leg in Afghanistan.  He came home, was fitted for a prosthesis and asked to be shipped back, so they sent him back.  A Marine with only one leg is still a Marine.  He went on to serve the country for over twenty years.  It is humbling to be in the presence of such men.

I have great fear concerning the situation in Iraq with Isis.  Somehow, evil has descended in an unprecedented way.  And the people there seem to be unable to stop it.   I lived through WW2 and the Nazis and this sounds just about as bad in the wholesale way that people are being killed and tortured.

Our hope is in God.  "In God We Trust."  In the meantime, pray for the leaders of our country.   I personally don't want any more dead Marines.  On the other hand, I am thankful for our armed services and all those who serve our country.

I always get a little (a lot) squishy on Veteran's day.  I want to hug them all.  And having the Marine Corps birthday on the tenth, then Veteran's day on the eleventh keeps me squishy for two days in a row.  I am not a cryer.  But I can't get through two days in a row without tears.  My son Scott is a Marine, and came under fire in Panama.  His first Sargent in that excursion saved Scott's life  by tackling him to the ground as rounds were fired over their heads.  Thank God for mercy.

Isaiah 2: 2b, 4b "…in the last days…the Lord's house shall be established…and all nations shall flow unto it…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

I personally can't wait.  I have lived under the fact of war--somewhere--my entire life.  And it has been personal--with Ken and both my sons volunteering to serve our country in the armed services.

I have never in my life been the 'guest of honor' before.   When all the presentations were done, I went to the back of the room to talk to a young Marine.  Someone came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Mrs. Jacks, would you mind filling your plate.  Everyone is waiting on you to eat first."  I turned around, and sure enough, the whole room was waiting.  I apologized profusely and told them that I had never trained to be a guest of honor and for them to go ahead and eat.  They wouldn't.  So I did my duty and filled my plate.

I was asked to give an impromptu speech--which was fine--my mind was filled with a million stories about Ken.  Which one?  I looked at the audience and they were for the most part enlisted men.  Men who had come under fire on the ground.  They knew that Ken was a Lt. Colonel.  A fighter pilot.  So I started by saying, "When Ken was eighteen, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and went through boots at Camp Pendleton.  But by a stroke of good luck, he was chosen to go to flight school where he was commissioned a Second Lt."  There was an audible shift in the audience.  The word "Officer" is always a line of demarcation.  They hadn't known that he had been enlisted first and gone through boots just like they had.  They were naming their detachment after him, but didn't realize he was "one of them."  After that, it didn't matter what I said.  They were with me.

I shared a story about how, at the age of eighteen and totally ignorant of the Marine Corps, I was pouring coffee in a receiving line at the Officer's Club in Pensacola when a man came through the line with lots of "Pretty Stuff" pinned on his uniform.  I asked him what he did in the Marine Corps and he said that he did the things that nobody else wanted to do.  After he passed on by, the woman standing next to me said, "Janie, that was the Commandant!!!"  "What's a Commandant," I answered.

I think funny self depreciation always puts an audience on your side.  It was a good night.  I was proud to be Ken's wife.

Well, Bo has had a big improvement.  He is laying on his back doing his Snoopy-dog dance and throwing his pig up in the air.  I think he was just happy to be back home.  One reason Becky is so concerned is that she is afraid I will try to pick him up and he will scratch my right hand or arm and I will end up back in the hospital.  So.  I won't pick him up.  If he can't jump up into the car, he just won't get to go.  I can do that.  But this is all just a temporizing measure.  He is failing fast.

Today is the USMC birthday.  I have been to many Marine Corps Birthday Balls.  Long white gloves.  Full length gowns.  I still have a beautiful silk organdy black hand-painted gown that I wore in l964.  It is beautiful.  I have a picture of Ken and me on our way to the Ball--and I am wearing that dress.

But tonight, my son Scott will be my escort.  He is a Marine.  In every sense of the word.  I have not celebrated November the tenth in over forty-five years--since Ken retired.  But tonight, I am the "Guest of Honor" at a dinner to organize the Marine Corps League Detachment (#1422).  It was formed in the last few months and this is their first meeting--appropriately on the USMC birthday.  They have named it the Stanley-Jacks Detachment after Ken and his friend Sgt. Monroe Stanley--a WW2 veteran who made four landings in the Pacific.  Including Iwo Jima.  (If you are just now joining my blog, read about Ken from the Feb.-Mar., 2014 blogs.)  They are heroes in this neck of the woods.

So I am going to pull something out of the closet that will be appropriate.  I want to thank all of these men for their service.

Say "Thank you" to a veteran.  They sometimes feel forgotten and we owe them.  I am reading "Truman" by David McCollough and have been reminded once again of how many of our young men died in WW1 and WW2.  And how close we came to ending the world as we knew it.

Becky--who has been watching Bo and Squig for me this week while I am laid up in this hospital--said that Bo is at the end of his tether.  He can barely get up.  He hurts.  She and Pat both say it is time to put him down. That is going to be really hard to do because one of the last things Ken said (to Pat) was, "Take care of Bo."  Bo was his dog.  I love him, but he chose Ken.  He slept on Ken's side of the bed every night curled up in Ken's arms.

But in Ecclesiastes 3:2 it tells us that there is "A time to be born and a time to die…"  I have just been afraid I would make a mistake on this and wonder forever if I let him go too soon.  Pat said, "Dad is waiting on him.  It's going to be okay."

But since Bo began having such a difficult time, I kept thinking that if I tried harder, if I took him to the Vet more often, if I changed his medications, or if I changed what he eats--that I could help him.  And all that did help, but I think he has a lot more bad days than good days now.

It's not "Putting him down" that is hard for me.  I can do that.  It is knowing that I have done all that I can for him and that today--or tomorrow--is the day.

After Ken told Pat to take care of Bo, he started to go back to sleep.  But then he said, "Take care of your mother, too."  That should give you a picture of how much he loved his dog!!  I was number two in the "Taking care of" sequence.  Of course Ken knew I was going to be okay.  He didn't know about Bo.

Question is, have I done enough?

I have found a new doctor!!!!  (Specialist) He is amazing.  He changed my medication and explained what is going on with my arm.  He talked to me for an hour and a half.  He wanted to know everything that had ever happened to me since I was a child.  I didn't know such doctors still existed.

I said, "I don't know your religion (he is from India), but I am sure that my God sent you to me.  He smiled and said he was Hindu.  "Well," I said, "I still think you are from my God."  He was so pleasant and cheerful.

Maybe he will let me out of this hospital tomorrow.  But I still have to have ten days of intravenous antibiotics at home.

Of course, my daughters think I shouldn't have gotten into my car and driven from Pryor to Edmond after dark.  But if I was going to have to be in a hospital (and I knew that was going to happen),  I needed someone to watch my dogs for a week.  And Becky is at home right now.  Anyway, I had a four hour window before I got to the fainting point so I knew I had time to drive it.

Both girls think I am hard headed, independent and stubborn.  I can't completely disagree.

My Bible is at home or I would give you a Bible verse.  I am counting on the words of Jesus that he said he came to heal the sick.  And that those who were well didn't need a physician.

No, I am not one of those people that think that God is going to heal you regardless.  People like that think that if you don't get well it is because you don't have enough faith.

That's not me.  I figure that God is in control.  That's fine with me.  My faith isn't what is sick.

My arm is infected again.  Five times this year.  So discouraging.  But, hey, it isn't going to kill me.  Just irritate me.  They stuck me nine times and couldn't get a vein--because I don't have any left that aren't solid scar tissue.  I figure I have been stuck over 700 times in the last forty years.  Enough of that.  If God is trying to teach me something, I'm not getting it.  But like I said yesterday, I never get anything He is trying to teach me until I am looking back.

Ken always said, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."  He was stoic in the face of pain.  "You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Don't ever stop."  He was something.  I cannot express how much I miss him.  Every time I have to make a decision, I want to ask him what he would do.  What he thought.  I didn't always agree with his point of view, but it was comforting to know what he thought because he was very, very wise.  By the time we had discussed every side of an issue, I was much clearer on what I should do.

My paraphrase of Deuteronomy 32:30  "One shall chase a thousand, but two shall put ten thousand to flight."  That's a factor of ten.  Two minds are better than one.

I am "one" now.  I liked being two better.  

I think that I live in the past.  I don't figure things out until after they have happened.  And even then, sometimes it takes years before I figure it out.

When Ken returned from Viet Nam and retired, he told me that I had been a good sport moving all over the country with him (as a Marine pilot).  He said--his actual words--"It's your turn.  I want you to go do what you want to do.  I'll stay home and be a house husband and take care of the kids."  (That never happened of course--too much multitasking that came with four children--especially since he had been gone most of the time they were growing up.  But I thought it was really sweet and generous that he thought he could, and was willing, to give it a try.)  He was a good sport, too.

I had loved dissection (sharks, fish, cats, pigs, etc), Comparative Anatomy, and the other Zoology and medical classes I had taken while he was away.  I had dreamed of being a surgeon, but with four kids it seemed impossible until Ken encouraged me.  So I finished a pre-med degree and applied to Med School.  But before I could go, I got this terrible tumor inside my heart and by the time I recovered--three years and counting--I realized that I would never have the physical strength to stand up in an operating room.  Something I really wanted to do, and was ready to do wasn't going to happen.

What in the world was God thinking?  My health was shot.  I had spent years taking extremely difficult classes, working very hard to make all A's and wouldn't ever be able to use the degree.  (Organic Chemistry alone was like memorizing the Tulsa phone book.)  I would never have done it if I had known how it was going to turn out.  But God knew.  And all that knowledge became the foundation for teaching the book of Genesis to young people.  Teaching them how scientifically correct the Bible is.  And how it all meshed together with physical anthropology.  With no error.

Proverbs 4: 7  "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all your getting, get understanding."  I had a lot of knowledge, but it took awhile to gel into understanding.  God doesn't consult us when he has a plan.  He just works it out in our lives--if we are willing.

I spent part of the week in Edmond.  On Thursday, my son-in-law was trying to finish up a house he was planning to rent.  My daughter and I spent the day helping him hang rods and drapes.  He told us that a man had come up to him in the yard and asked if there was any work he could do.  "I'm almost finished," my son-in-law told him."  There isn't anything left to do."

The man said he would do anything.  That he and his wife were trying to get to El Reno, and that they had run out of gas.  He said that he had a job there.  He pulled out a piece of paper with the job offer for a welder on it.  "I need to get to El Reno really bad.  I don't want a handout," he said.  "I'll do anything you want me to do."

"Well, you could plant some grass for me.  There is a four foot square that needs a little work.  It isn't much.  Maybe fifteen minutes."

The man finished the grass, asked if there wasn't anything else he could do?  My son-in-law said "No" and gave him eighty dollars.  The man looked at him, looked at the money, and began to cry.  He reached out ant hugged my son-in-law and said, "God is good!!  You have blessed us more than you will ever know.  Now we can get to El Reno and get something to eat.  Thank you so much your help."

My son-in-law has always lived by the rule that you reward the working poor.  I don't know who got the greater blessing that day.   I know I was blessed just hearing the story.  Ps. 41:1  "Blessed is the man that considers the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."

"The person that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord…" Proverbs 19:17   "The person that gives to the poor shall not lack…."  Proverbs 28:27
 God put a man that wanted to work in the path of a man who was willing to help someone--someone that didn't just want a handout.  God has a way of doing things like that.

Proverbs 15:23  "A person has joy in making an apt answer, and a word spoken at the right moment--how good it is."

Proverbs 25:11 "A word fitly spoken and in due season is like apples of gold in settings of silver."

My daughter told me (again) yesterday, "You write more precisely than you talk."  It's true.  When I am talking, I am thinking out loud.  And usually say too much.  I have always done that.  I say something so I can hear how it sounds and then I can know whether I agree with myself or not.  When I am writing, I get to go back and edit myself.  I can say exactly what I really want to say.  I get to talk out loud on paper.  Or the computer.  With an eraser.

I have always admired people who are able to formulate their responses on the spot.  Or interject a funny comment.  I have to think about it.  Otherwise, I wish I had kept my mouth shut.  When I speak publicly, I always do it without notes.  But I have etched an outline in my mind beforehand, and practiced exactly what I want to say ahead of time.  So I know it will be right.

You know what I am talking about.  We have all have heard someone say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.  And you have heard people say things that you wish they hadn't.

I like what the Proverbs says.  "An apt answer."  "Fitly spoken in due season."

I think I am going to work on my "apts" and my "fits" a little.

As long as I'm on the subject, many people want the government to legislate morality.  If it is legal, then it is moral.  Not so.  There are times when Christian people must participate in civil disobedience.  Those times are when the government passes legislation in conflict with the moral guidance of God.

The government cannot change the inner soul of people.  It can only give us civil guidelines to live by.  Or revolt against--peacefully I hope.  I revolted once. In the early 70's.  Very peacefully.  I made a picket sign and started walking up and down in front of an establishment directly across from the Junior High School.  I had talked with the manager and asked him to put the pornography magazines under the counter since he was so close to the school.  Young children--that came over the lunch hour--then couldn't stand and thumb through the magazines.  I felt that it was wrong and in conflict with the morals of many (actually most) of the parents in our town. 

He refused.  So I got a picket sign.  Very quietly I began to picket.  Before long, word spread over the   town and a crowd had gathered and others had joined me.  Then more.  And more.  Quietly.  The police came.  Then the mayor.   Then the newscasters.  No body knew what to do with me.  Finally, the mayor--who was a Christian--found a law on the city charter that said that what I was doing was legal.  By then, the proprietor was begging me to leave. "I will, as soon as the magazines are under the counter," I said.  He not only moved them, he threw them out.  Four other establishments sent representatives to inform me that they had changed their policies and removed all such stuff from the shelves and told the distributers not to bring any of it back.

Larry Flynt was upset and wrote asking me, "Who do you think you are.  These magazines are legal, protected free speech."  They may have been legal.  But by exercising my right of peaceful protest, the store owners decided they didn't want to lose business and changed their policies.  It made the national news.  A friend in California called and asked me what I was doing on national television.  I wish I could say I made a difference permanently, but look around.  We are drowning in porn.  It may be legal, but it isn't moral.  When you do the right thing, you will be criticized.  Expect it.  

I wrote this blog some time ago, then didn't post it because it is controversial.  I was thinking outside of the box.  But if I am thinking about it, you may be too.  The world has turned upside down.   Men and women are living together rather than getting married.  On the other hand, homosexuals want to get married.  They don't want to just live together.  Like I said, the world has turned upside down.

How does the government always get everything wrong?  Older people are penalized financially by the government if they marry.  And many of them are living on borderline subsistence levels.  They will lose part of their income if they marry.  Go figure.  Maybe when the government fails the church should step in.   Maybe, if older Christians want to marry--but will lose their income if they do--that the churches in America should come up with a ceremony blessed by the church.  It wouldn't be ratified by the government but at least older couples wouldn't suffer financial distress, could be true to their Christian beliefs, and have the approval of the church and other Christians.

This is a problem that we as Christians could solve--when a Christian man and woman want to marry but can't afford to, why couldn't they be married by the church, in the church?   Marriage is performed in a lot of different ways. We already have "common law marriages."   Marriage in the 1800's was delayed while waiting for a traveling preacher.  Some marriages were validated by stepping over a broom.  Marriage is, simply, a contract secured by a group who agree that it is valid--an agreement between two people and some society.  It is a contract so that the rest of the world can know that they have pledged themselves to each other.  There are older people who want to be true to their faith.  They shouldn't be penalized.

When the government is nuts, the church should step in.  Like I said, controversial.  I'm not even sure whether I agree with myself or not.  I just think something has gone wrong.

A couple of nights ago, I couldn't sleep.  At midnight I heard my garage door opening.  I jumped out of bed and ran out a side door.  There was a car parked in my driveway--with no one in it.  The garage door was closed, so  I assumed that someone was inside my garage.

Then, I realized that the car in the driveway was mine.  I never leave my car out.  More than that, the car door wasn't locked.  I always lock my car.  I was flustered to say the least.

It took me many minutes to figure out what had happened.  That morning, I had left the house and gone  out.  When I came home, I went into the house to get some food that I needed to deliver to a lady.  I called her to see whether she was home.  She wasn't.  I got distracted and forgot completely that I had left my car in the driveway--because I had planned to come right back out.  I  had left my keys and purse on the carseat and left the garage door open.

My wonderful neighbor came home from work at midnight, saw that I had failed to close my garage door and closed it.  They have my code.  So instead of the garage door being opened, what I had heard was it being closed.  God bless them.  They take care of me.

But in the confusion, I left the door to my house open when I went outside to see what was going on, and my dog ran off.  He was still gone at three in the morning.  Eventually he came home, but had gotten into something that made him sick and he spent the next hour throwing up on my bedroom floor. By then sleep was out of the question.

Yes, the five hundred dollars in my purse had sat in the unlocked car in my driveway for twelve hours.  So I have had a double portion of the grace of God. The virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 is identified by a number of characteristics.  Carefulness is one of them!! "She carefully watches everything in her household…"(NLT)  I am going to start paying better attention to what I am doing.

I lost my purse.  I didn't even know it--until I got a call that it had been turned in to Wal-Mart.  After I loaded groceries in my car, I got in the car and came home.  Then got the phone call.  I had left my purse in the grocery basket in the parking lot.

On Saturday, everyone in the county goes to Wal-Mart.  Hundreds of people.  What is the chance that the one person who found my purse would take it in the store and report that they had found it in a grocery cart outside???  And here is the thing that is surprising:  I had some bills to pay and had gone to the bank and cashed a five hundred dollar check.  The money was in my purse.  I figured that it would be gone.  But it wasn't.  It was all there.

God bless the person who found my purse.  I will never know who it was, but I pray that God will shower them with blessings.  One thing I know for sure, God will honor their honesty.

And God bless me!!  I did a really stupid thing.  I don't even know how I did it.  My head must have been in a bag.  Have you ever done something similar?  Something that had every possibility of turning out all wrong.  But God took care of you.  He certainly took care of me.

Psalms 46:1-3  God is our refuge (defense) and strength (offense), a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear…"  The Psalmist then gives a list:

1. Even if the earth be removed
2. Even though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea
3. Even though the waters of the sea roar and are troubled
4. Even if the mountains shake and swell

Five hundred dollars is nothing to God.   It was by his grace I had it in the first place.

At one point in his ministry, Jesus went back home--and was not well received.  I am going to paraphrase Matthew 13: 54-58.  "When He went back home to his own country, he taught in their synagogue.  People were astonished and said, "How did this man get all this wisdom and how does he do these mighty works?  Isn't he the carpenter's son?  Isn't his mother Mary?  Aren't his brothers James, Joses, Simon and Judas?  And aren't sisters here as well?  Who does he think he is?"

Jesus answered and said to them, "A prophet isn't honored in his own country and in his own house.  So he didn't do very many mighty works there because of their unbelief."

These people knew him.  They knew his family.  But they didn't know his message.  They didn't see him as the Messiah.  He was just a local woodworker to them.  Can you imagine how difficult it would be for Jesus' brothers and sisters to understand who he was!  I am sure that Mary tried to explain his miraculous birth.  The flight from Egypt.  The day that he taught in the temple at Jerusalem--when he was only twelve years old.   But still, he was family to them.  Not God.

James, his brother, eventually understood and accepted him as the Christ.  James wrote one of the books in the New Testament to affirm Jesus' Messianic role in the world.  Mary and Joseph knew who Jesus was.  They had both been told by angels--on separate occasions.

Jesus was God.  He came to earth as a man to show us what God is like.  To die a sacrificial death in our stead.  It is one of the hardest principles of Christianity to understand.  How could God limit himself in every way to be just like us?  Why would He do that??  Never once, as far as I can find, did Jesus use the power of God for himself.  Only for others.  The Roman soldiers taunted him and told him that if he was the Messiah to come down off the cross.  Jesus didn't do that.  He bore our sins.  And died.

For us.

Today, I got outside and did some weeding and pruning.  Everything is turning brown and nothing is blooming.  I told you one time that I had my yard staged so that something was always blooming from March through September.  So when the last of the blooms are gone, I guess it means that winter is around the corner.  The sooner the better.  I want it over with.  I dread the cold.  I always used to like it.  Not any more.  So one good thing about winter is that I get a rest from weeding.

My next door neighbor is such a great Christian man.  He saw me weeding and came over and helped me.  He brought a shovel and dug up wild tree sprouts.  He is the one who takes my garbage to the street every week.  His wife and eight year old daughter are just as kind.  God is so good to give me people who want to help me.

I also found a man to do yard work.  He is also a Christian.  He and his wife worked for hours and hours and when I asked him what I owed them, he said, "Whatever you think is fair."  I told him what I thought, and he said, "That's way too much."  I paid it anyway.  Reward people who do good work.  I'll have him back in the spring.

My daughter in law, Stacy--Scott's wife--wants me to move to town on her street so that she can--as she puts it--take care of me.  She keeps bugging me about it.  I might like that.  She wants me to be close to her and Scott.  I have no idea what I should do.  Move or stay.  Pat wants me to move to Harrah so she can be there when I need someone.  Becky says I should stay in Pryor where my life is--until I need to do something else.  I wish God would give me call and say, "Quit thinking about this.  I will let you know--when I am ready for you to do what I want you to do."  But I am a type A personality so fussing over problems comes very easily.  I fight it and sometimes I am successful.

Psalms 46:10a "Be still and know that I am God…"  I've got to get myself to quit wiggling in my brain.

Carolyn and I were listening to the Gaither Hour (Yes, we are two of those who love it) and  George Younce sang "Suppertime."  We started reminiscing about when we were little and everyone played outside almost all day.   "Kids don't do that anymore," she said.  "They are hooked up to some electronic device in an air-conditioned house.  We knew when it was time to come in because your mom would open the screen door and call, "Suppertime."

So many of the old songs aren't relevant today because those times are gone.  When was the last time you heard the word "suppertime?"  Everyone eats on the go, in the car, or at a drive through.  But suppertime was pretty fixed when I grew up.  Dad would get home from work and all of us would sit down at the table for supper, say the blessing, and discuss the events of the day.  Then we did our homework or went back outside to play.  It's no wonder the world is obese.  Children get a head start on it because of inactivity now days.

But you can't go back.  The generation following yours will not have any conception of a dial phone, a tire swing, rubber guns, or a million other things.  Life changes.  Sometimes it gets easier.  But many times it just gets more complicated.  Or worse.  When Carolyn and I grew up in Pryor, we could ride our bikes all over town, play hide and seek with all the kids on the block at night--after the sun went down--and a million other wonderful things that nobody would let children do today.  It was fun.  I don't remember ever being afraid.

If you hurt a child back then, you would probably be dead by morning.  And there wouldn't be much of an investigation.  It may not have been legal, but it was very effective.  Punishment that is swift is a deterrent.  Now it takes ten or more years to go to trial!!  By the time someone is punished (or as many times is the case--let go) nobody remembers what they did.

Listen to the Gaither Hour.  It will warm your soul.  I love four part harmony.




 

Everyone told me not to make any serious decisions for a year.  I haven't.  I have cleaned Ken's office and given Scott some of his books.  (My oldest son.  He was a Marine as well.)  I have emptied Ken's desk drawers, shredded paper and given the things I don't want to the other children or grandchildren.  But those were all small decisions.  Many of his things I will keep for awhile.  There was a stack of Father's day and birthday cards that Becky had faithfully sent him for forty years.  Ken kept them all.

The other day, one of our local Marines--a Sergeant--came by the house and asked if I would consider letting the local Marines use Ken's name for their organization.  They want to name their museum for him.  Of course I said yes.  They called this week to say that they were going to have their first meeting, and would I come.  And would I come to the Marine Corps Ball.  Of course.

Our neck of the world is so small where Marines are concerned that I doubt that they will have a hundred people.  But still, it is gratifying that they want to remember Ken in this way.  I told them that they could have some of Ken's things for their museum if they wanted them.  They did.

My daughter Pat wore Ken's leather flight jacket to school last week.  She had asked me if she could have it.  I had his squadron patches stitched down the sleeves.  (It looked great)  Anyway, one of the older men asked where she got it.  "It belonged to my Dad." she told him.  "Well," he said, "I was in the Marines.  It's been a long time since I have seen a jacket like that.  You must be proud of your dad."
"That's why I wanted his jacket," she said.  "It feels like he has his arms around me."

I will go to the Marine Corp Ball.  I love the Marines.  They are the proud.  The few.  I am honored that I got to be on the sidelines for such a wonderful military group.  They are all really something.

There is grief, but in the book of Lamentations the writer who is lamenting says: Lamentations 3:21,(20) 22-23  "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.  My soul has them (him) still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.  It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion's fail not, they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."   There is a wonderful hymn that I love to sing and play.  "Great is thy faithfulness."  So true.                                                                                                                                                          

The temperatures are dropping here and it is cool at night.  I love this time of year.  I think it is neat that God saw fit to give Oklahoma all kinds of weather.  It sure doesn't get boring.  Some people would prefer to live in a "balmy-every-day" environment.  Not me.  I get up every day and decide what I am going to do based on the weather.

If it is rainy, dark and gloomy, I make hot tea and read.  In my pajamas.  Why get dressed?  It is a lazy day provided for me by God himself.  There are dozens and dozens of things you can't get done when it is raining so you can mark them off your list. Thank God for the rain.  I need rainy do nothing days.

Psalms 147:7-8a  "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp to our God:  Who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth…"  I praise God that he is up there preparing rain for me.

God compares the spreading of his Word to the rain in Isaiah 55:10-11  "For as the rain comes down…and waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth:  it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

God is also in control of what His word accomplishes.  His word accomplishes awesome things.  The things that God sent it to do.  His words are the words of life.  We learn how to reach Him because of his words.  We learn how to serve him.  We learn how to be saved from our sins.

In John's gospel, he begins by saying:  "In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  That is Jesus.  The Word.  The best word that God gave us.

I'm glad God gave us rain.  And words.  He is good.  He gives us what we need.

Surrender.  That's what it takes.  Some say it is belief in Jesus, but the Devil himself believes in Jesus.

Speaking of the devil,  James the brother of Jesus put it this way:   James 2: 19  "You believe in God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

The devil tempted Jesus and mocked him saying:  Matthew 4:3b, 6a  "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."   "If you are the Son of God,  jump off this building."

Jesus answered, "You shall not tempt the Lord...."

So if it isn't simple belief, what is it?  It is belief and faith, but also surrendering to the will of God.  We don't want to do that.  We want to run the show.  Yes, you have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he rose from the dead.  But he must be Lord.  Of all.   You must give yourself to him.

Galatians 2:20  "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for  me."  The only thing about life here on earth that counts is the life of Christ living within you.  That is the kind of life that is eternal.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Christ bids a man to come and die."  That self will, that part of you that says, "I want what I want,"  must become "I want what You want."  We must crucify our self will.   Then you know that you belong to God and that no one can pluck you out of his hand.

Believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead.  Admit that you are a sinner and that no matter what you do you can't get rid of your guilt.  Repent. (That doesn't mean being sorry)  Repentance means:  With Your help, I will never turn back to those old behaviors.  I will do a one eighty turn.  Give him your life.  You won't be sorry.  It works better that way.