But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
Job 16:5 (NIV)
| Running
that Doesn't Spill by Cathy Vinson |
How fast and sloppily can we walk without spilling our drink? We usually are hurried enough to want to press this to the limit. We want to get there fast, but we don't want to spill. Why don't we like spillage? Partly because it means waste. And waste is particularly hard to bear when it is our life's labours, hopes, juices we see going down the drain. "Drink...running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the street, your streams in the public squares?" (Prov 5:15-16) And what about God's new wine in ministry? Waste here is the most grievous. It is spilled Life..."the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined" (Mt 9:17). The wine will run, but it will run out! And "certain men" of Jude apparently spill what opportunity they have in their greedy rush (ekchunno=out+run) with pockets sloshing for glory, honor, and riches not entitled to them. But there are other types of running that don't require running out, spilling, losing. It is the joy and enthusiasm of those experiencing the One like none other. They ran. They gathered. They ran in response to the opportunity Jesus meant for the moment. They ran to (Mk 9:5) they saw, "wondered and ran to greet." They ran about (6:55) "ran throughout the whole region carrying the sick" to Jesus. They ran together (6:33) seeing Jesus leave "ran together on foot from all the towns." They ran together again (9:25) "ran together again" to see Jesus' exorcism of the demon. Life often seems to require a run, and a running pace. Let's take that run for what gathers and contains without spillage. For why "should your streams overflow in the public squares" and only go down the drain? |
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| "they
ran greedily after the the error of Balaam for reward" (Jude 11)
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