"Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make its nest on high?" (Job 39:27)
This is a classic "rhetorical question."
Of course it does not. Neither does life, "mount up at your command," nor mine. I come back to that great one-liner of Bob Mumford. "You can control the Church, but you can't control the Kingdom." This was another way of saying that most of life is outside our ability to control, though this is the effort of every human since the Garden. We know better; we can do it better. It is Tony Bennett's, "If I Ruled the World." Well, frankly I'm glad we don't!
Job's theologian contemporaries just could not understand what was going on around and with them, though they spoke with absolute authority, at least in their minds. WHY? was the great question. Though they spent a lot of time in debate, they came up with nothing. At the close of the Book, "The Word of God," came to them and rebuked everything they said. Religion for far too many is one great big problem-solver, answers to all questions. This is a fundamental issue in the Book of Job. Jesus does not give us "answers." The great gift of God our Father to us is Himself in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, the Blessed Trinity took and banished our sins, "in His own Body on the cross." And when we surrendered to Jesus, our names were written in, "the Book of Life." Again, as the old hymn says, "It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me."
When some over the years have heard of the passing of our son, they asked, "But why?" Perhaps I never got "hung-up" with that question because Jesus' healing process for me after Stephen died was to take me through the, "God-Breathed," Words, aka, the Bible, in just a few weeks. As I reflect this morning, I realize that what our Lord Jesus Christ was "saying" to me was/is, "My Words are what you need to keep going on in life. I am, 'the Strength of [your] life,' not answers. As I have told you, 'The Words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.'"
Father, in Jesus' Name, again, all I can say now is, Thank You! Amen.
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Sarah and I will be out of state from tomorrow until May 29.
This is a classic "rhetorical question."
Of course it does not. Neither does life, "mount up at your command," nor mine. I come back to that great one-liner of Bob Mumford. "You can control the Church, but you can't control the Kingdom." This was another way of saying that most of life is outside our ability to control, though this is the effort of every human since the Garden. We know better; we can do it better. It is Tony Bennett's, "If I Ruled the World." Well, frankly I'm glad we don't!
Job's theologian contemporaries just could not understand what was going on around and with them, though they spoke with absolute authority, at least in their minds. WHY? was the great question. Though they spent a lot of time in debate, they came up with nothing. At the close of the Book, "The Word of God," came to them and rebuked everything they said. Religion for far too many is one great big problem-solver, answers to all questions. This is a fundamental issue in the Book of Job. Jesus does not give us "answers." The great gift of God our Father to us is Himself in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, the Blessed Trinity took and banished our sins, "in His own Body on the cross." And when we surrendered to Jesus, our names were written in, "the Book of Life." Again, as the old hymn says, "It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me."
When some over the years have heard of the passing of our son, they asked, "But why?" Perhaps I never got "hung-up" with that question because Jesus' healing process for me after Stephen died was to take me through the, "God-Breathed," Words, aka, the Bible, in just a few weeks. As I reflect this morning, I realize that what our Lord Jesus Christ was "saying" to me was/is, "My Words are what you need to keep going on in life. I am, 'the Strength of [your] life,' not answers. As I have told you, 'The Words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.'"
Father, in Jesus' Name, again, all I can say now is, Thank You! Amen.
***************************
Sarah and I will be out of state from tomorrow until May 29.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
