920: Wisdom for Our Whirlwinds

Wisdom for Our Whirlwinds Handout

Ladies, it is a privilege to stand before you today. You are witnessing the evidence and work of God to make me speak. It has been a journey and since I only have about 30 minutes, I’ll only be sharing a part of it. About a week after Hope asked if I’d share, I was sitting on my couch with one of my Bibles taking candid shots. I wanted a picture with my eyes fixated on the Word. On one take I decided to open it and upon a random flip, my eyes landed right at Job 28. The subtitle listed by this chapter is called A Hymn to Wisdom. As I started reading, I found the words silver and gold; and had recalled Hope mentioning the theme of this gathering had something to do with these two words. I couldn’t wait to see her again so I could ask her what the passage was exactly. To my surprise the theme passage was about all three words I had found in the text – silver, gold, and wisdom. I share this with you because as I was praying over what part of my story I would share with you today, the Lord was going ahead of me to bring me back to a book of the Bible I had found much comfort in during a difficult trial in my life. But it was much more than a book – it was the wisdom of God who thought it necessary to include in His canon, these pages, this story, of a man who had endured unimaginable trial and grief just so I could make it through mine.

I’ll start by telling you what led me years ago to not by happenstance open the book of Job, but to intentionally pour through these pages because in them I thought there might be hope.

I knew something was wrong in my marriage and had been for a while. It would take me some time before I fully knew the depth, but I remember the day my eyes were first opened to the reality that things were not well. An afternoon sky and perfect for walking weather had greeted me and [my husband at the time] as we strolled around the statehouse in downtown Columbia. He was slowly going somewhere in conversation and then made my heart take a full pause when he said, “I don’t know if I want to be married anymore.” Thoughts raced as my heart sank – he can’t be serious, surely this can be fixed.

We had only been married for about a year at the time and already the dread I felt the morning after our wedding was revisiting me, as it had [many times over] in our relationship before. I left that sidewalk saddened, burdened, and worried about what life was going to look like in the days ahead. I remembered a couple who had walked through something similar and a book they had written, “I Said I Do But Now I Don’t.” I began a journey through an online community with other wearied yet hopeful spouses that God could turn our marriages around as He had theirs.

For the sake of time, I’m going to fast forward you from March 2017 to the eve of Thanksgiving later that year. I was exhausted from more than just the day and decided to climb into bed a little early. We had decided that we would travel to Charleston to spend the following day with my dad’s side of the family. Only I didn’t know we’d never make it. Not long after, I turned over and felt a dip in the bed and a tap on my shoulder. It was my husband. I sat up and looked at him as he brought forth words that would forever change the course of our lives.

Interestingly enough, God had shown me a passage in Job the week prior and I had read it to him. I asked my husband if anything resonated with him; he had told me no. But tonight, he was letting me know something had. Job 18:5 reads, “The lamp of the wicked man is snuffed out; the flame of his fire stops burning.” I had read this verse and all the verses after to him, and though he denied it that first night, the Lord would not let those words escape his memory. So, on our bed he told me that had gone back to them, to read them over again. And on the eve of Thanksgiving, with a sullen face he looked at me and said, “I am the wicked man. I have been having an affair, and she’s two months pregnant.”

These would not be the last words he’d speak that would about knock the wind out of me. There was “I don’t know; I haven’t decided. I may be with her.” “I love her.” “I may move out.” “I am moving out.” And in answering if he was going to name his first child the name we had decided to name ours if the child was a boy, “Yes.” These discoveries didn’t happen all in one moment, but they felt like an endless tide that refused to let me get up to catch my breath before it’d beat me back under again. I was a couple of months into this new uncertain normal called my life, and I was drowning in grief.

I remember climbing into our king size bed, reaching for my Bible, and opening it to the book of Job. Before long I could barely read the words as my tears wet my eyes and the pages. And though my soul was consumed with a weight I felt I could no longer bear, in that moment I was exceedingly grateful. I was exceedingly grateful for Job. I was exceedingly grateful for Yahweh having trusted him to walk through his trial. And I was exceedingly grateful that God had entrusted his story to be written through faithful hands so that I could now read it. As I read those words and recounted the story I had heard many times sitting on someone’s pew and chair, my anguished and strained voice began to utter these three words: “Job gets it. Job gets it.”

I want to walk you through this text, so you can see why in only reading the first nineteen verses I felt like Job got it. If you have your Bibles, turn or click with me to the book of Job.

At the start of the book we’re introduced to a man who the Lord said was blameless and upright. No fault could be found in his conduct or character in the sight of God. He was wealthy in many ways – his faith was rich, his fields were overflowing, and his table was full as with olive shoots around it. The text said he feared God and shunned evil. He owned three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a large number of servants. And he had fathered seven sons and three daughters. Job’s life was full. He had much. Like Job, I had had my own brand of richness. I was a wife. I had a husband. And a spacious home for two. And like Job, my faith would be tested when my precious things were touched.

Satan appeared before the Lord and declared that Job only loved and worshiped God because of Job’s great wealth and the hedge of protection God had placed around him and all his stuff. And so, the Lord releases Satan to test Job’s devotion to which we hear this account. Picking up in chapter 1, verse 13, the text reads,

“One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” (Job 1:12-19 NIV)

Like the wave of news that kept being revealed in my marriage, thousands of years prior, Job was in one breath experiencing the thrush of crashing waters upon His soul. Again and again. Job gets it. 

This pounding did not cease. Let’s look at Job 2 where Satan returns to question Job’s integrity and faithfulness to the Lord. Beginning at verse 1:

“On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” (Job 2:1-13)

Dear sister, I know not what has struck you. What has pained your heart. What has devastated your life. And perhaps you feel all alone. That you have been forsaken. Forgotten. Left famished with no sustenance for your wounds. And that not only by man, but God. And you have questioned whether life is worth living anymore. Going on any more. Fighting, any more. 

Job’s friends got a front row seat to just how great his suffering was. And we get it retold to us as in an autobiography:

““Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life! Then I would still have this consolation— my joy in unrelenting pain— that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.” (Job 6:8-10 NIV)

• “Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired laborer waiting to be paid, so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.” (Job 7:2-4 NIV) 

• “Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.” (Job 7:7 NIV)

Sister, do you consider the brevity and futility of your life? Are your hopes shattered never to be resurrected? I’m here to tell you – Job gets it. 

• ““If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales! It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas— no wonder my words have been impetuous.” (Job 6:2-3b NIV)

• ““Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 7:11 NIV)

• ““I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1 NIV)

Sister, is your spirit anguished? Is your soul embittered? Job gets it.

I understood Job when he said, “For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.” (Job 3:24 NIV). Thanksgiving for me and many days after were as David described in the Psalms: “My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’” (42:3)

And as Job ate his tears, he utters, “‘What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.’” (Job 3:25-26 NIV).

I was Job. What I feared had come upon me too. That I would divorce and that my husband’s love would be taken from me. What he feared had come upon him — that he would somehow become like the father he hated. And as he saw me crippled in devastation with a sea of household items covering every inch of our floor I had thrown there, he hung his head in the greatest defeat and muttered that he had become just like his dad. That he may have not put his hands on me but that he had wounded my soul. And the enemy… the enemy laughed at us both. 

Sister, what do you do when the enemy is taunting you, mocking you, smirking at you, and as in a rhetorical question he thinks you cannot answer declares, “Where is your God now?” “Where is your God now?”

When life brings disappointment upon disappointment, defeat upon defeat, devastation upon devastation, and death upon death to whom or what do you turn to for comfort, for counsel, and for covering?

I want you to now pause and consider who and what have become your anchors and anesthesia in the midst of your storms.

When life brings disappointment upon disappointment, defeat upon defeat, devastation upon devastation, and death upon death to whom or what do you turn to for comfort, for counsel, and for covering?

I had a number and it would take Yahweh pruning me through this trial and many others after it to reveal to me that I was to find security and salvation in Him alone. God is not cruel though. He is in fact very close and knows intimately the challenges of walking in human flesh – after all He did it. Job not only gets it, but Jesus, Yeshua, He gets it too. And He shows us what is necessary so that we may also escape every temptation, bear up under every testing, and navigate through every winding trail.

Which leads me to the chapter I started with – Job 28. I want to start by reading the first eleven verses:

“Surely there is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the ground, and copper is smelted from ore. A miner puts an end to the darkness; he probes the deepest recesses for ore in the gloomy darkness. He cuts a shaft far from human habitation, in places unknown to those who walk above ground. Suspended far away from people, the miners swing back and forth. Food may come from the earth, but below the surface the earth is transformed as by fire. Its rocks are a source of lapis lazuli, containing flecks of gold. No bird of prey knows that path; no falcon’s eye has seen it. Proud beasts have never walked on it; no lion has ever prowled over it. The miner uses a flint tool and turns up ore from the root of the mountains. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eyes spot every treasure. He dams up the streams from flowing so that he may bring to light what is hidden.” (Job 28:1-11 CSB)

I have a question for you – What lengths and depths will you go to obtain the consolation of your soul and deepest desires? To these miners, rocks forged in fire under the earth were their greatest treasure. And they sought it with abandon to their own safety and comfort. The text said they dug beneath the earth – this was laborious work. It said they swung back and forth to reach what was hidden beneath the dirt – this was risk. The text said they traveled on paths others had not taken before – this was uncertainty and courage mixed together.

We will go to great lengths and depths to end our suffering and bleeding. But will we find an appropriate bandage there?

In Jeremiah 30, the Lord tells His people, Israel and Judah, that there is no cure for their wounds. That there is no one to care for their sores. That they have injuries that cannot be healed. But later in this chapter, He says to them, “For I will put a bandage upon thee, and from thy wounds, will I heal thee declareth Yahweh, because an outcast, they called thee, tis, Zion! who hath none to ask for her welfare” (Jeremiah 30:17 EBR).

When we are looking to be bandaged, it is critical that we consider what is a true cure, compass, and comfort. Job 28 tells us more than miners seek out treasures from the depth of the earth, God’s people should seek His wisdom on how to become whole again. Let’s read the remainder of that chapter:

“But where can wisdom be found, and where is understanding located? No one can know its value, since it cannot be found in the land of the living. The ocean depths say, “It’s not in me,” while the sea declares, “I don’t have it.”  Gold cannot be exchanged for it, and silver cannot be weighed out for its price. Wisdom cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir (OH-fur), in precious onyx or lapis lazuli.  Gold and glass do not compare with it, and articles of fine gold cannot be exchanged for it.  Coral and quartz are not worth mentioning. The price of wisdom is beyond pearls. Topaz from Cush cannot compare with it, and it cannot be valued in pure gold. Where then does wisdom come from, and where is understanding located? It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing and concealed from the birds of the sky. Abaddon and Death say, “We have heard news of it with our ears.” But God understands the way to wisdom, and he knows its location. For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.

When God fixed the weight of the wind and distributed the water by measure, when he established a limit for the rain and a path for the lightning, he considered wisdom and evaluated it; he established it and examined it. He said to mankind, “The fear of the Lord — that is wisdom. And to turn from evil is understanding.”” (Job 28:12-28 CSB)

When we are wounded to the depths of our soul, it can be so tempting to find any source that will cease our suffering. But only God’s wisdom can do this. And only God’s wisdom teaches us to continue to fear Him – to not look for another god, to not seek to fulfill our brokenness with broken vessels. What I’m going to share with you is the wisdom God gave me during my great depression that eventually led me out with much rejoicing and much recompense.

These are the lessons Yahweh’s Wisdom taught me. That I would need…

1)    To Weep, to Wail, and to Worship

2)    A Warfare Battle Plan

3)    His Word and Wise Counsel

To Weep, Wail & Worship

I remember reading how Yahweh would call the women to wail, lament, and mourn. I had never truly known what those words meant until this season of my life. Dictionary.com defines it in action as to utter a prolonged, inarticulate, and mournful cry. Wail I did. So much so that I did not know if I would ever cease to, if there would ever be any comfort or cure for my wounds.

Job said, “‘When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions, so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning. “What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment? Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?’” (Job 7:13-19 NIV)

How Job felt about God is how I felt about Grief. It would be my constant companion all throughout the day. It would linger in the night and not let me sleep. I would have to cry and worship with tears and bellowed sounds until my body reached the point of exhaustion and I passed out. Yet faithful, Grief would wake me from my slumber with the sharpest of knife’s cut. I would have wished I was dreaming and this was only a nightmare – but it was my life. And there was no escape. 

And Job understood. He said, “Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away” (Job 16:6 NIV).

I remember the moment I thought I could not go on any longer. The pain was too much, rendering me inept to do anything – so I thought. I thought I might give up on this life and start another. I began packing all of my things and said that I will write my supervisor who had just hired me a few months prior and tell him, “Thank you for the opportunity, but I will not be returning.” But the Lord would not let me. He told me that I must learn how to work and weep at the same time. He was giving me an opportunity in the midst of my weeping and wailing to worship Him. And worship would look like wailing out songs in praise and petition. It would look like proclaiming His goodness when my soul and life did not feel good. And it would look like obeying and trusting paths and promises that didn’t look trustworthy and promising.

I held on to whens – when the Lord would change my circumstances, when the Lord would heal my husband and my marriage, when the Lord would turn my mourning into dancing and gladness. Such a promise was given to the people in Psalm 126, and I wrestled to believe with them:

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed (and these dreams were not nightmares). Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy. Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”

The Lord not only wanted me to weep from the wounds inflicted upon me but the wounds I had inflicted upon others. The wounds I had inflicted upon the Spirit of God within me, whom I had grieved. I had not only been sinned against, but I had sinned too. At the onset, me choosing this path into marriage was one without the wisdom of God. I refused the warning of God. And now this vessel I had chosen would become a whip to teach me there shall be no greater treasure than Yahweh’s wisdom. 

Still, the Lord was kind. He restored the fortunes I thought had been stolen. He filled my tongue with songs of great joy and rejoicing. He gave me seed and made it grow, so not only did my womb become fruitful but so did my soul.

The wisdom of God instructed me rather than to whip and wound myself and others, I should rather weep, wail, and worship Him.

A Warfare Battle Plan

Two months before my husband walked into our bedroom and uttered those unthinkable words, the Lord had given me one. He had taken me to the book of Hosea and shown me my fate before I knew what it was. I remember reading Hosea 2:2 and my text note from my study Bible: “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breast.” And the note from this verse said, “The marriage was broken by unfaithfulness, but reconciliation, not divorce, was sought” (NIV Study Bible © 1983). 

I remember scrambling to open my notebook where I had written these very words months prior to confirm with certainty that this is what my Lord was leading me to do. At first, I was confident. I believed that God could heal anything. But the weariness of my soul, the heaviness of my emotions, and the attacks from the enemy began to make me waver. I didn’t want to, God. But every time I thought I might thwart this assignment, He would gently remind me that I was to remain in this ship, though it looked like certain wreckage. So, what was I to do when at every turn, my mind was being bombarded with the facts and frailties of my life?

The wisdom of God told me if I was going to make it through this battle - this battle in my mind, this battle in my heart, this battle in my flesh, and this battle in my marriage, I was going to need strategy. I was going to need a battle plan for warfare. I was going to need not just knowledge but wisdom in skillfully applying what I knew about God, the enemy, and myself. After all, wars are not won with aimless wishfulness, but with pointed weaponry and work.

The first thing I wrote in my battle plan were words to keep my feet planted. I thought of specific scriptures the Lord had shown me over the course of the year and penned them.

Verses like, 2 Corinthians 5:16-20 which told me that God had given me a ministry of reconciliation. And that I was to be His ambassador, yielding my members so that He could make His appeal to a lost and dying world through me. Or 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 that cautioned that if I did not forgive and reaffirm love for my husband, he might be overcome with excessive sorrow, shame, and grief. In Isaiah 61, He announced that I was anointed to proclaim good news, that I could proclaim freedom to my husband who had been taken captive. He said this brokenness that I was feeling would one day help to bind others’ broken hearts. And that there remained for me comfort instead of mourning, a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of sadness, and a garment of praise instead of despair. Ephesians 6 declared my war not against my husband or the woman, but against principalities, authorities, and powers in the heavenly realms. 

When I had written my sword stabbing offensive strategy, I studied my enemy as he had been studying me. I wrote what his tactics and intentions were so that I understood his assignment and how he planned to accomplish it.

I reminded myself that he had come to kill, steal, and destroy. That he had come to make my faith falter. And that he would use his weaponry of craftiness, deception, seduction, manipulation, control, lies, pride, taunts, belittling, and accusations to do it.

Next, I considered my spouse’s and my weaknesses. The areas where we would be most vulnerable and susceptible to attack. Everything from innate desires like approval, acceptance, and security to besetting sins like doublemindedness, lust, and defiance.

From there, I had to deal with the lies and the facts. All day. All day I would be plagued with thoughts about my husband, our marriage, and this woman.

Thoughts like…

• He doesn’t love you.

• He would rather be with her and leave you.

• It would be easier if you left.

• You can’t take it anymore.

• This isn’t fair.

• You don’t deserve this.

• And you are stupid, foolish, and desperate.

And I couldn’t just wish these thoughts away. I had to fight with something that was bigger than any lie or fact. I had to fight with truth. So, I wrote down every thought that was bludgeoning me and then I found truths about God and from Scripture that I could use in my defense.

Lastly, I wrote out proclamations that were really prayers for what I was longing for God to do in my soul and relationships that had been torn and tattered.

Prayers like…

• I release resentment, jealousy, and frustration from every “other woman” in my husband’s life.

• Enemy you are exposed. I know your plot, your schemes, and your spirits of operation. And you can no longer hang your guilt, shame, and fear over me and my spouse.

• Every spirit not like the Lord my God must leave my marriage and home now.

• I am a Water Walker, Yoke Destroyer, and Demon Chaser. I am my husband’s Armor Bearer.

• And countless prayers, for countless people, and count offenses – I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive.

  
  

I would read and pray through this battle plan often. I would reach for it, every time the enemy struck and made me want to shrink back in fear, humiliation, and defeat.

The wisdom of God taught me that I must have a strategy to make it through my storm.

His Word and Wise Counsel

Though I am ending here, it is really where I started. One of the most pivotal armaments I needed in this battle was God’s Word and wise counsel. We never appreciate a thing as much, until it becomes the sustenance for our next breath. That is what Yahweh’s presence was to me. I would fly there every moment I got because I needed air to breathe, I needed hope in darkness, and I needed application to know what to do next. This is how you obtain wisdom: You get in His presence. You cling to His Word. You rely upon His Spirit, who is your Counselor and Strength.

Not only do you get in God’s presence but you open your eyes to see His provision and presence among His people. The Lord was faithful to send me sister after sister, and a few brothers too, who carried His counsel upon their lips. They were confidants, holding closely my tears and tirades. They were encouragers and exhorters when I needed guidance and gumption to continue standing for my husband, my marriage, and my testimony.  

I remember the words that came out of my mouth after my husband shared his: “I am the wicked man. I have been having an affair, and she’s two months pregnant.” There was only a brief pause and then I spoke, “I love you, I forgive you, and I still want our marriage.”

If I had not been with God, anchoring myself in His Word, being guided on by His people and wisdom, and being conformed and convicted by His Spirit, surely this would not have been my response. When I was sharing my story with a girlfriend, she said that my reply to my husband’s news is nothing how the world would have responded, how she would have reacted. She said, instead, the world would have said, “I hate you, I will never forgive you, and I want a divorce.”

Her words hit me deeply because I had never considered how drastically different the world would have counseled me from the way God did. How the world would have taken my wounds and made them grenades to launch an attack in portion to the size that my husband’s actions had just blown up my world. As I was writing this, tears began to well up in my eyes because I was overwhelmed by the enormity of God’s love. His power. His ability to transform a soul - mine. I cried because that could have been my reality. My heart posture. I could still be tied up with bitterness and brokenness, but Christ has set me free. My testimony, Yahweh’s testimony through and in me is that I have a beautiful coparenting relationship with my ex-husband. I love him as a brother in Christ. I have forgiven him from the depths of my soul and his sins are now under the waves of my sea of forgetfulness. And it is not that I have forgotten what he’s done. It is that what he has done is no longer suffocating the life, the joy, and the hope out of me. And I’m grateful. I’m. Ever. So. Grateful. Scripture wasn’t just words on a page. They were lived and breathed. I knew that if the Son, who is the Word, which is the wisdom of God, set me free, I would be free indeed. I want to leave you with these final words. Sisters, there are many treasures we can obtain in this life. There are shiny things and glittering things that our eyes and souls cherish. Even good things. Even God-given things. But may the greatest treasure of all, may our greatest pursuit and mining be for God’s gold, Wisdom. Wisdom that teaches us to shun evil and fear God. Wisdom that produces a product and proclamation like the one of our forerunner, Job:

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread” (Job 23:10-12).