Mamma Rush

My good friend Greg Rush related that in his youth his Mamma would use a verse from the book of Job to get the kids’ attention (all 12 of them). Her desire was to straighten out wayward thinking or attitudes and to remind them she had the power to make it happen. Mamma Rush would declare, “Nekked you came into this world and Nekked you will leave it.”

He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!” Job 1:21 

Job is reminding himself, as well as us, that all that we have been given is from God’s hands. And at times, God seemingly takes back that which he has entrusted to us. And that stings. Whether the death of a loved one or a friend or a child, the pain of a divorce or breakup, the loss of a career or your home, our human response is that this is unjust, unfair, unnecessary and definitely unexpected. The pain causes us to focus often on the loss, or the lack, of what was “taken”. We feel cheated, uncovered and unloved. 

But we read here Job’s perspective that he recognized it was God’s to give and God’s to remove. Jesus said it this way: “Freely you have received. Freely give.” May we choose to live with a heart posture and attitude of “conduit living.” What I mean by “conduit living” is that we receive these many gifts from God on one side and let them flow out the other side, to him first and then to others. And if for whatever reason he chooses to remove or take back a gift, then we would give it freely back to him. We would refuse to see it as “taken” from us, which shows improper ownership. We should fight off the stinginess, and find our attitude to be one of letting it go back to him freely, for he is up to something better. So that we could say: Praise the Lord!