Dandelion Wine

“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” (Genesis 3:17-18)

I love spring time, but one of the few things I dislike about it is dandelions. My yard is full of them every spring, and they are a nuisance. Of course, my yard is full of just about every type of weed and bramble you could imagine. A horticulturalist would have quite the time of it in my yard, investigating things he may have never seen before. It seems like the dandelions come out of nowhere. One day you look in the yard and it is a sea of yellow that sprung up overnight, and before you can do anything about it, the yard turns into an ocean of white. Then those fuzzy little things float all over the yard and it looks like it is snowing. You just know that those weeds are reseeding themselves for an even bigger crop the next spring. They say you can actually eat the dandelion leaves in a salad, and there are even recipes to make wine out of them. I don’t know. I just can’t bring myself to that point with those nasty little weeds.

Our first parents had it pretty good. God gave them a garden paradise with all the fruits and vegetables they wanted and no weeds. I am a fully dedicated carnivore, but if I lived in a place like that, I can easily understand not eating meat. I have been to Hawaii three times and Belize and other tropical climates more than a dozen. The idea of being able to walk out your door and pick avocados the size of grapefruits is pretty awesome. If I could fill up on fruits and veggies like that all the time, there wouldn’t be much room left for meat. But I guess that wasn’t good enough for Adam and Eve. They thought they had to try the one thing God told them to leave alone, and look what it caused. Before any of us holler about it, we would have done the same. But now we have to live in a world with weeds and poison ivy (which I have on my hands right now) and all sorts of other stuff like it.

When we read the stories of the Bible, so many of the details seem to go under the radar. We all know they “platted a crown of thorns” and put it on the head of Jesus, but the significance of this escapes many believers. Nature was cursed in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned. Thorns and thistles (and dandelions and poison ivy) came forth out of the ground as a result. The crown of thorns on the head of Jesus represents his payment for that curse as well. We all focus on his crucifixion as the payment for our sins, and rightfully so because that is the main issue. His death on the cross secures a home in heaven for those who have placed their trust in him as Saviour. But it secured much more than that. The benefits of his sacrifice will not just “cover up” our sins and give God a reason to let us into his paradise, but it will actually restore what was lost in Eden and then some. Someday the desert will bloom as the rose, and the lion will lay down with the lamb and eat straw like an ox. Nature will be restored to its original garden paradise.

So much is made today of the “environmental issues” facing us. Without diving headlong into the controversial argument, don’t miss the point. Isaiah 45:18 says, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” God created this world for man to dwell on it. No matter how big a mess we might make of it, we will not overturn his purpose for the earth. Right now we have to live on a planet with weeds and thorns and tornados and ice storms, but when he returns, the earth will be renewed just like we will have a new body. Until then, the reminders of man’s sin are paraded in front of us through the mess we have to live in. Tell others about the wonderful Saviour, then get ready for paradise to be restored – spiritually as well as physically.

Front Runners

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.” (Ephesians 4:14)

Well, it is that wonderful and magical time of the year again – baseball season! I love baseball. Anyone who doesn’t is a communist. I have followed it even more over the last few years since I have gotten into a fantasy league. I was always ambivalent about fantasy baseball because of what I thought was a lot of work. Being a part of a fantasy league gets you much more connected to what is going on in the sport on a regular basis, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time. I don’t have a lot of time for stuff like that. I only get to play golf a couple of times a year because of the time commitment, and I don’t watch a whole lot of movies for the same reason. So I was always worried that fantasy baseball would consume too much of my time. But it really doesn’t, except for one time in the year when the draft is done and the league is set. After that, it is pretty much maintenance, and since I like to follow baseball anyway, not much more is involved.

We just held our annual draft a few days ago. It has always been the prevailing philosophy to draft hitters first, and try to build your pitching staff through the middle rounds. Pitchers can be “feast or famine” and when they are famine, it really costs you dearly. Hitters are usually a little more consistent. But over the last couple of years, the landscape of baseball has changed. The steroid era has come to an end, and you no longer have so many gorillas with their knuckles dragging on the ground lugging their big wooden sticks to the plate. Pitchers have a little better chance now, so the pendulum is swinging back in their direction. The winner of the league the last two years did so with pitching, so now everyone is on that bandwagon. Almost without exception, team “owners” went after pitching first in this year’s draft. I was going to do the same, but as the draft unfolded, I saw very quickly that they were leaving the best hitters alone. So I shifted my draft direction in mid-stream and loaded up on hitters. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am a rebel (without a clue). I always naturally trend away from the “prevailing winds”. I have been like that from the womb. It has carried over to my Christianity as well. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, but most of the time, it saves me from a lot of grief.

Christianity is dominated by “prevailing winds”. One of the leading “experts” in modern church movements is George Barna. His work is done in surveying church trends and gathering statistics on the state of Christianity today. Since his work is so “national” in scale, he has to include everything that ties itself to “Christianity”, whether it is actually Biblical or not. As a result, he can give trends for church movements, but he may not really be showing us where God is at work. Statistics often do not tell the correct story, especially as it relates to individuals. For example, if you stuck your right foot in a bucket of ice water, and your left foot in a bucket of scalding water, statistically, you would still be very miserable. On the average, you might be “trending” in a certain direction, but individually, your feet would tell a much different story, and I would still have to visit you in the hospital.

Romans 3:4 says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar…” A principle that has always served me well is “the majority is always wrong”. When man gravitates to some “movement”, I am always suspicious. Be careful of movements. They often create a mess that someone else has to clean up. (Sorry for that mental image). James 1:8 says, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Set your course of life on the rock of ages. His anchor always holds. When the mobs flock to the latest fad, step back for a moment and look at the word of God. While the world moves in one direction, the “Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) in the other direction. Jump on his bandwagon, it always leads to peace and truth.

Building A Better Mouse Trap

“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” (Psalm 119:160)

We caught a mouse a few weeks back. It was during that time of the year (winter) when they come in from the cold looking for shelter and food. Everyone has them at times. No matter how clean you keep things, you cannot keep mice from getting in the house. We saw the tell-tale signs of our little furry visitor, so we got some of those old fashioned spring loaded mouse traps and set one for him. A little peanut butter on the tip lures the unsuspecting rodent, thinking he has hit the mother lode for a five-star dining experience. Then… SNAP! Out of nowhere, the metal bar of judgment drops instantly from the sky across his neck and sends the unwelcome freeloading non-rent paying tenant to mouse heaven or hell, based on whether he ever got baptized and kept the golden rule and the ten commandments. I’m guessing mouse hell for our friend, since he clearly violated the “Thou shalt not steal” by helping himself to our food without leaving his little mouse dollars on the counter.

This wonderful device was invented well over 100 years ago, and ever since then, there has been a relentless attempt to make it better. I am sure you have seen the other products. We have even tried them. We got one of those little “sticky pads” that is supposed to be more “humane”. It’s not. We caught a mouse on one last winter, and he chewed up half of the sticky pad trying to free himself before he finally gave up and died. Instant death is a lot more compassionate than making the mouse go through all that fear, suffering and turmoil. Of course, the “bleeding hearts” among us would object to my supposed “cruelty”. It’s a mouse. Get over it. I am not trying to rid the world of mice and “upset the delicate eco-balance” (not!), I am just trying to keep them out of my house so they don’t eat up all our food and bring disease to our family. God keeps making plenty more of them, and if I caught one alive in a “humane and compassionate” tender loving way, and then delivered him to your house, you wouldn’t want him around either.

God put a perfect Bible in our hands many hundreds of years ago, and for some strange reason, man keeps thinking he has to find a way to make it better. But there is nothing that can improve on the blessed simplicity and beauty of our good old King James Bible. Just like our mouse traps, it has stood the test of time. Those old fashioned mouse traps are really simple to use once you figure it out. The first couple of times you try to set one, it takes a little getting used to. You have to know how to load the bait and hold it just right to set the spring. Then you have to be very careful and set it down gently so it doesn’t snap your fingers. But when it is operated properly, it works every time.

The same is true with the Bible. The first few times we pick it up, we are not sure how it works. We read a bunch of lists of “begats” and stories from cultures we are totally unfamiliar with, and we are afraid the Bible is going to “bite” us. We see the “-eth” on the end of all the verbs, and it scares us. We have flashbacks to our High School when we were forced to read Shakespeare. It would have been less painful to shove an ice pick in our eyes. So everyone wants to find a way to “make the Bible better” and in the process, they make it worse. There has never been an “update” of our beloved Bible that improves on the clear way God communicates to his people. You just have to know how to operate it. Operating a mouse trap can be mastered in a few minutes, but a Bible takes a lifetime. Unfortunately, in our “instant” society, most people will not invest the time to do so. But the health of your soul is far more important than the comfort of your home. Ridding your home of unwanted pests is not nearly as vital as ridding your life of the influences of the pest of the “god of this world”. Open your book and learn how to use it. The blessed pages of the word of God work every time.

On The Road Again

“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3)

The next line of this famous Willie Nelson song says, “Just can’t wait to get on the road again…” He has to be crazy. I just got back from four solid days of driving. I close my eyes and see nothing but white lines and green signs. For those of you who attend Crest Bible Church, I have announced over the past few weeks the story that led to this marathon road trip, and I will summarize here for the rest. My mom and dad for the last 19 years have done the “snow bird” thing and spent the winter months at South Padre Island at the very southern tip of Texas. They love it there, evidenced by the fact they have done this for 19 years in a row. My dad is 87, and my mom is 81, and she does all the driving since he can’t see very well anymore. He only drives when the fog is thick, because it doesn’t matter if you can see then. As their age has advanced, the trip has posed greater challenges each year. But it is one of the great loves of their lives, and they continued to make this trip despite the challenges. We kids were increasingly squeamish about it, but you can’t roll up in a fetal position and quit living. There is risk in any venture of life, and if you don’t take a few of them, you aren’t living. Within reason, it is usually better to do the things you love rather than fret about what might happen.

This year’s trip went off the deep end. About 6 weeks ago, my dad took very ill and ended up in a hospital and then an assisted care facility in Texas. It became gravely serious, and my 81 year old mother was left with the burden of trying to manage this completely by herself while being exactly 1,062 “mapquest” miles from home. Some of my siblings took time to fly down and stay with her for a few days, and we tried to manage some of the medical decisions by phone and email from Kansas City. We almost lost him, but as time went on, he began to recover, and plans were made to “Medivac” him home. I volunteered to take this portion of the mission, and with the help of my brother Keith, we drove 1,062 miles down to Texas, loaded dad in a car, and drove them home another 1,062 miles. Including running around southern Texas for half a day taking care of last minute details, we traversed about 2,300 miles from 7AM Monday to 8PM Thursday. God gave us a great trip, mom and dad did fine with all the struggles of that type of travel, and we were able to get them home so that dad can continue his recovery and his life with his family.

I love driving. Road trips are always fun for me, but I don’t want to see another freeway for a while. Instead, I am looking forward to the next big trip on the itinerary – the rapture of the church. This world is in a mess. Its inhabitants are sick; yea nigh unto death. We are thousands (upon millions) of miles from home, and we are holding on for dear life. While we are here, our job is to rescue the other sick inhabitants and figure out a way to get them safe at home in the loving arms of the Saviour. Our only solution for the ills of this world is a “Medivac” mission to transport us to the home that Jesus has been preparing for us. Since he was a carpenter when he was here, and since he has the power to create from the spoken word alone, and since he has had a full 2,000 years to work on the place, I can only imagine that it must be awesome!

Luke 19:10 says, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” If your faith is fully deposited in him, you have nothing to worry about. He will get you home. While you are biding your time here, holed up in the infirmary of this world, figure out a way to add a few more souls to the trip. Don’t worry about space. He has plenty of room. As the old hymn says, “Though millions have come, yet there is still room for one. There is room at the cross for you.” Get ready to take the “road trip” of the ages. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!