Weeds Take Over

 

In 1977 I began teaching at Berean Academy.  I had the summers off and did construction to pay the bills.  I actually made more money in the summer than I did in the winter, but teaching was much more rewarding.  One summer Kathy and I lived with my parents in Maryland and I worked with my two brothers laying brick (They were the “brick layers” and I was the “helper”).  When Kathy and I got home in August our garden was overtaken with weeds.  It looked like a horror movie set.  The vegetables were thin and scrawny with tiny fruit, but the weeds were growing great.  Not only had the weeds grown taller than the vegetables, the weed roots had crowded out the vegetable roots.  I tried to pull weeds and recover what I could, but it was useless.  When I pulled out a weed, its roots pulled out vegetable roots with the weed.  I gave up and mowed it all down, weeds and vegetables alike.  Hey, do bad habits and sin take over in your life like the weeds in my garden?  If left alone, your life will grow wild with evil thoughts and selfish actions.  Neglect of God’s Word, neglect of prayer, and lack of church attendance allows laziness and careless behavior to take over.  When you try to reform, these bad habits are entrenched and hard to overcome.  Their roots go deep into your soul and won’t let go without a fight.  Without the power of God the Holy Spirit, you could never recover.  The writer of Hebrews reminds us to be diligent in Hebrews 12:15, “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.”  We must tenderly nourish and protect God’s grace in our lives.  Don’t let Satan sow weeds of evil in your soul sending roots deep into your spirit.  They’re hard to get out.  Keep the garden of your life clean and let it be fruitful.  You’ll be glad that you did.

Cord Watch

 

One of the dangers of schooling is that you run the risk of becoming too smart for your own britches.  That happened to me in 9th grade after my first year of algebra.  Let me explain.  I had a used watch that my father had given to me for Christmas that gained time.  To be more specific, it gained exactly 3 hours and 18 minutes a day.  I would set the watch first thing in the morning, but it gained so much time that by mid-morning it was useless.  So, I quit wearing it.  But in algebra, I learned proportions and developed a plan.  So, I set my watch at 7 am each morning.  When someone asked me what time it was, I looked at my watch, and for example, it would say 10 am.  I used my algebra formula to calculate the deviation, times the 3 hours past 7 am, added to 7 am, and I arrived at the real time of 9:42 am.  The problem was that only a couple of geeks in algebra class were impressed.  No one else was impressed because it took a notebook, complicated math, and several minutes to tell them the time of day.  Solomon said in Proverbs 29:23, “A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.”  It would have been much better for me to have put the watch in a drawer, or to have gotten it fixed than to have used my math skills to show off.  But then again, that was when I was fifteen and knew everything.  Now that I am seventy-five, I know less and less about more and more.  Hey, refer to the verse above.  Anyone want to join me in my humility party?

Another Hug from Heaven

 

I received another “hug from heaven” Tuesday.  The UPS man brought me a box unexpectedly.  I opened it up to find a beautiful set of wind chimes from Barb C. in honor of my wife.  I wept tears of joy as I thought of Kathy singing praises to the Lord in that heavenly choir!  The words of their praises are found in Revelation 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”  Hey, the Lamb of God is truly worthy of our praise, whether we are here on earth or up there in heaven!  Yes, He is!