A Good Day for Job

But ask the animals, and they will instruct you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you.

Or speak to the earth, and it will instruct you;
let the fish of the sea inform you.

Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?

The life of every living thing is in His hand,
as well as the breath of all mankind.

-- Job 12:7-10

September 11th should be, not a national day of service, but a national day of repentance and prayer. It should be our Yom Kippur. Of all days in the year, on this day, we should humble ourselves before God and realize the deceptive nature of what the world calls “wealth and power”.

As far as “serving my country” goes, I know what the Founding Fathers knew – that each of us individually serves the nation best by doing those things God calls us to, not what government officials think we ought to do. The state is not my god nor is it my father. American exceptionalism comes from the understanding that the existence of the state is based on a covenant of union – called the Constitution – agreed to by the people. Government is always an evil, albeit a necessary one. Ours is severely in need of extensive and immediate pruning – not unlike a tangled patch of blackberry briars that has grown out of control.

But Job’s lesson is that this, too, is in the hand of the Lord.

Let me look long today on the face of God. Let me meditate on the eternal flame of truth. I am here only that I might know Him, as Paul said, in the power of His resurrection and even in the fellowship of His suffering. Let me see His hand in all things, especially in those things that come to me – for obvious good or seeming ill. May it be the wisdom of Christ that instructs me when to war and when to submit, being, in all things, surrendered to Him.