A Man's Character....is his fate. -Heraclitus 504-501 B.C. time(Heraclitus was born to an aristocratic family in Ephesus, present-day Efes, Turkey)

Tying today's posting to yesterdays, I found that in my 'reading of the Bible in one year' plan falls into place with the word.....compassion.
I'm still struggling with the 'prophets' of the Old Testament, plodding along as they try to keep the wayward people focused on the 'right way to live'....and keep them looking and learning about their (and our) One True God.
The Message Bible's explanation before the book of Zephaniah brought me up 'short' with my own thinking....it says this......and I quote....

"We humans keep looking for a religion that will give us access to God without having to bother with people. We want to go to God for comfort and inspiration when we're fed up with the men, women, children around us. We want God to give us an edge in the dog-eat-dog competition of daily life. This determination to get ourselves a religion that gives us an inside track with God but leaves us free to deal with people however we like is....age-old.

Because the root of the solid spiritual life is embedded in a relationship between people and God, it is easy to develop the misunderstanding that my spiritual life is something personal between God and me - a private thing that I nuture by prayers, singing, spiritual readings that comfort and inspire, and worship with like-minded friends.

If we think this way for very long.....we will assume that the way we treat the people we don't like....or who don't like us....has nothing to do with God.

That's when the prophets of old step in and interrupt us, insisting, "Everything you do or think or feel has to do with ...God.

Every person you meet has to do with...God."

We live in a vast world of interconnectedness, and the connections have consequences, either in things or in people - and all the consequences come together in God.

The biblical phrase for the coming together of the consequences is....

Judgment Day.

We can't be reminded too often....or too forcefull of this reckoning day as the prophets of old remind us again and again......"

#1 point for me..... the other half of my relationship with God.....is with people.
#2 point for me.... we all will be held accountable....for how we treat other people.
Makes me shudder inside for myself....and others.
This reminds me of a child-like poem I wrote many-a- year ago....
"I yearned to hear the voice of God
And climbed the highest steeple...
But God then spoke and said,
"Go down again, I LIVE among the people."