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.