Page 66 of 94

David’s Digest: God OR Mammon

May 19, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 4 Comments

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word “serve” as follows:

SERVE, v.t. serv. [L. servio. This verb is supposed to be from the noun servus, a servant or slave, and this from servo, to keep.]

1. To work for; to bestow the labor of body and mind in the employment of another.

Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy youngest daughter. Gen. 29.

No man can serve two masters. Matt. 6.

2. To act as the minister of; to perform official duties to; as, a minister serves his prince.

Had I served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. Cardinal Woolsey.

3. To attend at command; to wait on.

A goddess among gods, ador’d and serv’d

By angels numberless, thy daily train. Milton.

4. To obey servilely or meanly. be not to wealth a servant.

5. To supply with food; as, to be served in plate.

6. To be subservient or subordinate to.

Bodies bright and greater should not serve

The less not bright. Milton.

7. To perform the duties required in; as, the curate served two churches.

8. To obey; to perform duties in the employment of; as, to serve the king or the country in the army or navy.

9. To be sufficient, or to promote; as, to serve one’s turn, end or purpose.

10. To help by good offices; as, to serve one’s country.

11. To comply with; to submit to.

They think herein we serve the time, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment. Hooker.

12. To be sufficient for; to satisfy; to content.

One half pint bottle serves them both to dine,

And is at once their vinegar and wine. Pope.

13. To be in the place of any thing to one. A sofa serves the Turks for a seat and a couch.

14. To treat; to requite; as, he served me ungratefully; he served me very ill; We say also, he served me a trick, that is he deceived me, or practiced an artifice on me.

15. In Scripture and theology, to obey and worship; to act in conformity to the law of a superior, and treat him with due reverence.

Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and truth. As for me and my house, we will serve the lord. Josh. 24.

16. In a bad sense, to obey; to yield compliance or act according to.

For the most part, each of the above definitions is related, in that 1) each involves how time is spent of the servant, regardless of what or who is being served, and 2) there is a commitment and submission of the servant to that which is being served.

Matt 6:24 says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines mammon as the following:

MAM’MON, n. Riches; wealth; or the god or riches.

or a mammonist as:

MAM’MONIST, n. A person devoted to the acquisition of wealth; one whose affections are placed supremely on riches; a worldling.

As I stated, and as is demonstrated in the dictionary definitions above, servanthood by nature involves spending time doing the serving. I would say further that this implies the reverse to be true: what you spend your time doing, you serve.

Now, the context of the Bible verse above is the Lord Christ discussing the spiritual condition of one’s heart, as evidenced by where his “treasure” is, and that the treasures of the world should not be sought, because if the Lord is lord of your life, you should not be concerned about the temporal necessities of life:

Matt 6:19-34 – “19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

So, spending one’s time seeking riches, even under the guise of them being for the necessities of life, is, according to these verses, not godly living, because if you are spending your time doing that, you are thus serving those riches.

This is further evidenced by dependence. Why do people spend so much time in the service of obtaining money? It’s because they NEED the money to survive — they are dependent on it. Don’t believe me? What would happen to people’s ability to eat and drink if they lost their jobs and couldn’t find other ones, or if money became worthless? Unless they are growing their own food and have their own source of water, they would die. Dependency requires servitude.

Sound familiar? Does not a person spending all day at a corporate job, in a career, earning a paycheck so he can buy food and water, fit these descriptions?

Now, once again, verse 24 says one “cannot serve God and mammon,” which means the service of these are mutually exclusive: if you are serving one, you cannot be serving the other. So, if one’s time is spent in pursuit of money, that makes that person a servant of money; and if that person depends on that money for survival, that person is further a servant of money. And therefore, in that, that person cannot be serving God.

What is it you’re spending most of your day doing, and on what do you depend for your life necessities; and thus, what do you serve? And so then, Whom are you not serving?

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Chicks, Ahoy!

May 8, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 5 Comments

The Lord has shown extra graces this year in the amount of broody hens we’ve had. We almost can’t keep up, for which we’re very thankful!

And so, after the first round of chicks hatched for 2012, here is the next round from the hens that were in the “nurseries” mentioned in that previous blog post.

This was the next hen to hatch some out (this one wasn’t mentioned in that last blog post; these chicks are Group 2). We had her in our chicken pen area:

Going onto the “nursery,” this was the next hen to hatch her chicks (Group 3):

And then here’s the next one (Group 4). You can see the struggling one at the bottom — I didn’t think it was going to make it; and it looked like it had trouble walking; but by God’s graces it did, as you can see in the video below. I did add some “shackles” to its legs using duct tape, as it looked like it might have been spraddle-legged; I don’t know if it was for sure, but if it was, the shackles seemed to help (I got the shackles info from http://www.poultryhelp.com/spraddle.html, although our little chick didn’t look as bad as the example on that page). We have tried the shackles before on a very young rooster, and by God’s granting the shackles definitely helped:

And then here’s the hen and her chicks that are in the piano room (Group 5). This one also had a chick that really looked like it wasn’t going to make it — it had trouble standing, looked very sleepy, and couldn’t really get around very much. I actually put the spraddle-leg shackles on it too, but it was having so much trouble dealing with them (it was just falling over with its talons pointed backward) that I removed them. I thought for sure it wasn’t going to make it; but, again by God’s granting, it did, and it seems to be getting around pretty well now:

Finally, there were a couple of broody hens in our main chicken tractor that we just didn’t have a place for in any of our other buildings — they were both in the same nest; and so, we waited until they were supposed to hatch them, and they did hatch two before we could move them. Then, having removed the mother hen from Group 1 from the previous chick-hatching blog post, we also removed the mother hen from Group 2 that is in the chicken pen area, shuttled Group 1 to the chicken pen, and moved one of the mother hens (we just picked one), the chicks, and the rest of their eggs to the mini-tractor; and since, she has hatched out two more (Group 6):

And here’s a video about them all:

Whew! But, apparently we aren’t done yet, Lord willing — there are now even more broody hens; and so, we plan to keep the shuttling-to-the-chicken-pen area/opening-up-a-nursery-area process going.

This one is scheduled to hatch out next. She decided to get broody in an empty garbage can (which she leaves every once in a while to get food and water), where chickens sometimes lay eggs:

And here are the nests in the main chicken tractor. The game hen in the upper right is scheduled next after the garbage can hen, and then we just added eggs under the three Australorp hens on the bottom nests (the other hens I think were just “playing” broody at the time of the picture). I believe the hen in the bottom right nest is one of the ones that helped hatch out Group 6:

And so, once again, we are very thankful to God for this “problem” of many broody hens; and we thank Him for these many safe hatchings.

— David

A House – Update XVII – Main Roof – Update I

April 29, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 9 Comments

With the house internal walls framed, it was time to finish on the roof. I decided to go with metal roofing, for its longevity.

First, the tar paper (roof felt) was installed with a hammer stapler:

House Roof Tar Paper/Roof Felt Being Installed

And we painted the face-plates:

Then it was time to put up the metal. First, we pre-drilled the holes where the grommeted screws were to be put. I chose to do them 2 feet apart up the metal pieces:

And here is the first piece installed:

Between each piece of metal, we laid down “tacky tape” where the next metal piece would overlap:

And we installed metal edging with the fitted foam on top underneath the roof metal. We found that putting the foam on first and placing the edging in place before laying down the metal piece worked best:

Metal Edging with Roof Metal Fitted Foam

For these long pieces, we really needed two people to put up the roofing:

Carrying the Roof Metal on the Porch Roof

And here is the roof with all of the metal in place, including the ridge cap:

We put metal edging on the gabled end of the roof as well:

And here is a closer view of the end of the ridge cap. Mr. Gurau thought to stuff fitted foam in the ends, and with that and some caulking, that seemed to work pretty well without having to buy the typical metal roof trim and end caps. Hopefully what we did will be ok in the long-run:

Since we don’t have air conditioning, air flow is everything, in trying to vent out the air that is heated in the attic space. Rather than buy the typical ridge vents, I decided to try a vented foam that simply is installed under the ridge cap: it’s less expensive and is supposed to vent very well:

And finally, here is a look up at the ridge cap with it and the vented foam installed:

Once again, we are grateful to the Lord for allowing continued progress on the home, and thank Him for the resources to do so.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: First New Chicks of 2012

April 22, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

Last year, the Lord granted that some of our hens would be broody and sit on eggs — something that hadn’t really happened much until then. Well, God has continued to be gracious in that way, granted one of our hens to get broody; and by God’s graces, she hatched out 13 new chicks out of 14 eggs!

We’ve since lost one, but here is a picture of them:

And a quick video:

Along with this hen, we suddenly had an avalanche of broody hens! We’ve had a hard time finding where to put them, but we put one in our chicken coup in the chicken pen, and turned our summer kitchen into a chicken nursery.

Here’s one sitting in the piano room:

And another in the summer kitchen area:

And the pantry:

There are two (sometimes three in two nests) more in the main chicken tractor that we’re not sure where to put, but hopefully we will figure that out before the chicks hatch (if the Lord wills).

We are very grateful to the Lord for granting this “problem,” and we pray for continued healthy hatchlings, according to His will.

— David

Spring Ranchfest 2012

April 16, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 11 Comments

Twice a year we gather as a community for a week to work on projects for our teacher, Michael, and his family; and to provide an opportunity for guests to come by and help out and meet the folks here, etc.

And so, it was that time again for “Ranchfest” — Spring 2012!

The men had two projects they were working on throughout the week: building a cabin for the community’s betrothed couple; and doing finishing work on the inside of Michael’s cottage.

The Cabin

For the cabin, we started on Friday with a concrete slab pour. This was the group’s first real concrete pour on the land, and the guys did a lot of study and prep work in getting things ready. Here is the area formed with the rebar:

And here begins the concrete pour:

And more of the pouring and after “screeding” (or spreading) it out with the long 2×4 that spanned the whole width:

Here the concrete is tamped lightly by what they call a “jitterbug”, and a “bull float” is used to smooth out the concrete surface:

And then it was edged so the edges are rounded, to help keep them from chipping. One fellow also went around the sides with a hammer, lightly tapping the forms to help keep the concrete from “honeycombing”:

Here’s the groom-to-be and his improvised concrete texturizer:

And finally, the betrothed couple thought they’d mark a memory of the event:

Friday Night Sermon

On Friday evenings, Michael is going through in an in-depth way the last chapters he included in a book he wrote, which was an article series he wrote called “What is the Gospel?”:

Passover

Ranchfest times are often planned around the Passover time, which we observe as a teaching method for the children (and as a memorial for the adults) of the types and shadows used in the Passover feast representing Christ.

Here is the Passover “ceremony” time:

And the seder plate, with each food element representing some part of the event of the Passover time of the Hebrew people in and leaving Egypt:

We also sang Psalms 113-118 from our psalters, and here is a video of a few of those psalms being sung:

The Cottage

As I mentioned, the other project was working on the internals of Michael’s cottage, putting up insulation and siding.

And here is some of the completed work:

Here are the men cutting the siding:

And here is some staining work of the siding being done:

More Cabin

Once the concrete slab was completed, it was time to build and raise the walls. Here’s the cabin with two of the walls raised:

And then with all four walls in place:

Apparently, the plan is to have a second story; and so, they are using a 10 inch I-beam spanning the width, which will be the support for the upper level floor:

More Cottage

Back at the cottage, after the siding was in place and stained or painted, the window sills and trim were cut, installed and painted with a clear wood protector:

And here are a couple of final pictures of the cottage work for the week:

Ladies Work

Besides all of the group meal preparations the ladies did for the week, they also had other projects, which this Ranchfest included sewing for the Michael’s family and snapping mesquite pods, which they use for their mesquite coffee.

The main sewing project was for curtains for the cottage, although there was some clothing-making worked on. Here are some sewing preparations being done for some clothing:

And here, even the younger ones helped:

Seems to be a fun time too!

And here, one of the mothers is functioning as a seamstress and a lounge chair 🙂 :

And finally, here are some of the ladies and children helping with the mesquite pods:

All in all, it was a very nice time of fellowship, community and work. It’s tiring, but rewarding as well. We did have a few guest families that visited this year, and it was a pleasure to see them again or meet them, and we thank them for the help and work they provided.

We are grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to gather in His name to work together, and we’re thankful for the teacher He has granted us.

— David

Garden – Spring 2012

April 10, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

After last year’s drought and not being able to plant a garden (other than the tomatoes, which I mentioned in our Mercy in the Drought blog post), with rains we received over the winter time, we were grateful to the Lord for granting us this year to be able to do so!

We have prepared several garden and orchard areas with the mulching for long-term composting, and since those aren’t immediately ready, I figured we would just continue to use the raised beds we have. Several are still in garlic for this year; but for the other ones, I bought compost, and just dumped and spread it on top of the soil that was already there, thinking I could plant directly into the compost (assuming compost in general was a good thing to plant in). What I failed to think through was that compost you can plant into is already composted, whereas the stuff I bought I believe still needed to compost. After planting in them, only the squash and zucchini, and a few okra sprouted — the beans and carrots didn’t (but for a few exceptions; I’m wondering if the squash/zucchini sprouted because of the seeds having hard-shells). I should have done my research *before* I planted. 🙂 And so, I decided to go in and mix the compost with the soil underneath a couple of the beds and replant the green beans and carrots.

Also, in watering the beds that have only compost on top, just running even quite a bit of water on them didn’t seem to cause the compost to get wet at all. I couldn’t understand what was going on — I mean, the water had to be going somewhere. Well, it appeared that if I just let the water run and soak in underneath, on the next day or two, the compost was indeed moist all through; and so, I figured that the water was just soaking upward after watering.

And here are the beds planted. I also planted already-growing tomato plants in the far, not-raised bed, in just the compost, although fairly deeply; and they are still living, but don’t seem to be growing much; so we will have to see how they turn out:

And here is the okra area in the far side of one of the garlic beds:

Interestingly, in one of the garlic beds, we had planted onions several years ago; and after last year’s drought, there wasn’t much left of them (some of them had continued to grow each of the previous years). Well, I thought I had cleared them all out for the garlic, but apparently not. We basically just use the green tops as I don’t believe bulbs are really growing, but I suppose we will see how that goes too, Lord willing:

Also interestingly, although I didn’t plant garlic in them this year, apparently there was some remnant cloves from last year, still in them. Here is the carrot bed with a couple of garlic plants growing:

We are truly thankful to God for the opportunity to plant and water this year, and we pray He might grant provisions from the garden, in accordance with His will.

— David

A House – Update XVI – Internal Walls – Update I

April 3, 2012 / David & Susan Sifford / 4 Comments

Once the main roof of the house was covered, it was time to finish the internal walls.

Here’s the last main wall that needed to be completed, before it was raised:

And the following pictures are how the walls look now all up and tied together. This is from the great room facing the library, showing the closet space in between:

And a picture of the door to the pantry, which is next to that closet:

Here is the bedroom from the kitchen area with the bathroom in between:

And here is from inside the bedroom facing the library:

And then facing the kitchen area. The bedroom is the only room that we plan to enclose with windows to be able to keep heat in during the winter while still allowing for air flow during the summer:

And here is a look down the pantry and closet from the bathroom:

We are thankful once again to God for His provisions to allow us to continue progress on the house.

— David

The Sifford Sojournal

Page 66 of 94

David’s Digest: God OR Mammon

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Chicks, Ahoy!

A House – Update XVII – Main Roof – Update I

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: First New Chicks of 2012

Spring Ranchfest 2012

Garden – Spring 2012

A House – Update XVI – Internal Walls – Update I

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