… let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless— Job 31:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 10, 2012): Job 31

I have seen a number of battles inside the church. Part of the problem with a lot of church warfare is that there really isn’t someone at fault. I know that that isn’t the way that we come across, and in the heat of the moment we do throw enough blame around, but most of the combatants are really just trying to do what is right. And that is why the battles can be so fierce, and often so negative. These are the fights that we feel we have to win – and both sides feel that they are on the side of what is right and good.

As elections approach on both sides the United States – Canada border, I hear the same refrain. Both sides feel that they are in the right and that to go the way that the opposition seems to want to go is just so wrong. The fates of the nations hang in the balance of the decisions made on the political battle fields today.

And so it is often very easy to characterize the ones that we see leading the opposition charge as evil. They are the ones that are working against the purposes of God, or at least against the forces of good. And we want people to see that. A friend of mine remarked the other night about the lack of political signage on people’s lawns in his neighborhood. His exact words were “Wake up people!” Why don’t you recognize what is important?

I actually think that the problem might be something different. I know that we hear the rhetoric, but sometimes I wonder if we know what to believe. It isn’t that those who sit on the sidelines in any of these fights don’t understand what is at stake. It is that sometimes we don’t know where it is that truth resides.

As the conversation continues between Job and his friends, Job just wishes that there was a way to unveil the truth. If only God could weigh the words on scales that have not been tampered with and leave only what is true. (Actually, this is an interesting piece of foreshadowing because that is exactly what God is about to do.) But Job is sure that if God would only weigh his words and his actions, he would come out blameless.

It is still the difficult task of all who follow Christ to work at finding the truth. We are not to just to accept what it is that our culture wants us to believe, but rather, to be the revealers of all that is really true. And that task is not easy, but it is what our culture needs.

  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 32