There are so many of you that are suffering from intense below freezing cold right now.  Many without power and my prayers go out for you – especially those that are not used to such winter storms.

Our poor little Toyota still sits on a street below our house, it just is too low to the ground and can’t handle the icy driveway to make it up here.

But, as I watched Carla go down the hill, on our driveway, this morning in the ‘family’ 4X4 pickup, I was very much thankful to Rich for allowing me to purchase it from him.

For those who haven’t heard how it became a ‘family’ pickup.

It was originally owned by Wheeler Communications.  They did all the radio work for the City Police and Sheriff’s Office – along with other public entities and private companies.  They maintained the towers to make sure they were working right and would go up in the deepest snow if there was a problem with one of them.

They put it up for sale.  Jim, one of our sergeants, purchased it.

He was getting ready to leave the area and decided to sell it.

He sold it to Rich at Cascade Motors.  Rich has been the Sheriff’s office mechanic for over 25 years.  He has been our personal mechanic for at least that length of time.

He put it up for sale.

Carla and I purchased it.  Thus, the ‘family’ pickup.

I did learn one thing however, when buying a used vehicle you want to make sure the person you are buying it from is reputable.  When we first bought it several people commented on the fact they knew it used to be Rich’s.

He IS reputable, but I got to wondering what would happen if I bought one from someone that was much less ‘reputable’....even if I didn’t realize it, especially with my background.

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Job asked:

Job 28:12  But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

And was answered, after several statements, summing it up:

Job 28:28 And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Many equate wisdom with old age; however, many of us are living proof that is not always ‘wise’ to do so.

Others look at their Gurus, or some other ‘wise’ person who seem to have wisdom, but lead their followers to destruction.

There are the scientists that have immersed themselves in studying the world and all its wonders, and come to the conclusion that it all just happened, there was no guiding hand.

King Solomon wrote:

Proverbs 1:2-7 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

³ To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

⁴ To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

⁵ A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

⁶ To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

I ask, in genuine concern, how can a person possibly look at a complex part of any animal, any plant, bug, bird or the hand in front of them and not realize it was designed by a Creator?

Then I am reminded of MY training.

One of the first things we learned at the Basic Police Academy is that people see things differently.  Whether it be an accident or a serious crime.

It isn’t that they are lying (most of the time) it is just they have learned to look at things from different perspectives; some have no observation skills, while others are quite good at it.

How they feel, where they were standing in relation to the incident, their background, age, gender, and many other things can influence what they saw.

Just because their statements are different doesn’t mean they were lying, it often means they only saw through eyes that were not used to the trauma of the scene.

As a matter of fact when you hear witnesses telling you the same thing in almost the same words, you look deeper, because they have often coordinated their statements for one reason or another, and most of those reasons are not good.

It is also one of the reasons we separate witnesses, we want to hear what they know or saw, not tainted by someone else’s statement.  If they are unsure they can be swayed and the other person may actually be wrong and not as correct as the first person.

Now, you have to remember the next example comes from the early 1970’s when all cars didn’t look alike.

Our instructor gave us two witness statements from a hit and run accident report; one from a male teenager, the other from an elderly lady.

The teenager could give you the exact color, year, make and model of the car, the lady didn’t even have the color correct.

The investigating officer didn’t question the veracity of either person.

I don’t recall all of the statements by either party, although the above stuck out – the lady had made some observations that the teenager had not noticed.

Neither lied.  The officers pieced together the statements and identified a suspect who was later charged and convicted.

In the streets I often found myself recalling that class, because it was so true.

Those of us that trained with Jack Linderman became better at observation skills.  He saw, literally everything; and he would test us.  One of his ways was to put out little messages in the snow in your patrol area and ask us a question a couple of hours into our shift – knowing we had gone by that location, if we didn’t have an answer, we went searching until we found it.

While not the most observant person, I did learn to take in a bigger picture than what was just in front of me.

I had a new recruit read my report of an incident we had investigated and asked how I could have possibly seen everything.  My answer was, ten years on the job; you learn what to look for, who to watch, even the smell and taste of a crime scene. 

Not always are you conscious of everything until you sit down and put pen to paper, but your mind has captured all or at least most of, the details.

But we do get tunnel vision, also.  I can remember sitting in a restaurant with Carla, a Pastor friend and his wife.  Both the Pastor and I sat with our backs to the wall so we could see the entire establishment.

His wife said, laughing, ‘You, are looking for the sinners, while Ron is looking for the saints.’

I didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but as I gave it some thought she was right, I was looking at people who might harm other people in one way or another.  Ignoring the others, for the most part.

By the way, I did make a number of off-duty arrests.  Poor Carla and the kids were stranded somewhere more than once as I made an arrest and waited for an officer to come. 

They were even stranded for a few minutes on HWY 97 below Shaniko as I dealt with a suspect and had to drive him up the road to where the crime scene was and give him to the investigating deputy.  They weren’t there long before I came back, but they were there - a mother and four kids, one a toddler, standing on the shoulder of the road, can’t imagine what passing motorists thought.

As a Christian, I am not blinded to the world.  Oh, I may not have a formal education in the sciences, but I can see.

But what I see - in everything I see (including the ability to see) is a Creator; God who created all things.

It is hard to understand how people can look at these things, study them, finding out how complex and unique things are and then not see a creative hand in them.

But, when I think of it, I also remember my training – most are not lying for whatever reason they really believe that their religion of evolution is based on fact and that everything evolved from basically nothing.

They are blinded to the things of God, deliberately blinded by satan’s wiles and what he has done to the scientific community.

Not all scientists are evolutionists, as a matter of fact, many believe in a creator – not all believe that is the Lord Our God, but they recognize that these things had to come about through design.

I have read articles/testimonials of scientists that were so overwhelmed at the complexity of life that they turned to the Bible in explanation and came to the understanding and acceptance that God created this world, satan polluted it and Jesus came to free us from that world of sin that blinds us to the goodness of God.

A wise man will hear, and will increase learning

I am not wise, but I know men and women that are and they are continually in God’s Word and drawing closer to Him.

I have a long way to go, but, I am told there is hope.

Later, Art (-: