Daah!

Daah!  

How often do the facts appear to be staring us in the face, but we just miss it anyway.  We ask dumb questions and make even dumber statements.  That would be for us a “daah” moment.  Although we should strive to minimize the incidence of such moments, it is a common human predicament that we should make allowance for.

So Let Them Know

Job felt judged and condemned by his family and friends. It's one thing when we speak the actual words of condemnation and judgement, but do we also "speak" such words when we fail to encourage one who is going through a crisis period? For certainly to not hear those words of encouragement, more often than not, leads one to assume the negative.

I'm always amazed that what often seems like minutes after my wife would conclude, by something I said or did, that I loved her, that she would ask, and would want me to tell her if I loved you. And if I'm hesitant (because I'm usually, "Huh! Didn't I just...."), she's usually ready to assume that I don't love her.

It's possible that my reliance on demonstration could have come from an expression I'd often hear while growing up, "Don't tell me that you love me, show me." Of course that statement has to be taken under advisement. Interpreted properly it actually means, "Love isn't just about something you say, it's also what you do. But from my experience with my wife - saying it (I love you) is a part of the doing of love.

It may be that we are praying for someone who is going through a rough patch. But if you don't say it, they will not likely know, and may feel that you are not supporting them. So let them know.

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Even Though I know

The above shows how fragile the human nature is. Another demonstration of how fickle the human nature is, is that even tough we know the outcome of an experience, it seems to make it none the more bearable. I get scared every time I go to the doctor and I'm to give blood for a test or if I'm to just be injected. But I do know that either way, it's to make me ultimately well. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Heb 12: 11. So although Job ends the chapter on a triumphant note that revealed his hope, he was nevertheless weighed down by his experience.

Father, may we get to know You the Job did so we can share in the hope that he had. In Jesus' name, amen.

This reading is based on Job 19.  To read and/or listen to Job 19, and to read other related blogs, please click here.