I learned from Ecclesiastes that seeking wealth is foolish. I also learned from proverbs that sitting on your butt is foolish. So I primarily work for works sake insuring that I will be able to enjoy rest in good conscience. Secondary is paying the bills. If you do work, that typically gets taken care of.
On the way home I felt like Jesus must have felt on the mount of transfiguration. Except I wasn't gleaming white and talking with Moses and Elijah, I was just getting off work on a Friday afternoon.
On the way home NOFX's Leaving Jesusland came on and that hurt my spirits. I typically dislike the people who are caricatures of Christianity and don't live it like we are told to, but just wear the Jersey on game day. I know that songs like this are about that guy. Doesn't really matter much though, because I know I am going to be thought of as that guy, and in a lot of ways me and that guy are the same. I don't abandon that guy. Even if that guy is messing it up for everyone, peeing in everyone's pool, I still care about that guy. In fact, my primary hope as an elder is to work with that guy. Then I start wishing I could just talk to Fat Mike about my beliefs and see if he still thought I was worth attacking. He probably would. My heart sincerely breaks for junk like that. And not just because I like NOFX. I mean, I was listening to Streetlight Manifesto radio on Pandora, and they would have a lot to say about the subject. They don't strike me as a-holes though. They are my favorite ska band.
Anyway, at home I recalled the possibly prophetic words of Lamech: Now he called his name Noah, saying, “This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.” Gen 5:29
Now, I know that Noah is famous for the ark and the flood. And maybe Lamech didn't know what he is talking about. Maybe the ground was worse before, and after Noah everything has been a bit easier because of some earth change or something. . . . Honestly, I am at least partially inclined to believe that this is a prophecy about Noah making Krunk juice. I know, calm down, that's hard to swallow. And maybe this isn't worth saying out loud, but derned if that theory isn't at least a bit compelling. Relax, we all still maintain that drunkenness is a sin (Eph 5:18)
Wait, look at this:
That is the worst and best depiction of drunk Noah being covered by two of his sons, I have ever seen. From the french in the 14th century I think.
Moving on, so because I wrote my main paper on Bible booze, I feel certain that drink is not a sin if you do not do it to excess. Drunkenness is like gluttony: Prov 23:20-21 "Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe one with rags."
Therefore I am perfectly capable in my fire refined conscience to appreciate good things from the Lord's hand, like a fine 1554, by New Belgium Brewing right out of Fort Collins, Colorado.
"Bless the Lord, O my soul!...
...He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the labor of man,
So that he may bring forth food from the earth,
And wine which makes man’s heart glad,
So that he may make his face glisten with oil,
And food which sustains man’s heart." Psalm 104:1a, 14-15
So, to sum up, this is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. It may start to suck in the future, but I am not in the future. I am in today. Now I think I am going to play video games. I just worked a full day, why should anyone object? Shabbat Shalom here in a little while!
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