Iron & Altar

"I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you." - Job 42:5

Brother, this is the sentence the prelude has been walking toward. Job spent most of the book arguing with what he had heard. His friends had a theology. He had a complaint. Then God spoke, and Job said what he had never said before. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you.

Everything entrusted to you was entrusted by someone you know only partly. A steward may go decades managing a household, a business, or a ministry on the strength of what he has heard about the owner. Some of it came from his father, some from a pastor, some from a book. It is good and it is secondhand. Job's word for that is word of mouth.

Seeing changes what a man does. Job repents in dust and ashes at the moment he sees, and no accusation moved him to it. A man who has seen the owner does not need to be told how to treat what was lent to him. He handles it differently.

The card in your pocket this week was a small way of noticing what you have already seen. Today is the last of them. Tonight write the third place you saw God act. On Sunday the Church opens the vineyard, and the question turns to what was planted in you before you did anything. You will do that examination better if you begin by knowing what you have witnessed with your own eyes.

Add the third card entry tonight: one more place you saw God act, with the year and one sentence. Read all three aloud once. Then tell one other man which of the three you had never told anyone.

Lord, I have lived on what I heard about you. Show me what I have seen, and let it change how I handle what you have entrusted to me. Amen.