The Accuser

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1 Corinthians 13:5 Good News Translation

⁵ love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs;

 

I once had a colleague who expressed deep concern for my wellbeing—and for many of our other colleagues. He would often come into my office and sit down and tell me of his frustrations with a colleague. He enumerated a long list of the perceived shortcomings of this or that particular person.

Mom used to warn me about this type of person, “If he comes in and gossips about a particular person to you, you know what he is saying about you to everyone else.” This particular “accuser of our brethren”[2] left no doubt as to what he was saying about me. As often as not he would start listing all the mistakes I had made. If he ran short of them, he would make some up as he went along. This condemnation could go on for an hour. Eventually he would leave, usually only after he had gotten me furious at his accusations and his thoroughly impugning my motives for doing right. He had a vast, indelible memory of everyone’s faults.

After such incidents, I walked the half-hour home with my heart racing, fearing I might suffer a heart attack. Initially, I planned revenge—but vengeance is not in my nature. Finally, I started praying for him. I prayed for a number of years before I noticed a difference. Gradually these accusatory episodes became shorter, and he began to express genuine concern for my wellbeing and that of others.

Praise to You, Oh Lord, for Your ability to change people‘s attitudes and actions—including mine.

 

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[1] https://depositphotos.com/stock-photos/accuser.html

[2] Revelation 12:10

Love Is Patient

1 Corinthians 13:4 New International Version - UK (NIVUK)

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Let’s face it; none of us married the totally ideal partner! I’m afraid I’m not a great communicator. I do things without saying a word, leaving Sylvia mystified. She wonders what I’m going to do next.

We have a library in the house. It fills two complete walls in our smallest bedroom. It then spills out onto bookcases and every level spot in every room of the house. Okay, so we’ve learned to live with it. Our (my) favorite pastime is to go to used bookstores and library book sales and look for more books.

But a major bomb shell hit me when I officially retired. That meant I needed to clean out my office. Not bad! Except it had an entire wall devoted to books. All of those books had to go somewhere. Every time I looked at them, I realize that I wanted to keep most of those books. So many of them arrived at home, most now in our storage shed.

On top of Sylvia’s honey-do list, she wants me to “retire” bunches of books. She still loves me even though I don’t think I have retired a single book in the last ten years. On the contrary, I’ve added several books practically every month. Actually, I just persuaded my daughter to take a collection of 18^th and 19^th century antique books that are family heirlooms. They were in the vacant shelf you can see on the right of the picture. As Neil Armstrong said when he first stepped onto the moon, “That’s one small step…”

Thank You, Lord, for a patient, loving wife.

 

 

 

Prudery

 

[1]

Psalm 73:23 Good News Translation

²³ Yet I always stay close to you,
    and you hold me by the hand.

 

When I was in college, the girls would occasionally tell me about one of their deans of women. At least once per semester, this diminutive spinster would give them a worship talk about appropriate courtship behavior. One of the talk’s unstated purposes was to prevent embarrassing premarital pregnancy, of course. She urged the girls to turn their boyfriend’s picture toward the wall when changing clothes. In this way she would not get used to undressing in front of men. When on a warm spring day, he invites her to a pleasant picnic lunch on the spacious lawns of the university elsewhere and spreads a blanket for them to sit on to eat their lunch, she must refuse to sit on it. Who knows how many short minutes it would be before he had her lying on the blanket, doing terrible things, like kissing her? In the dean’s zeal, she would encourage the girls to never hold hands with their beaus. After all, everyone knows that holding hands leads to pregnancy.

So… what did Sylvia and I do? Neither of us had a car so we could escape the spying eyes. Yet we walked around campus holding hands. This was as much public display of affection as we were allowed on campus. Furthermore, it was pleasurable, and we could chat in subdued voices and still hear each other.

We still often walk hand in hand. Then, of course, when we are hiking in the hills around our home, I will often offer her my hand when we come to a difficult part of the climb. She is highly independent and, in the past, would almost as often withdraw her hand in disdain. But nowadays, after a few embarrassing slips, she will usually take it, or as often, simply lay a single finger in my hand, as though to say, “Now don’t baby me!”

Even God offers the same reassuring gesture by offering to hold us by the hand.

Precious Lord take my hand, lead me on, help me stand.

 

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[1] https://siragainesville.com/category/sti-testing/

Wicked Spiritual Forces

 

[1]

Ephesians 6:12-13 Good News Translation

¹² For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. ¹³ So put on God's armor now! Then when the evil day comes, you will be able to resist the enemy's attacks; and after fighting to the end, you will still hold your ground.

 

Very recently we took a hike near Heaps Peak in the San Bernardino National Forest along the Rim of the World Highway. The previous week we had experienced a fierce wind-storm. It had blown branches and lots of fruit off our fruit trees. That same wind blew with far greater force over the ridge of the San Bernardino Mountains that the highway runs along. It runs at an elevation around 6,000 feet (2,000 m). Great trees had been snapped off like matchwood. Our trail had been cleared by chain saw. But the forest floor was piled high with the broken branches—the leaves still green from vigorous growth. Our Sequoia Trail ran along the north face of the ridge. We hiked along about half of the trail. There were long patches of frozen, solidly packed snow.

This was probably our dog Katie’s first experience of walking in snow. She didn’t know what to make of this white stuff that made her feet so cold, and they tended to slide out from under her. Sylvia and I picked our way along previous dirt-filled footprints. Finally, about half way around the loop trail, we came to a part covered with deep icy snow. It sloped rather treacherously down to our left. Regretting that we had not attached the ice grips to our shoes that my cousin, Pastor Reneé, had so graciously sent us, we turned around and headed back to the car. We have become more aware of the danger of falling as we have counted off more years in our lives. You should have seen how happy Katie was when she got out of the car in her own home.

As the world rushes on into its “evil day,” the “wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world... the cosmic powers of this dark age” are being allowed to exercise more and more power. We normally don’t see them, far closer to us than we can possibly imagine, but they are there. In my last three blogs I have tried to describe how close this “heavenly world” is to us. Realize that not only our guardian angels but also the demon enemies can be close enough to even be inside us; still we cannot perceive their presence.

Paul urges us to “put on God’s armor now!” This armor cannot be obtained in a gun store or from a digital super hacker. It cannot be obtained from Pfizer or Moderna. In the next five verses of this chapter Paul outlines his concept of the only invincible armor and how to obtain it. He points out that there will be a fight—a fight to the bitter end. Only with this armor will you “still hold your ground.” Read the verses again or postpone doing so at your eternal peril.

Thank You, Lord, that You have provided invincible armor for us. Please help us as we fit it on.

 

 

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[1] https://stockagency.panthermedia.net/m/stock-photos/8604718/slipping-in-packed-snow-and-ice/