January 30, 2026

Business by the Book

Genesis 24:5 And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land: must I needs bring thy son again unto the land from whence thou camest?

“All you had to do was ask.”  That’s what Mr. Dollar told me. Mr. Dollar was a district executive for the Boy Scouts. He was in charge of the summer camp that our troop attended. During the fall we had a district wide campout and Mr. Dollar wanted a huge campfire on Saturday night. All day Friday, rain fell and all the wood was wet, it was miserable. But we needed a bonfire for the last night of the Jamboree. Mr. Dollar asked three of us to take care of making a bonfire that would easily catch on fire. “Use plenty of kindling,” he told us. We spent most of Saturday morning laying large logs in a cross hatch fashion on the fire ring. In between the layers of firewood we inserted small twigs, bark, and leaves. The thing was about five feet tall when we finished stacking it together.

The wood, the leaves, the twigs, and the bark were all wet. We knew that we needed an accelerant to assure that the thing would light. We found the liquid we thought we needed and began to soak the bonfire. After about five hours of soaking the wood down every thirty minutes we figured it would be ready to light. The campfire was to begin in about twenty minutes and one last time we doused the wood with the “fire juice” as we called it. To light it we prepared a stick about six feet long that had some torn up rags on the end of it, which we also soaked in our fire juice. On cue we lit the torch and handed it to Mr. Dollar. He then, with great pomp and circumstance coupled with a bellowing speech, began to lower the torch to the bonfire.

When the torch was about three feet away from the stacked firewood a great explosion took place. We could actually hear the “whoosh” and feel the concussion of the thing. The flame shot up beyond the top of those tall Georgia pine trees. Mr. Dollar lost all his facial hair. His eyebrows were actually burned off. Boy, were we in trouble. “How much kerosene did you put on that fire?”  We said “None, we used Coleman fluid, about four gallons.”  Such words did Mr. Dollar use, words that no Scout should ever use! He was mad. “Coleman fluid is a hundred times more flammable than kerosene,” he said, “Why didn’t you ask what to use? You could have burned down the entire camp and roasted all those scouts and leaders. All you had to do was ask.” 

The servant Abraham sent on this very important task knew when to ask for guidance. He even asked the Lord for guidance. We’ll learn about that next.

Dr. William Howe