Spring Beauty

The Bible - Eternal Truth

and never-fading beauty.

As we strolled the woods together, my 9-year-old grand-daughter taught me something about plants. I had scarcely noticed, until Kelsey pointed out, that the forest floor was painted light pink with thousands of tiny flowers. "Thos eare spring beauties," she informed me. She went on to show me dogtooth violets, Dutchman's-breeches, and trillium.

After Kelsey called my attention to the wildflowers, I saw them everywhere. What a delicate beauty they brought to the landscape! And what interest and delight a young girl and her grandfather could share!

"If we come back in a week or so," I commented, "these flowers will be all gone. They're beautiful, but they last only a short time. We'll all jave to wait till next year to see them again." Kelsey already knew that. She had studied the seasons in school.

What Kelsey didn't know is what wildflowers teach us about the Bible. The flowers last a few days and are gone, Isaiah told us, but the Word of God lasts forever.

God's Word never fades, dries up, or blows away. Its treasures are there for us to appreciate each day.

Have you taken a walk through God's Word lately? Did you catch the beauty and majesty there? -DCE

Clean Up The Environment

Help stamp out pollution -

Clean up your speech!

What a frustrating problem pollution is! Everybody suffers from it, yet everybody contributes to it.

Pollution takes many forms, but one type is often overlooked. Charles Swindoll calls it "verbal pollution", passed around by grumblers, complainers, and criticizers. "The poison of pessimism," Swindoll writes, "creates an atmosphere of wholesale negativism where nothing but the bad side of everything is emphasized."

A group of Christian friends became concerned about this form of pollution and their personal part in it. So they made a pact to avoid critical words for a whole week. They were surprised to find how little they spoke! As they continued the experiment, they actually had to relearn conversation skills.

In Ephesians 4, Paul called believers to that sort of decisive action. He said we are to "put off" the old self and it's conduct that grieves the Holy Spirit and "put on" the new self that builds up others. As we rely on the help of the Spirit, we can make those changes in our conduct, our thinking, and our speaking.

If we want to be rid of verbal pollution, we must choose to change and ask for God's help. It's a great way to start cleaning up our spiritual environment. -JEY

Love Hurts!

Nothing costs as much as loving

except not loving.

"Sometimes love sure hurts!" The mother and father were expressing the difficulties and heartaches of guiding their children through their teen years. "Maybe if we didn't love them quite so much it wouldn't be so hard," the husband added.

Even though love brings pain and sorrow, what would life be without it? In his book "The Four Loves", C.S. Lewis wrote:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness...... The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers ...... of love is hell."

To love is to take risks, to expose our hearts. Sometimes it hurts! It hurt Christ, but He kept on loving, even at the cost of His life. He commanded us, "Love one another as I have loved you."

We must keep loving that spouse, that teenager, that neighbor, that co-worker. It is Christlike -  and it's better than locking your heart in a coffin of self-centeredness. - DCE