Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Trouble With Job

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. (NIV Job 13:15)

I remember being in a camp service as a teenage girl singing one of those emotionally charged worship songs the contemporary church is known for. "Though he slay me, I will worship him..." the lyrics to the song were taken from the well known bible verse in book of Job. Job is one of the most perplexing stories in the biblical cannon. A "blameless and upright man" (from Job 1:1), a man who God uses to prove a point, sending destruction on his household, or rather "allowing it". Still, Job worshiped God. In the end, Job's life and family are restored when God bring his children back from the dead. Oh, wait, he didn't. He gave Job new children and the new daughters were really beautiful too. Beautiful enough that they were considered worthy to be on equal terms with their brothers (Job 42:15). That's a great story. One that I would like my daughter to read.

Looking back on that day, in that auditorium, singing that song in unison with the other devout youth, I bought it. I bought the idea that the God "slayed" the worthy. God would always redeem his chosen ones....eventually. I believed that facing "trials and tribulations" made me special and that my reward would be in heaven. Why is the reward in heaven now instead of on Earth as it was in Job's day? Because too many people have noticed a pattern, as I have. The pattern is that God does not reach his big daddy hand from the heavens and care for his people. People get sick and die. Tragedy and suffering happen, but many things we can control. Changing my life and my fortunes is largely up to me. The grand lesson in the book of Job is one of submitting your mind to the largeness of God and the incapability of the human mind to understand his ways. The church taught me that to serve the greatness of God would make me great in the end. Ultimately, am I really here to serve God's ego? I guess I'll never know, I was created to not understand, right?

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Facebook, a few thoughts

I've been doing some facebook housecleaning lately, commonly called "unfriending". Facebook calls it “removing the connection”. That sounds much nicer. We all facebook for different reasons. Some of us get a big kick out of a huge friend count. Some of us “really do have that many friends!!!”. It's all good. I don't. I don't have THAT many friends. I have friends that I used to know but am not close to anymore. I have friends that I'm close to now specifically because we connected, or reconnected on facebook. I have acquaintances, people who never really were friends, old and new. There's friends from high school who I don't think I exchanged more than 2 words with over four years. It's all good. The thing that I've been thinking about lately is another group of facebook friends. The people who have no interest in conversing with you at all. If I make an effort to comment on the photo of your cat and you have no interest in my cat (bad example, I never look at cat pictures, but you get the idea), why did you add me to your friends list? If we've been fb friends for a year and we have never once conversed, what's the point? I understand the curiosity about other people's lives, especially if we haven't seen each other in awhile. Btw...Kennedy class of '95, we all look great. Just sayin'. ;-) I also know I've been just as guilty. There are many many people on my list that I've never conversed with. We only have time for so many relationships. Personally, I've modified my facebook to suit me. I'd like to hear your thoughts, if you have any.