… and little people are nonetheless significant beyond their size.
My wife and I visited our daughter and her family this past weekend. It set me to notice little things more than I have recently. Flowers blooming at the end of November is novel, but this little guy was showing off his stuff right next to their driveway. I have told the problem with controlling the focus on my phone, but here it reminded me of a little thing. This is what the flower looks like when I don’t have my bifocals on or when not using the right part of them. Doing fine work above my head is a pain since I have difficulty seeing it. I have actually flipped my glasses upside down to see what I am doing. It’s those little things.
I took an early walk the next morning. The temperature was brisk and there was no one out yet. The woods on either side of the road give this straightaway a pleasantly lonely feeling. White oaks and red oaks and maples and Sourwood and the occasional pine reside in a woods infrequently grazed by cattle. It is a pleasant little scene.
Most of the leaves have turned and dropped off, but this little Red Maple tree by the road was not having it. There was still time to show off the colors.
I’m not a big dog fan, but their dog is an outside dog and likes to explore and circle back around to you. He seems to have come to understand that I’m OK with his occasional inquiries as long as he is not in my face all the time.
Little grandchildren are a big deal, posterity and all that. It is fun to watch them explore and learn. It was a little kindness, but the man in the picture who is unknown to us, gave the children feed to give to the goats. I hope that he enjoyed watching them interact with them as much as they and we did.
It was also curious to watch how adept the goats had become at retracting their heads and horns out of the fencing without getting hung up.
Little moments of quiet, particularly in nature, are so restful to the soul. I hope that my son-in-law found it so.
The rolling hills of the Virginia landscape are fertile soil for an orchard.
Pruned apple trees produce larger and more fruit. The orchard is picturesque because of the views in both directions.
The Little Man is riding on his mama.
His big sister is not so little anymore and in the 3rd grade this year.
Who knew that anything ate Cayenne peppers. Tobacco Hornworms do. (My daughter looked it up first.) The seven white V-shaped markings and red horn confirm the ID.
Yet another small flower exhibiting its beauty. It is some variety of Balloon Flower, because that is its appearance before the bloom opens. The flowers were confused. I have an azalea still in bloom this 6th day of November, the third time it has bloomed this season.
I guess the hood warms his head and the bear warms his heart. But what warms his feet?
While I am talking about little things that are big, I thought I’d add a few more thoughts. One of my pastors offered me some firewood that he had no need of. I cut and began loading. In a few minutes he came out with his son saying, “I brought reinforcements”, and helped me load the wood. Kindness can be a word of encouragement, but an act of encouragement is even better.
Today I did small repairs on a house. I sealed the leaking skylight on the roof. I re-nailed a soffit board that had warped and pulled loose. I caulked around windows that were leaking air and allowing Lady Bugs entrance. Such a little crack can allow so much to transverse a barrier. Do maintenance on the little cracks that can allow rain and cold and insects into your living space. And I don’t just mean your house.
CreatorWorship 
What Matters More
Posted in America, Civil Debate, Cultural commentary, Freedom, General, God's Law, Government, Judgment, Problems, Repentance, Strife, tagged Election, Government, Repentance, Right living, Righteousness, Voting on November 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I frequently hear in election cycles these days a repeated phrase that sounds something like the following: “This is the most important election of our life-time.” I think the purpose of the statement in its various forms is to stir certain emotions and resolves toward rushing to the polling place and casting a vote to stop this madness. But like the 100th artillery shell to fall near your trench, you become numb to the effects of these dire predictions. Either the effects of this election will end life as you know it, or it won’t, and there is little to be done about it. We are “election shell-shocked”. That does not mean that there is less danger because we are insensitive to the falling declarations of disaster, but only that we can no longer respond to it as such. But the situation is grave for the continuance of our free society and it causes me to think about the first verse of a hymn:
“Once to every man and nation,
comes the moment to decide,
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;
some great cause, some great decision,
offering each the bloom or blight,
and the choice goes by forever,
‘twixt that darkness and that light.” (1)
“One salient point of this hymn is the burden that it places, not only upon the individual man, but upon nations as well to obey God and to honor His Law. If decisions to obey God are made in the hearts of the people of a nation, that nation will also follow in like obedience to that Law. If we find that our beloved nation today has gone from following God to following after the world, it is because our ministers and churches have failed to call her citizens to repentance. When we begin to see national laws that forbid sin to be repealed, and those laws converted to the side of evil, then we shall know the extreme danger of our national condition. There is only one great decision – to follow God!” (2)
Take note about the conclusion to this quote about the hymn. It does not say panic and run off doing some Herculean task. It says “follow God”. That is a daily, in the trenches, persistent, long-term repentance. It matters not what shells of destruction fall around you. You continue about your duties to your ruler. Live a life different from the world that pushes and pulls others, even a society toward God.
Furthermore, though the hymn verse is grave, the situation is not yet so grave as the hymn talks about. Later verses speak of “by the light of burning martyrs” (3) and “Tho’ her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong”. So, I think that in reality there are many choices on the road to hell, not just one great decision. There comes a time certainly when God says enough is enough. When the Israelites turned away from entering the Promised Land (Numbers 13 and 14) and God made them wonder in the wilderness for 38 more years until “your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness”, (Numbers 14:32) there was a “Once to every man and nation.” But this judgment had been building, for God says in His first response after Moses pleads that God not immediately destroy them, that “none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.” (Numbers 14:22-23) Did you see it? Not once but ten times they spurned God. As He says in Hebrews 3:16-19: “For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” It was not merely a single act of rebellion but a condition of unbelief revealed through continued rebellion over time.
So, where are we as a nation? At the time of this writing, purposefully so, this is prior to the election. I do not know the outcome or the ramifications of that outcome. Regardless of the outcome, repentance, trust in God, and perseverance in right living are far more important than what the result of this election will be. God may again be gracious to us and prolong our prosperity, or He may gives us what we deserve, and our demise will be swift, but we must turn to God for the good of our nation, our neighbors, our family, our posterity, and our world.
What is the hope for a nation over whom destruction has been declared? In the case of Israel, it was God’s mercy for the children, for He says, “But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.” (14:31-32) God may yet be entreated by a repentant people, just as He was by Nineveh (Jonah 3:10).
May God give us “a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.” (Deuteronomy 29:4 says He had not yet done so for Israel.)
1. Hymn: “Once to Every Man and Nation” by James Russell Lowell in 1845
2. http://www.faithfulcenturion.org/AOCBlog/Hymns/Hymn%20519%20-%20Once%20to%20Every%20Man%20and%20Nation.pdf#:~:text=%E2%80%9COnce%20to%20every%20man%20and%20nation%2C%20comes%20the,by%20forever%2C%20%27twixt%20that%20darkness%20and%20that%20light.
3. Surely this is a reference to Nero using Christians as torches in his garden, though many others were burnt at the stake over the centuries.
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