Job 19:9

He has stripped me of my glory,

   Taken the crown from my head.

 

This morning, I had an impromptu meeting with our new adult minister. He used to be the children’s minister a long time ago. His real appointment was a no show. So now I get to help my accountability partner lead a class next Spring. Looking forward to it and love how God works these things out.

‘Glory’ was also ‘honor’ or ‘dignity’.

‘Taken’ was also ‘removed’.

At the end of the meeting, he asked me if I cared if my name appeared on any literature. I laughed internally because the printer hates to change things, and I am sure the literature has already gone to the printer. I thought of a line I recently quoted by who I reference as the new martyr in my brain, “It was never about me.” I am happy to do whatever serves God for his glory and have no issues with my name being included. People don’t come to class because of me as we found out a long time ago.

When I was at BP, people talked to me about doing stuff that would raise my profile in industry, and I happily followed along as it was part of the job. I lost all that influence when I left BP, so it did me personally no good. I always tried to do my job well and assume that would be good enough for my purposes. As it turns out, God was responsible for all the good in my career, so seeking my own glory was never really a train of thought.

My father-in-law is 92 and all the renown he had for being good at golf has long since passed. Not that he wasn’t great, but all the people who it meant anything to are dead and gone. Younger people never seem to respect their elders no matter how good that were at anything. Thinking of him just reminds me of how futile worldly glory and honor are in comparison to what we do for Jesus. I am proud of the turnout at my mom’s funeral, but despite some self help book I read telling me to work around who I want at my funeral, I’m going to stick with trying to humble myself and serve the Lord.

Written 10/28/25, Posted 12/29/25, Job 439/~1070