Thursday 24th April Daily Message

Thursday 24th April Daily Message
Dear Reader,
Today the medical scientists will begin their vaccine trials as a first step in what is a very complex procedure. With global cooperation, however, things are able to move much quicker than would normally be the case. Isn’t it heartening and hopeful to see what is being achieved with everyone working together? The only other time we see this kind of cooperation, action and alliance is during a war sadly. ‘Ploughshares beaten into swords’, (no, I haven’t got it the wrong way round).
All the machinery and human endeavour at our disposal can produce, almost at will, the means of destruction yet we still struggle to eradicate many other, and no less serious, social global ills that many suffer from today. Poverty, warfare, disease, famine, injustice and crimes of all sorts are still in existence. For many in our world, this virus is another calamity. No ‘social distancing’, lockdown etc in an overcrowded festering unsanitary hovel, ‘They can take it’ can’t they? If they have no bread ‘let them eat cake’.
During these times of crisis, some ‘smart Alec’ usually comes up with a neat punchy phrase that they think sounds good and will get us all thinking the same. Winston Churchill during the Blitzkrieg, (Blitz, short for lightning war) said ‘we can take it’. Unreported and often omitted is the fact that those bombed out of home and limb didn’t like what he said. They couldn’t ‘take it’ and didn’t want to ‘take it’, and what some folk said at the time is, and was, unprintable. Folk during the war ‘had to take it’, there was no choice, Der Luftwaffe saw to that.
I have a profound dislike of ‘cheesy sayings’ and stupid, repetitive and monotonous mantras. Listen, if you can bear it, to some of the verbosity presented every day. One such clip doing the rounds was this: ‘God chose all the best women on earth and called them nurses’. Claptrap!
Our health workers, carers, cleansing workers, delivery people, to mention just some, are doing what they have always done and more. Society has awakened to a new reality and their genuine worth.
I’ve now had my ‘rant’ and I would now like you to consider a man who suffered much but didn’t come up with the usual religious ‘party line’ by way of explanation. His three ‘sidekicks’ came up with the same old stuff, thinking that they were standing up for God while Job had some kind of religious meltdown. ‘Is he crazy or what?’, I can imagine them saying to one another in Hebrew dialect. Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz made a mess of their assessment and explanation of Job’s predicament and you will need to read the whole story to find out the outcome.
I have only included a part of the story but you will hopefully have access to a bible or an online one perhaps.
Is Job’s thinking much like ours or are we more akin to his comforters?
Today I ask you to think/meditate on these things.
God bless you!

Jim

JBoag@churchofscotland.org.uk

JOB – CHAPTERS 1 AND 2

In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yokes of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning, he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom.

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied.“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man, himself do not lay a finger.”

Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”

In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.

On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”

“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.

His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”

He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

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