"All The Days Of My Warfare"

"For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you."  (Job 36:4)

I'm still in Job, and here is another presumptuous statement of the young Elihu, an untested person.  The NLT says, "for I am a man of great knowledge."  Woah!  I'm sorry, but did I miss the word "humility" somewhere?

The Book of Job is considered by some scholars to be the oldest of the Biblical Writings.  If that is true, then apparently Jesus Christ, "The Word of God," is telling humanity something about how "life works."  Maybe it is another way of saying, "Everything's [Not] Coming Up Roses."  This is a life principle which the "seeker friendly" people will just not accept.  

I have never been a "why" person.  The update on Lucy which I sent to you earlier, however, has left me heart-broken, and, with no answer.  I know that we are all in "post Fall" mode.  Our "parents" just blew it in the Created Purpose, and, everything literally "went down hill ever after."  But my heart just breaks for Lucy and her family.  Maybe from time to time you can just say on their behalf, Father, in Jesus' Name have mercy on Lucy and her family."

People greatly desire some kind of "answer" to such suffering in the world.  I just don't really have one.  But I do have the Promises of Jesus.  You also know Them/Him, right?  And, just as Paul, you and I declare, "....but I press on...."  Job too pressed on.  At one point, in the midst of the terrible suffering, he said, "All the days of my warfare will I wait til my time comes."  He did.  Yet we always need to keep in mind that for some throughout Covenant History the, "time," was the time of passing from this life to the next.  While I can say that this is not an excuse for my unbelief, just fact, I can also say that should be okay for us, not a disappointment, not a reason to give up and quit, get "mad at God," become cynical, and all the rest of the self-destructive paths one can take.

So I call you and me today to, "take up the Cross and follow Me," viz., Jesus, not "our cross," but Jesus' Cross, not self pity or capitulation, but the triumphant victory cry from the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, "It Is Finished!"--- "Christus Victor!"  And I can assert something more: I want to press into walking in and praying for all that Jesus has for us.  Sometimes, quite frankly, I feel I do not.  Today I have felt this, as Paul said to the Roman Church, "I am a debtor to [Lucy and her famly]"  May it ever be!

Father, in Jesus' Name, have mercy on Lucy and her family, and all of us.  Amen.  

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* I am scheduled to be in DC, May 14 an 15.

* Two Updated New Reports on attacks upon Jews at: jhs58.blogspot.com

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