22 August 2012

Job

by Frank Turk


I'm travelling this week, so I'm reprinting a post from 2008.  It fits OK in the series on the Goodness of God, which I will return to next week.


I'm not much of a complainer in my personal life – mostly because I have kids who are way better than I could have possibly raised them, I have a wife who is infinitely a better person and a better spouse than I am, I make a decent living, somehow blogging has panned out for me as a way to write thing which people will then actually read, and most importantly, I have a savior in Jesus Christ.

Now, many segments of the blogosphere will read a post which begins like that and simply write it off as hash – because, frankly, they are actually complainers. Life is very hard for them, Jesus doesn’t turn out to give them what they think they want, and so on. And people see that as transparency, somehow – that if one can vent one's disappointment or talk about how hard they have it today, that's real emotional honesty, and we should raise a glass to the thick hide it takes to tell people that COMPONENT X of my life makes me sad.

And I bring this up because the last 10 days for me has been frankly emotionally and spiritually draining. I'm down. I'm really down. How can you laugh when you know I'm down? How can you laugh? When you know I'm down?

Ahem.

So should I blog about the valley of the shadow of death? I mean – as I have tried to find a way to summarize it, the last week has looked a lot like the first chapter of Job, sans the marauding Sabeans and the donkeys. And, thankfully, the boils.

Do you really want to read about that? Would it be edifying to know that my week was as bad or worse than yours was?

Let me suggest something here, and then try to work it out: these are important things, and they are the things we think about every day. But is thinking about them – and listening to the litany of my immediate state of woe – edifying or uplifting? Or is there something else we should be comparing all that stuff to so that when that stuff happens, we don’t find ourselves shipwrecked?

Job says this about that:
I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ... Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ... I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
That's Job – who probably went through worse that I did this week, and who, all things told, probably went through worse than you did. In his view, when he turned to God, and God answered him, it is himself he despises for thinking that God owes him an answer.

Now, why is that? Is it because it's none of Job's business and God will simply do whatever it is He does and none of your loose lip can change that? I think that's a completely hollow view of what Job realizes here, and that for two reasons.

The first reason is that God demands that Job's friends repent through Job for their sins. That is, while Job says that he did something wrong by asking God, "why?", his friend are actually in need of a sacrifice and are condemned by God for telling Job, "this is all your own fault, dude." That is, the explanation that Job is a sinner in the hands of an angry God doesn’t cut it because that's the explanation Job's friends give, and God labels that chatter "folly" which kindles up his "anger".

But the second reason is in Job's response here: the things at stake are too wonderful for Job to understand – even the Message admits that Job was sort of overwhelmed by the wonder which is in beholding God first-hand and seeing one's plight in the face of the living God.

Now, to tie this back to my original thought – which was my lousy week – of all the things in the list in my first paragraph, only one really qualifies as a "wonder". And while some of you may be influenced to think it is my Wife, and you'd be right from a certain perspective, the only real wonder on that list is that I have a savior in Jesus Christ.

"Yah yah yah," interrupts the internet detractor who struggles with depression, or the evangelican who stopped by because he was between Max Lucado books. "You Calvinists. The only thing that matters is Jesus Christ. Everything is so Jesus-centered that it's not any actual Earthly good, and you white-wash suffering and pain to the place where the problem of evil is itself invalidated because you say, in effect, there is no evil. It's all good because God makes it all good. And if that's what you're getting at, you make me sick because my wife is dying from cancer, she cannot be cured, and you can't convince me that her pain and my suffering are not evil."

Yeah, no. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that Job, who is still scraping his boils with a piece of pottery, and who has nothing left in this world, has asked God for an answer as to the question, "why me, Lord? Why me when I have never done anything to you?" And his answer is that suffering is real and it also shows us something about God we couldn’t otherwise know.

Job says, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." It seems to me that Job says that the answer to his question is not a fancy theology of the problem of evil, but that it is finding God there in the midst of the problem.

See: my problems this week are my problems. I own them, I wear them, I bear them. This is my life. It is real. I know it because I feel it. But there is a wonder which I could not see if I did not see this pain: it is the wonder that Christ is my savior. And he's not just a savior who hands out lollypops and lemonade and cake: He's a savior who has willingly suffered so that He would save.

You know: Christ had to pay taxes (Mat 17 – the temple tax). Christ had arguments with people – in fact, very important people came looking for Christ to have arguments with him specifically for the purpose of making him look bad (Mark 12 – about divorce and the resurrection). Christ's friends betrayed Him (John 18 – Peter denies him). Christ's mother thought he was crazy, and wanted him to stop preaching (Mark 3 – not just his mother but his whole family). Christ had people using him for a free meal under the cover of seeking a religious sign (John 6 – feeds 5000). Christ's friend died from being sick (John 11 – death of Lazarus). Christ Himself was unjustly accused and convicted of violating the law, and was given the death penalty (Mat 26:57- the trial of Christ).

Let me say it plainly that Jesus had it rough – and this is a wonder.

Christ suffered in this world in every way that we suffer today, and He knows what we are going through – not as an observer, but as the book of Hebrews says, as a High Priest [who] understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same dark stuff we do.

Now, if you see that with your eye, and not merely hear it with your ear, how do you feel about your complaints? Are they magnified, or does Christ – who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be horded or clung to, but made himself nothing (an insignificant speck), taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross -- trade you beauty for your ashes, and pour out an oil of gladness for your mourning?

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture. So when an airplane crashes into your new car, or you have to go and mourn at a funeral without your spouse because of a birthday party, or your money suddenly seems really tight, or you have to fire someone because of someone else's incompetence, or you yourself are fired because of someone else's incompetence, you may be suffering. I would say that if these things happen to you, you will suffer. But Christ has suffered more and you get that benefit. That is the answer God gives you, which I think you couldn't see from the chaise lounge whilst sipping the drink served in a coconut with the happy paper umbrella. You can only see it from this place, where we suffer.

And that makes looking at the rest of this stuff a little easier, I think. I hope you think so, too.








8 comments:

Nash Equilibrium said...

Glad the prayers about your trial at work were answered. Maybe that suffering inspired you to write about Job? lol

DJP said...

Very good, points worth making (and hearing) made well.

Solameanie said...

This post is a tour-de-force by God's grace, and will do an eternal, measurable amount of good in the lives of more people than you realize.

James Scott Bell said...

Arlo Guthrie used to talk about the old saying, "Somebody else has it worse than you." Then he'd say, "But what about the last guy?"

Well, this is the answer.

Jared T. Baergen said...

It's an extremely good reminder for me to look at the cross and know that Christ suffered more on that cross in three hours than I could ever imagine. It makes my trials seem so insignificant; and it magnifies my Savior.

"Yeah, but Christ never had the same illness as I do." Yeah, but Christ suffered infinitely more on the cross, and He did it all through love: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Makes any trial I could ever go through seem insignificant. However, if responded to correctly, no trial is ever a loss (James 1:2-4). I'm so glad to know I have a savior who I can look to for comfort who can say, "been there, done all that."

In other words.... Kwitchurbeliakin!

Merrilee Stevenson said...

Been thinking about this for a day or so. Great post.

Now, about complaining: I know that when I have a bad attitude about...whatever...when things aren't going how I think they ought...I know that my bad attitude is wrong. It is sinful, and I need to confess it as such and forsake it. It displeases the Lord.

Here is what stumps me: since David seems to do his fair share of complaining to God in Psalms, and David was (after all) a man after God's own heart, does that mean that complaining to God is okay? I mean, isn't God big enough to take putting up with me? If I can't complain to God, then where else is there to go? Doesn't He want us to bring our burdens and lay them at His feet?

The above questions (more or less) were part of a discussion we had at church while we were reading through a book about prayer by Phil Yancy. I really didn't know how (or even if) to answer those above questions. So, since the comment thread is short and I'm making grape jelly today, I thought, "Why not ask?"

FX Turk said...

Merrilee --

In my view of it, those who say that David did his fair share of complaining in the Psalms are people who are not reading the Psalms very carefully. There are MANY Psalms in which the psalmist STARTS by "complaining," but it is RARE (I can't think of any examples) that the Psalmist doesn't turn it around by the end of the Psalm to say, essentially, "but God wins."

Psalm 22 is a classic example of this: the Psalmist starts out in utter dejection, prophesying the forsaken Christ, but by verse 21, he is taking comfort in the fact that God has never let him down, never abandoned him, never forgotten his promises. Those who stop in v18 do themselves a vast disservice.

But many do. Thus: my blog post.

Linda said...

This is such an excellent post.

Our eyes cannot fathom the reality we have IN Christ that he loves us like no one can. If we saw, we'd be more than welcoming the pain and hardships for the surpassing glory-(Philippians 3:8, 2 Corinthians 3:10)- of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord.

Merrille,,

God allows/permits Pain in our lives to drive us to HIM. God allows us room to be (REAL) with Him. It hurts and we go through a time of thinking we cannot trust him. God can take it because he allows the circumstances in our lives knowing you or I would act like this. He knows you. He knows what it takes to cultivate intimacy with HIM.The BEST way is to cry out for HIS mercy and grace and he WILL give it..

God is Sovereign.. God puts the people in our lives either directly or indirectly that irk us the most because they are under the control of God. nobody has ever helped ME be a better Christian in my walk with Christ than people who chafe me the wrong way-The bête´ noires.