(February 2001 Edition)
The following is a list of this month's articles.
Editorial - Surviving a Job Loss
Appeal - "Men and Brethern, What shall we do?"
Exhortation - At the Lord's Table - Lessons from Esther
Editorial
Surviving a Job Loss
When sister Emily noticed that the company she worked with started to lay off some technicians and refused to improve her salary, she updated her resume and applied to other places for a job. There are many more like Emily around right now. The advice is "Be aware of what’s going on where you work. Listen and watch the trends at your workplace."
Signs
Watch out for lack of support, exclusion from important meetings or new projects and
office rumours about potential mergers or layoffs. If the layoff is a surprise, use this
as an opportunity to be creative and begin an exciting new career.
Back to school
Sometimes there is nothing immediate. Don’t sit and mope. Instead do some more
studies to enhance your present qualifications. This may take a few months, and by
God’s grace a new job may be secured by then. People with positive attitudes who work
hard and who put their trust in God will come out on top.
Opportunity to pursue dreams
There was much frustration and complaining when the ancillary workers at a certain
school were told that their services would be terminated at the end of the term. It was
based on last come first go. However, after four or five months, those same people seemed
to have organized themselves in small businesses and so on. They pointed out that life had
improved. They had a stronger sense of self-worth, greater control of their careers, and
were pursuing dreams that offered personal satisfaction.
Emotional stages
Losing a job can cause shock, fear, anxiety, resistance, anger and blame, but after a
while acceptance and exploration. At this time, you really wonder if it’s really you
that is out of a job. Whatever am I going to do? How are the bills going to be taken care
of? There is the mortgage! The children have to go to school! And so on.
Some people become very depressed and sad. Others are disturbed mentally, emotionally, even physically.
The way forward
Acceptance and exploration are the way out. This is more positive. You go to God in
prayer. You begin to look forward and explore new possibilities. In order to get rid of
some of the stress at this time, you may need to exercise, meditate on positive things,
eat healthily (if you can afford the food!) and take enough rest. Talk and discuss the
problem with another brother or sister whom you trust, a friend or a relative. There is no
need to give up on yourself. Use the opportunity to prove your faith in God, the great
provider; He will bless your plans and let them work.
God does care
Many of us have had experiences when things are down and out, and just then we have to
smile and say, "Thank you, Lord, for your providing hands." God has a way of
sending help when you are in great need. In Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus reminds us that God
cares for the sparrows which are so insignificant and He will most certainly provide for
His people – if only we put our trust in Him. Have you ever tried to count the hairs
on your head? Maybe it seems impossible. Well, God knows the number of everybody’s
hairs! What a mighty God we serve!
So in case you are being laid off at your workplace, think of God caring for the lilies, the fowls of the air and the grass of the field, and He will surely care for you.
Gerzel Gordon
Editorial
"Men and Brethern, What shall we do?'
The issue we are about to raise is not a nice one, but the holy books of Judges and Ezekiel are not nice either. There is a heart cry of our Caribbean Christadelphians, especially of our sisters and interested women friends, one that can no longer be suppressed.
Statistics from the World Health Organization on the AIDS pandemic as it affects the Caribbean make chilling reading. At an ever-increasing rate, Christians and other religious people are being infected by unfaithful unbelieving partners with HIV, and are dying of AIDS. Women are estimated to outnumber men as active members of Caribbean churches, including the thirty or so Christadelphian ecclesias, by a ratio of five or six to one. So this threat falls most seriously on the wives and children of unbelieving and promiscuous men.
With unemployment rates in some Caribbean lands much higher than the worst years of the great depression in Europe and North America in the 1930s, the present economic desperation is shattering the biblical family – a married couple and their children cohabiting in the same household. Tens of thousands of migrant, casual workers prowl the hemisphere in search of some sort of gainful employment, however menial. Trained professionals from the islands are doing hedge clipping in Florida. Many pass through Belle Glade, Florida, dubbed the AIDS capital of the western hemisphere. Wives leave husbands and children behind in a frantic search for any kind of domestic work, geriatric nursing, janitorial jobs -- anything that can produce a few dollars to send home.
In a recent newspaper article, the director of a major medical institution in an advanced country boasted that his Jamaican and Guyanese nurses and nursing aides were "the finest in the world." But he expressed dismay that so many of them, after months or even years of lonely service, returned home only to be infected by a melange of STDs, including AIDS.
So it is that some of us face a terrible dilemma. The Scriptures counsel thus: "If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a [sister] has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy" (I Cor. 7:13-14). What if the unbeliever is HIV positive?
There is not a state in the world whose laws protect a married person from this death sentence. Legally, persons infected with HIV are absolutely free to murder as many partners as they wish in any country except one. Cuba is the only country in the world where AIDS patients are totally isolated on diagnosis.
What should a Christadelphian spouse do? Separation and divorce are wrong. The unbelieving partner has legally defined sexual rights which he or she is invariably eager to exercise. Very few indeed are the men or women who voluntarily admit that they are deadly carriers of sexually transmitted disease.
And what about this scenario, which is not hypothetical? If you know that someone is going to infect an innocent partner, who is all unsuspecting, what should you do?
"Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Your views and spiritual advice are earnestly sought. Our Caribbean members have hardships enough, without this extra burden. At the very least, they need our prayers.
The Editors
Exhortation
At the Lord's Table - Lessons from Esther
The book of Esther is about deliverance. It tells how, because a few leaders of God’s people were strong and faithful, God was able to deliver His people from those who wished to destroy them.
Mordecai and Esther are representative of ourselves as the ecclesia of God. Mordecai was perplexed because Haman, one of the king of Persia’s chief ministers, had developed a paranoid personal hatred for him and, as a consequence, made a complaint to the king about the people of the Jews.
Like Persia in ancient times, the Caribbean today is a religious place with many, many churches and temples everywhere. Despite this, the Caribbean, and the world, are full of violence and hatred. The world goes after Christians in very subtle ways. Like Mordecai and Esther, we have to be very strong.
Imagine as the Jews watched that gallows going up until it towered seventy-five feet above the city streets. No wonder "there was mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes" (4:3). People call upon the Lord when they are in deep trouble. Mordecai led his people in prayer for deliverance.
One reason for our coming here to the Lord’s table is to pray for deliverance. Young people like Esther, older people like Mordecai, all of us Christian-minded people must go to God for help and deliverance from our enemies. God answered Mordecai’s and Esther’s prayers because they were strong and determined not to give up.
As beautiful as the world is, that gallows casts its grim shadow over us. People get AIDS through having worldly fun, but in fact what they receive is a rope for that gallows -- a death certificate. At this table, let us pray that God will help us and our children to be strong, to overcome the obstacles in our world so that we can find deliverance.
For the Jews, deliverance brought "happiness and joy, gladness and honour" (8:16). Their celebrations attracted many who did not know the truth. "Many people of other nationalities became Jews" (8:17). So with us, we have a responsibility to see and to lead others to the truth by the very joy we show at our deliverance through Christ.
We are here not just to share bread and wine; we are here to pray for deliverance, to show love to each other, to fight back the enemy of sin when it attacks us. Let us support one another in continuing to pray earnestly so that the Lord will deliver us as he did Esther and her people, so that we can bring praise and honour and glory to His name and draw others to Him.
Travis Matthews, Round Hill, Jamaica
An old Greek scientist worked out that if I only had a lever long enough and a fulcrum steady enough and somewhere to rest it, I would be strong enough to lift the world.
Strength is a bit of a paradox. Agur tells us in Proverbs 30 that "the ants are a people not strong," yet their productivity is prodigious. "The conies are a feeble folk," he tells us, but gram for gram their strength to excavate and shift material surpasses our largest bulldozers. By far the strongest natural organic substance known is spider silk, far stronger than our finest carbon steel (v.28).
Faith is like spider silk. Hebrews tells us that "out of weakness" the believer is "made strong" through faith (Heb. 11:34).
Too many times we try to gain the strength we need alone, forgetting the source. Too often we put God at the back of our thoughts, saying, "When I am strong enough to overcome my sins I’ll be a faithful Christian," without realising that this strength can be found only in God Himself. On too many occasions, we forsake the assembly and refrain from breaking bread because we feel we are weak and sinful. But that is when we need God’s strength most!
It is fortunate that we have this source of strength to draw on. The rate at which drug abuse and suicides are being committed presently is genuine cause for alarm. More and more people are seeing no hope or future for themselves in this world and turn to the only pathway they see out of their dilemma – escapism or death.
We have a purpose, a mission in life, and we have the energy source to provide the strength we need to carry it out. The petty troubles in this world are therefore no bother to us, as with David we can say, "The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom (or of what) shall I be afraid?" (Psa. 27:1).
What courage! As far as David is concerned, God is mightier, much mightier, than any army that confronts him. What little persons, what little non-entities, what insignificants can then stand in the way of God’s child? Get out of my way! And with the casualness they deserve, we brush them aside and continue in God’s strength. Paul exhorted the Ephesians, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Eph. 6:10).
The atomic nucleus
My work as a scientist helps me greatly to appreciate this truth and apply it in my
weaker moments. For a few years I worked and researched in the nuclear sciences – for
medical, be it said, not military purposes! The more I studied the atomic nucleus, the
more I marvelled at God’s power and strength.
Most of us know by now that at the heart of our galaxy is a colossal black hole, where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light. It is so strong that all matter sucked in is literally compressed into nothingness, into that mysterious "singularity" somewhere down a black hole where space, time – everything – vanishes.
Yet the utterly astonishing thing is that of the four forces which hold God’s universe together, gravity is by far the weakest! The strongest of the four, very sensibly, is known as the strong force, and it is only apparent at the tiniest of scales, the atomic nucleus. The strong force holds the constituents of the nucleus together, and so keeps our bodies and minds from blowing apart! Without the strong force, a hundred times as strong as any other, the whole universe would collapse and disintegrate. In fact, it could never have come into existence in the first place.
We are told that the nuclear power that blasted open Jesus’ tomb and revivified his corpse can also empower us, spiritually right now, and then immortally in God’s Kingdom: Paul speaks of "[God’s] incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at His right hand in the heavenly realms" (Eph. 1:17-20; Col. 2:12). Just try and take that in!
Amazing: the smallest specks in the universe have the strongest force we know. Most amazing: "God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong" (I Cor. 1:27). So Paul could say with heartfelt truth: "When I am weak, then am I strong" (II Cor. 12:10).
Forget nightmares of black holes. The strong force is more powerful than any black hole. Remember the words of Azariah ben-Oded: "As for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." And note Asa’s response: "When Asa heard these words, he took courage" (II Chron. 15:7,8).
From the papers of the late brother Glen Isaacs (Kingston)
Link the Bible character with the job.
| LYNDIA | Beaytician |
| ZENAS | Army officer |
| HEGAI | Baker |
| CORNELIUS | Orator |
| NEHEMIAH | Dyed coth merchant |
| BEZALEL | Spy |
| MATTHEW | Cupbeaer |
| GADDI SON OF SUSI | Master goldsmith |
| MATTITHIAH | Customs officer |
| TUBALCAIN | Tentmaker |
| APOLLOS | Lawyer |
| TERTULLUS | Blacksmith |
If a man will not work, he shall not eat." Paul.
Work is divine. Said the Lord Jesus, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17).
As soon as man and woman were created they were put to work. "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it" (Gen. 2:15). The "curse" is not man’s daily toil, as so many people complain. It never was. From the beginning, regardless of man’s fallen state, the apostle’s "rule" has been true: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat" (II Thess. 3:10).
Laziness is condemned repeatedly in the book of Proverbs as utterly unworthy of the godly person, and diligent work is a virtue and a blessing (Prov. 24:30-34, 25:13-14, 27:22-27 and many other passages). The ground was cursed, yes, but man’s daily or nightly labours should be a challenge and a source of pleasure.
A wonderful example
Jacob left us a wonderful example as a cheerful worker in conditions that today would
be considered sheer exploitation by the ILO or any trade union. Just read Genesis 31:38-42
and admire his loyalty to a disgustingly mean boss.
The Psalmist considered a long, hard working day as normal and a routine for which to give God thanks: "Man goes out to his work, to his labour until evening. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord" (Psa. 104:23, 35).
The night shift – called the graveyard shift in the Caribbean – is mentioned approvingly in I Chronicles 9:26-27: "The four principal gatekeepers, who were Levites, were entrusted with the responsibility for the rooms and treasuries in the house of God. They would spend the night stationed around the house of God, because they had to guard it; and they had charge of the key for opening it each morning." Several Caribbean brethren who have only been able to find a job as a night watchman have appreciated that exhortation.
A model to follow
The apostle Paul worked as a tentmaker "night and day, labouring and
toiling." He gives the reason for such effort and sacrifice: "We did
this…in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow" (II Thess. 3:8,9).
The modern humanist concept that daily temporal manual employment is somehow degrading, that work to be acceptable must be soft, and that golden-agers have a right to a leisured retirement is not biblical at all. Caleb had a very different outlook: "So here I am today, eighty-five years old…strong and vigorous" and off he went to work on his promised inheritance (Josh. 14:10-11). Retirement with a pension is a modern notion which has enabled many senior brethren and sisters to spend vigorous eventide years in ecclesial activities, including missionary fields worldwide. We can thank God for those precious and privileged opportunities. But there are many brothers and sisters in the Caribbean and other poor countries for whom retirement is just not an option. They have an invalid spouse or relative to care for, or they are widowed, or simply poor, and such believers just have to work until they drop. There is nothing grievous or wrong about this. The late Bro. Charlie Lamb joyfully worked long hours on his little farm at Epping Forest at the age of 95 to provide for his daily needs. This was a stark contrast to another brother we knew in a much richer country who told us that he could hardly wait for his retirement so he would "be free to enjoy himself." He died, perhaps of boredom, not long afterwards.
Working women
Sisters in the Bible were working women. The Victorian notion of the sit-at-home wife
was unknown. In the Caribbean, there are many more women in the labour force than men. Our
sisters, like the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, take great pleasure in their daily work,
and radiate sheer joy in the doing of it. Brethren who have visited the Caribbean will
recall wonderful elderly working sisters such as Mellie James and Wilhelmina Wallace. Sis.
Wallace, until she was virtually incapable of movement, used to scour the countryside for
wild castor oil plants, collect the pods, return home at sunset, then set about boiling
out the essence, bottle it, and then higgle (vend) it on the sidewalk as hair oil. One of
my memories as a young Christadelphian was to ride a ram-packed JOS bus in Kingston with
Sis. Dorothy Isaacs as conductor and her husband Roland as driver. She smiled, she sang,
she joked, she encouraged us hot, tired and feeble-hearted passengers with words of godly
cheer. Her example has remained to inspire me ever since.
Every temporal job is a privilege not a curse. One brother who came to the Caribbean for a time used to urge us young ones to resist the "temptations" of higher education and just seek a job "in the world" with maximum pay for minimum work. He used to recommend school teaching, but I never imagined why! In this way we could have "plenty of time for the truth." At the time, and ever since, we believe such advice is very misguided. Of course, if we only get an education so as to get a high paying job and then use our income for selfish, material purposes, we will not be blessed by Almighty God (I Tim. 6:9). The Bible, however, never suggests that the brother or sister who has to work very long hours to keep himself, his family and others in need, is in any way a lesser steward of the grace of God or a less worthy servant of the Lord than a full time missionary or "worker for the truth." Indeed the latter could not exist without the former.
Witness of faith
Over many years, those with time to engage in meetings and other traditional ecclesial
activities have been thought of as the pillars of the truth. But the real work of the
truth has often been the quiet, steadfast and often magnificent witness of faith made by
many whose whole life has been devoted to the daily struggle for survival in conditions
like Jacob’s. There have been many such Caribbean Christadelphians, unknown to and
unappreciated by visitors, much like slaves in the first century ecclesias. Let us
appreciate all such and honor them. They shine as "lights in the world" (Phil.
2:15).
Lord of all eagerness,
Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled
At the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labours,
And give us, we pray
Your strength in our hearts, Lord,
At the noon of the day.
Praise the Lord 219
Alan Eyre