despite all my rage

Possibly one of the hardest things to understand in the bible is the story of Job. What the book never records is how after Job loses everything he has, and after God restores to Him the wealth and prosperity that he lost, Job asks God why it all happened to him.

We never get that answer. We never get the why. And despite the fact that God restores to Job the wealth and prosperity that he once had, what about the loss of his sons and daughters? What possible renumeration can God offer Job for that?

It had to be easier for Job to not know why this was all happening to Him, then had he the knowledge that all of his suffering was caused for no greater reason than what the bible implies is a mere gamble of pride - Gods against satans.

Forgive me if I sound heretical. That is not my intention. But clearly Job endures suffering for no other reason than for God to prove to Satan that Job will not curse him.
That is what the text presents.

As for me, I sit here and ponder. Perhaps I have grown prideful, but I feel that I am tryign hard to serve the Lord. It becomes easy to think that the Lord would honor me by blessing me. And naturally, I, like everyone, interprets blessing to mean "good things." Such as a good job.

But I never got that good job. I found out today that I was passed over. Yet, I was so sure that this job had divine intervention written all over it.
The big problem is that this is not the first time that I feel God gave me a glimpse of a possible future and/or let me believe that glimpse was His will and would indeed happen.

So what do I do with this? Well, to be quite honest, over the last couple days, I began to doubt that I would get the job. Not because it wasn't the Lords will, but because I started to want it.

I think the biggest disapointment was not that I didn't get the job, but that I allowed myself to want something enough that it pissed me off when I couldn't have it.

That, is the answer to all of this.

The whole point is to get me to a point where I am willing to give up the things that I want, in exchange for the walking in the purposes of God. Even if that means a glamourous job that is good for my ego is traded in for a job that nearly causes me shame. Because I am not here to bring attention to myself, but glory to God, and I have to believe that He knows the best place for me to do that.

I thought about cursing God, very briefly, but I knew that in order to learn this lesson through experience, I had to experience the loss of something that I truly wanted. It wouldn't be much of a lesson had I not really wanted the job I didn't get. Now, I only hope that time will reveal to me the benefit of not getting that job, because we do not always see that. If we did, it would be easier to accept sovereignty, but because we don't, we are forced to view our past through faith and belief, and trust, that God has not let us down along the way.


And what have I found so far? Well, once the aftershock of my disappointment in myself settled in, I realized a part of me that I had burried somewhere, and that very much needed to find some ressurection. So I spent about four hours playing guitar and remembering who I burried.

I guess there is a fine line between becoming who I was and embracing who I am.

Perhaps it was the song that stopped me on the street. Yes, that was it. As I stood there listening to it, I remembered what I was burying, and realized that I could confront me now, without living in the past. It is because of that confidence that my past has also been redeemed. That every situation in my life, despite what came out of it (good or bad) had been redeemed for such a time as this.
I don't have to allow myself to forget me, I just have to keep myself from trying to control everything.

Last night I had a dream that I had my trombstones on display. I was standing right there next to them, and I knew that inside the stone casket was a plaster like skeleton. I knew that even now, as I was alive, there was a purpose in me having this casket. I wanted to make it my own. I wanted to carve pictures on it that symbolized what my existence had been.
Like tattoo's over the scepelcher that would carry my remains into history.

And then I had a dream, or maybe it was before, that I was outside of a ship, in a raft on frozen waters. One of our three crew had died, and the other survivor was the only one that knew how to get into the ship. Only he was waiting for me to die first.
For some reason he did not want to take me in while I was alive, and I spent that dream fighting for my life.

I wish I knew how to unlock meaning in my dreams, and learn from them. Maybe the things I could have learned could have prepared me for my day. Maybe they did anyway, and it's only after the pain, that you see the warning. That is when the warning finds its completition, and somewhere deep inside me, that warning was enough to prepare me for the day.

Well, I'll never know, and I suppose it dosen't really matter. What matters is that I got a job now, even if it's not the one I wanted or thought I'd have. Because in the end, it's not about anything other than being able to stand.