To be one of them...

This will be quite a different type of post than you are used to. Nonetheless, I hope we all learn something from it. I pray that it doesn't disappoint you but encourages you to look deeper inside of who you are and ask yourself if you were "To be one of them..." I must admit, at times I fall short and allow myself "to be one of them."

I am currently in the book of Job. This, FYI, is my absolute favorite book of the Bible but one of the most painful for me to read. Painful, eh? Yes. I embrace what it must have felt like to be a man of such gain and a man of such loss...yet a perfect man stablished and strengthened by his faith in Him. To be like Job would be to have experienced love and to have it completely stripped from you; to have a partner that outright does NOT support you in the least, to experience riches to rags; and to experience trust in relationships turn to betrayal and persecution by those you call your friends. Wow--if that's not enough to torment one, throw in some vanity issues of being covered in "boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." So, yes, I say painful. Eh?

There is so much in this book to learn when talking about trust and faith, yet that is not the angle I am writing from today. Instead I want to talk to you about Job's friends and how we should all take heed that we would not be referred as "To be one of them." Let me explain. I was reading the Bible and began searching what type of friends Job had. I believe they had good intentions to support him and to console him. Scripture says, "they wept...rent their mantles...sprinkled dust upon their heads...sat w/him 7 days and 7 nights and none spake a word.... (Job 2:11-13) Great friends to come and mourn and comfort him!!!

Later on we read that his friends can no longer withhold themselves from speaking (4:2) and Eliphaz begins by asking Job, "Who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" Eliphaz, continues on, "...they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same." What a friend. This is his way of using the biblical principle of sowing vs. reaping to explain to his friend why he is in this situation. Basically, Eliphaz is telling Job--you earned this torture, you must have done some act(s) or deed(s) to bring about these consequences. Wow, I say to you, wouldn't you like to have this friend--the one who tells you it's all your fault. Or how about worse yet, what if you were this type of friend you would fall into the category "To be one of them." Ouch!

Then comes his other buddy, Bildad, who thinks Job is a hypocrite. After Job just gets done answering the attack of Eliphaz, Bildad the buddy comes along and disregards anything that Job has just defended. Bildad says, "How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?" I imagine this as your friend sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for you to pause so that they can jump in and get their point across totally blocking out anything you have just said. My interpretation would be, "when will you stop blowing smoke? Just stop pretending and get to the bottom of this so we can get on w/our lives." Again I ask you, would you like to have this buddy? or could we count you "to be one of them?"

Job again, the upright man he is, defends his position and relationship w/God and mankind. He even gets to the point where, I believe he is getting fed up w/his friends. (Job 10:20) He says, "...cease then and let me alone, that I may take comfort a little."

Enters Zophar, the friend who not only thinks Job is a hypocrite (like Buddy Bildad) but he thinks he is also a Liar! He is all over Job's case asking him, "should thy lies make men hold their peace?" He continues trying to persuade Job "if iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away..."
I ask myself and you, do you feel this way toward your friends? Worse yet, do you allow your feelings to come to fruition and make your friend know you feel this way? To our shame we would be labeled "To be one of them."

These three amigos turn into three stooges the deeper we get into the book! They just continue to press Job and try him with other tactics, proverbs and accusations. All the while, Job continues to answer and express his undying affection and faith in God.

I say all this because we do always think that we as friends need to have something to say to the other as they are experiencing a trial. We need to take heed that all that God does and allows is for our ultimate good!

• "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Phil. 1:29)
• "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him..." (Job 13:15)
• "He knoweth the way that I take:when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10)
• "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator" (1 Peter 4:19)
• "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9)
• 1 Peter 5:6-11

My prayer is that I would not be counted "To be one of them". It is not my desire to discourage any of my sisters or brothers in the Lord. I would pray that this would cause each of us to look more closely as to how we "judge" others and "help" them thru their trials. "To be one of them" (a friend like the one's Job had) is not my/our goal. Instead, we should continue to remind ourselves, "There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus...no not one...no not one!" and point our friends to the Cross!!!!

"A BIG lesson from a lil' critter"

As you know, I thrive on overanalyzing everything. Therefore, whenever I am around and hear or see something I try to find some of “God” in all things. I mean, after all, He is the Creator of all things and He is the Omniscient, Omnipresent Holy One. So shouldn’t we take the things of this world and use them to talk about things of God?
It should come as no surprise that this story will be another one of those “God moments!”

I accepted an invitation to dinner at a friend’s house. The story that was shared that night at dinner was that while out in the garage a noise was heard. When my friend looked around, two little beady eyes were staring straight in his face. (I imagine this as two beasts facing each other eye ball to eye ball!) My friend warned the lil critter, what he was about to do. He issued a warning that went something like this: “Muskrat (Ummm we’ll talk about my friend’s lack of animal identification knowledge later), we can do this the easy way (STOMPS to attempt to make the animal flinch and flee) or the hard way (as he grabs an axe handle…just the handle). In his own words, “He gave it space to repent and it repented not.” So… when the “muskrat” (later correctly identified by mua as an opossum!), chose not to flee for his life--my friend grabbed an empty garbage can in one hand, armed w/the axe handle in the other—and whacked the rodent into the can. Tada! Problem solved. He placed the can outside of the garage and now he had earned bragging rights to the story and a “critter in the can” to prove its validity. Hence, this became the beginning of our dinner conversation.

After dinner, we went out to look at the “critter in the can” and I properly identified it as an opossum. (Did I mention that I was the one to do this already? LOL) To my surprise, it was just laying there. It wasn’t playing dead…it just stared up at us. It didn’t even try to escape…no clawing its way out of the pit that it was put in. It just laid there waiting to be freed by the one who put him there. The next day, the family decided it was time to let the opossum free. When they did so, the opossum (not a very smart animal I have realized) stood there. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would think it would run like the wind! Not so! It stood there—looked at its captor and then finally sauntered away—almost like it was asking, “Really? I should go?” Eventually it took off and went on its way. The next day, I saw an opossum dead at the end of our street. Wonder if it was the same opossum? Funny, it didn’t want to be freed…then once it was it didn’t know what to do or where to go.

So, I saw the dead opossum the next day and then began to seriously ponder the spiritual application. I mean why else would I have to see a dead opossum the very next day if it wasn’t meant for me to think more about? I have already described mostly what I had thought but isn’t this animal a lot like us? Creatures that don’t live in the water (Opossums….muskrats live near or in it) find themselves in trouble---When we as Christian’s stay away from the Word (Living Water)—we too find ourselves scrambling around making noise and being up to no good. Along comes our way to escape and we stare it right in the face—like we dare it! As if we are actually strong or smart enough to overcome our temptations and weaknesses on our own by looking directly in the face of them eye to eye. Suddenly, we become trapped and are laying there helpless until we can be set free. We become comfortable “critters in the can” and some of us lay around almost dead and helpless waiting to be rescued while others try to scratch and claw our ways out of the pit.

I googled information about this rodent and found that opposums are usually nomadic, staying in one area as long as food and water are easily available. Though they will temporarily occupy abandoned burrows, they do not dig or put much effort into building their own. They favor dark, secure areas, below ground or above. Interesting that they prefer darkness and the easy way to survive...without any real effort--so unlike the Christian life where we should avoid darkness and understand that our walk will be a difficult yet an eternally rewarding one.

Again parrellelling the opossum, when Our Savior frees us from the bondage we chose to get involved in, we stare blankly as if we don’t want to be freed. We pause. Stare blankly. And ask, “Really, I should go?” Some of us do flee from the things that hold us captive. Some of us return to them because it’s a familiar place for us to stay. Others try to run and don’t look the right direction and end up like the opossum at the end of my street.

So as I started to conclude this I began to wonder why not a "muskrat?" So, Miss Overanalyzer that I am, I googled them up too. Guess what their nickname is? "Water rats" because they dwell in the water. I think we could learn a thing or two here as well.

Huh? Who knew I could learn so much from rodents? Oh wait—God knew! Amen?