Job 17:9 "But principled people hold tight, keep a firm grip on life, sure that their clean, pure hands will get stronger and stronger!" I think that's what most Christians today believe. Live by the principles and you will get stronger and stronger. Principled people---I used to be one! Always making sure my hands were pure while missing way too much. Job 17:10 is intriguing, "maybe you'd all like to start over." I've had that thought many times this year as my last child graduated from high school. Why do I want to start over? To make sure my life went smoother for my God? Job says: Who on earth could find any hope in that? Our hope is in God and not in this life getting better. You are right on schedule. And what matters is radical repentance this moment, dealing with the fray of my heart.
Job 19:13 touches something deep within me as Job says, "Everyone I've ever been close to abhors me; my dearest loved ones reject me...Job 19:25 - I know my Redeemer lives and God willl take his stand on earth. And I'll see him with my very own eyes. Oh, how I long for that day!" This is the time when Job really needed a friend, a relative to stand by his side. Amazing that this is one of the first books of the Bible written and Job doesn't have the "company of the saints" to encourage him. He's charting a path for us. And, one day, Job's God will take his stand on earth and Job will be there and so will you and I. It's the day we all live for---to see Him face-to-face. We'll toast our friend Job at the Great Feast. It will be such a joy to see Job with our very own eyes. I wonder why Job's friends rejected him?
Deborah, COUNT ME IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteDeborah, me too. Let's get together face to face. Not sure where you all live, but the cool mountains and a good chat around a fire, meeting with you all would be icing on a very sweet communion this year. If you would like, we'd have room at our ranch. Consider yourselves invited. It's not mountains, but in the fall, we can pretend easier. (our place is about an hour fifteen minutes northwest of Houston.) Any other ideas? Let's start praying about it and see what God brings.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading through Job's story these last few days, when he proclaims, "I know my Redeemer lives." Though my skin be destroyed, yet in my flesh, I will see God--I'm so touched by his sold out heart, his only hope, his joy before him, despite every loss imaginable. He takes comfort in his beautiful God. I wasn't so crazy about Job for years, thinking he was very negative, but I fall in love with his heart right here. He has it right. Doesn't matter what happens to us here. Nothing matters but the glorious hope we have in our Living God.
Blessed Sunday to you.
I am so in!
ReplyDeleteGOD, if I know anything about YOU, it is the fact that YOU love joining us in fellowship. And how we have grown to love our little group here! If it be a part of Your Plan A, show us what to do. We love every morsel of Manna You are in our lives. Thank You for making this a holy place of communion where we see with spirit eyes Your Plan unfolding before our very eyes. Draw us together in Your Name. I thank You for Bev and her time and thoughts encouraging us. I thank You for Annette opening her ranch to us. Oh, Father, what other things will You anoint us with in the coming days? We wait expentantly. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Ladies, I'm from Georgia but would love to meet up wherever it is convenient for everyone else.
I'm praying and listening, but Annette your ranch sounds like the perfect spot.
Unless we could go to the Holy Land. I'm ready for that one. Just to place my hand on that Western Wall of the Temple. And to gaze out at the Sea of Galilee.
Man, just imagine what heaven will be like.
Count me in too!!! What a day of rejoicing it would truly be!! You all have meant so much to me this year, and its only June, but I feel like I have journeyed years with this group. I'm in Tennessee; however, let me know the plans and I will do my best to be there too!!
ReplyDeleteTwo things jumped out to me in today's reading:
1) Bev - what you wrote "Our hope is in God and not in this life getting better." Oh, how I pray that is my soul's desire.
2) At the heart of our reading, thus far, is Job's continued affirmation of confidence. "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth."
Even though he was facing death, Job still expected to see God. Although Job struggled with the idea that God was presently against him, he firmly believed in the end God would be on His side.
I am challenged today to know with all my heart that the Lord will be standing beside me always and forever, that as I child of God I must fear the Lord and trust Him with everything in me. Yet, I allow doubt, uncertainty, and even question when He calls me to something bigger and greater than I ever thought could be of my life.
Today, I am reminded that when I trust God with all my heart, He will give me a destiny and I must JUMP!
Have a blessed Sunday Friends!!
-Kim
This is sweet...
ReplyDeleteI've got some giggles inside my heart thinking about sharing some time with each one of you in a yet to be decided place and time.
Angie, I have misssed you and I welcome you back.
Here, sit by me!
And I'm going to be honest here. I am seriously praying about Larry Crabb's Israel tour at Thanksgiving. I, too, have this deep longing that He is planting in me. All of a sudden it is there and it won't go away.
I want to feel Him and His home. I want to see where He spent time.
I want to feel the emptiness of that tomb.
This year has been such a blessing focusing on the suffering side of following Christ. It's not a pretty picture. But it is real and it draws us to Him.
I think our together hook-up should be this Holy Land tour. I feel it. He's drawing me.
"Even if we are people who have known real suffering ourselves (and who has not?), once we bounce back we so easily forget what it was like to be miserable and sick. We forget that all of us are constantly, chronically sick, sick unto death. We forget that being "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17) is the unchanging condition from which even the greatest saint does not graduate this side of Heaven. Is not the purest soul still infested with countless faults weaknesses, and old hurts from which it will never be delivered in this life? This is precisely why we all need to receive and to give the only truly healing medicine, which is love. The most precious service we can perform for another person is not to free him from a problem, but to love him in it, for "love covers a multitude of sins" (1Peter 4:8). No matter how much we may specialize in holiness, or no matter how saintly and spiritual we become, we are bound to miss a few sins here and there. But to love is to cover them all." (quote from The Gospel According To Job by Mike Mason)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the long quote but this book is really helping me as I read Job. Mason writes out of his own suffering and admits it's subjective.
Angie, so glad you're joining us again. I love the way you express yourself. And this group is so accepting!
Thank you all for the 'healing medicine' I receive in your comments.
Deborah, I haven't commented but please know I'm praying for your marriage. You have been so faithful.
FG
FIRST OF ALL LET ME SAY---WOOHOO ANGIE IS B-A-C-K....I so missed you girl! Thrilled you are gracing us with your presence. Hey, we are all wandering pilgrims on this journey with you. You've got faith Angie! Love your comments and you're a part of us so I don't have to welcome you back---you've always been here in our hearts. I think you're awesome! So glad you jumped back in. Annette--you're so gracious. I fell in love with your ranch experience so it would be totally delightful with a surprise visit from the egrets?? That was unbelievable! I say yes for sure. I can get to Houston. IDK about another state at this time. But that's just me. What a great idea Deborah. And as far as the Holy Land---see if God opens that door for any of you to go. He did for me. Larry will lead the trip and he promises that we will not run where Jesus walked---it's a joke. My friend that I met at his last conference is giving me the trip so I'm overwhelmed and ever so grateful!
ReplyDeleteMy Precious String of Pearls Siesta's ... oh how I love you and appreciate your comments which are helping me along my earthly journey.
ReplyDeleteFirst, ANGIE...I AM THRILLED YOU ARE BACK...YOU ARE SO PRECIOUS AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN SINCE I FIRST MET YOU IN JANUARY. PTL! YOU DECIDED TO RETURN.
Oh, yes count me in I so desire to meet and worship in prayer and music with each of you. Annette you are so gracious and I can more easily see myself to your ranch...though it has been a life desire to go to the HOLY LAND. Most important I desire to be where God has purposed for me. I pray God will allow me to be part of this gathering of the String of Pearls.
In the last two weeks I have had great difficulty getting it right.
Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart,but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
I think I am participating in my daily activity God has called me to only to recognize in the process I overdid it and must rest to recover. The read in Job is so enlightening and yet getting to it has been a challenge.
Bev, I cannot begin to tell you what your entries on the scripture, plus your comments have meant to me and blessed me so richly. Bev you are our Siesta Mama on this blog...Thank You is so insignificant to express my love and appreciation for what you are doing.
Annette, thank you so much for befriending me and allowing me to meet these wonderful Siesta's on this blog. I love our all the areas of our diversity and the tie that brings us all together; the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Thank you for offering your Texas Ranch for us to meet. The fact that we are spread out across many states makes no difference in our getting to know one another. Only God could create something as wonderful as this.
I love 1 Thes 5:24 He who has called you is faithful and He will do it.
We all have felt we were Job at some point or other...only to realize at some point that God's amazing Grace, Mercy and Peace over each of us is what has brought us through and that experience we own will encourage the next sojourner to keep on, keeping on because God is faithful even to a faithless people.
So many Pearls I have not named but oh how I love each of you and find you so significant in the ways you bless and encourge me with your comments as I learn more about who God can be in my life.
To God be all honor, Glory and Praise!
Thank you for praying for me, don't stop, I desire to only follow where He has called. God has set each of apart at different times just to know him better.
Pray that I will be able to make more time to comment often and relieve you from such a lengthy "Song I must Sing of Love to YOU" as I have today.
Sylvia