Daily Jewel

by Pastor J>T. Carnell, McAlester, OK
Aug. 22, 2011

“Playing the Game Nicely”
"These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay only themselves!" - Proverbs 1:18 (NIV)

One of my favorite games is Uno. A card game in which the goal is to get rid of the cards in your hand before your opponents can do the same. In the process of playing the game you will have several types of cards that allow you to hinder your opponents from getting rid of their cards. There is a draw 4 card, (the best of the bunch). There is a draw 2 card. There is a card which will cause the person next to you to lose their turn, and another which you can change the direction of game, causing someone next to you to lose their turn The problem comes is that once you throw one of these "mean" cards you set yourself up as fair game to have some thrown to you as well. Just when you think you have the game won, "BOOM!" here comes a draw 4 card aimed at you! Then, if an opponent goes out before you do the cards in your hand are counted against you and the "meaner" the card(s) you have left in your hand, the more points they are worth and the person with the least amount of points wins! In the game of life, that which people do to others will be done unto them. "To every action there is an opposite and equal reaction." That not only applies to the law of physics, but to the spiritual realm as well. What we do and say will come back to us. The cruelties that we extract upon others can come back upon us with even greater force. Conversely, our acts of kindness will only be to our credit. The classic feud between the Hatfields and McCoys is a prime example. The McCoy’s lived in Kentucky while the Hatfield’s lived mostly in West Virginia. Between the years of 1878 to 1891 a dozen members of both families had been killed. It started with Asa Harmon McCoy who was murdered on January 7, 1865. Jim Vance, the uncle of Devil (that name itself says something!) Anse Hatfield, despised Harmon because he had joined the Union army during the American Civil War. Harmon was discharged from the army and a few days later when he returned home Vance found him and shot him. The second recorded instance of violence in the feud occurred thirteen years later, in 1878, after a dispute about the ownership of a hog: Floyd Hatfield had it and Randolph McCoy said it was his. The pig was only in the fight because some of the Hatfields believed that since the pig was on their land that meant it was theirs. Some of the McCoys objected, saying the "notches" (markings) on the pig's ears were McCoy marks, not Hatfield marks. The matter was taken to the local Justice of the Peace, and the McCoys lost because of the testimony of Bill Staton, a relative of both families. Presiding over the case was Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield. In June 1880, Staton was killed by two McCoy brothers, Sam and Paris, who were later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. And it escalated from there! So…what kind of cards will be found in our hands? Are they ones of “vengeance?” Those to cause other’s pain? Solomon's direction is to show extreme caution in how we treat others for in the end we could end up harming ourselves! When was the last time, without anyone's prompting, you did something to show someone how much you cared about them? It's easy to throw our "hate" cards thinking we've won the game...but in the end no one wins those kinds of games.
Pastor J. T. Carnell