Some remove the landmarks Job 24: 2

Imagine with me a white picket fence with a lovely boundary wall! This fence is beautiful and gives its owner great joy. One day, much to the owner’s displeasure, the surveyor came by indicating that the fence was encroaching on the neighbour’s property and has to be torn down to ensure compliance, Can you imagine how s/he reacted to this news?Disbelief, Anger quite a number of emotions ! It was not a pretty sight . It probably took several mediation sessions to get the fence relocated.

...I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
…We wear our fingers rough with handling them.. Good fences make good neighbors...

For the neighbors that fence was a landmark that indicated home. What is a landmark? The Oxford Languages Dictionary defines it as “”an object or feature of a landscape or town that is easily seen and recognized from a distance, especially one that enables someone to establish their location”. Landmarks are unique and by their very presence cause everyone to pay attention. Landmarks sometimes were land boundaries between neighbours. Robert Frost in his poem Mending Wall said the following words:

Landmarks help persons with boundaries, identify and location. If having landmarks are so important, then removing landmarks is a serious issue. Removing landmarks in Job’s time was equal to stealing the land of neighbours. Deuteronomy 27:17 indicates it was a divine curse to move the neighbor’s landmark. According to Nelson NKJV Study Bible, this curse was about justice, greed and the intent of moving the stone was to extend the boundary of one’s land thus enhancing one’s own personal prosperity at the expense of someone else. Wow!

Therefore, the presence, absence and or removal of landmarks are of paramount importance. God therefore wants us to spend sometime reflecting on the landmarks in our lives. How has Jesus the gold standard informed your landmarks and your behaviour towards them. Let us ask ourselves the following questions

What landmarks do we have in our lives? What purposes do they serve? What are their states? Are they in ruins? Are they encroaching over on other’s people’s property (OPP)? Are we maintaining them? Have crucial landmarks been removed at the expense of our mental, physical, relational and psychological health? Are we landmarks for others and do we need to examine ourselves to see how far we have strayed from our point of origin? Do we need to establish new landmarks so that others can see them and make the right choices? What landmarks need to be removed or realigned? Do we have neighbors/accountability partners who will help us set the wall between? Are we fair in our dealings with each other ? Think on these things…Those that have ears let them hear.

Photo Courtesy of Lois C.A.Walters

Prayer

Lord we are guilty of negligence of the landmarks in our lives. We proceed in our own wisdom and are sometimes unfair and encroach on others. Forgive us O Lord. We submit our lives and landmarks to you in Jesus ‘name. Help us to be fair and just in all our dealings . We look to Jesus our gold standard. In Jesus name. Amen