Our Potipharian Prisons

It is clear in my mind that this post is for me, in the cathartic sense. That bag in the picture has been with me since 1987 when I was a junior in high school. Yesterday, twenty-eight years and several schools later, I carried it home at the end of my last week with the company for which I have been working for the past 670 days, give or take. I did shed a few tears, but not because I was leaving that work. I cried because I had been in it at all. 

I imagine it's like the tale of some who are freed from prison after serving their sentences. They may weep. But the tears are not born in the joy of their release. They are born in the misery of having been incarcerated, and the many losses that come with it.

That blue book bag carries many memories for me; the kind that cause me to consider burning it. I am a Christian. So I ought to run all experiences through the pages of Scripture, and I attempt to do so. I am also a man, and not a strong one. So I often find it difficult to see through the pain to the meanings that make it bearable. It's terribly trying for me to look back over twenty-eight years and make meaningful sense of much of it. Some say we write our own story. I say that's largely bullshit (See Pr 16, for example).

Frankly, the past three plus years have felt like my Israeli captivity (Ne 1:1-3); my Potipharian prison (Ge 39:20); my Jeremiahan cistern (Je 38:6); my Asian burden (2 Co 1:8-10). Of course life could be made more burdensome. And it very well may be.

Perhaps the comfort and hope is that God is more than a governor, He's also a redeemer. And if we traced out the stories, ultimately Israel and Joseph and Jeremiah and the Apostle Paul can be said to have benefited from their afflictions. But they were still real afflictions that had to really be endured.

Two of my recent co-workers pressed me yesterday about the reasons for my lack of excitement regarding my soon approaching move and new work (I imagine my disposition gave me away). They called me a pessimist.  I don't believe I'm a pessimist (Although I did tell them that excitement is for suckers). I think of myself more as a realist. And in reality, new things come with their own share of burdens. Moreover, they rarely deliver on the hype we might pour into them. Has anything ever positively been all that I thought it might be?

In addition, none of our earthly treasures are meant to be altogether or permanently satisfying. That's not their design. They are, after all, finite and fleeting. So for me to tie up in them an over-inflated (meaning idolatrous) hope, is foolish. I have a new work in a new place. Okay then. I hope to do some good. Time will tell.

To the Christian Rich - You Can't Keep It

Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 2:18-19, From Solomon, perhaps the wisest man (except for Jesus) 
who has ever walked in this world.

This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own 
what you have prepared?
Luke 12:20, From Jesus Christ, God the Son 

The Highest Part of a Christian's Life

"I feel sure that as long as we look on prayer chiefly as the means of maintaining our own Christian life, we shall not know fully what it is meant to be. But when we learn to regard it as the highest part of the work entrusted to us, the root and strength of all other work, we shall see that there is nothing that we so need to study and practice as the art of praying aright." 

 Andrew Murray (1828-1917), from the Preface of his book With Christ in the School of Prayer

To the Christian Rich - What Do You Do With What You Do Not Need?

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, 

where moth and rust destroy, 

and where thieves break in and steal. 

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 

where neither moth nor rust destroys, 

and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

God's Paper Presence

God the Holy Spirit wrote a book. God is for the written word. He is for learning. He is for the good change right knowledge may produce. He is anti-ignorance, especially ignorance of Him.

While I am not against digital books, I am for paper books, partly because of what I think is a superior presence. I think it's better to have a Bible, for example, lying on the living room table than to have a copy saved on your Kindle or phone where it is essentially invisible. Your children don't see it, or handle it, or flip through its pages or draw on the blank filler pages. And you are not reminded by seeing it to fear God, Who like His book, is in the room. But perhaps that's just me.

My friend Adam has an online publishing house. I am commending it to you for some of the accessible, affordable, and helpful resources you can find there; and because since Adam is my friend, I want to see his business flourish. So please consider a visit here.

To the Christian Rich - Guard His Glory or Guard Your Money

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Matthew 6:24

To the Christian Rich - Jesus Marginalizes the Wealthy

And I say to you, it is easier for a camel 

to go through the eye of a needle, 

than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Matthew 19:24