Precious Mettle

The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. -- Proverbs 10:22

We have talked about the fact that a person getting what he or she wants does not necessarily mean happiness.  I tend to believe that most of us do get what we want – that is, as wise men have said, we get what we are.  A lot of us find we are not at all happy with that.   Change who you are and you can change your circumstances.  You need not go far to find that is rarely works the other way.  A well-washed pig still returns to its wallow. 

Back when I worked for a financial services company, I was looking over the results of a report I had created for the accountants.  I noticed that we had a person on the charge-off list as a result of bankruptcy whose occupation was something like “lottery winner”.  I forget now exactly how it was worded, but that’s what it amounted to.  People who routinely play the lottery are more likely to win, I suppose, but those same people are generally individuals with poor financial management skills and an inadequate understanding of even basic household economics.  It’s kind of a shame “Home Ec” has been disparaged, mocked, and vilified over the years.  A lot of young women, and young men, for that matter, would benefit from grasping even the rudiments of managing home, family, and income.  Budgets, eating good food at home, self-discipline, a little of that and people would not need the feral government to pay their rent or hand them EBT cards – which is probably why it’s no longer a requirement in the government indoctrination center curriculum. 

This verse always reminds me of another, Ecclesiastes 1:18 -- For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.  I have probably said before, I copied this verse out of my King James Version Bible and pinned it to the wall of my bedroom when I was thirteen or fourteen.  I don’t know what I could have known back then that vexed me, but I understood somehow it was true.  Ignorance may not be bliss but it is something of an anesthetic.  I started to say that the exception is the knowledge of God, but that is the most painful of all, for it shows us our own sad condition.  The house doesn’t look too dirty until you turn on the light.  Though, as Jesus says, the sorrow caused by the knowledge of God is like the agony of child-birth that ends in joy. 

As we seek God, He reveals Himself to us and in us.  Here is genuine and eternal wealth, riches that are not deceptive or temporal, that will not perish in the using no matter how prodigal we may be in sharing them.  If your riches are gold and silver, you may find yourself thinking about thieves, seeing thieves and burglars everywhere, investing in vaults and strongboxes.  If your wealth is in houses, you might worry about fire and flood and earthquakes.  If it is land, you may fear drought and pestilence.  Even if you succeed in thwarting the thieves and threats, in the end you must pass from this world and leave it all behind.  But if God is your Source, not even death can separate you from your Treasure.

No sorrow.  Nothing to fear or dread, no matter what may come.  

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 28:2)

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalms 23:1)

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!  The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalms 34:9-10)

I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. (Psalms 37:25) 

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  (Matthew 6:33)

Don't Stand So Close To Me

In their setting of their threshold by My thresholds, and their post by My posts, and the wall between Me and them, they have even defiled My holy name by their abominations that they have committed. There I have consumed them in My anger. – Ezekiel 43:8

God likes His space. Despite the multitude of stars, space is mostly, well, space. Detachment is an essential principle in knowing God. We usually call it separation, being set apart, or in more technical terms – holiness or sanctification. Back in high school, I wrote a bit of doggerel that summarized my understanding at the time: Detachment is wondrous; involvement is pain./ It’s better to watch than be caught in the rain.

What I didn’t realize, of course, is that detachment is not the opposite of involvement and that separation meant, often, living in the rain. At that same time, I had pinned to the wall in my bedroom a copy of Ecclesiastes 1:18 – “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

Wisdom and holiness are closely related. Even in the most mundane things, we gain insight by “stepping back” either physically or mentally. We say that we “turn a problem over” in our minds and look at it from a different perspective. We speak of being too close to something to clearly understand it.

This helps to understand why the Bible talks about the “fear of God” – which is the beginning of wisdom. In order to know God, we must have some distance, respectful distance, you might say, from Him. You can get too close, too familiar, too attached to your piece of the Rock, and you lose perspective on the whole. There are groups of Christians -- or people who call themselves Christians, who get so heavily invested in some tiny point that they become all but demonic. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church – those misguided souls who protest the funerals of fallen servicemen – come to mind.

It’s another of those biblical paradoxes that in order to draw near to God we must give Him some room.

Once we have come to that understanding, we find this passage applies in a different way as well, for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We can’t let the things of the world get too close to us. We need space, a buffer around us. If the world presses in too close to the temple, our light cannot be seen by those who crowd around us. The vertical element doesn’t help here. It’s like entering the downtown canyons of a major city. You can see the tops of the skyscrapers from miles away, but once you are down on the streets, it much harder to figure out where you are. We need the horizontal separation as well. Holiness is not some whim God has. It serves a critical purpose. We are called to be a “peculiar people”, different than the secular sleepers who surround us. He wants us to stick out like sore thumbs.

Under Joshua’s leadership the Israelites were to follow the Ark across Jordan and into the Promised Land, but in order to go the right way, they had to give it space, allowing it to be seen by all.

And they commanded the people saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore” (Joshua 3:3-4)