Thursday, November 15, 2007

Job 41 & 42; 2 Corinthians 1 & 2


To be or not to be THAT is the question.
Shakespeare was so right and funnier than I ever thought. Ok maybe not HA HA funny ….but in a ‘damn he knew what he was talking about ‘…funny. Do we be who YOU made us to be or do we constantly strive to BE who we think YOU want us to be? The loving part, how do we do that when all we want IS love? The extending GRACE part when we live NEEDING it?
I know the answer is as conduits to...of the love and grace YOU offer, receiving all the time THAT which is just showered on and over us ridiculously. But you know what……that’s just HARD…understatement of the year right? And YOU never promised us easy…….so to not succumb to all that I WANT to do and just trust that IF I live listening to and seeking YOU…..You’ll guide us in and through to where YOU want us…
Job endured all he endured pre Saviour Christ. He experienced God in ways I’m not sure I would even desire to and God well... God is God and we need to become more than OK with that. Job did.

The God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11 as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our
behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

3 comments:

jennypo said...

"The loving part, how do we do that when all we want IS love? The extending GRACE part when we live NEEDING it?"

This is the echo of my own heart today. It helps to know I'm not alone. Thanks, bjk. And thanks for the reminder that our God is the God of All Comfort. Sometimes I go running from him in my trouble because my sense of who He is gets subtly skewed. If I can keep in mind who He is, I'll go running TO Him instead.

Jenn said...

(with tears) I too needed this today. thank you...

Micah Hoover said...

Too funny. I'm such a nerd for my interest in Hamlet, though truth be told the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet was the one on my brain.

You've been considering Job a lot lately, and the two characters seem to invite comparisons. They both faced a lot of tragedy they weren't responsible for. You could say both were tempted with ending their own life ... with Hamlet asking whether or not he wanted 'to be', and Job getting told to "curse God and die".

Yet what made them different was so very small ... few people I think would notice it.

'though my flesh be destroyed, yet with my eyes I will see God ...'

May your thanksgiving continue to praise God as He showers us ridiculously with His love and every good thing.