Excerpt 7 “Battlerama–Super Tweens To The Rescue”

What they saw made them laugh and sad at the same time.  They laughed because of the antics the two were involved and they were sad because even though the two were obviously from an affluent family, they were alone in brick-fenced area that seemed to stretch for miles along the coast of California.

The brother and sister were Shane and Tori.  Their father was rich and their mother often left them in the care of others who really didn’t pay much attention to them.  As long as they were out of their hair, they didn’t care what they did.  What the Wisteria found them doing was stringing together a fish-line criss-crossed over the doors on that side of the huge mansion in which they lived.  They were exercising great care to make sure that anyone trying to get through the doors would trigger buckets of water that would fall upon them.  A harmless prank of sorts, but would be sure to get them into trouble later.  They didn’t care.  They were bored.  Shane wished he could be somewhere else exciting, but without anyone’s knowledge.  Tori wished she could fly away to far-away places without her father’s private plane.  Getting back at the help seemed like a perfect way to spend an afternoon.  They got ladders and pieces of lumber to create platforms above the doors on which to place the buckets and then placed hooks on the sides of the doors so they could wind the line across itself back and forth until there was no way anyone could get out the door without triggering the downfall of buckets.

It took them over an hour to complete their task and once they finished, Shane pinched Tori hard so her screams would sound real.  When she screamed, the help inside the house came running to the doors.  They couldn’t see Tori and Shane and they also did not see the fish-line across the door so when they opened the doors, six people ended up with soaking wet when they tipped the buckets of water over as they opened the doors.

From their hiding places, Tori and Shane burst into laughter even as they faced very angry household help.  Their Nanny, a very large woman with her hair bound in a bun at the back of her head was furious.

“Your father will hear about this immediately!” She screamed at them.  “I’ll make sure your punishment is severe.” While she screamed at them water was running down her face and then she shook out her dress and water went everywhere.  Once they got over being wet, the others in the household laughed and went back to work.  The house-keeper admonished Tori and Shane about their behavior, but she didn’t get mad at them.  In fact, she felt sorry for them, but there was nothing she could for them at that moment since she was trying to finish her work.

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He Is Good!

You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees” (Psalm 119:68 NIV).

People may say a lot of things about David (some good, some not so good), but in this verse (as in the entire Psalm), we see acknowledgement of who God is and what God does.  Consider everything David went through, before coming King and during his reign.  Even though he was hailed a hero, he was betrayed and had to run for his life.  Even though he knew God, he committed a horrific act in manipulating a man’s death and using his wife.  Even though his children, were not the best children in the world, he still understood God’s goodness.  Even when he was dying, he was glad he had known God’s goodness. And God, even though David was not perfect, saw him as a “man after my own heart”. Wow!  And because God was so good to David, David was always imploring God–to “teach him” more about Him and He did.

We don’t have to be perfect to receive from God, but we must know and understand how God operates.  Everything He does or allows, is for our good.  Even the trials we face, are designed to make us stronger.  Those who hate us–provide us a reason to communicate with God, daily.  Those children who won’t follow our directions, remind us of how God still loves us, even when we don’t follow His directions.

So, the phrase that has become so popular and prevalent over the last few decades, “God is good all the time and all the time, God is good” didn’t start with one church or one preacher in the 20th Century.  The fact that God is good was acknowledged a long time ago and since He is God, He can be nothing else but good.  He is good–He was then, He is now, and He will forever be who He is and do what He does.  Now that we know that much, are we imploring Him to teach us more about Him?

Lord, thank You for being so good to us, even when we have not been so good to You.  Thank You for loving us enough to give us chance, after chance to get living for You right.  Teach us daily, O Lord, how we are live and treat others, to Your glory.  In Jesus name, I pray, Amen!