Graves' This and That

     It is no fluke or coincidence that I just "happen" to be reading Job in Scripture, reading Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb, working on the study for our MOMS group, When God Doesn't Fix It  by Laura Story, and coming to the "anniversary" of the death date of my eldest adult son, David.  I attribute these events to the Providence of God.  From an ole preacher and teacher on the radio, J. Vernon McGee, "Providence is the means by which God directs all things-both animate and inanimate-seen and unseen, good and evil-toward a worthy purpose, which means He must prevail."  "His hand is in the glove of human events."  Pro is the Latin prefix meaning before and video in the Latin, the word, see.  Truly God sees all, He knows all, He hears all, and is everywhere present.  This whole year has been one of facing the hard cold fact that someone I gave birth and have loved with all my heart is ABSENT.  I have not always openly we...

There are times that silence is valued and preferred. I treasure those times.  However, when I am in a trouble, crisis, or pain mode, that is NOT when I  want silence from my only Source of Strength, Father God.  I want answers!   I have experienced that silence, whether actual or perceived, and I have found it fearful.  I move into wondering....questions galore!  Answers have not always come, but spiritual growth has.  In chapter 23 of Job, Job wonders God,  where are you in my crisis?  Why are you hiding?  Why aren't you saying something about what you are doing to me?  With the ongoing accusations against Job by his friends, he wants to bring his case before the highest court of appeal, El Elyon, the Most High, Sovereign Ruler, the Final Word.  Job professes that his complaint is bitter and that God's hand on him is heavy even though Job is groaning in his pain.   This reading for this year is very relevant to ...

Jesus has the ears of His disciples as He has gathered them to finish His teaching preparing them for His death.  He is no longer speaking in parables, but speaking plainly, " I have told you these things, so that in ME you will peace.  In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."(John 16:33)  Trouble expressed in the Greek gives the following words:  pressing, tribulation, distress, straits, afflictions, or persecution.  It seems to carry the idea of troubles which come against us and eventually, as we take the trouble inside our minds and try to acknowledge the trouble and then begin to sort out what is going on,  it becomes an "inside" job. This is pertinent information for today... I will have trouble , but Job did not have that information nor the completed Word of God to cling  as his anchor and his distress is mounting. I am so very grateful for Job and his personal tribulation that he is walk...

   As I read further in Job, chapters 10-13, I see that Job may have had expectations of God that are being challenged by God's very actions toward him.  Job is not able to align God's actions toward him with his expectations of what God is "supposed to do" and be like.  Bless his dear heart, I can share in Job's dilemma, and I imagine that you can share it also.  The foolishness to think we can put God in a box of our expectations! We, as Christ followers,  may have held on to a felonious belief that if we do everything right, checking the list of do's and do not's, that we will be approved by God, and  we will experience only good from HIM.  Like it or not, that is the spirit of perfectionism and performance of the Pharisees.  The mentality that I am good enough to be saved and I must always be good to maintain my salvation and His approval...how is that for a LIE?  Tragically, this is the hill that many Christ followers try to live ...

For today, I read chapters 6-9 of Job.  I can emote with Job and his being finite, flawed, and fragile in his understanding.  Job's struggle has moved from the calamities outside and his responses to them, and now, he has moved into his head analyzing, reasoning, trying to figure out God and what has he done to receive what he may consider as "abuse".  How Job longs for God to "explain" to him what HE is up to!  I well know Job is not the only fellow struggler who wants an explanation of HIS actions and only begins to realize that God will not always give an explanation.  Job seems to be experiencing the "silence from the heavens".  What an amazing God, HE is not deterred or intimidated from HIS activity because we are overwhelmed and contending with HIM wanting answers.  Job is arguing with God demanding an answer, only to get  what he thinks is silence.   From past experiences, I have felt the "silence from the heavens" and I confess...

    I am reading the Bible using a chronological plan from Blue Letter Bible.  They have put the Books of the Bible, according to a more recent historical research, in the order in which the recorded events occurred.  So, after 11 chapters of Genesis, I am directed to Job because it is believed he lived during the age of Abraham and the other patriarchs.   Job gives a delicious take on the methodology of the evil one and I relish the truth that any of his evil works are under the purview of Almighty God who allows/permits him to do his work, always within the boundaries which God has set. Throughout the readings in Job, Sovereign God has not abdicated HIS throne to the evil one and Job's well-meaning friends.   The commentator, David Guzik refers to the book of Job as an Epic War because it portrays a struggle to make sense in the deepest questions of life. One commentator made an excellent point that the real problem in the story of Job is th...

  I pick up my readings in Genesis 8-11 and Noah comes on the scene.  Noah is described as a "righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God".  Noah is lauded, yet consider what the Lord God said about the times in which Noah is living: "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."  Do you wonder what the Lord would have to say about the times we are living if the words were recorded? IS IT NO WONDER THAT NOAH STOOD OUT? Noah is instructed to build an ark...ark for what?  He had never even seen rain!  Scripture records,   "And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him."  What obedience!   Noah and his family along with the animals, and that is another "I wonder", how does Noah get all the animals corralled and moving into an Ark? The Ark only had to house animals, Noah's family, and all the foods ...