"He is blameless"

I've been doing some reading in Job recently. There are two main thoughts and perspectives I have on it, this is one. This one is about Job himself. The Almighty Himself said of Job "He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless - a man of compete integrity." When The All Knowing Himself says that of you, it really means something.

Why did The Almighty say this of him? Because Job sought the Lord with all his heart. He had complete and utter faith, to an extent I can't even understand; though I would like to emulate it. I would just hope that I can avoid the great trials Job went though... but without those I would never know if I was that faithful. Scary thought...

At first, Job shows what seems to be the faith that anyone can show. He is very rich and famous, so the Devil says (paraphrased) "of course he has such great faith! Look at all of his blessings". That is why I have faith right now too, because I have blessings. This easy time is drawing me closer to the Creator, in preperation for the trials I know are ahead. However, Christianity today seems to promise only these blessings. It does not prepare anyone with the faith required when the blessings are taken away, and curses rain down upon us.

I hear estimates that Job was around 60-70 years old in the beginning of the story. He was known worldwide (literally, all around the globe) as a very rich, wise, and Godly man. No one could find fault with him. Then the trials came.

I don't want to repeat the entire story here because I'm talking about my views on the story, if you don't know the story go read it. It's in the book called "Job". Almost directly in the middle of the Bible.

Long story short, The Almighty tells The Enemy that the only thing he cannot do is kill Job. That was the one thing requirement in the final phase of Job's testing. Job had already lost his riches, his family, his friends, everything. Even a few "friends" of his who had traveled from locations possibly all over the world to meet with him, weren't all that encouraging. They insisted that he had done something wrong and this was punishment. Yet, The All Knowing called him blameless. They did not know this, but we do.

Job's former friends and even wife had told him to curse the Lord and die. Job refused. It got to the point that Job was stratching the boils covering his entire body with broken pottery. He had a terrible sickness and was lying in ashes with no one to help him. He was even being told that this was because of his sin. Yet he knew otherwise.

Think about it. The Almighty told The Devil that the one and only thing he could not do to Job was kill him. Satan took full advantage of that as well. I can hardly wrap my mind around that. Most of us, including me, complain when we are low on money, or food, or have someone cursing God, or something else like that. With Job, The Enemy could do anything he wanted, except kill him. I can't just stop reiterating this! As I said, it just blows my mind! Not that this happened to Job, but what Job did inspite of this. Or, I should say, what he didn't do. The Enemy was simply trying to make Job curse The Lord one single time. Even when he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to torture Job, he couldn't break him.

Oh, one other interesting twist. Most Christians today know that whatever hardship they go through will be rewarded with the gift of Heaven once they die. Job didn't know that. He thought that when you died, you died and that's it. Or at least that seems to be how he understood it. Yet, when he was suffering the worst that the Enemy could throw at him, he simply trusted the Almighty. A simple, child like faith. I can't comprehend it! He did not know why this was happening, when it would end, or what would happen next. He thought that the Lord had turned away from him, he believed that it was The Lord Himself tormenting him! Yet he did not break.

Job would have considered it worth to simply die from all this torture in faithful service to the Creator, even though he didn't know that he would live in perfect Paradise with Him. Job would rather go through all of this torment, trial and pain while staying faithful to the Lord and then simply cease existing when he died, then he would to reject his Creator.

I am having a hard time finding a way to put enough emphasis on this. Job did not know why his children were dead, riches stolen or destroyed, why his wife left him, or why the Creator had seemed to reject him. He did not know that the Almighty was allowing the Enemy to test him. He did not know that if he died he would get to live with the Creator. He did not know that when the trials were done, he would be given twice of everything he had before. He just simply wanted to die and cease to exist to get away from all this pain without reward, and cursing the Lord was not an option.

I have run out of words for now. I can't even remember if I explained my original point. This is just something that has been boggling my mind.

The Theology of Books

I am not sure the name of this post is the most accurate description, but it's what I came up with. This post is about something I came to realize about both how man made stories work and how the real world works in relation to the Creator. I have a few points and revalations here, not sure how many I will get to. I will simply type them as they come to mind.

My first one, which I believe I understand the best, is how the Almighty can be outside of our time. Now, just the name alone should tell you how, but I mean I understand on a more intimate level, I suppose. By that I mean I understand it on a level deeper than words. Hard to explain, but if you understand something on that deep of level, you know what I mean.

To explain it, I need to explain to you how I came to understand all of these principles or whatever. I am writing a couple of books. I have been using the analogy of myself as a writer over the worlds in my books to relate to how the Creator is over this world (and everything else).

My first big revalation, as I remember, was how He is outside of our time. I don't know if you have ever written a book or script or anything, but as you write it, you are outside the time of the world inside that book or story. That is how it is with my books. I know the end and the begining. I know what will happen to my characters long before they do. I can experience their future or past as if it were my present. The entire lifetime of one of my characters can seem as a moment to me. It is the same with us and the Creator of this universe. If anyone would like a deeper explanation, just ask. I could make a whole post about it if I pushed it.

One of my next revalations was how things like miracles and other strange things could work in stories. If you are accustomed to thinking from a perspective with no higher power, such as athiests and others try to do, you believe you must do everything on your own. Same thing with stories. At first, I was writing it as though there were no higher power. But, the way I was writing made that impossible. I was writing it through the eyes of one of the characters, but about things that he was not there to experience. Or in same cases, possibly no one was there to experience. I tried to come up with scenarios that would explain how he could write about these things that he wasn't there to experience. In some cases, the very things that happened in other's minds. How could my characters know the secret thoughts of another? Or know what they felt? Or know what an animal did when no one was around? Simple; me, as the creator of that world, would tell him.

As the creator of that world, I am have power that none of them understand. I want the entire world to turn into a hotdog? All I must do is imagine it, and all of the mountains, oceans, forests and so one will all be one large hotdog. I want a character to just barely survive a battle? He will. Just as I say it will be. I want an asteroid storm? It will happen. It is similar to how the Creator of this world works, except on a much larger scale. Imagine how weak a thought in your head is compared to you. You have control over your imagination, if you want something to happen in there, it does. It is even more so with the Almighty and his creation. And me, as a writer, am just living out a smaller version of what He does. I am, after all, created in His image.

This concept is based off something I read in one of C.S. Lewis's books. He called it "sub-creation". That is a more... philosphical term, for lack of a better word, than imagination is. His theory was since we were made in the image of the Creator, and obviously the Creator loved to create, we should too. Others of his period (and all times in history of that) thought it ungodly to make our own worlds in our minds. Lewis believed just the opposite! By making our own sub-creations, we are merely praising the Lord once again! I don't recall him putting it that way, that was me, but you should hopefully get my point. Our sub-creations aren't offensive to the Lord, unless we make them so, they are actually what He planned for us to do! At least that is what I believe.

I will make my last point here. It is a revalation I made about how anything we do, such as doing our boring, everyday job, or just about anything else that doesn't seem like worship in church, could still be praising the Creator. I realized this, just like everything else here, because of my "sub-creations" and relating to the real creation and it's Creator. Everything that happens in my made up worlds, good or bad, is a testament to my imagination. There is a mighty storm, it is a testament of my power over the world of my imagination. A young soldier who is mocked in the military yet keeps his morals strong? A testament to the power of what I created in that world. This can be applied to everything in my sub-creations. Even if it is something evil, it still shows my power over my creation.

Same thing in the real world. A man is mocked for his faith? It is a testament to what the Almighty has made, such strong faith. There is a mighty storm killing millions? Yet another testament to the Almighty. An insane tyrant murdering or enslaving thousands and causing many great evils? Still, a testament to the Lord. That tyrant will be punished as he deserves, but it is still a testament of the Lord's power. And everytime something in my sub-creations testafies to my power over it, I am testafying to the Lord his power. For without me, nothing in my sub-creation could happen; it wouldn't even exist. Without the Creator of all that we see here, I would not even exist.

I have more I could add. I will likely make another post in the future. If you liked what you read here, comment and let me know. I can make another post. Ask questions, share this, stuff like that; please. I want to know what people think of my ponderings.

Men and Angels

When you hear the word "Angel", especially when talking about heavenly beings, what image appears in your mind?

Chances are, it is something loosely based off pictures like this one:

Obviously, it may not be exactly like that. But let me tell you this, I can almost guarantee you imagined it having wings. Why is this? Because of pictures like the one above. You see, as far as I can tell, the Bible never mentions angels having wings. Other heavenly beings do, but not angels.

I decided to make this post after reading in Judges chapter 6. In that chapter, Gideon is met by an angel of the Lord. When Gideon first began talking to the angel, he thought he was talking to just a man. This is consistent with many encounters between men (or women) and angels. Many times, they seem indistinguishable from any other person. This is the case with Gideon and the angel. Gideon never even realizes he's talking to an angel until the angel makes Gideon's offering burn up in flames by simply touching it with the tip of his staff. The angel disappeared after this, leaving Gideon in shock. He thought he was going to die, having just seen an angel of the Lord.

Most of the times you hear of angels in the Bible, people do not realize they are angels at first. Of course there are other times, the instances in Matthew come to mind, where people realize immediately that they are talking to angels. In cases like this, the angels first must either convince those they are speaking to that 1) they are not going to kill them and/or 2) that the angels themselves should not be praised, but the Lord the messenger serves.

Now, for those few readers of mine who understand what any of these mean: JJ, ((W)) ((W)), WYWUAS, JE, OMBC, and several others, I know what came to your mind when I said "Angel". And guess what, that is a much more accurate description. For those of you who don't know, I am talking about Jackie Evancho.

(Official site:http://www.jackieevancho.com/us/home)

Many call her an angel. Others say she is a super powered being sent down from some advanced alien race, while others say she is possessed by the ghost of a 300 year old opera singer. I'll be talking about the first theory; the "angel" theory.

I mention her because, biblically, she is a better representation of an angel then pictures like the one I showed above. She looks like perfectly normal human being, sounds like one (just not one for her age), acts like one (better than most though), ect. I am not saying she is an angel, at least not a biblical angel sent by the Almighty such as Gabriel or Michael, what I am saying though, is that she is closer to the biblical description. Meaning, no wings and seems like an ordinary person. Of course, angels also have the power to destroy entire armies by themself. I would rather not find out if Jackie could do that, since she is seen as a messenger of peace, and frankly, there's a chance I might be in that destroyed army by then. So I will just say she has an amazing gift from the Creator (who can give whatever gift He wants, to whatever extent, to anyone He wants) but is still a human being.

Now, to continue on, since it feels like I was stagnating. Now, if most encounters with men and angels seem like an encounter between two human beings, such as we see often in the Bible, how many times does that still happen today? I have heard, and I am sure many of my readers have as well, of stories happening even in these modern times of encounters with people they later believe to be angels. Now, if angels seem just like perfectly normal people, how many angels do we see in our life? How many angels have I seen? How many times do we interact with angels on a daily basis? Have I seen any today? I will never know until I get to Heaven. But it does get you thinking. It leaves me thinking...