Before I began teaching this class at my church, the women in the class had decided that they would begin a mission project to build a water well somewhere in Africa.  A very lofty goal.  Since I have been teaching the class, they have made plans for a number of projects that had to be cancelled for one reason or another.

But Saturday, God willing and no rain, they are having a combined garage sale.  Everyone is donating their stuff to the cause.  I told them that they could have it at my house.  Becky--my daughter--had a sale last year at my house--because her homeowner clause wouldn't allow her to have one at her house--and had donated everything that was left over, and there was a ton of stuff.  She  had emptied a bunch of things from her four booths at Edmond Antiques (My favorite place in Edmond) and over half of it was left in my garage.

So.  Come Saturday, hopefully, I will get my garage back.  Whatever is left is going to one of those bulk-sale buyers that come in and put a price on everything left over.  I am pretty stoked because there was so much stuff in there I couldn't even sweep the floor.

It's going to be a "Hallelujah moment" when it is over.  At least for me.  I will never, never, never have another garage sale.  I'll let Becky use my house for one if she wants, but when it's over, everything left over is going to Goodwill or the Hope center.  Someone told me they would even pick it all up.  That would be even better.

We went to see the movie "Facing Darkness" last night--about the doctor who contracted Ebola--and looking at the background scenes, they can certainly use a water well.  So maybe this class of women will do some good.  This is my first experience with a group that took on a project this big.

God bless their efforts.  They are a great group of women.  I'm privileged to be their teacher.  They are teaching me.

I grew up thinking that the fruit of a Christian life was to lead someone else to Christ.  (Not that it isn't.) So I was always trying.  With only occasional success.  And then I read Dawson Trotman's book "Born to Reproduce."  And Galations 5:22 took on new meaning:  "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance."

Those nine fruits of the Spirit are the natural result of Christ coming to live in your life.  They are products of His holy Spirit within you.  And later, when I was reading Psalm 1:3, I got an entirely new perspective on bearing fruit.

"And you shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth your fruit in your season..."   That passage is saying that if you are planted by a source of water, and the ground you are planted in is good ground,  then fruit happens.  You don't have to grunt and groan to produce those nine kinds of fruit.  They happen.  Naturally.

And the beauty of it is...the seed for the new tree is inside the fruit.  In due season, fruit falls to the ground and another tree grows...born to reproduce in like kind.

What the Bible is saying is that if the Holy Spirit lives within you, you will be loving.  You will be joyful.  You will be peaceful.  You will suffer quietly.  You will be gentle and good, meek and have temperance.  And your faith will be visible to others!

Those are the qualities that draw people to you--and ultimately to Christ.  You simply share why those qualities exist in your life.  "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you for a reason of the hope that is in you..." 1 Peter 3:15

It isn't hard at all to share why you are hopeful.  It is a natural product of being planted in the soil of the Word, by the River of Water that rises up in your veins--Christ Jesus.  You are just a tree.  God does the "doing."  You can't produce fruit seeds on your own.

If someone told you they could give you eternal life--guaranteed--for a thousand dollars, you would dig up the money in a heartbeat.  But when a man by the name of Jesus offered it to people, it was free--with a hitch.  He said, "If any will come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me."

1.  It doesn't cost anything.  It is a matter of the will.  If anyone "will."

2.  "Come after me."  You come second, He comes first.

3.  "Take up your cross." (He had a  cross: death to himself.  He asked God, "If there is another way to do this, please do it.  However...not my will but yours be done. )  You also have a cross.  Pick up the cross of dying to your own selfish nature.  Give yourself over to the will of God.

4. "Daily."  Every day for the rest of your life, God's will becomes yours as well.  Luke was the only Gospel writer that used the word "daily."  He was a physician.  He was specific in the prescription he gave to us from the words of Jesus.

5.  "Follow me."  You go where he goes.  He has left a path to follow.   You probably need to look into the book of Luke and read the directions of the path.

That's it.  A five step plan for eternal life.  Free for the taking.

And you need to read the four gospels on a regular basis.  They are not like other books--they are inspired by God, and every time you read them you get something new.  Something you didn't see before.   Most of the men who wrote those books spent three years with Jesus.  Their account is very personal and compelling.

This has been the strangest February and March I've ever seen.  Temperatures going from freezing to 85 degrees nearly every week.  Up and down.  The redbuds began to bloom in February.   The redbuds never bloom here until my birthday--give or take a week.  Sunday was my birthday.  March 26.   I'm sure the peach blossoms froze and killed the peaches.  Strange, strange weather.

And I've already been busy in my yard for a month planting things.  I'm sure that it will freeze again and ruin what I have done, because this is Oklahoma.  If you don't like the weather, wait a minute.  But I get itchy to plant things when it is warm.

Today, my next door neighbor mowed my lawn.  It was up to my ankles and the lawn man (mower) doesn't ever come to mow until the first week in April.  When the grass is so bad that your neighbors come and mow your lawn, you know the growing season is really out of kilter.

However, I'm not complaining.  It just means more spring days as far as I am concerned.  Time to plant tomatoes.  And parsley and green peppers and basil.  Most of it doesn't live.  But I refuse to lose my optimism.  You can't predict in Oklahoma what is going to make it.  One year one thing survives, and the next year something else makes it.  But you can always count on okra.

I've always had good luck with asparagus--I don't eat much of it, but it's good to have something to give away to my neighbors--so I don't feel like a leech all the time.  Everyone around here is so good to me.  I am the "token widow" on the block.  Everyone takes care of me.  They know my kids have forbidden me to get on a ladder, so they even check to see if I'm being "Good."

It's hard to come to grips with the fact that I am considered to be "old."  I think about all the "old" people I have tried to help through the years and wonder if they considered themselves to be old.  I don't.  I'm the same person I've always been.  At least inside my head.   It's my body that is betraying me.  And yes, Sunday I was 79.  Good grief!  How can that be?  My head tells me I'm thirty-one.

As long as I'm talking about Scott, I'll tell this one.  He was a wild wooly bugger from the git-go.  When he learned to pull himself up on the side of his crib, it took only a day or two before he could scale it.  He couldn't have been very many months old, but he was climbing the walls and the counters--using the drawer handles as steps--and whatever else "needed' climbing.  Action. That's what he wanted.  After having had the girls, who were 6 and 4 who were reasonably normal, he was an altogether new experience.

I put him down for a nap one afternoon--and watched to make sure he was asleep before I left the room--I already had his number and wasn't about to leave before he was asleep.  But just to be sure, a few minutes later,  I went back to check on him, just in case.  And he was gone.  I looked all through the house, the closets, and everywhere outside, and couldn't find him anywhere.  (He had already learned to pull something up to the door, climb on it and open the door--so I knew he might be outside.)  I was frantic.  I called the MP's and they started an "on base" search.  (We were in Beaufort S.C. at the Laurel Bay air station--next to the water--which Scott loved.  He was a fish snorkeling and blowing bubbles in the bath tub when he was 4 months old--like I said, wooly and wild--so I wondered if he had made it to the bay which was only a block away.)

The search with the MP's went on for an hour or so with no luck, so I went in the house, sat down and tried to calm myself and to try and think like Scott would think.  (Who could possibly do that.) Where would he go?  That's when I searched the house again--closets, etc., everywhere.  I finally looked in my room under our bed again and there he was back under the bookcase headboard.  He had crawled out of the crib with his blanket, and curled up with it out of sight under the headboard.

I gave up on containing him.  For the next two years I never let him very far out of my sight.  He was impossible to predict.  "Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  I'm afraid I won't live long enough to see that happen.  I don't think Scott will ever be "Old."

I told this story a few years ago, but with Easter coming up, It's worth telling again. After your children are grown, when they get together, you find out all kinds of things that you never knew before.  I thought I had them under control when they were growing up. But obviously I didn't.

      We had moved to California for five months, waiting on Ken to retire.  We were living on base at El Toro in officer's housing.  Which wasn't much.  Two bedrooms, one bath.  Adequate, but nothing luxurious.  Pat was in the fifth grade.  Becky in the third.  Scott had just turned five years old.

     There was a big tree in our front yard and the street was pretty busy.  Easter was coming up.  So, Pat said she asked Scott, "Hey, you want to be Jesus?" Whatever Pat and Becky thought up, Scott did.   and unbeknownst to me, the girls got ropes and tied Scott to the tree with his arms out, fastened to a couple of branches like a cross.   "You're gonna be Jesus in our Easter pagent," they told him--and topped him off with a crown of thorns.  Probably from a rose bush.

But after a while,  the girls got tired, went in the house and left him there.   Naked as a blue jay except for a tea towel wrapped around him in an appropriate position. The only bad thing was, after awhile, he lost his loin cloth.  Their intentions were religious.  It just didn't turn out that way.  I don't know who cut him down.   You would have thought one of the neighbors would have told me.  I also don't know why I never heard about it until they were grown.

At least the girls knew the crucifixion story.  They didn't disobey.  I never told the girls not to crucify their brother.  If I had, I would have told them not to crucify him in the front yard on a main street.

     "We finally remembered that he was still hanging out there and cut him down and gave him his clothes," Pat said.

     "They crucified me!  Scott said,  There I was, my arms tied to a tree, and my...."  (Unprintable.  You can fill in the blanks.) " Pat said:  "He was no worse for wear, and nobody reported a naked kid tied to  a tree."   Becky said: "I had nothing to do with it."  Knowing Becky, she probably thought it up.

The most important moments that pass us by are not Paris flea market purchases, or cactus candy.  From what I wrote about yesterday, you might think that I was talking about buying stuff.  No.  I was just saying that missed opportunities cannot be reclaimed.

The most important things that we miss are those moments when the opportunity to say something meaningful to another person passes us by.  We worry what they might think.  We worry that they will find us "different."  Or odd.  Or too religious.  I encourage those people that I teach to practice "speaking up."  You can learn how to do it.  I encourage them to develop a spiel.  Opening dialogue.  Verbal interaction in a way that doesn't cause another person to feel like you have an agenda.

Because lets's face it, there are a lot of rude pushy "so called Christians" out there that don't really care about people.  They just have an agenda.  They like to argue.  They like to put people down.  They like to look "holy."

But if you sincerely want to share Christ, you have to care about the other person.  My opening "spiel" usually goes something like this:  "Have you lived in Edmond very long?  I'm new here."  Which usually opens the door to conversation.  And down the line somewhere I might ask: "Have you found a church here that you like?"  That is usually it.  I normally wait till next time I meet them to find out more.  Unless my questions lead to more discussion about churches--or not.

But if you really don't care about the individual or their spiritual condition, forget it.  You won't be able to be sincere no matter how hard you try.  Unless you are a great actor--and why would you want to do that.  We aren't oscar winning hypocrites.  We love God.  God loves us--and we want others to know that God loves them, too.  Beating people over the head with a Bible won't accomplish that.

Missed opportunities come and go because we aren't ready to identify them.  Or we don't know what to do with them.  Moments pass us by, never to be repeated.  Take the business of recognizing opportunities seriously.  Develop an attitude of bravery.  God will be there.  He's in it with you.  It's His plan anyway.

I bought more azaleas.  And yesterday John--my gardener who comes every Monday for a couple of hours--planted them.  Coral Bells.  I've tried to find some for the last two years, but everyone sells out before I can get any.  They are a cultivar that is especially "Oklahoman."  But Saturday when I went to the nursery, I intercepted a man who was bringing a cart of them in, and grabbed four.  I went back later to get a few more and they were all gone.  Should have bought them when I found them.

There are so many things I should have done when I had the chance.  The moment comes, you hesitate, and the moment goes.  We seem to think there will always be another day--but that's not always true.  Especially with children.

I remember once, when we were coming to Oklahoma from out west--probably California--we told the kids they could buy one souvenir apiece.  Becky wanted cactus candy.  But it was so expensive that I kept saying, "It will be cheaper the next time we stop."  But it never got cheaper and the next time never came, because the next place didn't have any.  And the cactus candy in the desert was too far behind us to go back. Pat and Scott got what they wanted.  Becky didn't.  She was just a little girl and was so disappointed.  Makes me sad to remember.  Wish I could go back.

You can't go back.  When the moment comes to do something, don't hesitate.  I am so analytical that I over think every thing I do.  Not good sometimes.  "I should have," are sad words.  Because you can never capture the moment or the opportunity again for some things.

I've been to Paris a number of times.  And when we go, I always love the flea markets.  People come in to a certain street, back up to the sidewalk and unload their vans.  Hundreds of treasures spill out onto the sidewalks.  My kind of fun.  But deciding what to buy escapes me and while I've been trying to make up my mind about something, someone else buys it.  Becky says, "Quit thinking about it.  Just buy it. You want it.  It's really cheap.  You won't be back here for years--maybe never.  What is your problem?"  Not that things are important, but memories are.

She learned that lesson in the desert when she didn't get her cactus candy.  It's a memory. 

And while I am talking about reading the Bible, let me say that there is not a right or wrong way to do it.  I keep a little book--some would call it a devotional book--on my kitchen counter.  It is dated for each day of the year, but it only has scriptures--no discussion or explanation.  On a subject.  Faith, Love,  Fear...etc.   It's short--my attention span is short as well.

I don't do devotions very well.  Some people find them inspiring.  Whatever you like, that's what you should do.  Some people want to start at the front of the Bible and read through from Genesis to Revelation--a portion at a time.  There are guides to doing that.  It is a very good plan.  But I always get bogged down in Numbers.  Like I said, my attention span is short.

Some people like to have a guide that goes through the Bible by subject.  That's a good plan as well.
But even though my "kitchen book" is by date and by subject, some days I don't read it.  I forget.  Or I go to Bible Study and read something there.  I would call myself a "spastic reader."  It works for me.  However, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.  Most people need a pattern, a disciplined method of reading, or they will "forget" it and forgetting becomes their habit.  Not good.  Most people need a "time" to do their Bible reading.  That's probably best.  A routine.

Like I said, there is no right or wrong way to do it.  Just do it.  Find a way that works for you and stick with it.  That's the key to reading.  Stick to it.  Make a habit.  Since I teach, I find myself reading passages that relate to the subject of the lesson I am preparing.  But inevitably, I find something I didn't know and start chasing rabbits.  And when I can't find what I want to know, I call Carolyn.  She's my backup theologian.  GC.  Google Carolyn.  She is an English, Drama major.  Taught for a zillion years, and a brilliant researcher.  She's my Biblical ace in the hole.

Everyone needs one.  When she and I get to talking about something in the Bible, we sometimes disagree.  Which is fabulous.  It makes me want to read more.  "As iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens the countenance of his friend."  Proverbs 27:17  There is nothing better than having a Christian friend you can talk to.  Someone asked Carolyn what she and I talk about.  She said, "I have no idea."  That's the truth.  We talk about a zillion things.  Mostly nothing.  Sometimes, something.

Why don't people who say they have given their lives to Christ read the Bible?  I don't get it.  If you got a letter from a friend you would read it.  All that is necessary to be motivated to read the Bible, is to consider that John, Peter, Matthew, Paul, James, Luke, Mark, and Jude-- among others--are friends of ours.  They wrote us letters to read about exciting experiences that they had.  You've got mail!!!!!!

All of you like it when I write about Ken's exploits.  Those men wrote about the exploits of a man  named Jesus.  A man who changed the world and still changes the world.  The most famous man of all time. We like to hear about people's experiences.  Jesus' experiences are mind-blowing.

The Bible is so interesting.  And even though I have read it all a number of times--it's like everything else in my life--I forget.  And every time I read it I learn something new.  It is like a guide book for living in a way that comes out "right" in the end.  Living in a way that guarantees living forever.  And ever.  And it guarantees that we will find peace in our lives.

It is not a get rich book.  There are a number of famous TV preachers that promise that you will "Prosper" if you accept Christ.  Prosper financially.  They quote the prayer of Jabez as if it means we all will be rich.  The Bible doesn't teach that everybody that comes to Christ will prosper financially.   It promises that you will have what you need.

Jesus said, "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.  They don's spin..yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  If God clothes the grass which lives today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you.  Don't worry about what you shall eat, or drink...the Father knows that you have need of these things." Luke 12:27-40

There is an evil power out there.  One who is trying to defeat you.  But when something goes wrong,  God will use it some way or another.  And he promises to be with us in our troubles.  He promises that nothing will ever happen that will be more than we can bear.  He is all powerful.  He will "deliver us from evil," is what the Lord's prayer says.  That's a good deal.  A perfect way out.  Go get your mail and read it.

I have been a member of a number of churches as we moved around.  I have been amazed at how many people "go to get," rather than "go to give."  Somewhere along the way, we have watered down what it means to be a Christian.  When you truly and sincerely come to Christ, you start a journey.  You have made a decision to agree that His will is your will.  And that you want to find out what that "will" is so that you can actually do it.

There seems to be a huge lack of personal responsibility for sharing Christ with the world.  And there is a tendency among church members to attend, listen, and leave.  With no concept of changing your life.  With no desire to grow.  With no desire to share the gospel.  And with a comfortable satisfaction that spreading the gospel is the preacher, staff, and teacher's job.

People get satisfied with the group they are in, and settle down for the duration.  Very few read their Bible.  Fewer still take the words of scripture as marching orders.   I don't blame them.  I blame us.  We have put "Doing church" in a capsule.  Come on Sunday, sing a song or two, listen to a sermon and go home.  We settle people into a rut.  God forbid that someone gets excited about anything.

And yet, the church is the body of Christ.  It is the best thing that we have going for fellowship with other Christians.  It is the best thing we have for helping us raise our children.  It is the best thing we have in times of trouble.  True Christian people are the best people in the world.  God's children.

But I fear we have lulled people into a sense of security as to how salvation becomes a fact in their lives.  We ask them to come forward.  To say they believe in Jesus.  And many times, that's it.  We baptize them and and they are left with a feeling of security that is not real.

I remember in 1954, our convention adopted a motto, "A million more in '54."  Which we got.  And never saw many of them again.  Saying that you believe in Jesus doesn't save you.  The devil himself believes in Jesus--that he is the Son of God.  That He rose from the dead.  But Satan doesn't give God his heart, his will or his allegiance.  You have to give yourself to Christ.  All of you.

We just need to take it all more seriously.  We have a job to do.  There is no Plan B.

Churches are funny things.  Instead of us doing the things that need doing, we hire people to tell us what to do.  Which is strange--because we have a book, the Bible, that already does that.  And the problem with hiring people to tell us what to do, is that every time we change the man at the top, (or woman, in some churches), we start all over with a new direction about how to do what we do.

Sunday I went to a meeting where there was a discussion about why people attend your church.  In a survey, less than 10 percent nation wide said it was the pastor.  Or the location.  Or the doctrine.  Or the programs.  Or the building.  Over 80% said they came because someone asked them to come.

People don't come to church just to learn about Jesus.  They come to connect with people.  People who are of a certain mind-set.  And they stay because they find a group of people who adopt them.  Take them into their group.  People who listen, and pray for their needs.  People who aren't judgmental, but are encouraging.  And in the process, hopefully, they find Christ.

And yet, we spend most of the money that the church receives on the things that attract people the least.  I believe that we could do a lot better by spending our money on connection groups led by people who know how to teach, but also know how to connect.  People want to connect.  They come looking for something.  And if we don't reach out and pull them into our fellowship, they will look for a church that does.

As a teacher, I have always picked one, sometimes two people to disciple each year.   Rarely two.  You can't pour yourself into everyone--because doing that kind of "caring" for someone takes a lot of your personal time.  Usually years.  It took Jesus three years to disciple the people he picked.  Generally,  everyone I chose actually chose me.  They wanted to learn.  It's not hard to figure out who might want to know more.  You "connect."

I think the churches--all denominations--in America would be able to spread the gospel in a better way if they taught people how to teach others to make disciples.  Reproduce yourself in like kind.  Double your impact.  Teach people how to make disciples.  Teach them how to go about doing that.  Jesus said, "As you are going, make disciples..." Matthew 28:19  

As long as I am on the subject of growing older, let me say that I've had to give up on perfection.  I have to hire so many things done, that I have had to accept that nobody is going to do what I want them to do the way I want them to do it.

So, for instance, instead of telling John--my gardner--to move a rock (he had just placed in the wrong place by the Koi pool) to the right or left a little bit, I have learned to say something like, "Do you think that rock needs to be moved over to the right a little?  Or do you like it where it is?  What do you think?"  Then sometimes he will humor me a bit without me having to say, "Move it."  Sometimes I have to accept where he has put it.   And live with it.  He is an exceptional worker--and I don't want to discourage him with my nit-picking.  However........

I'm a perfectionist.  After the cleaning ladies leave, I have to go around straightening pictures, moving do-dads back where they go, repositioning the dining room chairs so that they are lined up five inches from the edge of the table, etc., etc.  If you are OCD like me, you might as well give up on other people seeing what you are seeing.  You might as well accept that you are going to be straightening pictures, do-dads and so forth, for the rest of your life.

I guess I could just give up on it all.  But it's not in my nature.  I like to walk into a room and have everything in place.  Just so.  If something is out of order it is the first thing I see.  And I will be bugged until I fix it.  My chandelier wasn't exactly centered over the new dining room table--so I called Tony (who does all kinds of handiwork) to come move it 13 inches to the right.  Now, it all looks like it should, and I am happy.  On to the next project.

I've got one area that is a mess.  It is around my recliner.  Everything I need is within arm's reach.  Pens, stamps, fingernail clippers, tea cup, bills, envelopes, stapler, shredder, etc.   And I can clean it up in three minutes if company comes.  Which I seldom do.

My sister Lisa needs to come to see me again.  I've got things that I still need for her to hang on the wall.  She is the only one in the family who has the patience to deal with my obsessions.  Except for God.

It's Monday again.  Time is going by so fast.  Or maybe I am going so slow that it is rolling over me.  I can't seem to get anything done that needs to be done.  I feel like my days are like a dripping faucet. Drop at a time they evaporate.  At night when I go to bed, I can think of a million things I need to do the next day.  But when I wake up, I can't remember any of them.

Here's an example:  Saturday night, I remembered that I needed to reset the clock.  I had already gone to bed so I reminded myself that I needed to do it first thing Sunday morning.  Of course I forgot, and missed church.  I was lazing around reading the newspaper and looked at my watch.  It was 8:30 and I needed to get ready for 9:30 worship service.  And the same instant realized that it was really 9:30 already.

And last Tuesday, I was refilling my daily pill cases and thought, "I'll go ahead and take my pills while I'm doing this."  Which I had already taken.  Trust me, you don't want to double your potassium.  I got a rip-roaring headache, and every time I tried to walk I looked like I was drunk.

The big problem with all of that is that your children (and everybody else) think you are incompetent because you are getting old.  But the truth is, I've always been absent minded.  It's just that when you age, people attribute every stupid thing you do to your age.  I've always managed to do stupid stuff.

I do forget things quicker.  Which is a good thing.  Why hang on to things that bother you.  And I pace myself with the tasks that need to be done.  And I extrapolate parts of some of the things I know and put them into other things I know.  It makes sense to me.

Actually, I don't mind growing older.  There isn't as much stress.  I don't feel any pressure to do things I don't want to do.  And if I miss going somewhere I meant to go, well, I'll go next time.  "Grow old with me.  The best is yet to come."

In the book of Ecclesiastes, as the writer concludes, he says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, (of life):  Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."  So, every day I try to do just that--as I grow older.  It is a pretty good plan.

Ann (my cousin who lives in Edmond--that I grew up with in Pryor.) has been asking me to make a chicken pot pie.  I had done one a year ago and she kept raving about it, so I fixed one today.  Problem is, the reason it is so good is you bake the chicken uncovered until the skin is brown and crunchy.  And of course, it splatters all over the oven and smokes up the house.  And when you get through, the oven is a total disaster.

Then you bone the chicken, set it aside, and take the crunchy skin, fat, and bones and boil them until the broth is golden brown.  Store bought broth just doesn't cut it.  The flavor is in the crunchy skin.

But all that messy smoke from the oven permeates the house.  Ugh.  I don't think I will ever make another pot pie from scratch.  What a mess.  But, mmmmm.....it is delicious.  I've tried every store bought brand of chicken pot pie that is out there and can't even find a close second.

I seldom cook any more unless I invite people over to eat.  It's hard to cook for one person.  No, it's almost impossible to cook for one person.  And it's no fun to eat alone.

Living in America is such a blessing.  We can go to the grocery store and buy anything we want.  In season, or out of season.  We have a refrigerator.  A stove.  A microwave.  A dishwasher.  An oven.  Hot water.  Things are so easy that we forget to give thanks for all of these conveniences--that most of the world doesn't have.

One thing that I can cook for one person is lamb chops.  Another is Ahi tuna steak--which I love--topped with toasted sesame seeds browned in butter.  We have a specialty store in Edmond that will let you buy small portions of meat.  How blessed we are to have such choices.

"Give us this day our daily bread...."   And all the stuff that goes with it.  God is good.

I have been helping Pat with the design for redoing her bathroom for the last three months.  And today the contractor finished laying most of the tile--it is really pretty.  We tore everything out down to the concrete.  Tub, old shower, toilet, sinks.  All of it.

She lives in a log cabin that a man was building by for his daughter.  He had used odds and ends from other houses he was building, and in the middle of the project, his daughter got a divorce.  So it was sold "as is."  Pat and Tom bought it and 20 acres, and have put up with a lot of stuff that was done wrong.  The builder joined the underground plumbing with duct tape!!!   Little by little they have made necessary repairs.  The exterior is really nice.  That's good.  But inside it needed TLC.

Well, they paid it off last year and plan to take one room at a time and redo everything that needs done inside.  And the bathroom was first on the list.  I'm going to be glad when it is done.  I have to drive 30 minutes both ways when I go out there to help.

I must have done a million-zillion projects like this through the years.  I love the planning.  I hate the execution.  I like to figure things out.  I don't like to do them.  It's like a puzzle to me and I love puzzles.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might..." Ecclesiastics 9:10

   
"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."  Colossians 3:23 

Attitude.  That's the most important thing.  Do what you do well--even when you don't like what you are having to do.  

My Koi pond is a money pit.  I probably should have had it filled in when I bought this house, but the waterfall is so pretty I just couldn't force myself to do it.  I had it cleaned last week--they do that every spring--and it was four hundred bucks to take the fish out, drain it, and get all the leaves (etc.) out--and clean the main filter.  And I have to have someone clean the smaller filter twice a week on top of that.  I can't do it because I can't take a chance on scratching my hand.

John, my garden helper, has been bringing rocks to fill in the gaps around the pond.  There is a man near Pat's house who is pulling huge rocks out of his fields and piling them by the road for people to take.  They are really pretty.  And free for the taking.  Of course I have to pay John for the labor, but as long as he is willing to pick them up, I can use them.

There are so many things I can no longer do because of the right hand and arm.  But I haven't been in the hospital with it in at least 6 months--praise God.  However, it irritates the goodie out of me to have to hire people to do this stuff I used to do all by myself.  On the other hand, moving to live somewhere that they would do everything for you runs into the thousands a month--and I sure don't want to do that anyway.  I love my house.  I love my yard.  Squig loves our yard.  And it is almost time to start sticking tomatoes in the ground.  I can use gloves and not scratch myself.  I can't wait.

Other than the arm and hand, I am in excellent shape for someone my age. And I have decided that hiring people to help with the house cleaning and the yard is the cheapest thing I can do.  I am content.  I thank God every day that I am still able to function mentally.  (At least I think I can???)  My mom, her sister Ruby, and brother Thurman all had Alzheimer's.  However, none of their children have been cursed with it.  Thank God.

"O praise the Lord...praise him all you people.  For his merciful kindness is great toward us..." Psalm 117:1-2  "I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my requests.  Because he has inclined his ear to me.  Therefore I will call upon him for as long as I live."  Psalm 116:1-2

However long that is.  I'm planning on at least another twenty.

This message is number 1,075.  That is unbelievable.  When I started doing this, I was just going to preserve some information about Genesis for my children.   Then it became an addiction.  I wanted to put everything that is in my head on paper.  (I know, this isn't paper--but it could be.)  And just when I thought I had written everything I knew, Carolyn pointed me in a new direction.  Women of the Bible.  Which I will get back to.  I just needed a break.  It was really difficult researching that.

And now, I am sitting here trying to think about what to write next, and it occurred to me that a few months ago I started on the first page of the Bible and went all the way to the end of Revelation writing down verses that had meant something special to me in a daily reading journal for my granddaughter Amy.  I skipped a lot of scripture just picking individual verses that were deep and more meaningful to me.  Verses that help you.  Application, not history.

All of the Bible is important, but let's face it, some parts of it are more relevant than others to the everyday Christian like me.  I read it to be inspired.  To try and figure out what I need to be doing that I am not doing.  And what I am doing--that I need to stop.

I tell my Bible class that if you aren't a better person today than you were six months ago, you are not working on your spiritual life.  The entire point is to be better people.  Yes, works don't save you.  But works are a clear indication of the direction you are going--and "Who" you are following.

The apostle Paul put it this way, "Therefore...as you have always obeyed...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."  Philippians 2:12  We are to be working on our spiritual lives.

He also said, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 3:14  He saw it as a timed race.  He only had so many days to do the work of Jesus before the race was over and he met God.

Our days on earth are numbered.  The point of it all is to spread the gospel.  God puts people in our path.  Since we don't interface with the same people, we must learn to recognize our opportunities to share Christ.

We had a scripture this morning that was interesting in the class I teach.  I remember very clearly hearing Ken's dad preach on this scripture--and I couldn't have been over 8 or 9 years old at the time.  Here's the way he explained it using words from the original Greek language.  I have never forgotten his sermon from Matthew 16:18-19.

"And I say unto you that you are "Peter", and upon this "rock" I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..."

Jesus used the Greek word "Petros" translated as "Peter" which was--a pebble.  Jesus then used the word "Petra" translated "rock," or huge stone.  In other words, Jesus was not--absolutely not--saying that He was going to build his church on Peter.  He was saying He, himself, was the rock on which the church would be built.  I can picture Jesus pointing to Peter and saying, "Peter, you are a small pebble," and then pointing to himself and saying, "But on this huge rock I will build my church." (kingdom)

In Ephesians 2:19-22 (and many other scriptures) God says, "...you are not foreigners, but citizens with the saints and the household (kingdom) of God and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets--Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.  In whom all the building fitly framed grows in a holy temple...in whom you are builded together for a habitation of God..."

And the key to the kingdom was the gospel.  The story of Jesus.  That is what he left with Peter and the other disciples.  The gospel is what gave people the way (the key) to open the door to the kingdom.  Not by some church saying whether you got in or not.  The kingdom is made up of people who hear the gospel, accept it as truth and believe in Christ.  We build up the kingdom of God.

We pebbles are fitly framed into a building, a holy kingdom, left behind to change the world through the gospel.  Christ was God.  He lived, he died for our sin, and He rose from the dead.  He is the foundation, the cornerstone of our faith.  "By grace you are saved through faith--and that is not of yourselves.  It is the gift of God lest anyone should boast."   I'm the pebble one foot up from the foundation on the back wall by a window.  Where are you????
Ephesians 2:8

Saul went to Gilboa where his army was preparing to fight.  When Saul saw the vast armies of the Philistines he was frantic with fear and didn't know what to do.  He asked God, but got no answer.  God had rejected Saul in favor of David.

When God did not answer Saul, he did something that he had previously banned in Israel.  Witchcraft.  There was a woman, awitch--or a medium--who lived in Endor.  And Saul decided to go ask her what he should do about the Philistines.  So Saul took off his king's regalia and put on humble clothes and went to see the witch.  He disguised himself so that the witch wouldn't know it was him.

"I've got to talk to a dead man," he told the witch.  She answered, "Are you trying to get me killed?"  And added, "Don't you know that king Saul has all the mediums and fortune tellers executed.  You are spying on me.  You are trying to get me killed."

But Saul promised he wouldn't betray her.  So she asked him what dead man he wanted to talk to. "Bring me Samuel," Saul told her.  At that point the witch said, "You have deceived me.  You are the king himself."  So Saul begged her to bring Samuel so that he could talk to him.

When Samuel appeared, he told Saul that God had taken the kingdom away from him and that it was now David's.  He told him that the Israeli army would be destroyed by the Philistines the next day and that Saul and his sons would die."  Saul fell, paralyzed with fear.

The witch said, "I obeyed you at the risk of my life.  Now let me give you something to eat so that you can regain your strength.  She fed him and his men and they left.  And died in battle the next day.  She must have been a nice witch.  A rather unusual story of forbidden sorcery and witchcraft.

Sometimes we forget that there are evil forces on earth.  We need to take seriously the part of the Lord's prayer that says, "Deliver us from evil."  It's out there.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour."  1 Peter 5:8

There was a prophet named Nathan who came to David and told him the story of a man who had many, many sheep.  "Large flocks." But when a traveler came to his house, the man took the one and only lamb--who was almost a pet--from a very poor man and slaughtered it to feed to his guest.

It made David furious.  He pronounced judgment on the man who killed the lamb.  "He will be put to death."  And Nathan said to David, "You are the man."  David immediately knew that Nathan was talking about him concerning Bathsheba and Uriah.  David thought the entire incident was gone and forgotten, but God knew.  And God sent his prophet to bring David's sin to light.  He was guilty. And the punishment that God gave to him was that the baby would die.

David prayed and prayed.  He confessed.  He begged for the baby boy's life.  But God does what he says he will do.  What David did in secret was uncovered.  And the penalty for sin was death.  If you have never read Psalms 51, read it.  It is a pouring out of David's heart.  His weeping, when he realized that his sin was really against God, and God's authority in David's life.  King or no king.

Bathsheba's heart was broken.  She lost Uriah, she lost her son.  But David was moved to comfort her, "And David comforted Bathsheba..."  Imagine what she was going through.  Her life was shattered.  But soon, they had another son--Solomon.  The Bible says, "...and the Lord loved him."

When David was old, and dying, Adonijah--David's son by Haggith--said, "Now I will be king," (even though he was born after Absalom.)  He got the priest to help him in his effort.  Adonijah called all his brothers except Solomon to a confab.  But Nathan went to Bathsheba, and told her to go to David on his death bed and implore him to make Solomon king.  She did.  She knelt and implored David to name Solomon to reign.  She told him what Adonijah was doing.  Nathan concurred.

So David appointed Solomon as his heir, "...for he shall be king in my stead...I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah."  Solomon was anointed king, even though  Bathsheba was the eighth or ninth wife of David.  Solomon was not David's firstborn.  But he was now king.  David loved Bathsheba, and she was favored by David over his other wives.  There must have been a lot of conflict.  But Solomon was an excellent choice for king.  The wisest man in the Old Testament.

And then, the most famous of David's wives, the one he had a man killed for:  Bathsheba.

She was taking a bath on the roof of her house.  I've always wondered why she did that.  There were better places to take a bath that were private.  She lived in a house with a roof that was lower than David's palace.  Did she know he went out at night on his balcony and could look down on her?

 I am certainly not excusing David, but I don't think she should have been outside, naked, bathing where she could be observed.  Whatever the case, David saw her bathing, wanted her, sent someone to find out who she was, and found out she was married to one of his Captains in his army--Uriah.

David's army was out fighting the Ammonites.  If David had been where he should have been--with his men, instead of lazing around at home--this incident would never have taken place.

He was king.  He could have whatever he wanted.  So he sent for her, had sex with her and then sent her home.  Adultery by force.  It might even be called rape because she had no rights.  He had plenty of wives he could have called for.  He made the choice to do wrong with a woman that wasn't his.

She got pregnant.  So David sent for Uriah and told him to go home--so that he would bed Bathsheba and the pregnancy would look like it was Uriah's baby, not David's.  But Uriah was loyal to David and stayed at the palace gate with the other servants.

"What's wrong with you!" David asked?  "Why didn't you go home to the comforts of your wife for the night?  You've been in the field for a long time."  Uriah told him that he wouldn't feel it was proper to go home when his army, generals and officers were still in the field in suffering hardships.  He refused to go home.  He went back to the front.

Desperate that he would be found out, David sent a message to his top general and told him to put Uriah in the forefront of the hottest part of the battle.  And Uriah was killed.  And David was a murderer as well as an adulterer.  But God knew.  And as I have written before, there will be a payday, someday.