Norfords' Ramblings

Monday June 8, 2009

I put on righteousness as my clothing. Job 29:14.

This all sounds very admirable, but if you look at the context, Job is lamenting his lowered status among men, where formerly his good deeds were the basis of his righteousness. As you may recall, much of Job is a defence against God’s apparently punitive action towards him based on his own righteousness. It is a defence that all of us make at one time or another—“how could God let this happen to me when I have been so faithful?” In fact, the unfairness of God is used as a common factor in general against the evil and suffering in this world of ours.

Actually it is a feeling I have now. Having put so much time and effort—and money!—into our new book, and sensing that God was calling us to do so, surely it is now his responsibility to ensure the book finds its market! Our faithfulness should ensure his response. Yet as Ann often points out, when we have done all we could Jesus still made the point that we “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10). We are still responsible to do what we can to ensure our book gets to market. And as I stated last time—that is not my bag!

You can probably sense my frustration in these words. I have more important things to do that running around Canada selling books—I write them! So the next few weeks are going to be a balancing act: working on that interfering promotion while trying to complete—and enjoy—writing this second book before a looming deadline.

I quote parts of two hymns in this book, but need to reference them. If you can give me references for the following it would help enormously.

No power of Hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from his hand.
Till he returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I stand.

and

Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.

If you can help here, please respond by the comment box below or to my email address:
bryannorford@shaw.ca.