May 2011 Devotionals

May 30, 2011

 

What Would You Choose to Save?

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford

 

            Ninety farm families in Missouri had to make some heart-rending choices this month.  The Mississippi River was expected to crest at an astounding  62 feet at Cairo, higher than any flood on the river in human memory.  The Army Corps of Engineers determined they would have to blowup a levee to protect thousands of people down- and up- river, but it would flood 150,000 acres of farmland and 90 homes.  What could those families take away in their trucks and automobiles within the 24 hours they were given, and what would they have to leave to the raging flood waters?

            The choices for families living in Tumura, Japan, were even harder.  After the devastation of the tsunami, the village was contaminated by radiation leakage from the damaged nuclear plant nearby, so the government evacuated everyone from the village.  This week one person from each household in Tumura was given protective clothing, taken by bus to the village, and given garbage bags to salvage what they could in two hours.

            What a sobering reminder of how vulnerable is the "stuff" of our lives!  How important it is for us not to find our security, our identity, our pleasure in just the things we possess.  First John 2:17 says, "And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides for ever."

            Years ago Walt and I went to Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, to help in a camp for disadvantaged children.  (The creek?  Yes, it really was "troublesome."  It flooded regularly!)  The Drushall family had given their lives to serving the poor people of the area.  One night their family home caught fire.  They were miles from a fire station and their home burned to the ground.

            As they stood looking at the ashes, Mrs. Drushall wept because her mother's silver had been destroyed.  Mr. Drushall put his arm around her and said, "But, dear heart, it's all only stuff.  We still have everything that is important."

            Oh, Heavenly Father, help us to remember what is just "stuff," to be used and enjoyed, but not vital to our joy, and what is eternally valuable.

May 23, 2011

 

Finishing Well

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford

 

            Walt and I celebrated our 87^th and 84^th birthdays this month, and we've been prodded into checking up on how we're doing in this journey of life.    "Gray hair is a crown of glory," says Proverbs 16:31, "if it be found in the way of righteousness."  Well, we have the gray hair (Libby's a little less gray than mine, thanks to the ministrations of her hair dresser).  But how we yearn to be "found in the way of righteousness" in this time of our lives!

            When Walt and I were taking flying lessons, our instructor often had a special word of warning as we prepared to land.  "Remember," Larry Carver would admonish, "You can follow the tower's instructions for take off, watch for traffic, monitor your radios, keep steady on course, manage your engine well, stay alert, and then have your airport in sight. But if, when you are landing," and here his voice would take on that Chuck Yeager test-pilot slow-southern-drawl so favored by airline pilots,

 

  "if you crash and burn on landing, it can ruin your whole day."

 

            The Scriptures are full of examples of people who served God well early on in life, but who faltered in old age.

            King Solomon, the wisest of all men, in old age turned to worshiping the false gods of his foreign wives. 

            Moses' sister Miriam saved her baby brother's life.  In the dramatic exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt, she, as a prophetess, led the women in praise and worship.  But when she got old, she grew proud of her spiritual accomplishments, and challenged Moses' authority.  Her life ended in humiliation.

            The Scriptures are full, too, of noble people who served God well until the day they died.

            Anna, a little old lady in her eighties, lived in the temple in Jerusalem.  When Joseph and Mary brought the baby Jesus to dedicate Him, she realized He was the Messiah they'd been waiting for, and told everyone she met the wonderful news of salvation.

            The Apostle Paul, old and worn from his incredible suffering for Jesus, and in prison awaiting death, could say, "I have fought a good fight.  I have finished my course.  I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." (2 Timothy 4:7,8).

            May God help us too to finish well!

May 16, 2011

The Gift of a Word at Just at the Right Time

A Conversation with Elizabeth Rice Handford

            Walt and I had a wonderful time of reunion with my sisters and their families this week-end.  As we often do when we get together, we talked about our growing-up days.  Someone asked the question, "How come all six of our brothers-in-law went into the ministry, when none of them had any background for it?"  One thing echoed in every story as we reminisced: in every case, someone in those young lives had taken the time to speak a word of encouragement, had given a word that ignited a yearning in their hearts to serve God.

            My brother-in-law Roger told us that his grade-school teacher asked him to see her after class.  He couldn't imagine what he'd done so bad a teacher would have to call him in!  But that godly teacher looked tenderly at this child who loved God, but whose father was not a Christian.  She said, "Roger, I think God wants to use you to serve Him with your life.   I hope you'll do it."  And he did.

            My brother-in-law Sandy told us that he remembers very little about his mother; he was only two years old when she died.  His father died two years later, so he and his brothers grew up in an orphanage with minimal care and little love.  But the one thing Sandy remembers about his mother is that she prayed day after day for her four little boys, that they would grow up to love and serve Jesus, even when she would not be there to teach them.  Sandy still loves Jesus and serves Him every day.

            My sister Joanna told us that her husband Bill grew up in a Kentucky "holler," with nine brothers and sisters in a two-room cabin, with cracks in the floor so big he could see the dogs sleeping underneath the house.  No one in their family had ever studied beyond high school.  But a school teacher told Bill that she thought he had a gift for loving people and loving God, and that she hoped he'd become a preacher, and if he did, he'd need to go to college to get ready. That's exactly what Bill did.  Every day of his life until God called him to Heaven, Bill talked to people about Jesus.

            Walt was in a Boy Scout troop in junior high.  To earn a badge, he had to make an impromptu speech.  Afterward, his scout master said to him, "Young man, you are going to be a wonderful public speaker some day."   To a boy who was thin, who didn't have much self-confidence, whose mother wanted him to take "sissy" violin lessons when he wanted to play a manly trumpet, those quiet words opened a whole new vision of what he could do with his life.  Because of that gift of words from a scout master at just the right time, Walt didn't turn out to be just a public speaker.  All his life he has been communicating the life-saving Gospel to hungry-hearted people.

            Proverbs 15:23 says, "A word spoken in due season, how good it is!"

            Imagine!  Just a word or two . .  spoken at just the right time. . . that would have eternal impact!

            Suppose there is someone in your life, today, that needs a good word of encouragement from you?  Then speak it.  You might impact a whole life!

 

Paper Plates or Good China?

 

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford

 

            The kids and their families were coming for Easter dinner, about twenty-five of them.  It was a wonderful, special day, celebrating the Savior's resurrection from the dead and our salvation, so I wanted our dinner to be special and memorable, too.  That meant, in my mind, using the good china, the good silverware, the nice glass-ware, the starched napkins.

            "No way, Mom," the kids said.  "Paper plates, paper napkins, plastic tableware, plastic glasses.  We're not going to spend Easter Sunday afternoon washing all that good stuff and worrying about breaking it."

            Now I'm from the old school of "If it's worth doing, it's worthy doing well" rule- not that my mother taught me that.  On the contrary, she'd have used paper plates (except for Daddy's plate-he'd get a real plate).  Then she'd spend the time listening to her children and grandchildren talk instead of washing up the dishes.

            She had the right idea.  She'd have said that the thing worth doing well was communicating with her children, and that the dinner was just a nice way to do it.  The dinner itself was not what deserved doing well; it was the fellowship between the generations, listening to the eager chatter of the teenagers, the gurgles of the babies, the earnest concerns of her sons-in-law, the burdens of her daughters.

            Something like that happened when Martha and Mary invited Jesus and His disciples to dinner.  Martha was dithering, wanting everything to be just right for the One whom she knew was God Himself.  (The story is told in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10.)  But Mary was entranced, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and listening to every word He said.  "Jesus, don't you care," Martha huffed, "that I'm having to do all this work by myself?  Tell that lazy sister of mine to come and help me!"

            But Jesus answered quietly, "Martha, you are weighed down with many unnecessary things.  Only one thing is needful."  What was the one "needful" thing?  To sit at Jesus' feet and pay attention to His Word.  "Mary has chosen the good thing," Jesus said, "and it will not be taken away from her."

            Why should we stop to listen to Jesus first, instead of dithering and being "cumbered about" with many things?  Because that's the only way we will know how to distinguish between things important and unimportant.  And that's what will give us time to do the important things well.

            Oh, yes.  Some times I use the good china, because it makes food taste so good!  But I did use paper plates for dinner on Easter Sunday.

May 2, 2011

 

Take Shelter from the Storm

 

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford

 

            Last week terrible storms hit northern Georgia, where my four sisters live.  My sister, Joy Martin, will have to tell you the whole story.  As I understand it, last Wednesday night Joy's phone rang.  It was her son in Connecticut who saw the way the storm was moving.  "Mother, this is Roger.  Get in the closet now.  There's a tornado about to hit Ringgold."

            Joy says, "Several times we were in a closet with five adults, two babies, one 8-year-old and four dogs."  The whole clan, grandparents, children, grandchildren and puppy dogs all spent a long, weary, and frightening night in a closet.

            When we phoned them the next morning, we were glad to hear their voices.  They were shaken, but safe.  The tornado had cut a swathe of terrible destruction just five miles south of them.  We wept with them when they told us how many lives had been lost.

            Many who died had tried to take shelter, but the places they chose evidently were not strong enough to withstand the storm.  We grieve for their loss.

            But  we read in the news of one family hit by the storm who heard the warnings, but didn't take action.  "We thought they were crying ‘wolf,'" they said tearfully.  Their inaction cost the lives of several of their family in the storm.

            A parable Jesus told in Matthew 7:24-17 makes an important observation about this:

 

Jesus said, "Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:  and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock."

 

            A homebuilder planned carefully before he built his home, keeping in mind the floods and storms that were bound to come.  He put the foundation on bedrock, so his home was kept secure in the storm.  He was like a person who listens when Jesus, who is The Truth, speaks.

            But some people, Jesus said, wouldn't listen to Him; they didn't want to hear Him; they didn't want follow Him.  What were they like?

 

 "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:  and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."

 

            Some of the storms we face in life are not physically threatening, but they are as deadly as any tornado.  May God help us to hear His clear, loving instructions, and heed them!  That's building on the unshakeable, secure and safe  Rock!  All other ground is sinking sand!