Job 8:17
About a rock pile, its roots entwine,
Clothing a house of stone.
(Written 5/25, Posted 5/31)
Since I have work again, I am struggling to arrange my old tasks in among the new. It is not that my old tasks took forever and I cannot find the time. It is that my new tasks demand so much energy that I neglect to do the old. My vision for this verse is of an old pile of rocks and an old house of stone. Nothing is done to keep the plant from taking over and over time it covers everything.
“About a rock pile” was also “around the stone/rock heap”(6) and “round a knoll”. The knoll did not give the image of rocks to me, and the heap seemed restricted to manmade piles. “Entwine”(4) was also “wrap”(2), “tangle”, and “twist”. I just liked entwine better.
The second stitch had a much wider variety of options.
- Live among the rocks.
- Look for a place among the stones
- Take hold of a house of stones
- Cuts through a bed of rocks
- Cloth a house of stone
All of these are true, but I felt the context was too strong for live or look, too passive for take hold of, and too weak for cuts through the bedrock. I also liked the image of a house covered in a thriving vine as opposed to the fragile spider web.
I have been using both a list of things to do each day and a list of things to do today to help me overcome some of my weaknesses and be the person I want to be. Beyond the consistent reminder of failure, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the length. The dilemma is that I have chosen these things as what I want to do. My quandary is the amount of time I think the long list will take verses the short amount of time each could or should take, especially if done in the envisioned order.
Some items are habits like waking up and praying. Others are not, like writing these blogs. I had thoughts yesterday of loosening my timelines on these goals. But at the same time, I wondered if that was letting the grass grow rather than trimming it back. Is the right plan to finish Job by a certain date or is just having it as a near daily activity enough? I go back to the lighted path of yesterday. I think the time constraint is a product of the world and its sin nature of achieving for self. My goal is to be a better Christian and servant and there need be no time limit on how that works itself out as long as it is being worked out for the right reasons. So plan, but do not fall into the trap of placing God’s work in you on a deadline.