Job 15:17
I will tell you – listen to me;
What I have seen, I will declare.
Every so often, I wonder if my teachers and classmates would think that I had lived up to the potential they saw in me as a child. As much as my nature wanted more and better and fame, I have rarely taken steps to get rich quick or become known. I seem to have a worthwhile imagination, and I could imagine being the richest person in the world, or when I was really young, ruling it. About the only aspect of my life that I would want to be more notable is this blog, but only so that others could learn about Christ.
‘Tell’ was also ‘show’, ‘explain’, ‘hold forth’, and ‘declare’. ‘Listen’ was also ‘hear’ and ‘pay attention’.
‘What I have seen’ was once ‘what was revealed to me’. ‘Declare’ was also ‘recount’, ‘speak’, and ‘tell’.
When I first looked at twitter, it was to get a baseball card I could get no where else. I eventually found twitter so filthy, I stopped looking at it. Looking back, I was amazed it took me so long. I must admit that the perception that X has made it worse has negatively impacted by opinion of Elon Musk, and now Donald Trump. I know twitter/X has some utility in the world that no place else does, but apparently, I can live without it.
When I first used Facebook, it was to catch up with friends and family. I eventually found it so not-user friendly that I was only seeing updates that I had no interest in and I stopped using it. I do miss updates on my family and only use it to look at my sisters’ posts, but I know I am missing out on some baseball cards and opportunities to sell or reach others. In the end, I want to live without it and except for my sisters I would have ditched it and WhatsApp a long time ago. I still haven’t figured out Instagram.
When I look at this verse, I picked the words because of my opinion of the speaker. If I were to use a similar phrase for myself, I would have something more like this. “I will explain to you, listen to me; What has been revealed to me, I shall declare.” The idea is that when I am in sharing mode, I am trying to let God speak through me and not trying to take a position of higher authority. There are a lot of things in this world that I know about, some more than others, and sometimes I do actually know something that is more right than what others think. But after one has failed as miserably as I have so often, it should be easy to be humble. In this, we should seek to teach from a position of humility.
Written 12/19/24, Posted 2/6/25, Job 354