Do you know the verse??

This in itself is not altogether accurate, at least for me, in this life ...don't we all seem to want just about everything.

Who among us could truthfully say, "I shall not want." ???

We want some things more than other things, of course.  And we tend to have slight variations on what each of us perhaps want more of.

What I want ...is to list the entire verse, then make a quick point, before moving onto another point that I want to make.

Back to the verse ...if you don't know it, it is the first line in the 23rd Psalm, and I wouldn't want to take it out of context, so here it is:  "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."

Isn't it sort of saying that in certain ways we are like sheep??

We can get into danger at any moment ...and often there is no way we ourselves can do anything to really avoid it.  We have to trust the one who seems to know what's going on ...the Shepherd.

In short, what we think we want, we may not really want ...because there is so much we don't know.

The Book before Psalms ...is Job.

The toughest time that Job perhaps ever had, aside from losing his children ...was listening to his acquaintances.  They had many points, but they were just like sheep also.

The Lord speaks to Job after it seems the others had exhausted themselves with their wise speech. (They probably had much more to say, but I'm sure Job was exhausted from it.)

The Lord waited until Job heard what they had to say, and a bit of muttering from himself ...then the Lord spoke to Job in Chapter 38.

But, we get a picture of what was going on ...early on, by reading the first couple Chapters.  Specific events are described, and a discourse takes place to clearly show us why those events were taking place.

I see sort of a correlation, or parallel ...of sorts.  That is, between what happened to Job, and what happened to Adam & Eve.  The big difference is that ...what happened to Job wasn't a direct consequence of what Job had done wrong, but rather was seemingly a result of what he did right.  And on the other hand, Adam & Eve quickly understood that they did something wrong ...and attempted to hide.

But, the thing we see in both ...is that Satan is limited in what he can do.  With Job, it clearly shows that Satan needed God's permission ...and there were limitations, or restrictions.  And with Adam & Eve ...it is clear what their restriction was, though it is not clear what Satan's was. 

The Garden of Eden was a paradise of sorts ...and clearly Adam was given the restriction of not eating the fruit of one solitary tree.  It doesn't say that God told Eve not to eat the fruit, but I can't imagine that Adam did not tell her.  And she knew somehow, as we can see by the way she answered the serpent.

The serpent could have been told he was restricted from attempting con Adam ...but, we don't really know that, though it would make sense why he'd go to Eve instead (possibly the only option allowed).

But, back to Job ...it was clearly stated that he had a hedge of protection around him.  And Satan needed permission to mess with him.  So, when we read that ...do we wonder if some people today have a hedge of protection??  And it may bring a bit of jealousy if we thought they did.

I used to read Walt Disney comic books.  Donald Duck was one of the main characters ...but, there was another duck named Gladstone Gander, who seemed to always get all the breaks. And he didn't seem to be a very likeable character.  Though most of us would probably be very happy getting all the breaks, other people may not like us very much ...and worse yet, they may wonder if God likes one person more than another, and why??

Some people mention that they have a guardian angel ...preventing bad things from happening to them.  If something happened similar to what happened to Job, I wonder what they'd think??

Other people claim to be sort of the deist variation.  They believe in God (as Creator, or Supreme Being of some sort), but they kind of believe in a lack of interest after that point.

I absolutely believe not only in prayer, but that God hears all our prayers.  But, I also believe that it rains on the just, and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45)  If God answered all our prayers just like we wanted, the wisdom we lack could cause unhealthy living for many people ...or we'd already be in Heaven, as what would be the point of still living here??

(More on this later ...as there was one more point I wanted to make, but it escapes me.

I'll go on to another subject ...in hopes it will come back to me.

What is important??

1. That we know God loves us.
2. That we follow the Golden Rule ...and be nice to others.
3. That we tell God (in prayer) that we love Him.

Accurately representing God has always been crucial, as it is this upon which we will be judged ...as we choose to accept Him, or not, for who He is.

In accepting Him, we will also naturally achieve to some degree the three points above ...but, not even close could we ever to perfection.

We look to Jesus for that perfection ...as He not only represents God, but is God, and also embodied that awesome love while coming as man to be crucified for our sake.

He gave us life through His death.

Though He was also resurrected.

                  *******************************

Addressing some of the points in reference to how some people view God ...they often look to view the Old Testament as outdated, and that Jesus has a much different outlook for our lives.  Being nice to everyone is viewed as the only way ...sort of like Josh McDowell's book, The New Tolerance, describes. He, of course, disagrees with the new way.  And as he describes, the new tolerance is actually rather selectively intolerant.

Would we also be tolerant to Satan??

I read that the TV show named, Lucifer, depicts him as getting bored with Hell ...and he comes to earth, being then attracted to a nice person.  Does this niceness, in itself, suffice??  Yes, we want all who are lacking in good ...to change and become better persons.  But, it is not as simple as that.

There are those whom we say, are nice, but the intellects of society claim that circumstances & environment have changed them for the worse.  Would we give them as much slack in our determination ...likely viewing them to have more good in them than bad.  And not knowing whether bad will turn good, or good turn bad ...isn't that creating a rather unstable environment??

If we were to live for eternity, and I believe we will, would we want that eternity to be just like things on earth are now??

And if you think you have it somewhat good ...would you randomly trade places with someone else??

I would suggest that we put God in a place, in our heart, that is our daily focus.