Lord, if you had been here

eejoseph, , ,

Life is not a straight road, neither is it a steep mountain climb, and it is not a descent into a valley. Hungry people have the power to feel that they have a destiny that includes food. For some there’s no food in the pipeline.  There are people who believe that they have found a gemstone of a lifestyle in which none of life’s changes or challenges can appear. 

If God is with a person all of the forces arrayed against that person will have to reckon with God.  Increasingly we are hearing that God erases all problems and that the common problems do not occur in the lives of the chosen. The notion uproots the expectations of those who are in God and depend on God.

The Bible records the story of Jesus’s friends from Bethany village, whose brother had died and the sisters were convinced that if Jesus had been in Bethany the brother would not have died. 

Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. (John 11:21, NASB)

So when Mary came to the place where Jesus was, she saw Him and fell at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” (John 11:32, NASB)

Consider the argument completely false, that anywhere Jesus is people don’t die. I’ll take it a little further to say that where Jesus is there is  calm, joy, health and goodness. Or if we apply that rationale to God then we have to go back to Eden and see that Adam and Eve died with God watching. Distance is not an issue in the application of God’s power. He sees everything and is never incapable.

Our lives are not problem free or pain free because God is with us. That has never been true of any of the heroes whose experience comes to us in the Bible.   Sometimes we operate in a fog, not knowing ourselves or our companions. The God-with-us is not a supernatural handyman nor is he a contractor specializing in all problems.

Thousands of people became Christians on the day of Pentecost and following that day the sizes of the congregations multiplied and people were added daily, and yet we only read of James and Paul being put to death by the government, so who else became true witnesses of Jesus, counting the cost and paying the price by daily cross-bearing? We should know where the biblical GPS locates Jesus and what are the diagnostic effects of his presence.

You are here and please let your will be done!

Coming soon

eejoseph

A lot of prayers are like a truck driving backwards down the highway at maximum speed, and I can prove it from the scriptures.

Idols not an idle industry

eejoseph

One of the books in the Christian library  is  Bel and the Dragon. It tells of how Bel, a Babylonian deity, is exposed as the product of a fraudulent priesthood.   People assumed that Bel, a huge statue of some kind, consumed the food that they placed before him. The book presents the hero as the same figure in the Bible, Daniel, a Hebrew in Babylonian exile.    Here are some snippets from the drama.

The exchange between the king and Daniel

Then said the king unto him, Thinkest thou not that Bel is a living God? seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? (Bel and the Dragon 1:6, KJVA)

Daniel’s smiling response.

O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, and did never eat or drink any thing. (Bel and the Dragon 1:7, KJVA)

https://www.tota.world/article/830/
https://www.tota.world/article/830/

So a plan emerged to keep a close eye on  sacrifice and the interval between the sacrifice and the morning, when the food would normally be gone. In brief, the priests were caught devouring the food with their families each night when they thought no one was watching.

So when they were gone forth, the king set meats before Bel. Now Daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes, and those they strewed throughout all the temple in the presence of the king alone: then went they out, and shut the door, and sealed it with the king’s signet, and so departed. (Bel and the Dragon 1:14, KJVA)

If this story be true then what are we to make of all the idols that are still being made and worshiped across the planet?  You can see why such a book is in what we call the Apocrypha.  I suspect that there are people who are convinced that idols have a secret life, a dimension we are yet to discover.  Idols that walk, eat, drink, asleep, and have children are certainly wondrous, but idols will be shown to be incapable of doing the ordinary activities of the people who worship them. You can see why idols are a thriving business in government, religion, and business.

The past and the future are sometimes necessarily connected

eejoseph,

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

We use our experiences to make sense of the  path we are on, but sometimes completely new destinations and new companions become central to our agenda.  Then the comfort and confidence we expect and are accustomed to are hard to find.

We can make sure we have spiritual, mental and physical refuges when life’s turmoil seems to be in every lane. Live joyfully and confidently.

When you are young, go with the passion that elevates you and your community, and when you’ve matured embrace your youthful gems.

eejoseph,

What’s your top tip to be successful in life?

Far too many humans never grow up, and the world is caught in the vices of juvenile pseudo-luminaries.  Night life, with its scarce moonlight, has not been able to properly define success. Success, to be identified, needs the light of day.  It is shallow and short-lived if its contributors are handrails and training wheels.  There comes a time when the child needs no escort to school, and the parents know their supervision of the child ends, and the child’s greatness is in the child’s hands.

Never stop growing your grasp of knowledge, your grace to others, and your greatness.

Jonathan Seagull

eejoseph,

What’s a book, movie, or TV show that you wish you could experience again for the first time?

This title belongs to a book, my sister’s, which I peeked at over five  decades ago.  I am now recognizing that it was the most likely spark for my personal obsession with flight. I do not mean aircraft.  I mean flying without wings or other attachments. 

I fly in my dreams, in my songwriting, in my pursuit of life-changing truth, and in my imagination of what our world might become.

Phase out and clean slate

eejoseph, ,

We have found a lot of ways to identify ourselves with the demands of the Old Covenant and even sometimes try to align ourselves with people who are in touch with evidence of the promises, but this is a fantasy that flies in the face of the great icon of faith, Abraham. We glibly say that we commit ourselves to the ten Commandments as the foundation of morality, and then we go on to add, according to our own evaluation, festivals, food restrictions, and golden rules. While many of the tenants in the Old Testament and under the old Covenant are accompanied with consequences or sanctions. The phases of life are by design, and so are the solutions of life’s problems.  Let us consider that the phasing out of the sunlight brings a clean slate to people who have become unclean under various rubrics of the Covenant, and discover whether we have phased out of the truth.

Sundown: the undisputed cleanser

There were several types of uncleanness that an Israelite in the camp under Moses might have experienced. I will list a few. Ancient Israel appears in sync with the easy solutions repeatedly.

  • Touching certain animals
  • Eating certain animals
  • Bodily discharges
  • Contact with a woman on her menses
  • Contact with vessels or articles a menstruating touched
  • Male ejaculation renders the involved male and female unclean
  • A priest performing sacrifice is defiled via contact with blood

With respect to all of these categories of uncleanness, we find the use of water and  simply waiting for sundown ushered the defiled into the arena of clean again. Here is a typical scenario of the transition.

Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even. (Numbers 19:7)

Sundown! Everybody waits for you no more

Towards the end of the Tanakh, in Haggai, the prophet is prompted to ask priest a diagnostic question about the transfer of cleanness on uncleanness, and they fail miserably. They do not understand how the thing works.

Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. (Haggai 2:13) Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean. (Haggai 2:14)

Christians are not better off looking for miracles rather than waiting for sundown, and we are not justified in carrying guilt over external defilements (it makes no sense to ignore a bodily discharge) that require divine atonement.  Aligning with this mismanagement of the solutions we find ourselves phasing out the wrong things and majoring in minors.  As Jesus puts it, we find ourselves straining out tiny flies but swallowing camels. Surely there is enough sundown to deal with uncleanness.

Happy mourner, gleeful compassionate

eejoseph,

What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?

A common misconception people have about happiness is that it can be achieved  by accumulating objects that bring delight or satisfaction. Of course that is happiness, but it is transitory because it prepares the field for futility and emptiness when the objects disappear. A variation of this arrangement is that happiness is merely the feeling and that feeling can be experienced at will through chemical means.  This approach leads to abuse. Happiness then may be seen and experienced under any of life’s circumstances. Happiness is an emotion and also an attitude.  Might I be happy at the funeral because I met the deceased’s son or daughter?