Peter, John, Paul, and James.  The four pillars of the fledgling church.  They were like the glue that held together all the other stones, the new Christians, that had been laid on the foundation.  Laid on the corner stone, the Rock--Jesus.  The Christ.

They were as different as night and day.  Peter--boisterous, emotional.  Action first, think later.  Weak one day, strong as an ox the next.  But totally invested in being what Jesus wanted him to be.  His faults were very visible, but he was committed to feeding the sheep that Jesus had left behind.  Never again would he fail his Lord.  He eventually would be crucified upside down defending the faith. You wouldn't expect anything less of him.  He was a force to be reckoned with.

John.  Quiet, kind.  A man who loved others--he loved Jesus completely.  A man you could count on.  Dependable to a fault.  A peacemaker.  The man you would want beside you if you had to go to war.  The right hand man of Jesus.  He called himself, "The one who Jesus loved."

Paul.  Defender of the Jewish faith--until Jesus struck him blind on the road to Damascus.  Until Jesus asked him why he was "Kicking against the thorns."  Asking, "Why was so hard for Paul to identify Jesus as the Messiah?  Paul was the Biblical scholar.  An academician.  Able to bring the Old law and the New freedom together.  A man who stepped down off his high horse and went to the Gentiles with the gospel.  Never again looking back, he poured his soul out reaching souls.

And James.  Principled.  Determined.  Able to hold men true to the course set ahead of them.  A man that men would follow.  Steady.  A defender of the faith.

The four of them were not best friends.  They were brothers in Christ dedicated to the gospel and willing to die for it.  Which three of them did.  John being the only one who wasn't--he was exiled to Patmos.  I think they recognized the strengths that each of them brought to the work they were called to do.  They supported each other, chastised each other, took strength from each other and changed the world by spreading the story of Jesus.  The greatest story ever told.  The gospel of Christ.

Jesus was rejected by his hometown.  They knew him as a citizen, not as the Messiah.  You remember that Jesus said, "...no prophet is accepted in his hometown."  Luke 4:24.  And yet, James came to believe Jesus was the Messiah, even when most of the people in Nazareth rejected Jesus.

James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.  The other disciples looked to James for guidance.  When you read the four short pages that James wrote, you can't help but be amazed at how many verses will be familiar to you.  Verses you learned as a child, or along the way.

Verses that reflect his strong unfailing faith in the God of the Jews.  Such as when he said, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."  (The most perfect of all the gifts being God's Son, Jesus.)  James had an abiding faith in the goodness of Jehovah.

James' strongest message in his letter was on the point of Christian identification.  He said over and over again that the way you are proven to be a Christian is by the works that you do.  No other writer drives that statement home like James does.  He says with authority, "What does it profit my brothers, if a man says he has faith, and doesn't have works? Even so faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead, being alone."  He is saying--in the most forceful words of all the disciples--that faith will produce good works.  Faith first, works as a result.

One of his most memorable verses concerns what faith in Christ doesn't mean.  It isn't simply believing that Jesus is God's son.  James says cheap belief is not enough:  "You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble."  And the devil certainly isn't a Christian.

Read James.  It can be done in ten to fifteen minutes.  He is blunt.  Concise.  Demanding more of his reader than the other disciples do in their letters.  He is a, "Where the rubber meets the road" kind of guy.

James is an interesting book.  Written by Jesus' brother who was very Jewish in his writing.  In this, his only letter, he writes to the Diaspora (dispersion of the Jerusalem Christians) who were scattered.  Jewish Christians who were fleeing persecution.  People that James felt responsible for.

Can you imagine what it must have been like growing up in a household where your older brother was perfect.  A brother who never did anything wrong.  Who obeyed his parents in every way.  I think that living with Jesus would have been difficult.  James could never live up to his older brother.

And James must have heard the stories about the circumstances of his mother's first pregnancy.  I'm sure other boys teased him about his mom's "Virgin birth."  However, his father Joseph probably would have told his children about the truth of Mary's first pregnancy.  Would have told them how an Angel of God came to Joseph and told him not to be afraid to take Mary to be his wife.  Would have told them about Jesus being the Son of God.

But it was much later when James became a believer.  He watched Jesus for years and years as Jesus fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament, and one day, somewhere along the road, James became a believer.  Jesus was the Son of God.  Jesus was the promised Messiah.

So when James opens his letter to the Jews who have fled Jerusalem, he gives the shortest introduction in the New Testament.  Everyone knew who James was.  He didn't need to introduce himself.  He simply says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting."

He declares himself to be a servant.  Of God, and of his half brother, Jesus.  Whom he declares to be not only the Christ, but also to be his Lord.  And James' declaration is to every tribe in the Jewish nation.  All twelve of them.  He vindicates his mother's virgin birth.  He vindicates Jesus.  It takes a very big man not to be jealous of a sibling.  Born of the same mother, James declares that Jesus is the son of the living God. The promised one. The Christ.

Yesterday was the day the Connection Group chose to fast and pray.  I had never done that before, and had never considered the fact that those two things always go together in the Bible.  It was an interesting experience for me.

It wasn't a problem for the morning since I don't like breakfast anyway.  I've never found much of anything that is considered "breakfast food" that I find appealing.  If I eat anything for breakfast, it is something like cold pizza, or "leftover anything" from the day before.  I've been known to eat a can of hominy from time to time.  Or a can of black-eyed peas.

So I got through the morning without a problem.  I just didn't eat anything.  But along about eleven o'clock, I started getting hungry--which brought to mind just why I wasn't eating.  Every time I thought about food, I thought about why I was fasting, and prayed for a friend who was in deep grief for her family.

That's why the two--fasting and praying--go together.  When you are hungry, and deny yourself food, you remember to pray.  Over and over through the day, you recall why you are fasting in the first place, and it causes you to pray for the thing that you are fasting for.

I told the class that I would give up meat, seafood, and bread.  Bread being the biggie for me.  But I was able to give up everything.  Now, I think I could do it again.  Before yesterday, I wasn't sure.  I think that if I started at six in the evening, I could make it till six the next day.

But it would have to be something big I was fasting for.  The huge grief our friend our friend was suffering drove me to try it.  We all prayed off and on all day.  Maybe that's why God encouraged it in the Word.  It sure makes you concentrate on the content of your prayer.

I learned something.

I'm still trying to get pictures on the wall.  There are a zillion of them.  Every stage of life for my children--birth to marriage.  Every stage of life for my grandchildren--birth to marriage.  And now, I am doing the same entire cycle for my great grandchildren.  The oldest is six and the youngest is five days.  Thirty one people is a lot of people to keep track of.

So I am not going to put them all up.  There is no way I can do that.  Picking which ones to go up is by a matter of elimination.  The pictures I like best will come first.  Of course, I'll hang the wedding wall.  Probably back in the guest room.  I had it in my bedroom, but now that I've moved, that won't work--no room for it anymore.

I didn't have any problem picking the ones I wanted in the family room where my chair and the TV are.  There were 10 of them I put up immediately.  The family room is done.  Done.  And so is the living room.  Done.  So it is really easy to sit down and ignore the rest of it.

I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday about moving, and what you would keep if you downsized.  The only thing I have that I can't live without is Squig.  Pictures would be a distant second.  The rest of it, I don't care.  Just Squig.  He will be eleven years old in a few months.  I know he won't live forever, but I don't want to think about that.

I am seriously considering getting another dog now, so when "the day comes," I won't be left totally alone.  Problem with that is--I want a dog that is placid and friendly.  Sweet natured and loves to snuggle.  I wish I could clone Squig.  He is a perfect companion.

My choir director changed the practice time from 1:30 in the afternoon, to 10:30 in the morning on Thursdays.  It has fouled up my "do nothing" time.  Like Ken used to say, "I get up in the morning with nothing to do, and go to bed with it half done."   Squig and I are on the exact same schedule.  We do a lot of nothing together.

I talked to my friend Sally yesterday.  She moved to Hattisburg, Mississippi a couple of years ago to be near her daughters.  But Ernest wanted to return to Pryor, so they sold their new house, and for the time being have moved in with one of her daughters.  "Such a relief," Sally iterated--and said that owning a house was like a noose around your neck to keep you from moving when you want to.  You can't just up and leave when you own a house.

Ernest has some medical issues--he has a wonderful doctor at the VA hospital there who is treating him.  But when things get straightened out, they are free to stay, or leave.  The house is sold.  First step first--sell the house.  Then you can do whatever you want to do.

Our lives are controlled by stages.  First you marry and are free to stay, to go, to do whatever you want to do.  Then you have a child, or two, or three and are involved in the things small children do.  What you and hubby liked to do is lost in a distant past.  Everything is about the little children.  The third stage is soccer, baseball, gymnastics, piano lessons, etc., etc.  Fourth stage is teenagers--and the drain on your emotions that is involved.  What are they doing?  Where are they?  When are they coming in?  You loose control once they have a car.  This stage goes on and on until they leave.

The fifth stage is when they marry.  Everybody comes home for Christmas, but after a while, that vanishes.  They are at the spouse's home, or perhaps the second child comes home with all their children, while your third child is hitch-hiking across America during spring break--but things are manageable on a small scale.  Home is still home, and sometimes everyone is there at once.

But slowly, that ceases.  Everyone is staying at their homes for the holidays--and you go to their house.  They don't want to go to your house--they are starting "the stages of life" for themselves.  Their lives.  And your family begins to break up into new and separate families.  You aren't the center of their lives any more.  And that's the way it should be.  And the last stage: you don't need the big house anymore.  You need less to take care of.  And you begin to evaluate just what you really need--and realize that it isn't much.  As for me, an AirStream is sounding pretty good.  Maybe that's why so many retirees buy one and hit the road.  Once again fancy free.  Your kids aren't coming "Home" again.  They have their own homes.  And so it goes.  It's the cycle of life.

Louisiana is a casino state.  Much like Oklahoma is becoming.  I had never in my life been in a casino before.  But as we were heading North through Louisiana toward Oklahoma, we made a pit stop to get gas.  Since we were stopped, I decided to go into the service station and asked where the restrooms were.  The lady said they were out of order, but if I went through a door she pointed to, I could find a restroom in the adjoining cafe.

So, I went through the doors--into the cafe--where there were a number of people eating.  I asked if I could use their restroom.  "Well, Honey," the waitress said. (This is Louisiana.  Everybody calls you "Honey.")  "Our restroom is out of order.  But if you will go through those doors at the back, you can use the one in there."

So I went through the doors at the back and stepped into a neon light flashing room with every kind of slot machine I had ever seen on TV--with a disinterested girl at the front desk who told me the restrooms were further back.  At that point, I didn't much care where where they were.  I went to the back where she pointed, only to find the restroom and two stalls with "Out of order," signs on the doors.

Welcome to Louisiana.  It's a good thing I didn't have an emergency.  So now, if anyone ever asks me if I've been in a casino,  I'll have to say, "Yes."  But I'll add:  "Not on purpose, that's for sure."

When we went on the Alligator Swamp Tour, Pat said, "Mom, this is Louisiana.  I want to warn you before we get on the boat: all the men who run this tour are going to call you Honey, Sweetheart, Darlin', Baby, and Sugar.  Just roll with it.  They don't mean any disrespect."  Sure enough, that's what they called me.  (Nobody called me, "Ma'am.")  As we were leaving, I told the Cajun tour guide what Pat had said, and commented to him that the only thing he had missed calling me was "Sugar."

"Well, Sugar," he said, "I hope you will forgive my oversight, cause you are such a Sweet lady.  You'all be sure to come back and see us when you are back down this way."

Louisiana wasn't all that bad.