The Big Reward for Patience

Thirty years ago I was a logging contractor in Northern California. We specialized in logging small properties and properties that were isolated or had very difficult challenges. Sometimes we bought the property and sometimes we just purchased the timber from the land owner.

In all cases it was up to us to sell the logs and then deliver them to the sawmill that paid the highest price. One morning I was at one of the sawmills meeting with the sawmill owner. He knew that we, many times found and purchased land with timber on it. He said: "Paul there is a sixty acre parcel not far from here. The property is surrounded by government land. I am personally interested in the parcel to build a family retreat on it. I have written several letters to the owners, but have never received a reply. If you are interested in helping me acquire this property I will pay you $10,000 if you are I am able to purchase the property." I told him a would be most happy to try and help him acquire the property. This was 1975. I wasn't yet 30 years old and had only been in business a couple of years. $10,000 then was like $50,000 now. I was very excited about this opportunity.

I went to the County Courthouse and looked up the owner's name and address. They lived about three hours drive away. My plan was to drive over to their house and knock on the door without calling or writing first. I arrived about 6:00p.m.. If they weren't home I would spend the night at a motel and try the next day.

During the three hour drive I reviewed in my mind how I should approach the owners, if they were home. After putting my final thoughts together I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. The door opened. The man answering the door said: "Hello, What can I do for you". I introduced myself and asked if I could talk to he and his wife about their property they owned in the next county. He invited me in. After sitting down I told the he and his wife I represented a potential buyer of their property. The lady said: "That property was my dad's. He homesteaded the land from the U.S. Government over 50 years ago. Dad died last year." She then said the line I didn't want to hear. "We are not interested in selling the land."

What to do next? As you might guess I really wanted the $10,000. I deceided this was probaly a very emotional issue for them. So I said: "I understand. Would you be interested in knowing how much the person I represent is willing to pay? She said: "Sure". I said $60,000. She said that was a lot of money but they were not interested in selling.

I thanked them for visiting with me. Next I wrote my name, address and phone number on a piece of paper and asked them to please get ahold of me if they changed their mind.

Driving back home I though to myself: It wasn't meant to be - I tried.

One and a half years later I received a letter in the mail from a strange city --- their city! It said if my buyer was still interested they had deceided to sell! I visited with the mill owner to see if he was still interested and if our deal was still on. He said yes. Two weeks later I had $10,000!

If I tried to pressure the owners into selling they may not have written me.

Principle: Patience

Deception - From Apple to Zion

Deception has been around as long as:
Women have been asking, "How do I look?"
Men have been selling used cars.
Children have been liberating cookies.
Lions have looked lazy.
Satan has had horns and a pitch fork.

Adam and Eve weren't very good at it on their first try - God saw right through them. But give them a few years and watch their children. "Am I my brother's keeper?" A classic line of innocence and 'woe is me' that rings from siblings lips today. "It wasn't my fault!" ""I didn't see him standing there." "He shouldn't have put his head where I was swinging my fist!" "I mean seriously, am I my brother's keeper?"

Then, not so very long later, we see a younger brother wrapped in goatskin and feeding his father meat and broth that he didn't cook and claiming a birthright that he didn't deserve. No wonder God told the Israelites, "Don't cook a kids in his mother's milk." Jacob was stewing in his mother's deceptive juices. And he didn't see a thing wrong with it - just opportunity.

We could go right through the stories of the Bible adding deception upon deception until we were so tied up in a knot of lies that we wouldn't know which way to look for truth. A woman named Jael who invited the king in to rest, warmed his drink and then spiked his head. A warrior named Ehud who said he had a message for the king, but put a short sword in his belly instead. King David sending his right hand man Urriah to his death to steal a wife and silence a story. Solomon holding a sword ready to dissect a newborn to discover the deceptive mother. If only it were always that easy. If only we were always that wise!

But, perhaps the most devastating deception of all unravelled when the least of the twelve returned to throw thirty pieces of silver back at the priests. "I have betrayed innocent blood!" The whole thing had been a deception from the start. Judas' original plan, I'll sell him out and he'll fight when they attack! Then we will set up our kingdom! Failed. Jesus didn't fight back. Judas saw his plan sputtering and the money began smacking of treason. Judas returned to the halls of religious piety to reclaim his innocence. The money flew through the air at the priests, the words cut the night cold, "I have betrayed innocent blood." And the reply severed a heart, "What is that to us?" He too was deceived, by his own heart. They couldn't forgive him. Only Jesus could. And Judas couldn't bring himself to face Jesus. I am beyond forgiveness. I did what I did. His death is on my head. And with such deceptive thoughts he wrapped one end of a rope around a tree, the other around his neck and leapt off the branch. Judas was dead. Dead wrong.

Jesus came to forgive sins. He came to forgive all who call on His name. Judas would have heard him say that a time or two in their three years together. So, why the misconception? Why the hard hearted self treatment? Because the master of this Earth is a deceiver. He is the father of lies. And he has been weaving his web of deceit since Eve's first wayward bite. He'll do all he can to convince each of us that we are unworthy, that God is unwilling, that life is unchanging and that forgiveness is unavailable. But he is wrong. Dead wrong.

One day we will see. But for now he continues to deceive and many of us continue to emulate his deceptive ways. There is only one way out of his devastating downward spiral of deceit - Look to Jesus. Eyes fixed on Him are released from the snares of the old snake. Hearts fixed on Him are perfected. Lives fixed on Him are forever His. Let us lift our eyes. Lift them up from the serpent's bites all around us. Lift them to the centre of the camp - to the cross. Let us fix our eyes on Christ, who became sin for us, so that we might become righteous! And we will be healed. Then, let us not look back. Ever.