The last chapter of Hebrews begins this way: "Let brotherly love continue. Don't be forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."  Hebrews 13: 1-2

I got to be an angel once.  And I am definitely not angel material.  Year before last, one of the members of my church who is a widow in her seventies, fell down a flight of concrete stairs into her cellar and broke her legs.  She had the strength to somehow pull herself up to the stairs to the garage floor and into the kitchen, but couldn't stand to reach the wall phone.  She lay there hour after hour praying that God would send an angel to rescue her.

I had not called this lady in six months or more, but was concerned about a mutual friend we had in the Moore tornado area.  So I called her.  She was able to grab the cord hanging down the wall and jerk the phone off the hook and drag the receiver to her side.

"Sharon, what was that noise!! Are you okay?"  I asked, as the phone hit the concrete floor.
"No, no, I have broken my legs.  I need help."
I called 911 and the fire department and jumped in my car and raced to her house.

"I have been praying for hours that someone would call so that I could pull the receiver down and get help.  I asked God to send me an angel.  You are my angel," she said.

"I am definitely not an angel, but God definitely let me call you," I told her.

Now, when she sees me she calls me her angel.  I kind of like it.

You never know what God is going to do for you.  Just be sure that if you break your legs and pray for an angel, he's probably going to send you one.

I made a very serious Biblical mistake concerning the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.  Even though I read it.  Even though I reread it, I missed that the author mentioned Sarah, the wife of Abraham--the mother of all Israelites.  I said that Rahab was the only woman mentioned.  My bad.  It was bound to happen sooner or later that I would leave something important out.  My friend Carolyn is always careful  to review what I write and caught my mistake.  I even had Sarah's name underlined in my Bible.  I must have been half asleep when I wrote that blog.  Nevertheless, with two women mentioned, there couldn't have been a a greater difference in those two women.  God honored each woman's faith.

I am reading a book written in 1888 called Moody's Sermons.  The transcribed notes from the "Cleveland Leader."  Dwight L. Moody was the Billy Graham of his day.  Literally thousands and thousands of people found Jesus through his preaching.  I just finished his sermon on Faith.  God seems to find a willing servant through the ages to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

And Hebrews 12:1-2a says it all:  "Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, our leader and instructor…"

It is the description of an amphitheater.  Those who have gone on before us are watching us.  And because of their lives, we must try even harder to keep ourselves clean.  Each particular sin that holds you captive must be dealt with.  The writer says we are running a race.  Paul put that another way:

Philippians 3:13-14  "Brothers, I don not count myself to have apprehended (the prize): but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Forget the past.  Tomorrow is a new start.  "Press on," was one of my husband Ken's favorite sayings.

James, the brother of Jesus mentions Rahab in his letter to the twelve tribes.  James 2: 25-26 : "Likewise, also, wasn't Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?  For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

James is not saying that we are justified by the works we do, but rather that our faith produces works.  Rahab had faith in the God of the Jews who had parted the Red sea for the Israelites and had led them out of Egypt.  But what she did after she had that faith--hiding the spies, protecting them from the men who were trying to kill them, letting them down over the wall with a rope--those were the works that proved her faith.  She risked her own life.

A Christian will be identifiable by the works that they do.  Later when the Israelites invaded, Rahab hung a scarlet line out the window like the spies had told her to do.  In this way the invaders would know her house.  She also gathered all of her family into her house for protection.  That is faith.

She is remembered in history as a woman of faith in God.  The writer of Hebrews could have mentioned Rebecca, Leah, Ruth, or Esther.  They were all faithful women of God that didn't commit the sin that Rahab did.  But he didn't.  He mentioned a harlot.

I sometimes wonder if my faith shows.  Can others see the faith that I have in God through the works that I do?  I am sure I can do better.  Matthew 5:6  "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

When I was young, I used to play for the Methodist men's organization.  One of the older men always had them sing, "To the work, to the work..."  I always admired that about Methodists.  They put a lot of emphasis on doing something good in your community.  We didn't sing that song at my church!!  We should have.

Do something good.

The scripture I gave you yesterday about the "tired hands and the shaky legs" was a new one for me.  I must have read it before, because I have read Hebrews a number of times.  But the words "tired" and "shaky" never registered.  Maybe because I didn't used to be tired and shaky and worn out.

That's the reason we don't stop reading the Bible.  There is always something new.  We call it "The Living Word" because it is always telling us something that we never noticed before.  It's alive.

After naming a large number of men who were saved by faith, Hebrews 11: 11, 31 gives us the name of two women named in the group:  "Through faith Sarah received strength to conceive, (at an advanced age)"  and also, "By faith--because she believed in God and his power, Rahab the harlot did not die with all the others in her city when they refused to obey God, for she gave a friendly welcome to the spies."

That should give a lot of hope to any person who has failed in their life along the way.  Rahab was not condemned because of her sin, she was saved by her faith.

Her story is told in Joshua 2:1 and 6:17.  Joshua sent two men into the promised land to spy out the people and when the two were in danger of being  caught, Rahab came to their rescue.  She hid them under a stack of flax on the roof.  She told the men who were looking for them that she didn't know where they were.  When the danger was gone, Rahab said, "…I know that the Lord has given you this land…we have heard how the Lord dried up the …Red sea for you…"

The two men were very touched by her kindness and promised to save her and all her family when they invaded the land.  Which they did.

Sometimes we overlook people who are not acceptable.  But God looks on the heart.  Rahab had a heart to trust God.

Are you afraid of something unreasonable.  I am.  Heights.  Not airplanes, or 50 story buildings.  Just things that have no enclosure.  Grand Canyon almost did me in.  When I go somewhere like that, I feel like I am going to be sucked off the edge.  When I climbed the central winding staircase to the leaning tower of Pisa, I didn't realize that the top only had a very low banister.  It was also a narrow foot or two from the central staircase to the edge.  Compounded by the fact that I was leaning toward the edge.   When I stepped up onto the top floor, I immediately got down on my knees and crawled around to the other side so I could get back down the staircase.  It was not one of my finest moments.

It's not dying that scares me, it's falling off of something high.  Yes.  Unreasonable.  Yes.  I know I am not going to be sucked off the edge, but I still think that I am.  It still feels like it.

Hebrews 12: 12  "So take a new grip with your tired hands, stand firm on your shaky legs, and mark out a straight, smooth path for your feet so that those who follow you, though weak and lame, will not fall and hurt themselves but become strong."

If you are following me, just know that I am trying not to have shaky legs.  I am trying to mark out a straight, smooth path for my feet.  And I am trying to stay away from things that might lead somebody astray.  I don't want anyone to fall and hurt themselves spiritually because of me.

Paul said that if eating meat offends your brother--don't eat meat.  I certainly don't want you to pick up on my weaknesses.  If I am a stumbling block to another person, well, I have failed.  You and I are our brother's keepers whether we like it or not.  God said so.

I do not want to fail.

We all want things to turn out happy.  We want everyone to do what they are supposed to do.  We want all accidents and sickness and suffering to go away.  To cease.  But it doesn't work that way.

If you become a Christian--according to some 'prosperity' evangelists--you will be healed of all sickness.  Get rich.  And succeed in all that you do.  They say that if that isn't the case, that you haven't had faith in God.  That you haven't been saved…etc…  Ridiculous.  God never promised any such thing.  And the eleventh chapter spells out the terrible things that those of us who have faith may encounter.

If you are suffering--physically, emotionally, psychologically--don't despair.  The Bible says that Jesus suffered in all points as we do.  And the people of faith in the eleventh chapter did, too.

After naming dozens of those who were saved by faith in the Old Testament, and dozens that God helped and spared from trauma, the author finishes by saying that there were others who suffered:

Hebrews 11:35a-40 puts it this way: "But others trusted God and were beaten to death, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free--trusting that they would rise to a better life afterwards.  Some…were beaten with whips, and others were chained in dungeons.  Some died by stoning and being sawed in two; others were promised freedom if they would renounce their faith, then were killed with the sword.  Some…wandered over deserts and mountains, hiding in dens and caves.  They were hungry and sick and ill-treated--too good for this world.  And these men of faith, though they trusted God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them; For God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us."

That's hard.  It didn't turn out wonderful for everyone.  And it won't turn out wonderful for some of us. Christians are being killed in the middle east because of their faith.  But God is faithful.  It will all turn out right in the end.  There is a great day coming.

I have written so many blogs that I have forgotten what I have written!!!  This is number 457.  When I started doing this, back at blog #1, my plan was to do the book of Genesis and that was it.  Genesis is my area of expertise.  But one thing led to another and here we are.

I have been wandering through the book of Hebrews.  I told you last week that the eleventh chapter is called the faith chapter of the Bible.  It starts in Heb. 11:3 "By faith--by believing in God--we know that the world and the stars--in fact, all things--were made at God's command; and that they were all made from things that can't be seen."

My commentary suggests that the things that can't be seen could be a reference to atoms, electrons, etc. Even the writer, who didn't know about those things, could recognize that there were tiny things, and even things smaller than tiny.  He could recognize the hand of God at work in creation.  Psalms 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the skies  show his handiwork.  Day unto day they utter speech, and night unto night show forth knowledge."  You can't deny that there is a Creator.

Faith is the key to salvation.  The writer of Hebrews begins to spell out all the people in the Bible who trusted God by faith.  In verses 4-33, which is a long, long list, he tells us many of the people who trusted in God by faith.  He starts with Abel, Enoch, and Noah and ends with Gideon, Samson and…David.   In verse 6, the writer says that, "Without faith it is impossible to please him (God): for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder to them that diligently seek him."

1.  I want to please God.
2.  I believe that He is.
3.  I have diligently sought Him.   So I can expect to be rewarded.

My  rewards have been peace, joy, a thankful heart--to name a few.  Some people think that their rewards will be "things".  That is a meager idea of reward.  Money only lasts until you spend it.  Peace lasts.  Joy endures.  And a thankful heart lifts your spirit.  That is enough.

When there is something that I have to do that I don't want to do, I can't just sit down and ignore it, so I do other things.  I get a lot done when I am procrastinating.  And then, when the time runs out and I know I can't wait any longer, I do the thing I have been putting off.  It seems to work really well because when I don't have anything pressing me, I don't get anything done.  Today was one of those days.  I accomplished nothing.  I take that back, I went to the grocery store which is one of the things I always put off until there is no milk, bread, eggs, butter, etc. and I have to go.

Hebrews 11 is called the faith chapter of the Bible.  It begins by asking a question, and then answering it.   Hebrews 11:1  "What is faith?  It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen.  It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead."

That is what it takes to be saved from sin.  We must have faith that God is going to do what he says he is going to do.  He is going to forgive us.

That is what hope is.  We hope that God is going to do what he says he is going to do.  He is going to let us spend eternity with him.

The question is simply, do you believe God will do what he says he is going to do???

Life here is full of hope as we prepare for the next life--which nobody in the first forty years gives much thought to.  But as you run out of days, you find that your heart is full of hope.   The fear of death is gone, you are just waiting to see what it is going to be like in heaven.

Like a box of chocolates.

We didn't really have a summer this year.  Thank goodness.  Oklahoma heat is unbearable.  And now the days are cooling off.  I dread the winter.  The sleet, ice, the trees breaking from the weight of it.  I can deal with snow.  But maybe it will kill all the bugs in the ground.  That would be good.  I will leave all of that up to God.  I always am thankful for his weather.

You remember when I told you about the Holy of Holies.  Well, the chapters 7-10 of Hebrews covers the new priesthood.  Where Jesus is our high priest.  I have put a star beside a few verses because they are so important.  When He died, the curtain in the temple that stood between the people and God was torn from top to bottom.    And God said, "Come on in.  You are forgiven."

Hebrews 10: 18  "Now, when sins have once been forever forgiven, and forgotten, there is no need to offer more sacrifices to get rid of them.  And so…now we may walk right into the very Holy of Holies, where God is, because of the blood of Jesus.  This is the fresh, new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us by tearing the curtain--his human body--to let us into the holy presence of God." (This passage is from the Living Bible.)

Isn't that wonderful.  It's done.  Everything that is necessary for us to spend eternity with God has been done.  Sin has been forgiven.  Sin has been forgotten.

When you become anxious and worried about the life to come, go back to God's word and read the reassuring words that tell us that we could not, can not, save ourselves.  And that Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sin.  We are saved by faith.  By the mercy of God.

I am really glad that God has forgotten all my wrongs.  I wish I could.

Hebrews 8: 6, 10, 12  "If the first covenant (the one God made with Abraham) had been faultless, then there should have been no place necessary for the second." (The one we have with Christ--called the new covenant.)   For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;  I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."

When God comes into our lives, His spirit changes our minds and hearts.  We no longer want to rebel against the authority of God.  We become something different.

When I look in the mirror every morning, I am shocked.  There is an old woman in there.  Who is she? I am young, fresh, alive and smart.  That old woman in the mirror looks like she is on her last leg.  I don't know where she came from.

Life is like that. Changes that come slowly are hardly noticeable.  Then one day you look up and find that you aren't who you wanted to be.  But unlike age, you can change.   Just start.

Beginning again isn't as hard as you would think.  Just decide.  Then begin.  Turn around and go the other way.  Prepare yourself for tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.  And before long, you will be young.  Fresh.  Alive and smart in the Lord.

And you will look in the mirror and like what you see.

If you are a child of God, can you stop being his child when you do wrong?  Absolutely not.  You are kept by his grace and mercy through the power of the crucifixion and resurrection.  The big question is whether or not you are a child of God in the first place.  Have you totally and completely given all that you are to him?  If so, God said that no one could remove you from his hand.

One of the ways you can know you are His is by your changed life.  You aren't the same.  You want to please God and not the world.  Your paths are directed by His laws and desires.  You want His will in your life.

Which brings me to some very  controversial verses in Hebrews 6:4-6 "There is no use trying to bring you back to the Lord again if you have once understood the Good News and tasted for yourself the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, and know how good the Word of God is, and felt the mighty powers of the world to come, and then have turned against God.  You cannot bring yourself to repent again if you have nailed the Son of God to the cross again by rejecting him…"

You must respond to the voice of God when it comes to you.  You have no assurance that he will call you again.  And once you have had that opportunity, you have no assurance the Holy Spirit will deal with you later.  I told you that the most horrible words in the Bible are:  "…and God gave them up…"

Perhaps another meaning of those verses is that the writer wants us to understand that you can't nail Jesus to a cross more than once.  He died once for sin.  Otherwise we might as well go back to the Jewish model and sacrifice lambs, calves, doves…for sin.  Which was only a prototype of the Lamb of God.  If Christ can't save us, what was the point of his death.

You may break your fellowship with God, but you can never break the relationship.  Once you are his child, you will always be his child. You have been adopted into the family of God.  Joint heirs with Christ.

After I married Ken and we moved to California, I  asked him for a bigger marimba.  The one I had was small, with only 2 1/2 octaves.  I wanted a full sized four octave one.  We had no money, but he said, "Start looking."  I did.  A few months later one was advertised in the Los Angeles paper, so I called, and the lady asked me what I was going to do with it--which I thought was strange.

"I play at church, and various civic events," I told her.  "When I am asked to play, I play."

"Come and play for me and I will decide whether you are good enough and whether I want to sell it to you."  I had to try out before I could buy it!!!!

So Ken and I drove from Camp Pendleton to LA and I played everything I knew for this woman.  And when I was finished, she said, "I will sell it to you." I had passed.

I asked her how much it would be, and she said, "How much do you have?"

"We have seventy-five dollars, and will pay the rest out," I told her.  "Or get a loan."  A full sized Deagan marimba like the one she had--in perfect condition--would have been thousands of dollars.

"That's exactly what the price is.  The price is seventy-five dollars,"  she said.  I was stunned.

"Why is it only seventy-five dollars," I asked.  She told me that she was the marimbist for the LA symphonic orchestra and had developed arthritis in her hands so bad that she couldn't hold the sticks anymore.  She said she didn't just want to sell it to someone that wouldn't ever play it, or to someone who couldn't play it well enough to satisfy her.  She wanted it to go to a good home--to someone that deserved it.  She had played it for many, many years and it was an old friend.

I have no idea how many times I have played it since.  Hundreds and hundreds of times.  I will play it in church next Sunday.  God is good.  When you need something, He will supply it.

Ken had a leather flight jacket.  I had most of his patches (the ones that he cared about) sewed on the sleeves and down the front.  He wore it all the time.   I wish I had paid more attention to the dozens of squadrons that he served with so that I would know which patch is which.  We once counted all the different planes that he flew, and there were over thirty of them.

"How did you do that," I asked him.

"You get the manual, get in the plane and fly it," was his answer

You couldn't do that today.  But since Ken was in the very first class of Naval Jet aviation, he and the others made the rules up as they went along.  It was much simpler in the late forties and early fifties.

Next week is Pat's birthday and she has always said that someday she would like to have his jacket.  So I have it at the tailor getting the rest of the patches sewed on.  She is the only one that could wear it.  Jonathan and Scott are both too big.

I told her I would have it done this weekend, and she is excited.  She started teaching school again (after retiring a few years ago) and wants to wear it to school.  She lives in a little town where none of the children have ever experienced military aviation and thinks they will enjoy seeing and hearing about it.  She is the oldest and probably remembers more about that part of his life than the others.

When I took it to let her choose where the other patches would go, she buried her face in it and said, "It smells like my dad."  And it does.

My daughter Pat has chickens.  Lots of them.  I went to her house last week and walked down to the chicken coop to get the eggs.  What fun.  It is like getting a present.  I shooed a hen off the nest and underneath her were eight fresh eggs.  All the hens had stopped by to give us a gift.

Squig (my dog) was with me and I cracked one of the eggs on a flat rock for him.  He told me it was delicious, and could he have another one?  There is nothing like a fresh egg.

The eggs are all different colors, and Pat knows which hen laid which egg!!  Blue ones, green ones, cream and white, tan and brown.  I used to go get the eggs with my grandmother.  I thought it was so exciting that a chicken could make an egg.

Writers are like that.  Blue and green, cream and white, tan and brown.  We can tell who wrote what by the way they phrase their thoughts.  But Hebrews is a toss up.  I like to think John wrote it because when you read John's gospel, he starts the letter in almost the same way:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."   Hebrews is concise.  It doesn't ramble like Paul's letters.  Paul starts to say something and thinks of something else and chases rabbits before he gets back to his main thought.

Hebrews is not like that.  The writer proceeds from thought to thought, developing his account of the Deity of Jesus.  He builds on past writers.  You can tell he had been with the apostles, or was one himself.

Hebrews 1:3a  "God's Son shines out with God's glory, and all that God's Son is and does marks him as God.  He regulates the universe by the mighty power of his command.  He is the one who died to cleanse us and clear our record of all sin…"

Now that is a clean record.  Thank God.

 

If you are like me, you have a problem remembering names.  I can usually get the first letter in my head but from there on--nothing.

And as I age, it gets even harder.  People that I have known for years.  And suddenly their name has vanished from my head.  I usually think of it later.  Too late to do me any good.

Names are important.  I am always touched when people I have just met remember my name.

Then there is the problem of having lots of children and family members and having to go through the entire list to get to the name you want.  When Scott was a young boy he told me, "Mom, I don't mind when you call me Jonathan, or Ken, but I really wish you wouldn't call me Pat or Becky."

There is a name that is above all other names:  Jesus.

Philippians 2:9-10 "…God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name:  That at the name of Jesus every knee would bow…things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth…"

And the Hebrews author put it this way:  1: 4 "…he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."

The Bible says:  "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

When you talk to Jesus, you might want to call him by name.

I have finished going through my mother's letters.  I finished my grandmother's letters today.  Now I am down to sorting paper.  And in it all, I found a stack of poems, short stories, etc. that I had written over forty years ago.

I had enrolled in a creative writing class, and the teacher was fantastic.  Ken always said you should take the teacher--not the class.   I tend to agree.

Any way, it was  enjoyable to reread them.  She assigned us a Haiku:  five syllables, seven syllables, then five more syllables.  A Japanese poem envoking images of the natural world.  She told us to pick a color and an emotion.  And write.  So I wrote:  "Jealousy is very green, thirty thousand little feet, biting holes in beauty."  The teacher would pick someone's poem to read that she especially liked and read it.   She read that one.

 In Hebrews, the writer has read something from the past.  He mentions Melchisedec (from the Old Testament).  He was the person that Abraham gave his tithes to.  Which is interesting, seeing that Abraham is the father of the Jewish nation and there were no priests at that time.  They came later when Isaac, Abrahams son, had Jacob--who had twelve sons--and the tribes were established.  With the tribe of Levi being the priests.

Hebrews 7: 15-16 "So we can plainly see that God's method changed, for Christ, the new High Priest who came with the rank of Melchizedek did not become a priest by meeting the old requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but on the basis of power flowing from a life that cannot end…"

I started to skip all this, however, you probably should know something about Melchizedek.  He is mentioned once in the Old Testament and a number of times in the New.

If we write, future generations will remember, and pause.  Pausing is good.

Hebrews 4: 12 "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

If you can just get someone to read God's Word, their lives will be changed.  It pierces the heart.  It is the final word on truth and it strikes a chord in our hearts.  It speaks to us in a personal way.

 Someone in my class on Sunday mentioned that the people in the dark recesses of the world who have never heard about God, about Christ, are lost and without hope.

I said, so are the people of America.  They are surrounded by churches and television sermons, and videos and Christian music--but they don't hear.  They are lost.

The secret to finding God comes from within.  God promised over and over in this quick, powerful, and sharp book that if you seek him, you will find him.  The problem with the dark recesses of the world and the busy streets and cities of America is exactly the same.  You have to seek Him.  And as you do, he reveals himself to you.  His word is a discerner of your heart.  Your thoughts.  Your intents.

God wants to be found.  His glory surrounds us in creation.  But a person must start looking.

And a good place to start is to look up, look around, watch the natural world.  Read the Bible.

Psalms 19: 1-3 "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament (sky) shows his handiwork.  Day unto day they utter speech, and night unto night they show knowledge.  There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."

Seek Him.  You will find Him.  He wants to be your God.

Hebrews 6:1a-2 "…let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings of Christ and advance steadily toward…spiritual maturity…"  Then, the writer spells out what those teachings are that should be behind us:  Repentance, never depending on works to save us, faith  in God--these are the things we did in the beginning of our faith.  He continues: teachings about purifying (meat, hands, etc.) laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, eternal judgement, and punishment.

He ends by saying, "…these are all matters of which you should have been fully aware of long, long ago…"

The writer is telling us that there is more.  Why would we want to drink milk when we can eat meat.  Spiritual growth is expected of us.  He wants us to quit wallowing in the sandbox.  Playing at church.  Playing at Christianity.  He wants us to grow up.

Christ saves us to serve.

Christ saves us so we can grow up in the faith.


Hebrews 5:14  "…solid food is for full-grown men, for those whose senses and mental facilities are trained by practice (habits) to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good… and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law."

How old are you?

I spoke about habits a few days ago.  How hard they are to form.  But once formed, fairly easy to keep.  But then there are the habits you once had that you let slip.  Good ones, that for some reason or another you let go by the wayside.  You want to remake that habit, but starting again is tough.

After lying in a hospital bed for four days, I want to renew my strength.  But it requires motion.  And motion is exactly the thing I don't want to do.  I want to sit.  I know I have to renew the habit of exercise, but…….  (I will, but I don't want to.)

And so we make excuses.  Or promise ourselves we will do that later.  I have always wondered why the things that are good for us are so hard to do, and the things that are bad for us are so easy.

 I read a quote in Discover magazine that said that man is the only creature that chooses to harm himself on purpose.  Even when he knows what he is going to do is wrong for his body or mind.  He does it anyway.

Perhaps that is because other animals have nothing to rebel against.  No God.  We, on the other hand, seem to love to rebel.  Give us a rule and we will break it.

Jesus came to save us from ourselves.  From the rebellious nature that resists the authority of God.

Hevrews 2: 1 "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away."  

It is so easy to drift.

My children say I never say anything about myself that is personal.  So here it is.

Older people talk about their ailments.  It's boring.  However, after a certain age, ailments consume you.  You are living in a package of flesh and bone that is trying to kill you--or if not, to make you miserable.  Life should be lived in reverse.  You should be old and decrepit at birth  and slowly get better.  Then you would appreciate health.  Youth is wasted on the young.

My soul, spirit, mind and personality seem to be intact.  But my body is a train wreck.  However, it could be worse.  I can see, hear, think, write, drive, walk, fix something to eat for myself and take care of my garden.  Mostly because of all the metal in my body.  It keeps me going.  I've been stuck so many times, I've run out of access veins.  They collapse.

For the most part, it all began when I lost the walls of my heart due to an orange size tumor over forty years ago. The beginning of a series of weird medical events that probably should have killed me.   I'm sure God has some reason for all this.  But I stay positive and I stay cheerful.  Cheerful is my nature.

I took my Mac to the hospital with me last Thursday so I could keep writing.  Becky came to watch my dogs.  (Who didn't miss me.  She is more fun.)  It's the right arm again.  Four times this year.  If I get a scratch, a paper cut, a pin prick in my right arm, I get an infection in my blood and pills won't help.  It has to be an antibiotic to the vein.  Thus the need for access.  It takes four days in the hospital.

Enough.

Jesus came to heal the sick, broken and down hearted.  He defeated death, so there is nothing to fear.

Matthew 19:2  "And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there."  He is called the great physician for a reason.  Even if he doesn't heal you physically, he heals you spiritually.

I will blog tomorrow if I can.  I've been in the hospital for four days with my arm (again) and don't feel perky yet.