Exhaustive

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it." Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?" - Job 1:6-8

30 seconds to read, 6 hours of discussion. I wish my buddy Luke read my blogs he would be the first to attest to the LATE night we spent going over these 3 versus in the middle of the Bible. My studies that night quickly brought me to the conclusion that Satan is under our feet. The funny part is that I already knew that. However, his reason for existence surprised the heck out of me and has, 7 years later continued to unfold in my mind. So 3 versus, 6 hours, 7 years of peeled back layers going about as deep as the mind will allow. Let me explain...

Have you ever taken 5 minutes just to try and fathom a God that has no beginning? The fact that he has no end is daunting enough, but seriously think about no creator for a creator. Infinitely existing both in the past and the future. Deep right? When you break it down, the only way to try to come to grasp with it is to understand that time itself was created. God doesn't work in the parameters of time he is outside of it. Even the "Matrix" couldn't go that deep. Now to get back on track, in my peeling back the layers of Satan and trying to understand that throughout my upbringing in the church I was told that Satan could never come before God after the fall, how on earth was he upstairs having this conversation before the throne of God? Well, it's easy really. Satan is defined in Websters dictionary as, "adversary" other translations say "opposition." All those hard times, trials, tribulation... we think of those situations as evil and they have nothing but a negative condentation. The truth is we need these stumbling blocks in our lives. Ezekiel 3:20 says, "When a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I (God) lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die." In Jude 1:24, Jude says, "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be Glory and Majesty,dominion and power, both now and forever."

Satan was and is used by God as a stumbling block; God's adversary and opposition to bring true love out of us. It had to happen this way. His plan is so infinitely perfect that we fail to grasp the length he had to go just to conceive love within his children. First we are tempted to sin, then we have a choice to partake or to abstain, by abstaining we defeat the enemy and show God that a Father's will is our will too. When my earthly father set a curfew for me when I was younger and I came home on time, I know my dad felt love in that moment rather than disappointment by me knowingly disobeying him. It is the same with God, these "stumbling blocks" are here to refine us and furthermore when we are obedient to his word we are showing God that we are irrevocably in love with him.

I get a kick out of my posts, mainly because of the tangents. I could literally write 15,000 words on these 3 versus and not even scratch the surface. My point is this... The Bible can be read in 77 hours, cover to cover. But even with some of the books in the Bible being written several thousand years ago and theologians, Pharisees, priests, pastors, evangelists, scientists, presidents, fathers, and the billions of other people who have read the bible... we still have not unlocked even half of what God laid out through his word.

This book was not created for your entertainment, it was not professed by men who later became martyrs due to their "spreading of the gospel", to be your instruction manual. This book was carefully pieced together to give POWER, AUTHORITY, and show example after example of God's perfect and infinitely beautiful LOVE though his many sacrifices.

Don't sunshine on my rain!

They should have a warning label on the "blogger" homepage that reads, "Please do not post a blog when under the influence of an emotional ... whatever."

With that said, I am planning on breaking the rules with this post.

I am reminded of the movie Family Man, one of my wife's favorites. Without asking her, I can pretty much guarantee the reason for the facination is based off of 3 lines... Kate, "How can you do that?" Jack, "What?" Kate, "Look at me like you haven't seen me everyday for the last 13 years." It is brilliant writing because they don't offend the audience in anyway. The fact is that the writers want to show that in a 13 year marriage things get very mundane. They also want to tickle the emotions of a woman by showing that this man is looking at his wife like he just walked into Bass Pro Shops with a $10,000 gift card. We all know that it was a fluke and that he was, in his reality on day 2 of their marriage, but it still feels good to be loved like that, fluke or not.


Now from a man's point of view I can tell you that things aren't much different for us. We too would always like to remain the trophy husbands. We are not stupid. We know that we have gained weight, that our libido is comparable to a steam run locomotive, still working but inefficient, and that the tv remote is now considered a body part. But with all that said, we still need you to look at us like we are the all too revealing Jacob in the Twilight movies. Most husbands out there would agree, our wives aren't oowing and awing at us. We know that there will always be someone cuter, stronger, or more Jacob-like than us, but we never want you to be the one to point it out. We want to be your Sean Connery, better with age, as my mom always says.

So ladies, make us feel like Kate. Look at us like every other man out there is disgusting and homeless looking and God gave you the only handsome man in the world. Use phrases to your girlfriends like, "well he's ok", "hopefully he has a good personality", or "from a distance and with my eyes close he looks alright", when refering to other men. This at least will keep coal in our steam engines and keep us pushing toward a blissful marriage.