intermittent streams

Job 6:14-17 "Anyone who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams, as the streams that overflow when darkened by thawing ice and swollen with melting snow, but that stop flowing in the dry season, and in the heat vanish from their channels.”

These verses from Job kind of scare me. They say that when I withhold kindness that’s the same as forsaking the fear of God. That can’t be! Maybe Job meant if a good friend directly asks for a kindness, then I’m compelled to do it. He surely can’t mean that I’m on the hook for any act of kindness I discern might be helpful to any old acquaintance!

Thoughts like that just show how out of sync I can be with God sometimes. I’m one of those goal-oriented guys that too often see people as interruptions. I like the idea of serving others, but it just doesn’t work out well with my schedule and plans most of the time. It’s so inconvenient.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be like Job’s friends, those brothers he says are as undependable as intermittent streams. That kind of stream is dry when most needed, and only runs with water when the rest of the world is wet too.

Most of the time when I try to find the boundaries of a command from God, I learn in the end that the fact that I’m looking for the place where I’m relieved of responsibility shows I just don’t get it in the first place. God’s generous Spirit didn’t dictate a lot of fine print. Most of these things are simply stated because that’s all there is to it.

So today I read from Job that a good Christ-follower won’t withhold his kindnesses. The more I look for loopholes, the less like Christ I really am. The more like Christ I become, the less I’ll care about the loopholes.