Today I read from Job 17, 18, 19, and 20.
The story of Job is interesting in thinking about how we speak about God in the midst of life's difficulties. No one can escape difficult issues in life. We all experience things in life that, if we could, we would definitely choose to avoid. Who wants accidents, disease, deaths of love ones and friends, etc...? Which one of us would not want famine in Africa to end? For little children around the world to have fresh water to drink? For the devastations in Haiti and Japan to have never occurred?
It's not in our ability to control all that occurs around us or in the world. Therefore, it is natural, when people experience these sorts of things to turn to God - prayer is the most typical way. And we should. God has promised us that he is near, that if we seek him with our whole heart, we'll find him. Jesus said to us, "ask, seek, knock..." and that is what we do when we have a confident faith in God.
But there is another dimension of those experiences that can't help but wonder, "Why God?" "Why me?" "Why did you let this happen?". In other words, we blame God.
Or, the other argument is that there is a direct cause that leads to the effect. The pain, disease, difficulties are not undeserved, but a result of a person's own sins - open ones, or hidden. That is the argument coming from Job's friends.
Job's difficulties led him to a place of suffering...but it was his friends who argued that Job had no one to blame but himself. He MUST have sinned in some way to deserve this punishment. If only he would humble himself, repent, and cast himself on the mercy of God, all would be different.
There's the dilemma...regardless of which way it's approach...it is God who is the blame.
"....using my humiliation as evidence of my sin. But it is God who has wronged me...capturing me in his net. God has blocked my way so I cannot move.
He has plunged my path into darkness. “Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy,...
for the hand of God has struck me. Must you also persecute me, like God does? (Job 19:5ff)
Job is battling his friends judgments and he is battling God. Why God, why did you do this? Why do you let it go on?
I've heard all of these..and have felt the sting of the judgments and the questioning of God within myself also.
Is there a faith answer? Maybe not in resolving the "why", but certainly in coming back to a place of rest where anxiety and stress abate. Job says,
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed,
yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself.
Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
I am overwhelmed at the thought! (Job 19: 25-27 NLT)
Is God to blame? NO...the corruption of the earth is real. Paul in Romans 8 says "the creation groans...we groan...the Spirit groans..." because of that corruption that occurs in a fallen world. Job does not know, and sometimes we don't either, that there is an enemy of God that is fighting against those who seek to love and obey him. This enemy is indiscriminate. He is a liar, a thief, a destroyer, who seeks one thing alone - to harm the work of God.
Job had it right... "I know my redeemer lives...I will see God!"
Peace
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The story of Job is interesting in thinking about how we speak about God in the midst of life's difficulties. No one can escape difficult issues in life. We all experience things in life that, if we could, we would definitely choose to avoid. Who wants accidents, disease, deaths of love ones and friends, etc...? Which one of us would not want famine in Africa to end? For little children around the world to have fresh water to drink? For the devastations in Haiti and Japan to have never occurred?
It's not in our ability to control all that occurs around us or in the world. Therefore, it is natural, when people experience these sorts of things to turn to God - prayer is the most typical way. And we should. God has promised us that he is near, that if we seek him with our whole heart, we'll find him. Jesus said to us, "ask, seek, knock..." and that is what we do when we have a confident faith in God.
But there is another dimension of those experiences that can't help but wonder, "Why God?" "Why me?" "Why did you let this happen?". In other words, we blame God.
Or, the other argument is that there is a direct cause that leads to the effect. The pain, disease, difficulties are not undeserved, but a result of a person's own sins - open ones, or hidden. That is the argument coming from Job's friends.
Job's difficulties led him to a place of suffering...but it was his friends who argued that Job had no one to blame but himself. He MUST have sinned in some way to deserve this punishment. If only he would humble himself, repent, and cast himself on the mercy of God, all would be different.
There's the dilemma...regardless of which way it's approach...it is God who is the blame.
"....using my humiliation as evidence of my sin. But it is God who has wronged me...capturing me in his net. God has blocked my way so I cannot move.
He has plunged my path into darkness. “Have mercy on me, my friends, have mercy,...
for the hand of God has struck me. Must you also persecute me, like God does? (Job 19:5ff)
Job is battling his friends judgments and he is battling God. Why God, why did you do this? Why do you let it go on?
I've heard all of these..and have felt the sting of the judgments and the questioning of God within myself also.
Is there a faith answer? Maybe not in resolving the "why", but certainly in coming back to a place of rest where anxiety and stress abate. Job says,
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed,
yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself.
Yes, I will see him with my own eyes.
I am overwhelmed at the thought! (Job 19: 25-27 NLT)
Is God to blame? NO...the corruption of the earth is real. Paul in Romans 8 says "the creation groans...we groan...the Spirit groans..." because of that corruption that occurs in a fallen world. Job does not know, and sometimes we don't either, that there is an enemy of God that is fighting against those who seek to love and obey him. This enemy is indiscriminate. He is a liar, a thief, a destroyer, who seeks one thing alone - to harm the work of God.
Job had it right... "I know my redeemer lives...I will see God!"
Peace
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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