Today I began reading the book of Job. Job 1, 2, 3, 4
The story of Job is a classic story. It's so well known - on the surface - that people who do not even read the Bible know about Job. It's a story of personal suffering, and and age old question that goes along with suffering - where is God when calamities strike and suffering occurs.
Job might be the book, and the person that begs the question; but Job-like circumstances have happened millions of times over and his questions, complaints, and personal journey have been replicated by believers and unbelievers. So has Job's so called friends and their advice. It might be a few thousand years since this was written, and Job's friends passed along their judgements and opinions, but it does not mean that those things have disappeared. They still are aired today by many.
In case your unfamiliar here's some quick background from the first four chapters. It begins very simply with an introduction:
"In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."
A narrator opens this book. He walks out onto the stage, looks out at us, and says let me tell you about this man, Job. Job is just a man. A godly man who lived as blamelessly as possible. He seemed like the perfect neighbor, the perfect friend. What he does is live before God and Man with integrity and honesty. He should deserve more we think than what is about to happen.
The narrator now tells us that the story continues with a twist...Job doesn't know what is happening in the "heavenlies"; but there is a dialog taking place between the Lord and Satan. It sounds bizarre, but it is real, and the subject of the dialog is this man on earth - Job.
"One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
God is bragging on his man Job. And, at the same time, God is picking a fight. We want to yell from the audience, "leave well enough alone Lord", because we know what is about to happen; but the bait is set and Satan takes the wager.
"But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
As we often note it and hear it said, "all hell broke loose". Satan attacked Job destroying his possessions and his family, save his wife, and in all of it, Job hung on to his faith.
"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:1, 6, 8, 11, 20-22 NIV)
We don't know what to do with this, frankly. If everything is taken away and my kids are all killed, could I say that. Is that faith? Is that a stoic response? Is that something I'd ever be able to accept? I remember talking to a woman one time many years ago who in the course of six months lost her husband (he ran off with another woman), and all of his kids in a car accident. She went from a wife and mother of three, to a divorced woman with three children all killed in a car accident. I asked her, "How did you handle all of that?" She replied, "No one gave me a choice...it just happened, and you wake up and have to figure out how to go through the rest of life, and part of you doesn't want to, and the other part says 'you have to'...and then one day turns over the next begins, and then you are months down the road, and then years...but you never forget, it's the scar that always is visible." I understand that.
The narrator changes the page and a plot gets thicker, and as if we could imagine, even more worse. And he introduces us to another individual who has to share the life he is in, his wife, and she views it completely different, which is realistic in many households.
"On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. His wife said to him, "Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolisht woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
What is she saying to him? Is she telling him to give up and die? Is she saying to him, your so-called God is not coming through for you? She focuses in on "his integrity"...the way in which he is approaching the issue. Job is not succumbing to the "blame God" at this point...and she is not accepting it either. The narrator then ends the scene and introduces us to the friends who will both serve as judge and jury, weighing the events of Job's life and coming up with their own opinion - an opinion often based on their understanding of God and faith - about what is happening to Job.
"In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:1, 7, 9-11, 13 NIV)
The summary of Job's friends is found in this:
"Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. (Job 4:7, 8 NIV)
It seems rational, reasonable, and for the most part accepted understanding of suffering. People suffer because they are guilty of their destructive behavior. Cause and Effect. People do things, and they reap the consequences.
Yet we know that sometimes that is not true. Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Now it's also true that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. That is what we want. That is the way of justice from our point of view. That is what we think is fair.
It's difficult for us to understand the former, because we can't help but want the latter. Suffering is not fair. And, we don't have the ability to change that.
Now, think about this. The story so far is one that Job does not know about the heavenly wager. He does not know that he is the outcome of God believing in him! He doesn't realize that this is all the effort of Satan who attacks him mercilessly.
And neither do we. We don't know...we don't understand...we never will. I don't understand the holocaust, I don't understand the crusades, nor the Cambodian massacres, nor the famines in Africa, or the Tsunami in the Asian basin that killed 100's of thousands. I don't understand these, as much as I don't understand my friends son dying of cancer at age 33. I don't understand the mother I buried who left behind 6 kids, ages 2 - 10. I don't understand my mother's Alzheimer. Suffering is the most real thing about life, and it's mixed in with births, weddings, football wins, and happy marriages....and that is what makes me hang on to faith in God.
Peace
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The story of Job is a classic story. It's so well known - on the surface - that people who do not even read the Bible know about Job. It's a story of personal suffering, and and age old question that goes along with suffering - where is God when calamities strike and suffering occurs.
Job might be the book, and the person that begs the question; but Job-like circumstances have happened millions of times over and his questions, complaints, and personal journey have been replicated by believers and unbelievers. So has Job's so called friends and their advice. It might be a few thousand years since this was written, and Job's friends passed along their judgements and opinions, but it does not mean that those things have disappeared. They still are aired today by many.
In case your unfamiliar here's some quick background from the first four chapters. It begins very simply with an introduction:
"In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."
A narrator opens this book. He walks out onto the stage, looks out at us, and says let me tell you about this man, Job. Job is just a man. A godly man who lived as blamelessly as possible. He seemed like the perfect neighbor, the perfect friend. What he does is live before God and Man with integrity and honesty. He should deserve more we think than what is about to happen.
The narrator now tells us that the story continues with a twist...Job doesn't know what is happening in the "heavenlies"; but there is a dialog taking place between the Lord and Satan. It sounds bizarre, but it is real, and the subject of the dialog is this man on earth - Job.
"One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. Then the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
God is bragging on his man Job. And, at the same time, God is picking a fight. We want to yell from the audience, "leave well enough alone Lord", because we know what is about to happen; but the bait is set and Satan takes the wager.
"But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
As we often note it and hear it said, "all hell broke loose". Satan attacked Job destroying his possessions and his family, save his wife, and in all of it, Job hung on to his faith.
"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:1, 6, 8, 11, 20-22 NIV)
We don't know what to do with this, frankly. If everything is taken away and my kids are all killed, could I say that. Is that faith? Is that a stoic response? Is that something I'd ever be able to accept? I remember talking to a woman one time many years ago who in the course of six months lost her husband (he ran off with another woman), and all of his kids in a car accident. She went from a wife and mother of three, to a divorced woman with three children all killed in a car accident. I asked her, "How did you handle all of that?" She replied, "No one gave me a choice...it just happened, and you wake up and have to figure out how to go through the rest of life, and part of you doesn't want to, and the other part says 'you have to'...and then one day turns over the next begins, and then you are months down the road, and then years...but you never forget, it's the scar that always is visible." I understand that.
The narrator changes the page and a plot gets thicker, and as if we could imagine, even more worse. And he introduces us to another individual who has to share the life he is in, his wife, and she views it completely different, which is realistic in many households.
"On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. His wife said to him, "Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!" He replied, "You are talking like a foolisht woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
What is she saying to him? Is she telling him to give up and die? Is she saying to him, your so-called God is not coming through for you? She focuses in on "his integrity"...the way in which he is approaching the issue. Job is not succumbing to the "blame God" at this point...and she is not accepting it either. The narrator then ends the scene and introduces us to the friends who will both serve as judge and jury, weighing the events of Job's life and coming up with their own opinion - an opinion often based on their understanding of God and faith - about what is happening to Job.
"In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:1, 7, 9-11, 13 NIV)
The summary of Job's friends is found in this:
"Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
Where were the upright ever destroyed? As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. (Job 4:7, 8 NIV)
It seems rational, reasonable, and for the most part accepted understanding of suffering. People suffer because they are guilty of their destructive behavior. Cause and Effect. People do things, and they reap the consequences.
Yet we know that sometimes that is not true. Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Now it's also true that bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. That is what we want. That is the way of justice from our point of view. That is what we think is fair.
It's difficult for us to understand the former, because we can't help but want the latter. Suffering is not fair. And, we don't have the ability to change that.
Now, think about this. The story so far is one that Job does not know about the heavenly wager. He does not know that he is the outcome of God believing in him! He doesn't realize that this is all the effort of Satan who attacks him mercilessly.
And neither do we. We don't know...we don't understand...we never will. I don't understand the holocaust, I don't understand the crusades, nor the Cambodian massacres, nor the famines in Africa, or the Tsunami in the Asian basin that killed 100's of thousands. I don't understand these, as much as I don't understand my friends son dying of cancer at age 33. I don't understand the mother I buried who left behind 6 kids, ages 2 - 10. I don't understand my mother's Alzheimer. Suffering is the most real thing about life, and it's mixed in with births, weddings, football wins, and happy marriages....and that is what makes me hang on to faith in God.
Peace
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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