Twice in my life has the Lord enlightened me on this person in particular, once by revelation without the experience and the second time by a taste of what Job suffered, taking me back to my mother’s womb, my earthly origins. It is not our righteousness.
There once was a man in the land of Uz;
Perfect and upright was he;
He offered sacrifices for himself and his sons
And his daughters religiously.
One day the Lord saw He had to break a man;
He put the devil to the job you see.
The devil took his goods but wasn’t satisfied with that…
He also took his family.
And Job said, “Naked have I come from my mother’s womb,
Naked will I return;
The Lord did give and the Lord takes away;
Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”
Still the Lord saw He had to break a man;
And all Job had left was his wife.
The Lord sent the devil in to plaster Job with boils
But told him to spare his life.
And Job said, “Shall we receive good at the hand of God,
And shall we not receive evil too?
Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,
Yet I’ll maintain my own ways before Him.”
Days went by and Job was in a mess;
He couldn’t understand where he went wrong.
Then the Lord spoke to him and set his spirit straight
And Job began to sing a new song.
And Job said: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear
But now my eye sees You;
Now I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes,
Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” (last line over)
Prince Albert, SK; October 31, 1976
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This satire is an expression of a time oft repeated wherein I felt incredulous and scornful of the thinking of so-called "theologians." They shape and size God, formulate the things they think He does, analyze Him, dissect Him, figure Him all out, put Him back together again according to their desires and tastes and put Him in a neat box, gift-wrapped and stamped, ready to be reproduced and mass-marketed to the ignorant masses the world over who swallow their doctrines as unsuspecting fish swallow bait, hook, line, sinker and rod. By the way, God hates the term "theology." How presumptuous is man that he should dare try to study God!
This song came for Caren Lampitoc, whom Paul met in Philadelphia. How different we discovered the Christian walk to be in comparison to what we had expected or were led to believe it would be! It was lonely, painful of soul, friendless, fraught with enemies on all sides and the greatest enemy was on the inside. How we had to do battle with unbelief, with our carnal desires, ambitions, hopes, dreams, with the lusts of the flesh...lusting mostly for social security, belonging, importance, usefulness. All must be surrendered or lost; there really is no choice in the matter when the call of God is upon one. He that keeps his life loses it and if he loses it for the Lord's sake, it is still lost, if only for a time, even if replaced with more and better somewhere down the road. The main thing is that one must trust God in it all and let it happen. One must learn and accept that God is in charge of all things, working all for good.
A tune the Lord gave me for Psalm 143:8-19