When I’m in Rattlesnake Gulch I don’t aim to pick posies too unobservant.”
              –William MacLeod Raine  (Crooked Trails and Straight)

    “Lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
              –2 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)
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I remember, way back a long time ago, when we visited relatives in South Carolina.  I was a young kid, around seven, and we went out to the Plumley farm to pick blackberries.  Mister Plumley had a large stick in his hand and he would walk in front of us, slashing at the bushes and vines, the purpose–to scare away the snakes.  It seems that snakes and blackberries go hand-in-hand.  I might mention that poison ivy seems to like to intermix with the blackberry bushes.  
    Let me pass on another story.  I wasn’t picking anything, nor looking for anything in particular, but I learned a lesson.  It was something I already knew but at the time I wasn’t practicing.  I was up in Boulder Canyon, fishing down in the creek.  It was time to leave and I started walking straight up the embankment which was rather steep.  I was maybe a third of the way up and reached up to grab a rock to help me pull myself up.  As I placed my hand down, it handed on top of a snake.  In the twinkling of an eye I flung that snake up and down toward the creek and I scrambled up to the top.  Whew, my heart is beating almost as fast now remembering it as it did when it happened.
    Friends, we need always to be observant.  Sometimes we can be caught unawares.  However, when we know that we are in dangerous territory we should be even more alert.  Don’t be deceived!  Don’t be deceived in any way, means, or words.  Far too many people are gullible or they just tip-toe through the tulips of life and all of a sudden the find that there may be a thistle in the tulip patch.
Get in the word of God, learn and observe the doctrines of the Bible.  
    Therefore, watch out where you’re picking.  Don’t think you can go to a place of questionable amusement and not think that there may be snakes slithering about.  What out what you’re watching and listening to.  Music, including that in the church must be doctrinal.  Watch out that you’re not beguiled by the slick words of the enemy.

You must meet each challenge with your feet planted firmly on the ground, standing as tall as you are, and never panic.”
              –Lou Bradshaw  (Hickory Jack)

    “Tremble before Him, all the earth. The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved.”
              –1 Chronicles 16:30 (NKJV)
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Happy Columbus Day!  That’s right, Columbus Day.  It is not Indigenous Peoples Day.  This is the day (actually October 12) when Columbus landed in the New World.  From that time forward exploration began and the New World was settled.  It took time, effort, blood and tears.  There were issues to be dealt with through the next couple of centuries until we get to the present.  Now people are moaning, “the poor native peoples.”  Yes, things could have been done differently but without the Europeans coming to America, and they would have come if it wasn’t Columbus, it would have been someone else.  Call it “Fate,” but I choose to call it Providence.
    I like what Patrick Wastella said in his response to Tara Ross’ blog.

         “It is as if we are educating individuals to look upon a beautiful, centuries-old, stained-glass window in order to find and judge the faults in it.  And upon finding the faults, the judges throw rocks through it, leaving it in ruins.  Is the window perfect?  Of course not.  But rather than dismissing it upon finding the faults, could we educate individuals to look upon the centuries-old window and acknowledge those faults while also admiring what the creator was attempting within the limits of his era?  Would it be better to train our youth to look upon something and to ask themselves, ‘How can this be improved?” rather than to judge it as imperfect and to discard it?'”  (Devin Foley)

Columbus was not a perfect person–there is not such a thing.  But take the time to read his diaries; he realized his name meant “Christ-bearer.”  He required missions and schools to be started to educate the “Indians” in the way of the gospel.  Those who proclaim the loudest do not care that thousands were to gain the knowledge of Jesus Christ, only the fact that the many died from the “white man’s disease.”
    One other thing to consider is that the “Columbian Exchange” went both ways, and for some reason those with the agenda only seem to talk of the negative.  What about the architecture, the language, fruits and grains, horses and cattle that came because of Spanish and other European exploration?  Plus, the common theory that syphilis was taken to the Old World during the exchange.
    So, today I salute Christopher Columbus!  The brave man who dared face the unknown waters to the West of Europe and by change–hardly, by Providence–discovered what we now call the Americas.  By the way, are we going to change the name of America, since it was named for Amerigo Vespucci?

On a late afternoon when the clouds gather around the peaks and the lightning begins to play its games over the mountain meadows, the high country is no place to be, but it can be spectacular to watch from a safe distance.  At such times the hills can be alive with the sound that isn’t music, but it has a magnificence of its own.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Passin’ Through)

“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, You people in whose heart is My law: Do not fear the reproach of men, Nor be afraid of their insults.”
              –Isaiah 51:7 (NKJV)
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         “The tragedy is that our eternal welfare depends upon our hearing, and we have trained our ears not to hear.”
                   –A.W. Tozer

    This is my favorite time of the year.  I loved to get out and walk in the woods during the fall season, whether it be hunting or just spending time in God’s great cathedral.  I like to find a place, maybe by a cascading brook, or sit on the edge of a ridge overlooking the country below, or maybe just to sit in a grove of trees.  In all of these places I like to sit and listen.
    Folks don’t listen anymore.  It may be that they just don’t take the time to listen.  It may be that they are so inundated with noise and sounds that they are not able to listen.  Right now, as I right this, I am listening to the leaves rustle as the breeze moves them.  There is a squirrel in the tree and I hear it moving through the branches often stopping to eat the nuts on the dogwood tree.  Then in the midst of it all, the wonder is ruined by the sound of beeping, a truck is beeping and that took my ears away from nature and all I can hear is noise.  Noise of the beeping, noise of the not too distant highway, the noise of man’s progress and technology.
    I used to teach Royal Rangers and also taught an Outdoor Education class.  One of my first days of class was to get the students outside.  They were to sit the whole class period and listen and then record what they heard.  They were to have two columns:  man-made noise and nature.  The first time they really struggled.  First it was hard for them to sit that long, in one place, outside in nature.  Second, they were away from their phones.  They struggled to listen.
    We are very much the same way when it comes to things spiritual and the voice of God.  We struggle to sit in one place to read God’s Word.  We struggle to find a quiet place where we can pray and commune with God.  Jesus often admonished with the following, “he who has an ear let him listen.”  If we take the time, if we can discipline ourselves, we can learn to listen.  The students who were given the assignment to listen struggled, but they began to learn to be still and listen.  By the end of the semester they were able to “hear” the voices of nature.  We can do the same with the Lord.

I just kept hobbling along, never looking back because I knew the sight of how little I’d done would discourage me.  My eyes were on the trail ahead, as they’d always been.”
              –Louis L’Amour  (Passin’ Through)

    “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
              –Hebrews 11:8 (NKJV)
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I never laugh or made fun of older people.  Perhaps it was because I was raised by my Grandma and my Aunt.  They were hard workers, in fact, all of my parents and grandparents were.  I remember as they became older they were not quite a spry as they once were.  But they continued to work, in one capacity or another, none of them ever became what you would call bedfast.
    I mentioned the past yesterday, and said how important it was, but that we were not to live in it.  One reason is that when we dwelt in the past we would see and realize how much we didn’t accomplish.  Those dreams–what happened to them?  Were you able to fulfill them or where they like the clouds, only a vapor?  Often looking at the past puts us in a rocking chair, twiddling our thumbs, and living in remorse.
    Look ahead, the goal is still before you.  Heaven awaits, now is not the time to stop and live in the past, but now is the time to continue forward, even if you have to hobble.  The way may be rough, the obstacles many, but a person continued to take a step at a time–steps that are ordered by God, mind you.
    You may have noticed that I used quotations from Louis L’Amour’s book, “Passin’ Through,” the past couple of days.  When I get back to Texas, I’m going to pull it from my bookshelf and read it again.  The title itself presents a lot of truth.  Truly, we are just passin’ through this world.  All of us, pagans and saints, the nonbeliever and the believer will one day come to the end of the road, end of life.  After death comes the judgment–for all.  Nonbelievers will be judged for not accepting Jesus Christ; believers will be judged for their works, how they walked the trail since accepting Jesus.