THE OPEN DOOR

The Open Door
by Janice Price

There was a moment of panic when I walked into the living room. Crystal, the oldest male cat, was sitting on the wrong side of the front screen door. Obviously, I had locked but not properly closed the door after I accepted a package from the Federal Express delivery man.

The door was ajar and Crystal was turning his head slowly back and forth, looking past the front porch steps and then back into the house. He has been a house cat for all but the first few weeks of his life, and although he is the top cat inside, his outdoor survival skills have dulled after six years of his food being served in a bowl. Also, he wasn’t wearing a collar with his rabies tag attached, so he would be fair game for an Animal Control Officer to pick him up as a stray if he wandered off to see the outside world.

While Crystal’s head was still turning slowly from the porch steps to inside the house as he contemplated which direction to go, I calmly walked over and brought him inside. He accepted this without a fuss, content to have the decision made for him.

The moment of panic turned into a smile as I thought of how we all have to make decisions at open doors at various times in life. When we are young, our parents watch over us and make decisions for us, assuming the role of protector and conscience, but their goal should be to teach us to make responsible decisions on our own.

One of your classmates offers you a cigarette. You know it’s addictive and bad for your health. The door is ajar. Do you light the cigarette or do you say, “No, thanks.”

Well, you made the wrong choice that time. Now you are a new parent. You know second-hand smoke is unhealthy for your baby. The door is ajar again. Will you make the right choice this time?

You take your first drink and then a second. Now your drinking is tearing apart your family and interfering with your ability to do your job. The door is ajar. Will you continue in denial of your problem or will you take that first step to get help?

Your email box fills with spam messages daily. Many of the messages have lewd titles in the subject lines. Are you going to delete all of the messages without opening any of them? The door is ajar to temptation. Which side of the door will you choose?

Are you a drug addict, a wife beater, a child or elder abuser, a chronic liar, hard-hearted and unforgiving, an adulterer, a slacker, a workaholic, or a – (fill in the blank)? If so, you have stood at the open door and made wrong choices that have affected your own life and the lives of those around you. Perhaps you are reaping the physical consequences of your actions: you are serving a prison sentence, your mate has left you, your children or your entire family have cut you out of their lives.

God does not take sin lightly, yet He has made provision for repentance, forgiveness and newness of life. We all make numerous choices, some good and some we would prefer to forget. Some we can never forget because repentance and forgiveness of sin does not pay the physical death penalty for a murderer or pay the physical debt to society for another crime. We can’t undo any physical, mental or emotional damage we have inflicted on others either.

In Revelation 3:20, Christ says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, “I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

I scooped up Crystal while he was still debating which side of the open door he wanted to be on and trying to work up the courage to explore the unknown. I’m past the point where someone else can make decisions for me. I have to make my own decisions and take responsibility for them.

I make a lot of mistakes and it might be hard for others to tell sometimes, but I know which side of the open door I want to be on - the same side as Jesus. What about you?

© 2005 Janice Price
mercyandpercy@yahoo.com
www.mercyandpercy.com

HAND CHEWING, HAIR PLUCKING AND TOY SQUEAKING

Hand Chewing, Hair Plucking and Toy Squeaking
by Janice Price

Each year it becomes harder to kneel down for any reason, so I do it as infrequently as possible. But sometimes I really want to kneel while I’m praying and so I kneel beside my bed for some private time with God.

I didn’t say alone time with God. That is impossible around here.

As soon as I kneel down, my big puppy, Buddy, will come lumbering into the room and climb onto the bed to chew on my hand for attention. The he will climb down and return with a squeaky toy, which he will proceed to squeak right next to my ear.

One of the cats will walk back and forth brushing against my face. Cyndi will purr in my ear and pluck hairs from my head. Each vies for the position closest to me.

No, it isn’t possible to be alone around here, but as annoying as it can be at times, it’s nice to know I’m surrounded by love. The animals enjoy my company and want to be near me as much as possible. I enjoy their company too.

Humans are just as competitive. I don’t know of anyone who resorts to hand chewing, hair plucking or toy squeaking, but we do compete to be the center of attention all the time. We want to be the best friend, the most popular student or the favorite child, the best writer or the award-winning whatever.

God does not compete for attention. He doesn’t have an inferiority complex. He knows who he is and that there is none who can surpass him in any category – except in sin. God is incapable of sin. But he is the most powerful, has all wisdom and knowledge, judges with truth and mercy, sits on the highest throne, and commands respect as the creator and sustainer of life.

If we love God we will want to be near him. The amazing thing is that we can spend as much time as we want to with him. He doesn’t take sick days or long vacations and he doesn’t disconnect his answering machine for self-time. He is faithful and always available.

We can pray and read the Bible, attend church and various religious socials or classes and become complacent in these times with him. But if we truly love him, we will want to be near him as much as possible and to spend quality time with him.

Christianity is not to be a part of our lives, neatly compartmentalized and separated from home, career, family and social engagements. Christianity is a way of life, a 24/7/365 deal. It isn’t always easy either. There will be sins, repentance, necessary correction and even pruning to deal with. Christians are not always popular and persecutions can arise.

We can learn from our young children and our pets. They don’t just vocalize their affection; they show it. They seek and enjoy our company. They want to be near us and have our undivided attention.

Are we committed to obeying God’s commands to love him above all else and to love others as we love ourselves? Are we spending quality time with him or merely reading a lot of books about him? Do we give him our undivided attention or do we want him to lavish his undivided attention on us?

It is one thing to say, “God, I love you,” but we should also show it by the way we live our lives. We should make God the center of our lives, train our thoughts on him and keep the lines of communication open.

I am thankful our time together does not always need to be formal or spent on my knees. I can pray anywhere I happen to be at any hour or the day or night. I can also grab a favorite beverage – a cup of hot coffee or tea, hot chocolate, iced tea, water, or any beverage of choice - and curl up in a favorite chair to visit with him, even at three a.m. on a lonely night.

If you are experiencing a lonely night, and your hand chewing, hair plucking, toy squeaking children and pets are sleeping, grab a cup of tea, curl up in your favorite chair, and spend some private time with God.

© 2005 Janice Price
mercyandpercy@yahoo.com
www.mercyandpercy.com

THE TWIGS OF LIFE

A steady drip of raindrops flood the yard

The Twigs of Life
by Janice Price

As I watch the yard fill with rainwater, I think of how I sometimes feel inundated with life’s problems, to the point I can’t handle them all at once. It isn’t one raindrop that floods the yard; it’s a deluge of raindrops that overwhelms the earth. The ground can only handle a certain amount of water at any given time and I can only handle a certain amount of life’s problems, pain and setbacks at a time. The rest collect in a pool until they can be slowly absorbed.

This is Easter Sunday, a time when people are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus. But bad weather, like bad news, is oblivious to holidays, birthdays or celebrations of any type.

There was a tornado and flood watch for this area last night and it has continued throughout today. Periods of rain are frequently accented by thunder and lightning. The yards and streets fill with water. They flood and they drain. Still, the bursts of rain continue and more rain is expected. It is a dismal day, a good day to stay home where it is safe and dry.

Well, it is safe, until I take my dogs for a quick walk between storms and before sundown. I almost make it home without incident. Then one foot steps on a twig. It is a very small twig. It has lain on the sidewalk for a month or so, ever since another storm prompted the electric company to cut some branches on the neighbor’s tree to protect their lines. I have probably stepped on this particular twig more than once and never had a problem.

But today the sidewalk is wet and slippery, with pools of water here and there, and I am in a hurry. The twig rolls under my foot, my ankle turns, and I start to drop in one direction while my dogs, unaware I am in trouble, continue trotting home in the other direction at the same pace we were walking. Suddenly, I am following them, but I’m not walking. I’m flying. And crash landing.

This is not one of those times an angel rescues me from accidental injury, although nothing appears broken. The wounds are cleaned and dressed and, hopefully, they have stopped bleeding, but the healing process will take a while.

A strange result of this fall is that a dreary day is drawing to a close with an encouraging lesson in the twigs of life.

It isn’t necessarily broken branches that cause the most frustration and problems. Branches are larger and stand out when you encounter them. They aren’t easier to bear, but they are easier to recognize. Illness, marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, estrangement from a friend, loss of a job, and sitting in a car teetering on the edge of a cliff are examples of branches life might throw into your path. People are more understanding if you become upset or overly emotional when you trip over a branch.

But the little twigs, insignificant and often unnoticed as you repeatedly step on them, can one day trip you and send you crashing to the ground, leaving you weak and shaky when you stumble back onto your feet. It’s the steady drip of raindrops forming a pool on the earth’s surface that causes a flood. Except this flood is the washing machine leaking, the garbage bag breaking, the laundry soap spilling, the pieces of torn newspaper the dog spreads on the carpet, the bowl of spilled cat food, the bank statement that doesn’t balance, and all those annoying things that can clutter your life. One at a time, they can be bearable, but when the steady drip turns into a deluge, you can suddenly step on one little twig and fall.

Uh-oh, you have crashed. You have reacted to a situation in a way you know was wrong, but just as you don’t stay on the ground when you have a physical fall, you don’t stay on the ground when you have a spiritual fall. Remove your foot from your mouth, ask God to forgive you, reconcile with anyone you have offended, and get back onto your feet. You might have to call 9-1-1 for help bandaging your wounds. You might even walk with a limp for a while. But don’t give up on your walk with Christ.

The positive aspect of unexpected twigs is that they serve as a reminder of how much we all need God’s mercy. And the next time we see a brother or a sister fall over a small twig, we will not only be able to empathize, but we can humbly smile, offer a hand and say, “Here, let me help you stand again.”

© 2005 Janice Price
mercyandpercy@yahoo.com
www.mercyandpercy.com

PERCEPTION OR DECEPTION?

Perception or Deception?
by Janice Price

Many parents and grandparents write about those “aha!” moments their children and grandchildren give them. I don’t have children or grandchildren so God uses other means to give me “aha!” moments. He often uses my pets.

My puppy Buddy weights over twenty pounds and he is barely three months of age. I’m trying to teach him to calm down before he breaks something or injures himself in his hysteria over having a door between us. One of the methods I use is to occasionally take both dogs in the car with me when I have a quick stop to make.

One day recently the weather was cool and breezy. It was ideal for a training session. I parked well away from other cars in the Wal-Mart parking lot so Buddy wouldn’t disturb other people, rolled the windows down a bit and walked to the bank with Buddy’s pitiful cries following me the first few dozen steps. There was no line, so I was in and out of the bank in a couple of minutes. I walked over to where I could check on the dogs without them knowing I was around, then made another quick stop in a dollar store to pick up some chew bones for the dogs.

I walked back to check on the dogs again. Buddy was asleep on my cushion behind the steering wheel. Merci was curled up on the back seat. The moment he realized I was near, Buddy started crying and beating on a window. I opened a door to toss them each a treat and headed for a quick stop at Wal-Mart.

An older woman approached, visibly upset, and said, “I saw you looking at those dogs in that car too. I’m very concerned about them. They’ve been left alone in that car for a looooong time and the owner hasn’t come back for them.”

This woman obviously has a kind heart, but her perception of this particular circumstance was wrong. Buddy’s loud cries were not, Help me, I’m dying in here, but, I’m spoiled and I demand you either take me with you or you get right back in the car this instant! Once he realized he wasn’t going to get his own way, he climbed into the front seat and went to sleep.

Things are not always as we perceive them to be. Sometimes we are gullible and are deceived by others, either intentionally or indirectly, but often we deceive ourselves. Our concept of time can be off because we allow an emotional response to cloud our thinking, as in “They’ve been left alone in that car for a looooong time,” or, “I’ve been waiting a looooong time for God to help me with this problem.” (Hey, Jan, you just asked him this morning.)

Sometimes we perceive things to be a certain way because we don’t want to have to change our way of thinking or our way of living, but God calls us to change and to obedience. We can’t live with one foot over the fence in the world and the other foot dangling in God’s kingdom. If we don’t make a decision on our own about which side of the fence has the most attractive grass, we’re going to fall off the fence entirely. Since the Spiritual side of the fence requires a decision and a commitment, guess which side of the fence we would then land? It won’t be an accident. It will be because we have made our choice, but we can be adept at deceiving ourselves that we are living in the Spirit even after we’ve fallen off the fence.

Do we perceive God as angry or loving? We can be deceived in this also. Our perception of God can be shaped by our own experiences in life and by our own church’s teachings. I had a hard time understanding the concept of God’s love, after years in a church that taught legalism and perfect obedience to the church’s doctrinal errors.

We can perceive others as angry when they are in pain, or as wonderful Christians while they are abusing God’s laws, perhaps even abusing their mates and children.

The point is that what we see or hear is not always factual or the complete picture. We should give others the benefit of the doubt more often and stop automatically repeating everything we hear because even the truth can become distorted in the retelling.

And we should ask God for the ability to perceive Spiritual truth. Without it, we truly are deceived.

© 2005 Janice Price
mercyandpercy@yahoo.com
www.mercyandpercy.com

IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DOG

If it Looks Like a Dog
by Janice Price

If it looks like a dog, quacks like a dog and flies like a dog, it must be a dog. Isn’t that correct?

Anyone who believes this probably doesn’t see the need for spam filtering software for an email program.

Spammers are becoming more proficient at finding sneaky ways to reach us. As a rule, we are pretty gullible, not necessarily because we’re dumb but because we often want to believe the best of others. We don’t want to live in a world of paranoia, where we look for wolves in sheep’s clothing behind every pebble.

But if something that looks like a dog, quacks like a dog and flies like a dog arrives in my spam filtering program prior to downloading into my email box, I’m suspicious. It’s usually spam in disguise.

Sin is also becoming more proficient at finding sneaky ways to reach us. We now have a flying, quacking dog impersonator named Political Correctness creating havoc in society today. To be politically correct we must alter our language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination and to avoid offense; however, soft-pedaling it by changing what we call it doesn’t alter the facts. Let’s call things as they are - spam is spam and sin is sin.

We all know the story of John the Baptist. He was the epitome of political correctness. He told King Herod, “It’s okay to have your brother’s wife,” and John lived to a ripe old age.

And we all know how Jesus lauded the Pharisees for their piety and the perfect example they set for those under their authority.

No, I’m not delusional. I’m just checking to see whether you are paying attention.

The Old Testament prophets and the New Testament Apostles spoke the truth as God inspired them. John the Baptist was beheaded because he refused to be politically correct. I don’t think Jesus was worried about avoiding offense when he addressed the Pharisees. He called things what they were and since the Pharisees were hypocritical, he called them hypocrites.

Today Jesus would probably be condemned as a discriminating, fanatical, finger-pointing, offensive name-caller who doesn’t understand that it is offensive to hypocrites to not be called alternative religionists or whatever name they have designated for themselves. Because today we are much more enlightened than in Jesus’ day and we know there is no such thing as sin, everything we do is acceptable and whatever is right in our own eyes should be accepted as right in everyone else’s. It should be no wonder our children are confused about right and wrong, morals and ethics, with illogical teachings such as this.

Some say there is no such thing as sin and everyone will be in God’s kingdom or only a particular group will be or - There are many views, but the one that counts is God’s. God says there is such a thing as sin and unrepentant sinners will not be in the kingdom. He even names particular sins. The question is, do we believe him or do we want to fit in with society and be politically correct?

What we have here looks like a dog, quacks like a dog and flies like a dog. Society says it is a dog, so it must be a dog. Isn’t that correct?

No, it isn’t correct. If God calls something a sin, it’s a sin. That might not be politically correct, but it’s God’s truth.

© 2005 Janice Price
mercyandpercy@yahoo.com
www.mercyandpercy.com