In our Free Store conversation on Tuesday morning we talked about two of the great characters in the Bible: Jacob and Job. We like to say that characters are welcome around here and we love the wonderfully diverse group of friends that form our community.
We started by talking about Jacob and how his name means "heel-grabber." We considered how our names can shape us and how unfortunate it is to be labelled in such a negative way. Someone mentioned an old Johnny Cash song about a "Boy Named Sue" which made us laugh. As we continued our discussion we focused on the part of the story in Jacob's life where he was running for his life from his brother Esau. In the story Jacob basically says that "if" God will protect him and give him food and shelter that "then" he would serve God. We all agreed that this was a very common way to relate to each other and to God. If you scratch my back I'll scratch yours is a pretty nice arrangement after all. We talked a bit about how relationships of mutual support and concern are vital to our well-being.
At this point one of our friends told us about a family member that told her he wished a certain person would die. And although she could sympathize with the feeling she encouraged him to be more accepting of the other person even though that person could be very nasty and hurtful. This story sort of emphasized how the you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours approach to relationships has its limits. Someone said that it gives the other person too much power. Since we will only treat people like they treat us we are simply responding to others. This means that we become reactive rather than proactive in our relationships. We agreed that it is not good to give others that much power over our lives. Another friend said it was important to love others even if they didn't love us back but that doesn't mean we have to like them which made us laugh.
This led us to talk about Job who is another of the great characters in the bible. We talked about how Job pretty much lost everything he had, including all of his children. Someone said that Job was a bit of a whiner but that he actually had a lot to whine about. But rather than give up on God because of all the crap in his life Job stubbornly kept trusting in spite of the negative cirumstances. This led a few of our friends to talk about some of the challenges they were facing in their lives that required a subborn faith. We agreed that it is relatively easy to trust God when things are good but that when things go bad it is difficult. Joelle said that is when we start asking, "Why me?"
One of our new friends shared how she was in danger of losing her house and that she was feeling very fearful about this. But that she was glad she had joined us because it helped her to get out and be around other people rather than sitting around whining about her circumstances. Our friend Terrence told us how nice it was to be involved in a service over the weekend in which his 9 year old son was recognized for some good things. Our friend Marney talked about having a good morning with her teenage son in spite of some of the challenges they are facing and that he was beginning to realize the importance of cooperating with her.
As our conversation came to a conlusion we felt encouraged that we could continue to learn better ways to relate to God and to one another.
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