Encouragement

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SKIN FOR SKIN

… skin for skin* …
Job 2:4


Skin for skin!

Words, flung like a gauntlet, resounded throughout heaven’s throne room. Time froze. Eye’s riveted, first on the speaker, then on the face of the One the words were meant to pierce.

All had come to present themselves before the King, come to serve, to be an extension of righteousness ... save one. Though he, too, may have been beckoned, he came to take his stand.

Satan’s challenge hung in the air, between Sovereign and servant … as realms watched.

Nakedness had stood between the two before, a nakedness of soul, emerging first in an ancient garden. Satan thought himself the victor then, until the Sovereign stepped upon his carefully laid stage, and covered nakedness with a bloody garment.

Now the stagehand was back, not hiding, not at work behind the scenes. No, he stood arrogantly, now, before the throne, demanding another nakedness of soul, demanding another bloodying whose nakedness would lay truth bare … that he, and not Another, was indeed vanquisher.

Satan knew truth wouldn’t hide, not this time, so having flung the challenge into God’s face, he waited. Piercing would be on his terms, this time … skin, indeed, for skin.




*skin (Hebrew – naked, hide)


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Life is no chess game. Moreover, I’m no pawn in Deity’s hands. Neither am I a piece, ever, in the accuser’s game, simply waiting to hear checkmate declared. Though sadly, I must admit, awareness of the eternal drama my life is playing out remains on the fringes of my daily reality, far too often.

Satan, my accuser, however, is after nakedness, not of my body, but of my soul. Why? What is he searching for? What is he expecting to find?

He expects to find the words of his own choice on my lips. Listen to him.

“But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.”

When my soul is laid bare, laying in utter nakedness before God, Satan expects to find me railing, against my Redeemer. He cannot imagine, nor comprehend, my clinging to the One Whose Own covering of my nakedness required a piercing, a bloodbath, I alone deserved, but He alone experienced.

Satan went forth from the presence of God, walked away from Love’s face, and he expects nothing less from me when life gets tough.

He can’t understand that as Love lifts the hedge, the eternal fruit born within spills out the gap, and I cling soul to soul with my Redeemer.

The LORD is my covering. Truth can't hide! When my accuser, having roamed to and fro throughout the earth, sets his eye on me demanding skin for skin, may my naked dependence, reliance, and faith in the Lover of my soul bring glory to God from realm to realm … and may it ever leave my accuser in awe of such a love as this.






(Reflection on Job 2)


© 9 March 2006
DeAnna L. Brooks

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