Flight Paths

On our recent camping trip we had a lot of wildlife for company.  Yet it was neither frightening nor bothersome.  The only animal we saw besides the usual birds and squirrels that lived in the campground itself was a young raccoon who moseyed up to the woodpile, so interested in the spot where Keith had slung some cold coffee that he didn’t see us until about the same time we saw him.  All of us were startled and he fled for cover.  Yet I am positive we had much more company out in the woods.
 
           If I did not see them, how do I know?  Because as we hiked the park’s fifteen miles of trails over the next four days, we saw their tracks: the cloven hoof prints of many deer, the tiny handprints of other raccoons, the small padded paws of bobcats, and the deep, heavy prints of wild boars, along with places they had torn up the ground rooting and wallowing.  There were not just a few of these tracks either.  We saw far more animal tracks than people tracks on our daily hikes.

            I bet you believe me now, don’t you?  Yet God’s fingerprints are all over this world of ours and it seems that every year fewer people believe in Him.  They might as well believe that animals don’t exist in the forest; it would make about as much sense. 

            But people have been behaving this way for thousands of years. I am reminded of Moses performing his signs before Pharaoh.  The Egyptian ruler did not want to believe in Jehovah as the one true God.  He had his many magicians replicate Moses’ signs with their tricks.  Finally though, they reached a point where they could not do so. 

            “This,” they said to Pharaoh, “is the finger of God.”

            Would that men would be so honest today.
 
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity; that they may without excuse, because that knowing God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasonings and their senseless heart was darkened.  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.  Wherefore God gave them up…Rom 1:20-24.
 
Dene Ward

When we go on a one week camping vacation, we always stay Saturday night in a hotel in the closest town we can find with a church.  There are seldom any groups of God’s people within 50 miles of a mountain campground, and many of these are small groups.  A couple of times Keith has even preached for them.
 
           One time we were returning to the same area two years in a row and he was able to make those preaching arrangements ahead of time.  We wanted to be sure we were on time so those poor brethren would not be frantic, but we had accidentally left the directions at home.  So we asked the hotel desk clerk to Google the church website for the address and meeting times.  When he did, all three of us were in for a surprise.

            He gave us the address then said, “6429?  I grew up at 6425 on the same street.  I know where that church is.  It’s two doors down from my dad.”

            Yet he had not recognized the “name.”  He did not know the service times, which were posted on the sign when we got there.  He didn’t know they had a website, though a large banner hung outside the building.  So much for the importance of “signs.”  He was in his mid-20s, had grown up practically next door, and knew none of those things.  Do you know why?  Because he didn’t know the names of any who assembled in that building.

            The building does not draw people.

            The sign does not draw people.

            The website does not draw people.

            All those things are for people who are already looking, many of whom even know what they are looking for--like Christians traveling through on vacation.  Since when is the mission of the church to make sure that traveling brethren can find us? 

            The gospel is what draws people, but as Paul asks in Romans 10:14, how shall they hear without a preacher?  Since we no longer have miracles to “confirm the word,” the world has to know us and know our lives before they will listen.

            It took me years to learn to talk about my wonderful brothers and sisters instead of just spouting scriptures or waiting for someone to ask me a Bible question.  I have invited many to services and to Bible studies, but forgot to tell them that being with these people was half the reason for going and in the beginning, it might be their main reason for wanting to come back.  And I forgot to tell them how much better my life was simply for allowing the Lord to lead my way.  I was too busy making sure I had some scriptures memorized for appropriate occasions and waiting for those circumstances to somehow pop up on their own.

            What does your meetinghouse mean to the neighborhood it sits in?  Do they know anything about you?  Even if all they think is, “Those people believe you have to follow the Bible exactly,” that’s better than nothing.  It means they have had contact with a person, not just a sign or a building.

            Don’t let your meetinghouse be nothing more than a landmark.  The church is supposed to show people the way.  “Go past the church and we are the second house on the right,” is not what the Lord had in mind.
 
 From you has sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth…1 Thes 1:8.   
The righteous is a guide to his neighbor…Prov 12:26.   Dene Ward

When we camp in the fall, we must make our reservations several weeks in advance.  With my precarious eye condition, we never know when we might need to cancel, but it’s our philosophy that you hope and pray for the best, then deal with life as it happens.
 
           Then there is the weather.  There are no 2-3 month forecasts, at least none you can count on.  Only once in 28 years have we hit a solid week of rain, but that was also the week we passed around a stomach virus—first Nathan, then Keith, then me, and finally Lucas—so the rain was the least of our problems.

            In the other years, though, we have noticed this:  it always rains on Tuesday.  No matter where we camp or what year, Tuesday is the day for rain.  Sometimes it’s one hour-long storm; sometimes it’s a day of passing showers; once in a while it happens at night while we sleep warm and dry in the tent.  Those are the best years.

            We have come to plan for it ahead of time.  Sometimes we go on a day of shopping in a nearby town, replenishing the ice supply and picking up anything circumstances create a need for, like duct tape, batteries, a new air mattress once when we woke up flat on the tent floor one morning.  Sometimes it’s browsing at a flea market, a used bookstore, or an antique shop.  Sometimes it’s a scenic drive through a national forest.  We know when we leave the house on Saturday that on Tuesday we will be doing one of these things.

            One year we really hit the jackpot.  Monday night at 11 pm, shortly after we were tucked into our sleeping bags for the night, the rain started and did not stop until 11 pm Tuesday night—24 hours straight of cold drizzle.  We were in an unfamiliar campground in an unfamiliar area.  The nearest town with decent shops was over 50 miles away.  There were no indoor tourist spots nearby either.  By breakfast Tuesday morning the “water resistant” screen-house over the table was saturated and had started dripping through.  We obviously couldn’t sit there all day.  So we gathered up books, Bibles, notebooks, a Boggle game with plenty of paper and pencils, a propane lamp and stove, and headed for the tent.  We spent the entire day in that 16 x 10 tent reading, studying, playing games, talking, drinking hot chocolate, napping, and then starting the list over again.  The day passed quickly for that kind of day, and the next we were back to sunny skies, hiking, and evening campfires.

            Wouldn’t it be foolish for us to expect to be able to choose one week three months in advance, and think we could live outdoors without a chance of rain?  Instead we go on, knowing it will happen, prepared for it, and determined to have a good time anyway.

            Peter told those first century Christians not to be so naïve as to expect to never suffer.  Paul told Timothy, Yea all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, 2 Tim 3:12.  We are promised all spiritual blessings, but health and wealth do not fall into that category.  We are promised “a hundredfold” brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children, but often their greatest worth is in the encouragement they offer during the trials of life.  We are promised that God will never forsake us, but that matters far more in times of difficulty than in times of ease.  In fact, it is usually in those difficult times that we come to realize our greatest blessings.

            Only the shallowest of Christians expects God to make sure he leads a “charmed” life.  We are called to be disciples of a Lord who suffered.  A disciple follows in his Master’s footsteps.  Why would we ever think we should be immune to the same suffering?

            As long as you expect a week without rain, your life will be one of constant disappointment.  Hope and pray for the best, prepare for the trials and tribulations, then live a life of joy when it rains on Tuesday.
 
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you to prove you as though a strange thing happened to you; but insomuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also you may rejoice with exceeding joy, 1 Pet 4:12,13.
 
Dene Ward

We enjoy our camping vacations, which is good since it is the only kind we can afford.  Maybe we like to pretend we are rugged individualists, the kind this country was founded by, when we “rough it” in our tent and sleeping bags, cooking our food over an open fire, and sitting by a campfire to stay warm.  “Hah!” I think I heard our sons say.  We stay in the regular campground, not the primitive one, so we can run an outdoor extension cord to the electric blanket in our sleeping bag, which lies atop the queen size air mattress, and have access to the hot and cold running water in the bathhouses for a shower every night. 
           
It is a relaxing stay.  No televisions, no telephones, no radios, no news, most of which seems bad these days, no list of chores, no deadlines—no stress of any sort at all.  Even cooking and cleaning up, because it must be done in a different way and by necessity involves fewer dishes, does not seem like work.  We get up when we want to, usually not before there is enough light to see by, go to bed when we get tired of reading by dangling trouble light, hike when we want to, as far as we want to, play games, do crossword puzzles, talk, plan, look at birds and flowers, and then look them up in our wildlife book. It is peaceful, calming, and relaxing.

            But getting there?  Now that’s another story.  It takes two full days to pack, using a three page list.  There are arrangements to be made for the animals, the mail, bills that are due, and any duties for the church that need to be covered.  We have to plan the route, which always goes through Atlanta, and after Atlanta, the hilly, winding roads that often leave me carsick. 
We must find a church in some of the most “churchless” areas of the south, a task we usually take care of before we leave home.  Once we arrive we must find a hotel that isn’t exorbitant so we can worship with our newfound brothers and sisters before heading up the mountain afterward.  We have to plan what we need to take into the hotel room with us without having to unpack the whole pickup bed, and then what we will need for clothes changing afterward, and have them all easily accessible.

We must reach the park not long after checkout time so we can find a good spot—one with a level spot big enough to accommodate a 16 x 10 tent, with a fire ring placed not too close to the tent site, a good place for the firewood, which provides not only our heat but also the fuel for cooking all week, and more privacy than an RV needs due to the paper-thin tent walls.  It must have shade, especially in the afternoon, and the table must be wooden if at all possible.  Some of my equipment racks will not fasten to the extra thick cement picnic tables, and you cannot move cement tables if needed to fit everything into the site.

Then we have to set up, a process which takes two and a half to three hours.  It has to be done before dark, and once it is done, we have to reload the back of the pickup with the items we will constantly need—the food boxes, the suitcases, the linen box, and the “book” box, which contains not only the books we will be reading that week, but the notebooks and Bibles we use for writing and studying, the crossword puzzles, the journal, the camera, the binoculars, and the Boggle game.

Finally, we get to sit down and start relaxing.  Is it worth it?  You bet it is.  For nine days we experience the peace and beauty of God’s creation, and let it soothe our aching spirits.

All of that is somewhat like the life of a Christian.  Some days are difficult.  Some days are full of stress.  Some days have lists of things that need to be done and not enough hours to do them.  Some days are not bad—time spent with brethren and family, time preparing for things we know we will enjoy, but we are all looking forward to something better, no matter how good the days here sometimes are.  We all want to reach the vacation spot, where the stress evaporates and eternal peace soothes our souls.  But just as that camping trip would not be restful if we didn’t prepare for it properly, waiting till the last minute and tossing things willy-nilly into the pickup, hoping we got it all, neither will eternity. 

Start preparing yourself today, remembering that this life is the journey, not the goal, and begin to look forward to the bliss that awaits a faithful child of God.
 
For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remains therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience. Heb 4:8-11.
 
Dene Ward

I am different from most women, I guess.  I do not enjoy those cutesy-pie sayings that sound like they came straight out of a sugar canister.  For one thing, I think they can engender the opposite feeling they are intending to--guilt, mainly.  How many times have you heard that even if you don’t feel good, you should go to the assembly because it will make you feel better when you leave?  Yes, on occasion, it does just that, mainly because I was too busy having a pity party and the services put my mind on things besides me. 
But what about the person who is genuinely ill, or who is so old and feeble that he needs to rest after putting one sock on?  Do I really think that going to church and spreading germs to the elderly and small children is going to make me feel better, and even if it did, wasn’t that awfully selfish of me?  Or if pushing myself too hard could cause me to collapse during the services, what great good did that accomplish for anyone else?  Yet sometimes these people do push themselves—they are in fact the ones most likely to push themselves--so they come and infect everyone else, because they have been made to feel guilty for not doing so by things I have come to call duck-billed platitudes.
 
           I see another problem with some of these things—they smack a little of the health and wealth gospel.  “Sacrifice for the Lord isn’t sacrifice if you really love the Lord.”  Nonsense.  Try that one on a first century Christian who is about to have his throat chomped on and his belly ripped open by the lions in the Coliseum.  Sacrifice feels like sacrifice and God never promised anything else.  What He did promise was that sacrifice is worth it.  That doesn’t mean anything if you have annulled the pain of the sacrifice.

            The things we need to hear are the true things.  Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution...For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps, 2Tim 3:12; 1Pet 2:20-21.  What we need is to be told how to endure what will surely come if we live like Christ did, not how to avoid it or worse yet, how to make it “fun.”

            Sometimes life is just plain hard.  That was the punishment we got when we were thrown out of Eden.  Christians are not immune to that penalty, we are just forgiven for it.

            Be strong, God is always telling us in His Word.  Be courageous.  It isn’t courage to turn everything into one giant tea party.  That’s denial, and I see too many Christians living in that state.  And this is what it leads to when you finally realize you cannot platitude your way out of it—“Why did this happen to me?”  This is why:  We live in an imperfect world, made that way by sin, which, no matter how much we like to believe otherwise, we have participated in.  And it won’t get any better.  Tragedies are a part of life.  BUT---

            We live in hope of a better world, a better place that will be perfect and will never end.  That is what you need to remember, not a bunch of saccharine sayings on poster after poster after poster.  I have something much better, and so do you if you will take hold of it.  It does not tell us that everything will be wonderful in this life, that God will spare us from anything painful.  Instead it promises pain, but it also says this:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:35-39.
 
Dene Ward

Suppose someone places a blank piece of paper in front of you.  How would you feel about it?  What thoughts come to mind?  It all depends upon the circumstances, doesn’t it?
  
        If you are in a classroom on the day of final exams and that piece of paper is meant for your answers to half a dozen essay questions, it might raise your blood pressure a little.  If you were prepared for that test, maybe it would not rise quite as high.

            If that blank paper were a signed blank check, your excitement might know no bounds, unless, of course, it was a check drawn on your own meager bank account.  That could be disappointing.  

            A blank sheet might signify good news—no demerits, no criminal record, no symptoms.  What a relief!

            A blank piece of paper might mean writer’s block if it has been sitting there awhile.  I know from experience that frustration usually accompanies that problem.  It could also mean great potential if inspiration has suddenly struck.  When that happens I am eager to get to work, usually stopping whatever else I am doing immediately to do so.

            Even with God that blank piece of paper could mean different things.  It might mean a lack of authority.  Jesus said in Matt 21:25 that there are two places from which to receive authority—from Heaven or from men.  Either God authorized the action or men did, and the people he spoke to, who neither liked nor respected him, didn’t bother to argue because the point was axiomatic.  God expects every aspect of our lives to be lived according to His authority.  Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…Col 3:17.

            He expects us to respect that authority, doing exactly what it gives us permission to do, but, in the case of a blank piece of paper, doing nothing.  When God told the Israelites that the priests were to come from the tribe of Levi, he did not have to list all the tribes they could NOT come from.  That is the Hebrew writer’s precise point when he says of Jesus, For it is evident that our Lord has sprung out of Judah, as to which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priests, Heb 7:14.  The very fact that God said in the Law of Moses, “Levi,” meant Judah was excluded, and that in turn means that for Jesus to be our new High Priest the law itself had to change.  We could go on and on with this point, but suffice it to say that when God gives you a blank piece of paper, He does not expect you to fill it in with your own choices.

            But He does give us a blank piece of paper that is amazing and wonderful—a paper wiped clean of its list of sins, so clean there are not even any erasure smudges on it.  When God forgives it is as if He crumpled the old list and destroyed it, pulling out a fresh new clean sheet from an endless supply.

            Start today with that blank piece of paper.  Fill it with as much good as you can because, you see, a blank piece of paper is one thing God will never accept from us.
 
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean.  Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes.  Cease to do evil; learn to do well:  seek justice, relieve the oppressed, bring justice to the fatherless, plead for the widow.  Come now and let us reason together, says Jehovah.  Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red, they shall be as wool, Isa 1:16-18.    Dene Ward

I am constantly shocked by the way people, including Christians, treat the Bible.  We act like God wrote it in some way other than normal communication.  I have actually heard these things come out of the mouths of believers:  “Jesus never used figurative language.”  “You won’t find irony in the Bible.”  “Sarcasm is neither present nor allowed in the scriptures.”  And because of that you will hear some of the weirdest interpretations of scripture imaginable.

            We knew a man once who said that since Jesus said you should not “let your right hand know what your left hand doeth,” that you should reach into your pocket before the plate is passed and take out whatever you find without looking at it.  I wonder how he got whatever was in his pocket in there that morning without knowing what it was, or did he make sure nothing over $10 was lying on top of his dresser?         

            But you will also find those who deny there is any literary aspect to the scriptures at all.  Try studying the psalms in detail and see if you think that’s so.  The psalms are poetry.  Like all poets, those inspired poets used poetic elements to make them catch our fancy, speak to us more keenly than prose would, and make us think deeper thoughts than we might have otherwise.  You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.  Doesn’t that say more to you than, “These people are really upset”?

            One place this is obvious are the fifteen Psalms of Ascents.  Psalms 120-134 are presumed to have been sung while the Jews traveled up the hill to Jerusalem to worship on the various feast days.  The word for “ascents” is the same Hebrew word translated “steps” in Ezek 40:26 and 31, as in the steps of a staircase.  One psalm in particular uses words to show these steps.

            Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.  Psalm 130.

            Imagine each of the following words, taken in order from the psalm above, sitting on the steps of a staircase from bottom to top:  depths, pleas, iniquities, wait, hope, steadfast love, plentiful redemption.  Now add this to the mix:  the word for “depths” is used several times in the scripture for the deepest places on earth, including the very bottom of the ocean.  And that implies a man’s complete inability to get himself “out of the depths.”  All through this psalm we see the literary devices of the poet, gradually pulling us out of the mire we are stuck in and up the staircase to the place of full—and even more than necessary, “plentiful”—redemption.  God didn’t barely save us, He pulled us up on top of the mountains.  Read through that psalm again now.  Can you see it?  Can feel it? 

            God is the one who made us able to appreciate art of all kinds, including literary art.  He gave us the emotions that a good artist of any type can evoke.  It’s one of the things that makes you different from your dog!  God wrote the Bible.  He made you and made you able to communicate.  He speaks to us the way He knows is best for our understanding.  Who am I to say otherwise?
 
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person discerns all things…1Cor 2:14-15.
 
Dene Ward

We have had several dogs of several different breeds, usually several different breeds in one dog.  But Chloe, a full-blooded Australian cattle dog, is the first to actually chase her tail.  I always thought that was just something people said until one day there was a commotion at my feet, and I looked down and spotted her doing exactly that—revolving like a top, chasing her tail. 

            She looked ridiculous.  Around and around she went, stirring up dust and creating a depression in the sand.  Usually she lost her balance and fell over on her side, or, when she tried to stand up afterward, reeled like a drunk and sprawled on the ground, all thoughts of dignity abandoned.  It was so much fun, who cared how silly she looked?

            One day she actually caught her tail, and plopped down with it between her two front paws and started chewing.  After just a few minutes, though, reality checked in and she let it go.  It may have been fun to chase, but actually eating it was another matter entirely.  Even Little Miss Butterball, who loves to eat, was not about to endure the pain.

            For some reason, we often lack that good sense.  I have seen married couples carp and bicker, criticize and complain, even in front of others, to the point that you check the legal column the next morning to see if a divorce decree was filed the night before.  Anyone with sense, we think, would see how such words and actions would eat away at the bonds of their union.  Indeed, marriage takes constant maintenance to insure that those bonds remain intact.  They certainly won’t survive such destructive behavior, but people continue to behave that way, impervious to the embarrassment they cause anyone with earshot, and heedless to the effect on their relationship. 

            We sometimes treat the body of Christ the same way.  One person has a disagreement with another, about most anything, and that one is his target from then on.  All he can see is the bad, never the good.  All he can hear are the things that rankle, never the things that help and encourage, and so he is certain his behavior is justified.  Not only does he chase his tail in a fruitless circle, but he gathers as many as he can to join the pursuit.  In some cases, he actually catches the other person—because he now has so many on his “side” and they, too, are so dizzy from running in circles that their vision is skewed—and so he takes a big chomp and chews to his heart’s content, passing it on for others to share in as well.  Ah, what a grand meal—yum, yum, yum! 

            His distorted vision keeps him from seeing the harm he is causing the body of the Lord by his arrogant, self-centered attitude, and the good that might have been accomplished in spreading the gospel in the community is put on the back burner for the sake of “winning,” even when the contest is petty and of no spiritual value.  It also keeps him from seeing exactly how foolish he looks as he destroys the things he claims to be trying to save.

            Do you know what an anthropophagus is?  It is a cannibal, perhaps one of the worst things we can imagine being, especially in our enlightened and civilized age.  Yet the Bible says that is exactly what we are when we reach this point.  Take a look at the relationships you have in your family and in the kingdom today.  Make sure you are not partaking of a meal that God would consider abominable.
 
For you, brethren, were called for freedom, only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this:  you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  But if you bite and devour one another, make sure you be not consumed one of another, Gal 5:13-15
           
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

First we must first back up to chapter 40.

In verse two God challenges Job to answer His first speech and Job's answer is inadequate, to say the least: Job 40:4-5 "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further." At first this doesn't seem so bad; Job is acknowledging his smallness before God and that he doesn't have the right to speak. But look again. God has demanded Job speak, and Job refuses. Oh, he coaches it in respectful sounding words, 'I am small, I cannot answer', but he is refusing to answer God's speech because he knows he can't.

One commentator likened this to a child who was caught doing something wrong and won't talk back to his parents, but won't acknowledge wrong either and is just sullenly waiting out the tongue lashing. "Saving up more spit". God's second speech reflects this in Job, as well. While the first speech contained its share of sarcasm, it was largely in a teaching mode. God's second speech, 40:6-41:34, is downright angry at the beginning and harsher throughout. For example Job 40:8-9 "Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?" 41:10b "Who then is he who can stand before me?" Also, think about this: if Job had responded in the way God wanted, why did God bother to deliver a second speech? I know that if fits in the poetic structure of the book, but the book was designed around what actually happened, it didn't change what happened to fit the book. Otherwise the scripture is untrue. So therefore God gave a second speech to Job, a harsher speech, because Job didn't respond properly after the first time.

That leads us to Job 42:1-6 and Job's second response to God which is totally different from his first response. He quotes two of God's challenges to him and acknowledges that God was right to call him into question and that he was wrong. Job then "repent[ed] in dust and ashes". Once Job acknowledged his sin and repented, it was over as far as God was concerned. The next thing we see is God elevating Job before the friends as they are told to take sacrifices to Job and "my servant Job" would pray for them and "I will accept his prayer". If we acknowledge our sins before him and repent, God will forgive us completely (1 John 1:9) and Job is the perfect example of that.

Then we see that Job's family, which had formerly deserted him (19:13-14), finally shows up and helps him out, each giving Job a "piece of money". That very phrase lets us know that Job is an ancient book. Pretty much all money mentioned in the Bible from the time of the Judges onward was referred to by specific names, e.g. shekel, talent, etc. "Piece of money" was used in very ancient times before nation-states began to codify money. The only other uses of it in the Bible are in Genesis 33:19 and Joshua 24:32. After that more regular denominations of monies are usually used. (You will find "piece of silver" a few times, but the Hebrew word, and the implication, is different.) This seems to point to the fact that Job occurred previous to the time of Joshua. Another hint at the time Job lived comes in verse 16 which says he lived 140 years after these things took place. No one knows how old Job was before his test took place, but he was old enough to have 10 adult children, so he was no spring chicken. Some have suggested that since his wealth was doubled after his test was over, his life span after it was doubled also, so he was 70 when Job 1 began. I don't know if that has any merit, but it is hard so believe he was much younger than 70 given the fact of his adult children. It seems likely that he died being at least 200 years old. Given the diminishing lifespans of the patriarchs from the time immediately after the flood (600) to the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (175, 180, and 147 respectively) it seems likely that Job lived just prior to Abraham. (Terah, Abraham's father, died at 205.) When was the book written? Who knows, but Job that lived in the patriarchal age seems almost certain from these and other clues.

Job had three daughters after his test and he apparently loved them greatly. They received an inheritance with their brothers, which was unheard of even in the Mosaic Law, and their names also bear out his love for them: Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch. (Jemimah was almost certainly an aunt many times over but, as far as we know, she never made pancake syrup.) Jemimah means "day" indicating either that she was as beautiful as the day or that she symbolized Job emerging from his period of night. Keziah means "cassia" which was a bark used to make very expensive perfume. It indicates her value to him. Finally Keren-happuch means "horn of stibium". Stibium was a very valuable eye make-up that was highly prized for its enhancement of the eye's natural beauty. It was applied by dipping a wedge into the stibium and then putting the wedge between the eyelids and closing the eyes tightly onto the wedge, which then colored the eyelids like modern eye liner and eye shadow do. If the horn of stibium refers to the container of the makeup, then Keren-happuch's name is another reference to her value and esteem before her father. If the horn referred to the applicator then the name not only indicates her value but also implies that she made those around her more beautiful by her presence. Job obviously loved his daughters.

Lucas Ward

Keith noticed it first, a dove that sat quiet and almost still on the ground beneath one of the hanging bird feeders.  While other doves and a bevy of cardinals hopped around him pecking at the ground, then flying up and down from the feeder, he barely moved a foot in two hours, and always one small, hesitant hop at a time.  By early evening most of the other birds were gone, finished with their free supper and off to find a good roosting place for the night, but he still sat there.
           
            By then I was a little worried.  I grabbed the binoculars for a closer look.  He had puffed himself up twice his size as birds will do in the winter to keep warm.  But it was still early September and the humid evening air hovered in the upper 80s.  Suddenly his head popped up, stretching out his neck just a bit, and then immediately back into the folds of feathers around his shoulders.  As I continued to watch I noticed it every five minutes or so.  It almost looked like he had hiccups, but somehow I did not think that was the problem.  Something worse was happening.

            Near dusk he suddenly flew straight up to the feeder itself.  Instead of perching on the outer rung designed for a bird to curl its feet around and be able to lean forward to eat from the small trough that ran around the bottom of the feeder, he flew into the trough itself, hunched down, and leaned against the clear plastic walls of the feeder.  Then he became completely still—no more twitching or bouncing.  I watched until it was too dark to see any longer. 

            The next morning I went out with my pail of birdseed to refill all the feeders around the house.  There beneath the feeder lay the now much smaller body of the dove.  Sometime in the night he had died and fallen off the feeder.  We carefully disposed of the small body for the sake of the other birds and our Chloe just in case it had carried a contagious illness.  It was a sad moment.  I couldn’t help but think, “You weren’t alone, little guy.  We watched you and we cared.”

            We weren’t the only ones watching.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father, Matt 10:29.  God notices when every little bird falls to the ground.  And never forget the lesson Jesus draws from that:  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows, Matt 10:30-31.

            Dying alone has become a metaphor for a purposeless existence. “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone,” (Orson Welles).

            It’s used to depict life and death as a beginning and end that you cannot effect one way or the other.  “Don’t expect anyone to stick around.  You were born alone and you will die alone,” (Anonymous).

            It’s used as a desperate pitiful plea for someone to care:  “I just don’t want to die alone, that’s all.  That’s not too much to ask for, is it?  It would be nice to have someone care for me, for who I am, not about my wallet,” (Richard Pryor).

            It’s used to show the meaninglessness of life:  “At the end, we all die alone,” (Anonymous).

            Is it any wonder that skeptics and atheists commit suicide?  None of these things is true for a Christian. 

            For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever… Ps 37:28.

            Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you, Heb 13:5.

            Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go, Josh 1:9.

            Sometimes we can quote passages like these until we are blue in the face, but when the hour of trial comes, any sort of trial, and no one stands with us, we allow the physical eye to fool us into believing we are alone.  We need to learn to see with spiritual eyes like our Lord did:  Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me, John 16:32.  We are the only ones who can take that promise away—when we don’t believe it.  With God a believer is never alone no matter how much vacant space surrounds him.

            If God promised to watch for every fallen bird, He will watch for me.  Even if some day I breathe my last breath in an otherwise empty room, I can know that Someone cares enough to be nearby, watching and waiting to take me home.
 
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints, Ps 116:15.
And I will gather you to your fathers…2 Chron 34:28.
 
Dene Ward