A Little Engineering and a Lot of Prayer

So, I just got back from a field installation job last week. We ended up running into a problem on the first day, and by the third day we had still not fixed it. The entire team was at a loss, and we had tried *everything* we could think of. One guy on our team says “it would take an act of God for this to work now.” So I said, “well, I’ll pray then.” So, I pray. But I’m thinking, how is God going to make this work? If the thing just up and starts working, people will go bananas trying to figure out why, since we’ve already tried *everything*. But, I pray anyways, and if it works, then hey I’ll give the glory to God, and let everyone know he answers prayers.

So, here I am writing this… guess what, this was easy for God! I got up on the last day, after everyone had given up, and rousted some people up to try one more time. Based on some good work by our team, I had one more thing to try. Before I tried it, I checked the network cables which were all locked in place, but on a *whim* I ever so gently pushed them in a ~bit~ more, and BAM the whole thing starts working. The thing I was actually going to try wouldn’t have worked, but those little touches did the trick. And we didn’t have to tear apart the whole system to find the problem, either! It was obvious, AFTER it started working.

But, I figure God allowed us to overlook it, so that my co-worker could ask for an act of God, and I would pray for and receive one, so I could tell him that I did! And now I’m telling you, and giving the glory to God just like I said I would, Hallelujah!

Always Content, but never Complacent

I will always strive to be content, after I have done everything that has been given me to do, and doing always that which is right, and as the Lord liveth, seeking the Lord my God in the name of his son Jesus Christ.

But I will never strive to be complacent, to accept the wrong doing, and injustice around me, and the evil that is beyond me to address. I will never call these things right, though I may be forced to live with them and among them for this short time on this earth.

May I never say "here is the good side of this evil on me, so the evil is not so bad," but rather "even though this evil is bad, God has granted me a goodness in spite of it." That is my prayer.

Acknowledging the Power of Godliness

I started today in Matthew 5:43-45. Jesus sermonizes on Leviticus 19:18, " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD." The message here was presumably that people had taken the law to mean you only had to be loving to your neighbor, but you could hate your enemy, which Jesus rebuked as being against the spirit of the law.

But, I wanted to go back and look at the original verse. I was again blown away by some of the laws and words from God in Leviticus. There are so many precepts that we use to inform our lives about what is "good" from the Law. Which reminded me of these verses from 2 Timothy 3: " 1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."

The last verse is what keeps catching me, "having a form of godliness but denying its power." Looking through Leviticus 19, there are so many precepts that inform our lives and society today, but we have slowly and inexorably purged the power behind them, and have long since forgotten the imagery, the living metaphor of their meaning, from them. A few examples:

11 " 'Do not steal.
" 'Do not lie.
" 'Do not deceive one another.

12 " 'Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.13 " 'Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him.
" 'Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.
14 " 'Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD.
15 " 'Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
16 " 'Do not go about spreading slander among your people.
" 'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD.
17 " 'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
18 " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

We take so many of these for granted. Well of course we shouldn't curse the deaf! Of course justice should be impartial! But would we really know that, hold to that, if it had not been written down and passed down to us? I think we "deny its power" to say we just would have known this anyways. I think God needed to have the Israelites write these down because it wasn't the norm, it wasn't part of the standard of what was Good in those days. Already in our society we are losing the standard, and yet we have it written in front of us.