Job 22:20

Saying, “Surely our enemies are cutoff,

   Their riches consumed by fire.”

I like to think of myself as a conserver. I probably developed this way as a combination of being relatively poor, learning from Scouts (as it used to be), and learning from the Bible (as it always was). One of the worst things I think someone can do is to destroy useful things. This verse about having your enemies’ riches consumed by fire goes against this paradigm of conserving.

‘Enemies’ was also ‘adversaries’, ‘foes’, or not used at all. ‘Cutoff’ was also ‘destroyed’ or ‘cut down’. Alternately, the options included ‘Our substance remains intact.’ which would seem to be so much different as to be ignored except for it came from two independent sources.

‘Riches’ was also ‘what is left’, ‘wealth’, and ‘remnant’. I would not be opposed to restating enemies to be the wicked and riches to remnant, but only if I did not know that the speaker was wrong in his opinion in the first place.

In many stories from history and fiction both, war leads to one side burning down all the resources of the other to win. My big problem with this is that the victor too is deprived of those resources. The phrase all is fair in love and war does not sit well with me. I know many wars are initiated by the wicked and beating wickedness justifies much, but becoming evil is not beating it.

One of my new theories based on the suggestion of my wife is to focus on three things a day. Two days in and I am a big fan as it has allowed me to focus and have success which keeps me from running off the rails. Exercise is my fourth thing, but it needs to be one of the two big rocks in each day until my health is where I need it to be. The other is avoiding food I need to avoid. I start that in earnest tomorrow as I just finished the last cookie I should not have bought.

I have found that fat, dumb, and happy is about as close to death as any of us really wants to be. I’ve lost 65 lbs from my peak, but I now need to build up some more muscle mass and lose a little more fat in the process. I think that those that wish their enemies to fall and their enemies resources to burn up have missed the point that our lives need to be based on our relationship to God, and that His will is that we love our enemies and wish for them to find salvation also.

Written 8/26/26, Posted 9/12/26, Job 539/~1070