Hemmed In - Martin Wiles

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NIV

The fence was there for a purpose—not just for looks. 

The first house I lived in was situated on two acres of land just outside of town. Gardening and farming had always been in my blood—I suppose because both of my grandfathers had, so I decided to set up a small farm. I bought twenty chickens, two goats, and two hogs. 

But before buying any of my animals, I erected two fences. A six-foot high fence for the chickens, complete with one-by-fours around the bottom. For the hogs, I put up hog wire and fastened it to the ground with stakes. Although I’d had none of these animals before, I knew their tendency. My maternal grandfather raised hogs, and I watched as they continuously tried to root under the fence. Since goats go over, I topped the fence with barbed wire. I’d watched my maternal grandmother raise chickens, so I knew they loved to fly over a fence and roost up high. 

I didn’t hem my animals in because I wanted to make their lives miserable. Just the opposite. I knew if they got out, they might be killed by other animals, get run over on the highway, or be tempted to go into the neighbor’s yard and root up everything. The fence protected them.

The psalmist also knew God hemmed him in for a reason. He was hemmed in by God’s commands and principles, as well as by his daily interactions. He enjoyed being hemmed in. 

As God’s child, God also hems us in. Instead of looking at his commands and principles as cruel and cumbersome—things given to make our lives miserable—we can see them as being for our good. Like my hogs and goats, we tend to root under God’s commands and jump over his principles. Things on the other side look more appealing. 

But God knows what’s best. That’s why he gave guiding ideologies. And that’s why he gently brings us back into the fence with his discipline when we get out. He loves us and wants us to experience the best in life, which we won’t know if we go over or under what he’s put there to hem us. 

Learn to live within the hemming boundaries of what God has erected. He provides the fences for your good, not your detriment. 

Father, thank you for hemming me in so I won’t wander on paths I’d be better off leaving alone. 

If you seek hope and healing because of hurts you have faced, then Hurt, Hope, and Healing is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

God's Fences - Martin Wiles

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NIV

My maternal grandfather was a farmer whose land was circled by fences. Since my cousin and I had free reign to go and come as we pleased, we often encountered fences of different varieties. Most were hog wire fences. One step up and over, and we cleared the obstacle. Occasionally, the hog wire was topped by barbed wire. This required a little more ingenuity. We carefully pulled down the strand and held it against the top of the hog wire, allowing us to swing our legs over without getting snagged.

Of course, the most dangerous kind of fencing was electric. What hog and barbed wire couldn’t fetter, electric fencing could—primarily hogs. They inched their snouts near it and squealed as they felt the warmth of the pulsating electricity. My cousin and I proceeded with just as much caution as they did. Touching it would deliver a jolt we didn’t care to feel.

According to the psalmist, God does a bit of fencing himself. But it’s not hog wire, barbed wire, or electric wire. God’s means of fettering are different.

God fetters through the presence of his Spirit, who reinforces the knowledge of God's commands. Some perceive God as an unfriendly type who sits up in heaven, waiting to zap people for disobeying his commands—which they perceive as nothing more than a list of things they can’t do. And to be sure, God does have a host of “Thou shall not’s.”

But God’s commands are not given to cause us misery but to fence us in, making it more difficult for us to travel in fields we’d be better off staying out of. His commands are not designed to make life miserable but to guide us in a more pleasant direction. He has our best interests at heart. Obedience to his commands will ensure we experience the best out of life.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve questioned some of God’s directions. And some of them I tend not to understand. Of course, I didn’t understand many of my parents’ directives either. I discovered later, however, that my parents were wiser than I was. God is, too. We can jump God’s fences or believe he has erected them for a reason.

Make sure you are responding positively to God’s fences.

Father, thank you for providing fences to keep me on a godly path. 

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Accept God’s Plan - Martin Wiles

He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word … As a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Isaiah 53:7 NLT

Accepting reality is not always the easiest thing to do.

My maternal grandfather raised hogs. In fact, hog pens seemed to surround his entire farmhouse. Since hogs are notorious for rooting under fences, I suppose it made sense to keep them nearby.

A small shed was nestled in one of the hog pens, and it was here my grandfather herded hogs he planned to butcher or take to market. One such sow was large and had just weaned a litter of piglets. But now, my grandfather needed to sell her. Getting her into the shed wasn’t a problem; persuading her to walk the ramp into the back of my grandfather’s pickup was. By the time she was finally convinced, she had almost destroyed the shed. Of course, she didn’t know what was about to happen; she merely didn’t want to go where someone else wanted her to. She was comfortable in her environment.

Hundreds of years before the Messiah’s birth, the prophet Isaiah told how the Messiah would die and how he would accept his destiny. Without saying a word or bucking reality, he would allow his enemies to accomplish the dastardly deed of crucifying him.

I have periodically struggled with accepting God’s plan, and I’ve also known many others who have. When facing this decision, I believe God’s plan is always better than mine. For one thing, he can see into the future—my entire life. I can only see the present and envision the future. I don’t possess the wisdom or fortitude to concoct a plan as God can.

Accepting God’s plan requires complete trust. Knowing he loves me unconditionally and is out for my good helps me accept his plan. And following his plan will propel me into a brighter future.

Accepting God’s plan usually entails change. Following God’s plan rarely, if ever, will keep me in the same place. While no one enjoys change, changing with a higher purpose is always beneficial.

Jesus says abundant living should be the norm for us. When we accept God’s plan, we’ll experience that. Don’t miss out on God’s plan for you.

Father, give me the faith to accept your plan and to follow it obediently and consistently. 

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Freezing Out Temptation - Martin Wiles

Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. James 1:14 NLT

The humungous concrete trough begged us to place our parched toes in its tantalizing coolness.

Life on the farm was different every day. My cousin and I could find more adventures than we had time for. We sat around this particular day, thinking about what we could do. Where we sat was on a ledge just above a concrete trough filled with green water.

Running around barefoot wasn’t uncommon. Why not plunge our dirty, parched feet into this water? We did. Within a few days, I noticed a circle on my foot. When I showed it to Mom, she immediately took me to the doctor, who froze it. The stagnant water had produced ringworm.

While the freezing process was somewhat unpleasant, this infestation wasn’t as deadly as the one James speaks of. The sinful nature we’re born with leads us into temptations of various types and degrees and drags us into sinful activities and thoughts. Of course, Satan and his demonic hordes are involved, but we don’t need any help being bad.

Satan, however, often provides the stagnant water that draws our attention to areas we should avoid. With Eve, it was fruit from the one tree God told her and Adam to leave alone. For King Saul, it was a jealous spirit. With David, it was sexual lust. For the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, it was power and an attitude of spiritual superiority.

God, however, provides the strength to freeze out a pattern of sinful activity. We must put forth the effort. We know our nature and what our weaknesses are. Satan learns them and uses them to his advantage. When we live with a desire for holiness and purity, We’ll make a valid attempt to stay away from people and situations we know will pull us down and entice us to sin.

Even as a young boy, I probably had better sense than to put my feet in stagnant water—but I did it anyway. When we’re determined to live a holy lifestyle, we’ll depend on God to give us direction and stop us from putting our feet—and eyes and hands--where they don’t belong.

Let God help you freeze out temptation.

Father, remind me you will never let me be tempted beyond what I can bear with your help. 

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I invite you to try my newest book, Grits, Grace, and Grands, in eBook or paperback. If you are an editor who wants to hone your grammar skills or someone who just wants to improve your writing or speaking, this is the book for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Hating the Holy - Martin Wiles

Don’t give pearls to swine! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you. Matthew 7:6 NLT

As far as he knew, he was the only Christian in his office.

John was fresh out of college and had just taken a promising job in his hometown. Not ashamed that he was a believer, he quickly decorated his small cubicle with Christian décor. Imagine his surprise when his boss approached him and told him to remove it. The excitement over his new opportunity soon digressed as the antagonism against him progressed. The actions and words of his co-workers demonstrated they hated the holy. He stayed, though, and continued to cast pearls before them.

I’ve owned a few hogs in my lifetime. They are avid eaters and cared for nothing except food and slop to eat, dirt to root in, and a mud hole to wallow in. Had I thrown anything of value in the pen along with their food, they would have trampled it. Trying to give them what they didn’t care about would have wasted my time.

Jesus wasn’t giving a command to pig farmers. Nor was he teaching we shouldn’t share with those who are unreceptive. Instead, he warned about what to expect when we toss the gospel to those who aren’t interested . . . to those content with their evil ways.

Selfishness and contentment with filth are in a hog’s nature. But there is good in the hog when the dirt is washed away—everything, in fact, some say, except the squeal.

Changing a hog’s nature is almost impossible. Changing ours is impossible, too. Like the hog, we’re quite content to wallow in the filth of sin and disobedience. I, too, have cast pearls before some people who had no interest.

God, however, can give anyone a new nature—a nature that loves pearls and all things holy . . . a heart that drives us toward obedience to God’s commands rather than mud.

Wisdom is necessary to know where to cast our pearls. While everyone needs to hear about God’s love, allowing God to guide us helps us throw them where they will reap the most results.

If God has changed your hate for the holy, how can you cast that same pearl before others?

Father, give us wisdom to cast the pearl of the gospel where it will garner the most fruit. 

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Respecting the Boundaries - Martin Wiles

He makes peace in your borders, And fills you with the finest wheat. Psalm 147:14 NKJV

 

During the day, they roamed freely, but at night . . .

 

As the early morning light graced the farmland surrounding her house, she inched across the backyard, scattering food for her chickens. As they gathered around her feet, vying for the corn and scratch feed she sprinkled on the ground, she snatched one by the neck—a nice plump hen. Before that chicken knew what was happening, she had wrung its neck, plucked its feathers, removed its innards, dissected its body, and placed the various parts into a cast iron frying pan boiling with hog lard.

 

I never actually saw my grandmother do this—but I did in my mind as my mother told the story. My grandmother loved chickens—or at least what they provided. She even knew how to cut and cook the pulley bone—a piece rarely cut now. When the person eating it finished, they often invited someone else to put their hand under the table and help them pull the bones apart. Whoever got the longest bone would have good luck.

 

But at night, my grandmother confined her chickens in a small coop nestled just behind her house and outside her bedroom, where she could hear if something got in the chicken coop. Nocturnal creatures wouldn’t bother the chickens during the day, but at night they slithered around. Coons, opossums, foxes. Her chickens were too valuable to lose. They provided meat for her family and eggs for baking and cooking.

 

Evidently, the chickens didn’t mind the boundaries. When my grandmother called them at dusk, they willingly walked the small plank into the coop.

 

My grandfather followed suit with his hogs and hunting dogs by placing fences around their areas. Years ago, folks allowed hogs to run free in the woods and only penned them before butchering, but not my grandfather. Had he not fenced them in, they would have wandered into the road or strolled miles away for someone else to catch and kill. The same thing would have happened with his hunting dogs. If the road had not killed them, someone else would have gladly taken them.

 

God, too, placed boundaries around His Old Testament people—limits that are still in place for believers. He calls them His commandments. God promised fruitful harvests and peace within their borders if they obeyed. If they disobeyed, the opposite would happen. Some boundaries we might not understand—and some might appear burdensome—but He places them there with purpose.

 

I’ve not always appreciated the boundaries others placed on me: parents, employers, doctors, government officials. But deep inside, I know they benefit me—especially God’s borders. His guiding commands and moral principles protect us from harmful things, nurture us so we can grow spiritually into the person He wants, and demonstrate His matchless love.

 

How can you learn to live willingly within God’s boundaries? Remember, He puts them there out of love.

 

Father, thank You for the boundaries You have placed around me. 

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Smelling Good - Martin Wiles

So Jacob went over and kissed him. And when Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he was finally convinced, and he blessed his son. Genesis 27:27 NLT

The smell took me back.

 

Until my wife came along, I had used bar soap. She was a liquid soap user, so I also adopted the liquid soap craze. But for many years, bar soap was the norm. Liquid soaps were not mass-produced for domestic use until the 1980s when Minnetonka Corporation of Minnesota released its Softsoap. That sounded about right when I researched it. I sure don’t remember using liquid soap when I was growing up.

 

Not long ago, while visiting the local grocery store for some items, I walked to the pharmacy department. Sure enough, they sat on the shelf as I remembered—three bars of Ivory soap, packaged together. I picked them up and ran them beneath my nose.

 

The smell took me back. Back to a time when I was a young boy taking baths instead of showers. Back to the time when I stayed with my grandparents in Orangeburg and in Vance, South Carolina. I would run the bath water, jump in, wet the washrag, and look for the bar of soap. Ivory soap, of course. This was the cleanest smelling and very useful because it floated.

 

No matter how clean I was, the water soon turned dingy when I sat in it. Finding a bar of soap proved difficult. I remember running my hand beneath my body and around the bottom of the tub, trying to find the soap. But not if it was Ivory. Since it floated, I could quickly locate it. When I finished my bath—no matter how dirty or clean I had been when I started—I smelled clean.

 

As I ran those three bars of soap beneath my nose that day in the grocery store, I remembered those days. I bought the soap and began using it again. I also put bars in soap dishes and placed one in our bathrooms and kitchen. When I washed my hands, I could inhale the smell again.

 

Amazing what smells can do. For Isaac, it identified his son—or so he thought. Prior to his death, when the time came for him to give his final blessing to his firstborn, he told Esau to kill some wild game, prepare it, and bring it to him. He would eat it and bless him.

 

But Jacob, the younger brother and a trickster, dressed as his brother, prepared game, and took it to his father. Blindness initially confused Isaac, but the smell of the outdoors convinced him it was Esau—although we know better from reading this story of deception.

 

With spiritual living, smell is also important. Whether I smell clean because I just bathed with Ivory soap or whether I smell raunchy because I just helped give shots to hogs in a muddy, smelly pen isn’t the issue. I can smell foul physically but good spiritually.

 

Actions, words, and attitudes determine our spiritual smell. And when they align with God’s Word, people smell a wonderful aroma from us. We might not be in style with clothes or have the latest and greatest play toys, but others will get a good smell from being around us. Not with their noses, mind you, but with their eyes and ears. They will smell Jesus. And after all, that’s what Jesus said his followers were supposed to do: smell good.

 

What are some ways you can smell better to others?

 

Father, may my aroma draw others to you. 

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God Loves - Martin Wiles

Series: Nature Lessons about God

But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. Matthew 10:29 NLT

Hogs and birds have taught me a lot about God’s love.

My maternal grandfather—Pappy I called him—raised hogs. And my cousin and I loved nothing more than to roam the hog pens.

One thing we enjoyed observing was a sow giving birth. When the sow had finished delivering all the little pigs, she would lie still while each piglet rooted for a milk source. If she happened to be lying in a position where some of her little ones couldn’t get milk, she would quickly know by their squeals and then rearrange herself so all could get nourishment.

Loving hogs remained in my blood. During the few times in my life when I lived in places where I had room to raise a few hogs, I did. As the memories of my boyhood returned, I watched again as the sows gave birth, and the piglets rooted for milk. Mom cared for the little ones by giving them milk and by guarding them against strangers, others hogs who might harm her young, and any other dangerous animals.

I’ve seen mother birds do the same, but in a different way. For hours on end, they sat on eggs, leaving only briefly for food and water. When their young hatched, they flew hundreds of trips back and forth, searching for and then bringing back food for their young. Bugs. Worms. The young waited at the nest or in a birdhouse with mouths open, and Mom—and Dad—inserted the food into their open beaks.

Jesus taught about God’s love for us by appealing to nature. If a single sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without God knowing about it, then surely He knows about the fortunes and misfortunes we experience.

God’s love is powerful. A sow can turn deadly if her little ones are threatened. So can a mother bird. Although God may not keep us safe from temporal dangers, He ultimately controls what comes into our lives and will protect us eternally in heaven.

God’s love has no end and is repetitious. As long as they are together, sows continue to love their pigs no matter how large they grow. So do birds. God’s love knows no boundaries.

God’s love also leads Him to act on our behalf. As sows and birds provide for the ones they love, so God acts in our best interests. Everything He does helps us accomplish His plan and enjoy the life He has created for us.

If you doubt God’s love, just look at a hog or a bird.

Prayer: Father, thank You for being a God of love who reaches down to us in our need.

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