I have a good feeling about the next three months. We are going to be so inundated with wisdom we won't know what to do with it all! I want to encourage everyone participating in the OT Poetry readings to PRAY for wisdom and understanding in your daily prayers. If we ask God for wisdom, He WILL give it to us! And what better time to ask than when we are studying this section of scripture?
Again, if you happen to miss a day or two of the reading for some reason, don't think you have to "catch back up" necessarily. This is especially true with the Proverbs reading, because we will be reading through Proverbs three times over the next three months. If you miss a reading this month, chances are very high you will not miss the same chapter in the next two months. Getting behind can get discouraging, so don't think you HAVE to read every bit of the daily readings to be "acceptable." If you missed a day or two, just pick back up with the schedule for today's reading. If you have more time, maybe you can go back AFTER you've completed today's reading and catch up a little. We don't have to prove ourselves to anyone - this reading is purely for our own spiritual growth, and we are helping each other as we ask questions and make comments about the readings.
Job is an amazing book. These first three chapters set the stage for the dialogue throughout the rest of the book. We get the "behind the scenes" story that Job doesn't get. We know Satan is behind everything. We know God allowed Satan to do this. We know there was a battle being faught in heaven. But Job was not privy to any of this information. All he knew was his whole life crashed down around his ears. All he saw was death and destruction of all his family and property. How will Job react? What will he do? What will he say? What will his friends say to cheer him up and make things better?
Job 3 is actually a lot like what we might expect from someone going through this kind of severe emotional stress. He says, basically, "I wish I was never born! Why didn't I die at birth? That would have been better than this!"
Ouch. I look forward to seeing how this story goes...