Job 18

Broken Chain

Just a few days ago I was speaking with a man who longs for children. He and his wife have been trying to get pregnant for many years with no success. Having spent considerable amounts of money in an attempt to determine the cause, there still is no clear diagnosis.

Describing his angst John told me, “It is like there is this chain with links stretching back for generations, so many of them that I can’t even recall that far back. It just feels wrong to not continue that chain.”

This is more than some biological imperative to spread one’s seed. This mythic, spiritual, sacred. It comes from God himself in his very first instruction to mankind.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” – Genesis 1:28a

This directive from God was so profound that Jewish law required a divorce if after ten years of marriage children were not produced.

To have someone carry on your family name, to be remembered long after your passing was a form of immortality. It was a high honor.

In reading through through Job there is an ultimate curse described.

They are torn from the security of their tent, and they are brought down to the king of terrors. The home of the wicked will disappear beneath a fiery barrage of burning sulfur. Their roots will dry up, and their branches will wither. All memory of their existence will perish from the earth. No one will remember them. They will be thrust from light into darkness, driven from the world. They will have neither children nor grandchildren, nor any survivor in their home country. – Job 18:14-19

This curse or judgment removes; the person, any trace of their dwelling or physical accomplishments, ability to procreate, all memory of them – their name, and no progeny. Their chain will be broken and forgotten.

However, John and his wife are Christ followers. His chain will never be broken because he is procreating into the eternal realm by investing his time, treasure and talent to ensure that others come to know Christ as Lord and Savior too. And doing such he has a glorious promise and blessing, rather than a curse, upon his eternity.

For I say this to the eunuchs (unable to have children) who keep my Sabbath days holy, who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to me: I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a memorial and a name far greater than the honor they would have received by having sons and daughters. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear! – Isaiah 56:4-5

Not only is John’s chain unbroken, new links are being solidly welded into place daily.

Lord, thank you for welding links into my chain. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Linked to eternity. Jan

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Job 7

Soul Sick

Many years ago when my first wife and I parted company I remember the nights of anguish, lying on my bed alone wishing, praying for death. I felt that life was over, I was a failure. My soul was sick and everything in life was affected by it. I didn’t care how I looked, what I ate or how much, when or if I slept, how the house looked – nothing mattered.

I doubt if I have ever been in the same league as Job in subject despair, and hope never to be, but I definitely see soul-sickness in the following verse.

Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. – Job 7:11

Most people when they read this verse don’t take the time to analyze what is really being said, what are the words being used. They just assume Job had finally decided to gripe.

However, Job is not saying, “I’ve had it. I’m going to spew out my disgust and bitterness.”

The Hebrew word “mar”, translated as bitterness also means heaviness, or pain. Likewise the the Hebrew word “siyach” is not just complain. It also means to commune, to put forth in thought.

What Job is really saying is, “I can’t hold it in any more. My soul is distressed and sick. I must somehow express the tremendous pain that is in my soul.”

He had lost hope and saw no possible resolution. Yet, as we know, things changed. But it took time. He had to come through the trial.

And for me everything changed too. It took time. Through the care of loving friends and family and God’s grace, I am a totally different person than I was many years ago. I am married once again. My wife is more beautiful than I deserve. The children I have the privilege of calling my own are a true blessing, and I am useful to my Lord and King as a servant in his work.

Thank you Father. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

To God be the glory, great things he has done.
Jan

Job 6

Occluded Vision

When I was younger, nearly every summer our family went on vacation. We could not afford fancy theme parks and hotels, so we would venture into nature. We drove the family van, camped at state parks, and explored the beauty of God’s creation up and down the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. By today’s standards we would have been considered poor. But my brother and I were certainly not aware of it. We saw and did things that many of our wealthier contemporaries only wished they had.

My father often spoke of places he’d seen and places he still wanted to visit. One dream of his was to visit the Western half of the United States; the Redwood forest, the Grand Canyon, Mount Ranier, and Yellowstone were among the places he mentioned.

Sadly, as he began to age his hearing and his vision both began to fail. Where once he could see like an eagle, he had trouble reading without magnification, items in the distance were fuzzballs. Cataracts had occluded his vision. Conversations, in which he could best anyone, became a distant memory as he chose not to engage rather than struggle to make out words. His world, once vast, started to shrink.

Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]–blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he. – Proverbs 29:18 amp

When your dreams and hopes for the future start to slip away, what is left?

Job found himself in a similar place. Nearly everything he once knew and held dear was gone and he did not have the strength or health to change a thing. His vision was occluded by grief and pain. David wrote about this form of blindness.

My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies. – Psalm 6:7

Job’s world was gone and only grief filled the void. Where once he had hope for a future, dreams for himself and his children, there was only desolation.

But I do not have the strength to endure. I do not have a goal that encourages me to carry on. Do I have strength as hard as stone? Is my body made of bronze? No, I am utterly helpless, without any chance of success. – Job 6:11-13

In order to rise above the circumstances of life, hope for something better must remain. Those who have found themselves in extraordinarily harsh circumstances, such as prisoners of war, earthquake survivors, and extreme injury victims all point to hope, a vision for something in the future, a goal, as being the thing that sustained them. But Job had lost all hope, his vision was so occluded that he could not see any goal other than to plead for death. However, if we read to the end of the book we know that everything changed.

Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, good life. – Job 42:16-17

And like Job, my father had family and friends to surround him in his sunset years. While he never did get to go West, he did experience the joy of seeing his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He got to hold them, to laugh with them, and to share in the joy of the life he had made possible for his posterity. He lived a long, good life.

Lord, thank you for my father. I just hope that I can be even half the man that he was. Please help me to invest in my posterity as he did in his. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Go West young man… Jan

1 Timothy 3

Fulfilled Service

I noticed an interesting relationship while reading the following verses.

It is a true saying that if someone wants to be an elder, he desires an honorable responsibility. For an elder must be a man whose life cannot be spoken against. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exhibit self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home and must be able to teach. He must not be a heavy drinker or be violent. He must be gentle, peace loving, and not one who loves money. He must manage his own family well, with children who respect and obey him. For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?

An elder must not be a new Christian, because he might be proud of being chosen so soon, and the Devil will use that pride to make him fall. Also, people outside the church must speak well of him so that he will not fall into the Devil’s trap and be disgraced.  – 1 Timothy 3:1-7

There are several areas of life being written about; they are, church, family, and world. Even though many of the attributes overlap the various spheres of influence, how the elder relates in each is a bit different. Two of them stuck out to me. They are home and church.

In the home the elder is to manage. In other words, he is in charge of discipline, directing and delegating.

However, in the area of God’s church he is to take care of.

These are two rather different job descriptions. It seems to me that there is a very good reason why he needs to manage his family well and have them respect him. If the man is fulfilled at home, then he will have the ability to care for and to serve others, to be able to give of himself selflessly, despite how church members might treat him.

Being fulfilled at home means that he will not be serving, caring for others out of emptiness. He will be giving out some of what he has received.

Father, please help me to be fulfilled at home so that I do have something to share with those outside of my home. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Fulfilled at  Home = Cared for Church. Jan

Romans 4

I can’t break it

Just yesterday I went home for lunch and was informed that our “precious” puppy had torn a huge hole in my pool screen-enclosure, and had munched down on one of my hats. Aargh!

It reminded me of the joke, “If you want to see if something is truly unbreakable, give it to a 6 year old boy.” I don’t know of much that we creations of God cannot find a way to break. In the computer industry we have a saying that states, “If you make something foolproof, the world will simply invent a bigger fool.”

Today as I was reading in the book of Romans I came across the following passage in The Message version of the Bible.

If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That’s not a holy promise; that’s a business deal. – Romans 4:14

My bundle-of-joy puppy doesn’t know anything about contracts or business deals. He simply knows that I provide for his needs, discipline him when needed, and give him affection. If there was a contract outlining expected behavior and consequences for infractions, he would be living somewhere other than my home by now. But, when we brought him home, he became a member of the family not of a corporation. We promised to care for him for the term of his natural life.

A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise–and God’s promise at that–you can’t break it. – Romans 4:15

So, since no contract full of fine print exists, merely our promise; Tanner, our puppy cannot break it.

Likewise, no contract exists between me and God. His love letter to me – the Bible – is not a book of fine print. It is a promise.  And since God has accepted me into his family, I know that he will never break his promise to care for me for the term of my eternal life.

Father, thank you for loving me despite the fact that I keep breaking things. Thank you that I cannot break a promise that you made. It is not mine to break. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

You can’t break God’s promise. Jan