A few weekends ago, during the long Thanksgiving weekend, I found a little time to get to one of those items on my honey-do list. See, I have been slowly gathering fallen logs and tree branches from the surrounding woods and piling them up at the edge of where my grass would be, if I had worked to keep my grass healthy. (That is another bulletin for another day, though.) The pile of logs was quite large now and it wasn't going to cut and split itself. I figured now would be a good time to cut it up and stack it before it's covered with snow. Connie was also outside so I asked for her help to hold the logs while I cut them with the chain saw. (In case you don't know, she's quite a pioneer woman and proud of it.) (RC: apparently very trusting, tool)

Things were going well and we had made a large pile of wood. We started throwing the logs into the yard in the general area where it would be stacked. While I was pulling more wood from the pile to cut, she began to split some of the wood by using the sledgehammer and wedge. She had the idea to stack the wood between two trees in the yard that would make a suitable log rack. (Another item on my honey-do list is to make a log rack, but that job will have to wait.)

After we had a good amount of split logs and some that were too small to split, I began to "stack" the logs between the trees. I had just gotten a good start on the stack when she asked one of those questions that no man wants to hear: "Is that how your going to do it?"

Well, obviously I was doing it the wrong way. So she offered to stack the wood for me. Paying much more attention to the details of each particular log, she proceeded to stack them very neatly, much like bricks that interlock. My method left gaps and holes between the logs and apparently was destined to make the stack unstable. "The slightest breeze would knock my stack down."

She stacked the wood about 3 feet high and then realized that she had to go inside to do some of her own chores. She said I had to finish stacking the logs, but asked if I was going to stack the wood the right way. Of course I replied, "Yes, dear." She stood and watched for a moment only to see that I was not doing things the way she had instructed me. (It was at this point that I told her that she had become a bulletin.) Weary with correcting me, she went inside and left me to my own mistakes.

As I was left stacking the wood my way, I began to think about Jesus and his disciples. Jesus came and spent 3 years teaching thousands of people about Himself, His Father, and the proper way for us to live our lives. Specifically, He entrusted 12 men to do and teach things precisely as He had instructed. To help them, He also sent the Holy Spirit to remind the men of the things taught.

Essentially, however, the message was left to a few men among millions in the world. Jesus believed (knew) they would make Him proud and carry on the teachings exactly as He had instructed. However, if they, like me, had decided to do things their own way, the teachings of Christ would have failed miserably and died out soon after His death. The proper way to do things would have been lost as each apostle taught and lived how he wanted. Not the way Jesus wanted.

So let us be thankful that the apostles were willing to stick to the teaching they received from Jesus. Or we might find ourselves with "religious" teachings of men that fall down with the slightest breeze!

Tom