CHAPTER 3

Part 3

Picked-over Prospects

In many Eastern cultures, including the one Jesus grew up in, the elderly have traditionally been held in high esteem.  They should be spoken to gently, as Paul instructs the young church leader Timothy in I Timothy 5:1.   They should be venerated for all the hindsight wisdom gained throughout a long lifetime of experience.

Not so in this glamor-obsessed world. Babylon is always shooting for the burgeoning youth market.  All that matters is money.  Babylon’s manifesto: He who dies with the most toys wins!

High-powered professionals bemoan the stresses of office politics.  An ambitious yuppie must take off the mitts and fight dirty to  beat others for juicy promotions, and that’s triply true if she’s a woman, especially if she’s   perceived as a nurturing type. Any Christian involved in the business world really does need the strength and wisdom of God to keep from being sucked into its sordid side.

Once an embattled office exec reports for work she must put on a persona not her own; one aggressive enough to win the War of Office Politics. For nine whole hours she must suppress her feminine, nurturing side. She must play Captain Iron Pants to prove she can pilot her own ship, even if she hasn’t gotten that promotion yet. She must treat all her opponents like ignorant lackeys. She must carry her head higher than anyone else.  If she’s on the short side she must bark louder than all the rest.  If the Top Brass reprimands her she must betray no emotion.  She must never, ever wear her feelings on her sleeve.  And above all things, she must minimize her own shortcomings and maximize those of her colleagues.  In the boardroom, she must be quick to return fire.  However bloodied and bruised, she must affect perfect poise and give no quarter in the fight for dominance.

When Ms. Clout gets home, she takes off her Iron Mask along with her suit jacket and high heels, those sexist torture racks she’s expected to wear as part of her power struggle to the top. Where did that migraine come from?  Maybe she cracked her skull trying to bust through the glass ceiling. Sighing, she soaks her aching toes in a massage tub, then soothes her computer-glazed eyes with cucumber slices. For just a few hours she is free  to be who she really is.  If only she can remember who or what she once was.

The next morning Ms. Clout puts on her professional face along with her impeccable makeup.  If her colors clash the other gals will have her for lunch behind her back. Come to think of it, that seems to be all those perpetual dieters ever consume_each other.   Maybe that other woman will  even get revenge for Ms. Clout’s catty comments about her wardrobe.  Why do I have to be such a bitch to get to the top? she wonders.  Even if I do win this Rat Race, I’m still a rat.

 At job interviews, appearance speaks louder than experience. An interviewee is looked over like a slab of meat, to see if he or she looks the part of an office fixture. Just like an ancient king might choose the prettiest girls in the land for his harem. If an aspirant is over 40, the odds are stacked against her.  All the interviewer notices are cosmetic deficiencies: the prospect’s love handles, her stray grays, those fine lines around her eyes, her sagging jawline.  Older interviewees are often culled out quickly in favor of kids fresh out of college with far less ability. A typical white-collar job interview is more like a beauty contest than an objective appraisal of professional skills.  And if your face and bod are past their sell-by date, forget it.

Imagine a  45-year-old business exec who knows she’s competing with girls the age of her  youngest daughter. The plum prize: being head of data systems management. I’d say that’s one cerebral job, but could be performed even by a sharp-witted 80-year-old granny with the know-how.

The nervous interviewee, Thelma, is not only over the hill, she’s afflicted by fly-away  frizzies, flat-chest-itis,  love handles,  and spider veins.  Worst of all, she wears glasses.  To her horror, at least three bony beauties with flawless faces have just left the interviewer’s office ahead of her.

Thelma is intellectually gifted. She passed her IT courses with flying colors.  She even holds two Master’s Degrees. Why, she could do the job in her sleep.  But mentally, she’s chewing her nails. Throughout the interview her interrogator’s eyes rake over her body.  If only Thelma had worn a padded bra.  If only she hadn’t dressed the same way she did for her first interview 25 years ago, in a severe black suit relieved only by tiny pearl earrings.  Her competitors looked like they were aspiring pop stars by comparison. In this laser copy world she sticks out like a sore thumb.

The fact Thelma gives competent replies to all questions pertaining to  job performance is irrelevant.  All she can think is:  If only my face wasn’t so round.  Better suck in my cheeks.  Do I look fat in this?  He can see my worry lines.  If only I’d worn more concealer. After all, I’m no spring chicken.

The stiff suit behind the desk seems cold and aloof, even bored and unimpressed with Thelma’s exhaustive computer prowess. Questions about Thelma’s health follow. Why, I’m fine, she replies.  Younger employees in peak physical condition (skinnier) are a better insurance risk, he lets her know. But he’ll surely call her back and thanks for stopping by.

Of course he never does.  Thelma is a victim of both Body Bigotry and Ageism.

The 20-year-old babe who landed the  job barely knows how to type. She can’t even switch on a computer, but the aging boss likes what he sees.  He  assures her she’s got "loads of potential" and time to "grow into the position".

Why is this mighty  kingpin   bestowing  such favor upon a beauty queen who can’t even do the job yet? To  make him feel younger, that’s why. His thinking processes are fired by his hormones, and this sweet young thing had better submit to his subtle bullying and do her "job", or she’ll be fired.

A corporate kingpin might fear getting the ax because his cosmetic deterioration isn’t "good for the company image." So intent are modern corporations on maintaining an image of "new blood" that valuable older employees face an ultimatum_get hair replacement therapy and/or cosmetic surgery (at company expense), or risk being displaced by some fresh-faced kid.

Babylon is beginning to oppress men in ways previously known only to women.  All the big action heroes in movies  are tall, cool, iron-fisted  hunks with bedroom eyes.  Those heart-throbs on TV soaps resemble Greek gods.  These stereotypes feed satan’s lie that it’s not OK to be what God made you.

In the business world, people must "sell themselves" to attain to the "good life", much like slaves in an ancient marketplace would strive  to "sell themselves" to benevolent-looking masters  who might save them from having to work in some salt mine.

Ancient slave girls were often compelled to wear their hair short, lest their beauty surpass that of their mistresses.  Their austere garments also reflected their subservience.  To show submissiveness toward superiors, women feel pressured to cut their hair for job interviews.  Though if you choose to wear your hair   longer  and take proper care of it, it is a thing of beauty.  When hair of whatever length is worn by a woman to reflect her  femininity it even enhances her  spirituality. It is given by God to a woman to serve as a covering (I Cor. 11:15).

Women also feel obligated to wear high heels when interviewing for a well-paid job. That is sex discrimination, plain and simple. Men don’t have to suffer in those torture racks. Face it. Any heel higher than an inch or two throws the body off balance and is bound to cause corns, bunions, or hammertoes. Obligatory short hair and high heels is all about sacrificing individuality and comfort to gratify the moneyed Establishment.

Standardized appearance, not ability or intelligence, seems to be nine-tenths of what it takes to land a plum job in Babylon’s meat market, rather than being relegated to some factory or burger emporium.  And there’s money to be made from forcing everyone to look the same.  Barring premature death, everyone ages.  People are browbeaten by fear of cosmetic flaws and intimidated by work colleagues over this, even by their own boob tubes at home.  Babylon’s insatiable appetite for money drives multitudes of insecure people to cast their dollars into the illusory Fountain of Youth, to avoid being picked over by imperious bigwigs who restrict the little guy’s right to self-esteem; tinpot tyrants who hold his hopes of material affluence in their hands. Babylon sure has warped the psyche of society!

Institutionalized Ethnic Prejudice

Reportedly, black or Asian people are much more likely to be pulled over by traffic cops than white blonds in business attire. People with dark features wearing colorful attire get more scrutiny at airports than a blond in a business suit.  So if you want to get through security quickly, wear your hair in a blond butch and look like you’re on your way to Wall Street!

Prejudice works both ways.  Many blonds rightly resent being stereotyped by interviewers. Beautiful women worry that once their looks fade, no one will want to love them or even hire them. In the mad rush for mass conformity, people’s interior treasures are disregarded, and their human dignity is denigrated.

For all the fancy talk about equality, the stereotypical WASP still holds the monopoly on "respectability" in this warped world. Suits and ties+blue eyes+ short (preferably blonde)  hair+a briefcase and cell phone=saintliness. Despite the fact the world’s vilest criminals masquerade as the good guy by wearing sharp suits. So they get away with it.  After all, they’re a cut above the throwaway peasants they exploit in the  Third World.  Just a glut of Third World slaves dying from squalor and hunger as their countries are bombed and plundered by the Multi-national Imperialist bullies pulling the strings of puppet governments.

God’s Kind of Man

King David knew what it felt  like to be picked over.  Highly gifted in music and poetry, this deeply devout man became ancient Israel’s greatest king.

Any Hollywood talent scout would have ignored him.  Why?  David was extremely intelligent, and was wholesomely handsome.  But he was no towering Terminator. Compared to his elder brothers, he was small of stature, and probably slight of build. He was weighed in the scales of human prejudice and found wanting. In II Samuel 24:1-7 David sneaked up on his worst adversary without being heard.  A big, muscle-bound beefcake never could have done that.

David’s long road to the throne began as a boy in Bethlehem.  He spent long days and nights out in the open air tending his father’s sheep.  A humble, common, everyday task, performed by lots of boys in the ancient Near East.  The one who dirties his hands plugging away at the same unglamorous tasks day-in-and-day-out is often belittled by those who have "made it" in life.  But by ministering to those dull, sleepy-eyed sheep, David was learning faithfulness to duty and courage, traits seldom acquired by rich celebs who open doors with just a smile.  In I Samuel 17: 34-36, David tells King Saul of his battles with wild animals who attacked his flock.

David was no sumo wrestler, but His God was big enough to give him the victory and terminate Goliath. The believer in Christ meekly accepts that God alone is his Strength and glories in the Lord.

Some time before that fateful encounter with Saul, David’s father Jesse had gotten a surprise visit from the prophet Samuel.  God was going to replace Saul, who didn’t like taking orders from God.  Samuel was to anoint a new king from among Jesse’s sons.

It never occurred to Jesse to invite David to  the interview.  Seven sons of Jesse filed past Samuel, one by one.  I Samuel 16: 6-7 gives one of the greatest insights into how God evaluates us as individuals: When they had assembled, Samuel looked at Eliab and thought, Surely the man standing here in the Lord’s Presence is the one He has chosen.

But the Lord said to Samuel:  Pay no attention to his good looks or his tall stature, for I have disqualified him;  for I do not see people as man does.  Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

David was Jesse’s youngest, smallest son.  Most likely that’s why he wasn’t called in from the pasture, and the sheep placed in the care of a servant in his absence.  Only after all the other seven candidates had been rejected did Samuel ask Jesse:  "Are all your sons here?"

Sheepishly, Jesse acknowledged David’s existence.  He was summarily sent for.  Verse 12 says of David: He was a handsome, healthy young man, with beautiful eyes.  If your heart is attune with God, it will show in your eyes, for the eyes are the window of the soul.  In like manner, you will see the rancor of the devil in the face of the bully.

The Lord commanded Samuel to anoint David with oil, as all new kings were.  From that day forward, the Oil of the Holy Spirit’s Presence rested upon David’s life in a special way.

Hollywood profits from the perpetual myth of the muscle-bound commando who can kick-box his way through a gauntlet of armed thugs in rapid-clip time, then mow down a fleet of bombers with an AK-47, escaping with barely a ruffled hair. Frustrated by its own inadequacy, the warped human psyche lives vicariously through the trendiest super- hero.  Real-life actors on the stage of life are expected to at least look like warrior princesses or bedroom hunks, and to wear an air of pushy bravado.  It’s the transparent person who cannot mask the hurt in his eyes, the person who’s inept at playing society’s perverse little games who often ends up as a victim in this cutthroat world.

Through many lonely days of political persecution and exile, through many bitter battles, and even as he endured the treachery of phony friends, David’s confidence rested only in the Lord.  He didn’t rest on his laurels as a war hero or boast that he was unsinkable. Many of David’s most anguished prayers are recorded in the Book of Psalms.  In chapter 25, verses 1-2 David pleads with God: I Lift up my soul unto You, O Lord. I’ve put my trust in You.  Please don’t  let my enemies put me to shame.      In time, the Lord exalted His faithful servant to rule over all Israel, and gave him rest round about from all his enemies (II Samuel 7:1).  David’s life was pleasing to God because he thirsted continually for the Lord’s fellowship, even as a deer longs for a brook of fresh water (see Psalms 42:1-2).  In spite of David’s human shortcomings, he was a God-centered man. This desire of his heart to maintain a close walk with his God was the standard by which all other kings of his dynasty would be judged.

God was so pleased with David’s reign that He chose him to be an ancestor of His Son Jesus Christ, Whose Kingdom shall never end.  In Revelation 21:16,  He speaks in vision to the apostle John saying:  I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.  

David the man of great spiritual stature will once again rule over all twelve tribes of Israel during Christ’s glorious Kingdom Age.  Along with all other redeemed saints, he will be resurrected to once again execute the will of God in this earth (see Hosea 3:5; Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24).   Under David, the twelve apostles will rule over one tribe each (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22: 28-30).   All will rule under Christ the King, the Supreme Potentate over all the earth.

Throughout the time I worked on my special novel, and even now,  a special sense of the Presence and peace of God rests upon me.  As I concluded this work, a profound assurance swept through my soul on a wave of joy:  You also shall reign with Me.  I had known already that the saints shall reign with Christ, having received this Scriptural teaching from various Full Gospel churches. Now this truth is as real to me as the blood flowing through my veins.

What does this have to do with to the  subject of bullying? Everything.  This divine revelation has greatly remedied the residual effects left in my soul by years of bullying as a child, as well as later trauma I suffered from the betrayal of false friends.  Although I don’t affect the mannerisms of royalty, or have much money, I’m a princess in the eyes of my Heavenly Father, Who has promised me a position in His coming Kingdom Age.  And I won’t have to grow aggressive claws, chop off my hair or don masculine clothing in order to qualify for this  job, as women seeking prestigious careers in today’s Establishment are expected to do!

Truly, the truth will set you free.  Often there are many chains binding us from the past, and they must be cut loose from us one by one.  What a wonderful reward is in store for all who truly own Christ as Lord in this world.  Those who overcome the downward pull of this present evil dispensation, and let Christ live His loving Life through them shall reign with Him forever (Revelation 3:21).

Bullies have the opposite mindset.  They like this world just the way it is.  It’s the biggest and toughest who get the respect.  The devil is lord of the bully.  Bullies battle even among themselves to establish the pecking order in the gang, just like wild dogs fight it out till the losers tuck tail and slink away.  The weaker ones, the subordinate bullies, serve the dominant bully as their king.  These fawning friends cower in the shadow of their lord’s brutality, their hero-worship of him mingled with fear of falling out of his favor and ending up as victims themselves.

Even the affection the bully seems to have for his friends is really thinly veiled intimidation.  False love is a self-centered fixation on another person whose values are essentially your own.  A bully’s “friend” is  only a servile automaton who has renounced the right to his own soul. He is a captive of satan. He feels like  the dominant bully  owns him, and he must sacrifice his own identity and view the world only through his master’s eyes.

A dominant bully’s “buddies” must always dance to his tune, or he ends up turning on them.  They are merely his “yes-men”, slaves to salve his own insatiable ego.  A loud-mouthed bully is the despot of his own little domain. He is worshipped for his swaggering machismo and shiny toys. But deep down, he  knows that he lacks enduring qualities as a person, and hates to be shown up for the shallow, insecure being he really is.  In order to appease the dominant bully, his lackey discards every vestige of human decency.  He may not even dislike his victim.  But in order to save his own skin, or receive praises from his overlord, he’ll shove a disabled kid down the stairs, or ridicule someone in a tragic situation. This is an example of the cowardice which ends in horrific  punishment in the world to come (see Revelation 21:8).

The bully calls his victim a loser.  But he will end up the biggest loser of all.

* * * * *

Psalms 57:20: But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

Ezekiel 8:18: Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine eyes with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

Matt.13:41: The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity (commit wickedness);

VERSE 42: And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Rev.14:10: The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God; which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation (wrath); and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.

PROPHETIC WORD

First Seek Christ’s Beauty

Ecclesiastes 3:11;  Proverbs 31:30; Galatians 3:26-29

This new gospel so popular with earthly-minded saints centers around outward glories, which by their very nature, will fade away.  Many are using Me to obtain things which could augment their status in society or make their lives more luxurious, rather than seeking after the eternal riches of My Kingdom.

In  Old Testament Tabernacle worship,  there was an outer court ministry as well as an inner court course of service. Both were necessary, but the Inner Place of My Presence where I meet with you is so much more glorious.  Many are content to linger only on the outer perimeter of fellowship with Me, deriving whatever transitory benefits they can from their materialistic faith.

Much more emphasis was placed on  external form in the Old Testament Scriptures, for the outer glory was but a picture of  spiritual realities to come.  There were numerous places where a person is described  as being comely in appearance, in conjunction with desirable inner qualities.  David was handsome, as well as courageous and pious.  Abigail was beautiful, as well as sensible and wise. Absalom was the handsomest man in Israel, but he nursed ugly hatred in his heart toward his own father, David, and plotted to kill him.  Absalom did not possess the beauty of spirit David manifested toward Me.

Today,  many value only exterior attributes in themselves and others. Thus,  New Testament believers are measured by Old Testament standards.  In the New Testament, individual characters must move into the background and give  the  glory to Christ the Lord.  He alone is to receive exaltation for His inherent virtues.  Nothing thrills My Father-heart more than to see one of My children developing more and more into His likeness.  That should be the goal of every Spirit-filled believer, for there is no higher calling.

I don’t sanction even “Christian” beauty pageants. Such contests are immodest, self-glorifying vanity.  In the Old Testament, there were times when physical beauty was a prerequisite for fulfilling one’s purpose in life, as when Esther was selected as Queen of Persia.  In My providence, this put her in a position to help save My people Israel from total massacre.  The wives of the Patriarchs were selected largely on the basis of natural comeliness. One exception was Leah, the first wife of Jacob.  Jacob looked only on her outward appearance, and would not have married her, had he not been tricked into doing so.  Yet it was she who was the matriarch of the Royal tribe of Judah, from which I originated. It was prophesied of Judah that he would be the one praised by his brethren.  It is the beauty of the Rose of Sharon which constitutes the true comeliness of a believer.

Many a godly, Spirit-anointed woman has been discouraged from active ministry  because she was not  deemed attractive enough to represent Me! But nowhere in the New Testament is any individual saint commended or rewarded for being outwardly beautiful. Nowhere in the New Testament is any mortal human’s physical beauty, gorgeous attire or lovely jewelry commented on, much less praised. The ground in front of the Cross is level, and all My children, affluent and poor alike, are accepted by Me on equal terms. My Son is seeking out a people who are willing to receive of His beauty and  reflect it daily in their lives.  He has comely people,  plain  people, short and tall, old and young, rich and poor, great and small, who delight in Him.  He sees no difference, for all are joined to Him in one Spirit.  It is only carnal-minded saints who insist on creating a difference and rebuilding old barriers which I have torn down.