Like Robert Frost, I went out to visit my birch trees. As I contemplated, I heard Robert’s voice.

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. 

No, this condition wasn’t because some kid was playing. It was because some terrible storm bent it to the place of no return to its once towering grandeur. Kids can’t harm it in the summer months, but those winter storms can be devastating.

He was right. The storms of life can remove you from what could have been.

Proverbs 24:16 

For the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

Psalm 145:14 

The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.

 Give it some thought and be prepared for storms.

Gary

As a paramedic, I was getting ready to transfer a critical care patient to another facility. While loading the elderly gentleman, I noticed the young woman standing nearby. Before I could say, “Do you want to kiss your dad goodbye?” she bent over and locked lips with him for an uncomfortable period of time.  I said to myself, “Gardner, you just missed making an absolute fool of yourself.” That was close, for she was his wife.

James 1:19 

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

Proverbs 17:28 

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

Careful out there. It might not be what it seems.

Give it some thought.

Gary

When those trucks passed the school, the teacher lost my attention. When I was seated on the river-side of the school building, my teacher’s efforts were much more profitable to my learning experience. Trucks still grab my attention, but the years have taught me pay less attention because they are not for me.

Our imagination absolutely disrupts the purpose of God for our lives. They are like a mirage in the desert of life. Don’t pay attention to them, just focus on getting out of this mess.

Proverbs 4:25-27 

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.

1 Corinthians 7:35 

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

The smell of spent diesel had my heart, but now God does.

Give it some thought.

Gary

Bouncing along in the ambulance during a three-hour run, I found the conversation with the patient was free and easy. The subject of belief came up and he was willing to allow me to explain the gospel. After long consideration, he said, “It is too late for me to accept that now.” I liked him and my heart went out to him, but that was his final answer.

The memory of that interaction always reminds of Paul who had his audience consider all the gods of Athens.

Acts 17:23

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

The God of salvation is the only God. Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁵ you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶ but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Give it some thought.

Gary

We were kids growing up in the sixties and we had a Freddie. Freddie pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and waved it in my face. I asked, “Freddie, where did you get that money? “He said, “I stole it from the old woman who owns the store.” The next day I could see a different expression on his face as he sat in a police cruiser. It was obvious a life of crime should not be something he should aspire to.

I liked Freddie and considered him a friend, but there were places I just couldn’t go with him.

Do you know even a church has a Freddie? But you can’t go along with someone like him.

2 Thessalonians 3:6 

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

Give it some thought.

Gary

Freddie wasn’t afraid of the dark. He would walk home alone even though he had to pass the graveyard. However, as we told ghost stories in a haunted house, Freddie would cry and lose his mind. Then for entertainment for the gang, we would have him fistfight with his best friend.

Freddie has been dead for a number of years. However, if he was alive, I would travel the country to apologize to him for the way we used him. Some things of the past can’t be fixed.

Be kind.

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Give my regret rekindled with this memory of Freddie some thought.

Gary

It was a warm summer’s evening and the sun was setting. The gang was gathered on the front lawn of a friend’s house. Freddie’s mother and father pulled to a sudden stop in front of our gathering. His dad jumped out, grabbed Freddie, threw him in the back seat and started punching him as his mother drove away. We could hear the blows on his young body from hundreds of feet away.

I had never experienced such a sight in my life. My dad never did lay a hand on me. My mother might have tried, but she never caught me.

How come life was so unkind to Freddie?  Think of how much God loves us as a father.

Psalm 103:13 

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him.

Matthew 23:9 

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

1 John 3:1 

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

 Give it some thought and be thankful.

Gary