Me and Job

I loathe my life; I would not live forever.  Leave me alone, for my days are a breath. -- Job 7:16

I am always skittish of verses from Job because you have to be very aware of the context.  In this case, though, it is Job himself speaking, and we pretty well know the context.

Perhaps it is only me, but there are days when I could say this.  Just let me die.  Why does this have to go on and on?  I shouldn’t complain because I don’t have health issues.  Everything in my life is fairly stable.  Yet, I cannot help feel that I disappoint everyone.  I don’t mind screwing things up for myself.  I don’t like to fail other people, cause anguish to others, or cause other people more work or to be burdened in some way.  I would just like for everyone around me to be happy. 

You might look at my desire and think it’s noble or self-sacrificing, but there’s something amiss with it.  Obviously, no matter what I do, it’s not going to make everybody happy.  It’s kind of like the political concept of utopia.  It’s unrealistic.  There’s an aspect of it that attributes more power and significance to my life than is appropriate. 

Job was a wealthy, powerful man.  He was a man who took charge of things and took care of his family.  When Job spoke, people listened.  Surely such a successful man must be wise, and he was.  Even the wisest of us, though, are fools compared to God. 

It’s been my practice since I was a kid to take the heavy end of the load.  I have always taken the hardest, dirtiest part of any task when I could.  Part of that stems from the fact that I worked so much with my father and that he was in his forties when I was born.  He was tough and all for his age, but he was also ready to take it a little easier by the time I was old enough to do man-sized labor.  He let me have those rough jobs, not only because my main skills were brute force and awkwardness, but to toughen me up and teach me.  The older and stronger and tougher I got, the more work I was able and expected to do.  There was nothing wrong with that, but I did get to thinking that I should be able to do about anything and handle it all myself.

That was a pretty simple world on the old farm.  I could have most of the answers most of the time.  The world I live in now is not so simple.  I feel a kinship with Job in this, too.  Job was doing what he knew to do.  Everything worked the way it was supposed to work.  Everything made sense.  Job’s world was straightforward:  Do right and be blessed; do wrong and suffer. 

Except that’s not the way the world is. 

I am not the center of things.  There are billions of other humans alive at this moment.  Billions of others have lived and died while creating, shaping, and shading all that we must face and interact with today.  Aside from humanity, all of creation impinges upon us, from the deer that darts in front of our car to the virus that makes our heads hurt and our noses run. 

My job, the purpose and destiny of my existence it not to fix all that.  I am not a failure if I can’t.  God asks only that I do what I can, that I play my part, and endure.  We really are in something bigger than us, and that’s what the Lord showed Job in the end.  He never answered all of Job’s questions.  He never explained the reasons for his loss and suffering.  He just revealed Himself as the center of it.  It was not about Job.  It’s not about me, either.    

Thrills and Spills

The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand. – Psalm 37:23-24

I saw this in my reading this morning and thought it is a comfort and reassurance that I need to hear.  The Lord is not the God of Deism who sits the clock in motion and stands back to watch it tick down.  Nor is He the God of determinism who has locked down every thought and removed all possible freedom from the cosmos.  He is the God of Grace, our loving Father who shows us the way, often step by step, getting us back up on our feet when we stumble.  He does not abandon us but heals and restores the fallen.  Even if we abandon Him, He waits and works to nudge us back onto the path. 

When my oldest granddaughter was little, she had a little pink bicycle with training wheels.  I can see her now riding in circles on the deck of the house we had at the time.  The house was in town on a cul-de-sac. When the training wheels came off, she would want to ride on that quiet street and make the much larger circle there.  I was younger fifteen years ago, and I would run backward ahead of her bicycle just to make sure she was safe and protected at all times.  There was a very slight grade where our driveway joined the street, but the circle of the cul-de-sac was flat. 

Her house, on the other hand, was on a steep hill and on a corner, though, because it dead-ended only a few houses further on, there was no thru-traffic, and it was very quiet as well.  There was a small neighborhood playground just up the hill at the end of another dead-end street.  One day, my wife, daughter, granddaughter and I had gone up to the playground, the adults walking and the child on her bicycle.  After she had swung and slid for a while, we started back.  Now it’s downhill.  I jogged easily alongside bicycle as we traversed the relatively flat dead-end, but as we started down the hill to the corner my granddaughter got carried away with her ability to go fast. 

As Gimli said of the dwarves in The Two Towers, I am a natural sprinter.  I turned it on going down that hill because I could see what was going to happen.  I had my hand on the back of the bicycle seat, but the grade was just too steep.  There was no way I could brace myself enough to stop us without causing a wreck on the concrete road surface.  Even snatching her off the bicycle would have risked me falling on top of her.  I had to let her go.  She couldn’t make the turn.  The little bicycle caught on the curb and flipped her into the grass of a neighbor’s lawn.  I had her in my arms almost as soon as she hit, but her nose was bloodied, and she was wailing.  Her mother, who is not a natural sprinter, lost her shoes responding. 

I’ve never had a bike go down on a concrete roadway, but I know from experience that sliding across asphalt at 50 or 60 miles per hour will take the hide right off.  I also know that the steel in the studs on my old green helmet had quite a bit of carbon in it because there were lots of pretty sparks when the studs scraped on the asphalt.  I really don’t want to know about my new helmets.  As it turned out, hitting the curb and high-siding into soft grass was probably the least painful and least damaging way for a little girl to end her wild ride.  Landing on your nose hurts, to be sure, but sod is softer and more forgiving than concrete.    

As long as we stay where things are more or less safe, where God can intervene in our circumstances, guard us and keep us on track, we don’t have to risk any spills.  Sometimes, though, the thrill of having the reins or the handlebars in our hands and being in control bedazzles us.  We get carried away on a slippery slope, and there is inevitably a crash waiting for us at the end. 

I know the Lord does His best to protect me.  I don’t always understand how things get out of hand or how I get caught up in painful situations.  I don’t like suffering and bloody noses, but I can learn from them, and I know “…this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison”. 

What Do You Give the God Who Has Everything?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  -- Romans 12:1

I had a good Christian friend, now gone on to his reward, who used to get upset about the idea of giving one’s sin to Jesus.  This is despite the fact that Scripture tells us the Lord bore all of our sins on the Cross.  His thought process was one that I have heard other people espouse in one form or another.  He would say, "Don't give your sins to Jesus!  God hates sin.  He judged sin in the crucified Christ.  Why would you think you could give Him your sin?  Give it up!"  I think my friend was correct in terms of the conclusion, given the premise, but the premise is false.  When we place our sins upon Christ, we are not saying that we can sin and Jesus can suffer the consequences like Dorian Gray’s portrait. 

Under the Law of Moses (look anywhere in Leviticus, especially with regard to Yom Kippur and the scapegoat), sin and guilt were symbolically placed upon a sacrificial animal most often by the laying on of hands.  The scapegoat, bearing the sins of God’s people, was led far into the wilderness from which it would never return.  In my twisted mind, I can imagine a herd of scapegoats wandering around some forgotten valley.  It might make a good science fiction story.  It would be a version of hell because that is where the sins of humanity went when Jesus was buried with all of our iniquities.  Those who refuse to accept this walk around under the burden and control of their sins and sin nature, even though Jesus said, Tel Telesti, it is finished.

But let’s say that we have gone to the altar, confessed our faults and failures, accepted Christ’s sacrifice and the forgiveness offered to us in Him.  If after that, we sin, what are we to do?  We confess again, according to 1 John 1:9 and find that God is still faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

I get tired of that.  I don’t want to sin at all, despite being a desperately wicked person.  I have noticed this about myself that the problem is less behavior than it is attitude and thinking most of the time.  I very rarely physically attack someone, but I may boil with rage about them.  I don’t pursue pretty women, but my appreciation of their beauty does occasionally exceed allowable limits.  So I can either walk around with my head down all the time lest my eye be held by immodest cleavage – which I have done, or I can decide that I am just a weak-willed, lecherous man and not worry too much about it. 

There might, though, be a third option.  What if I took my weakness and offered it to the Lord as a sacrifice?  Most often a sacrifice was not taken away like the scapegoat but slaughtered and part or all of it burned on the bronze altar as a “sweet smelling savor” unto the Lord.  Whether it is something we would like to do and should not, or something we have to do but would rather not, we can put it on the altar and offer it up to God.  That is the correct premise.  That is the power that Christ Jesus offers us by His own obedience. 

Take fasting as an example.  Fasting is not a hunger-strike against God.  When we fast, we offer the emptiness, the craving and the somewhat mild suffering we voluntarily endure as a sacrifice.  We ask the Lord to accept what we are doing as a gift of love to Him.  What do you get for the God who has everything? 

In the same way, we can take our impulses and urges, trials and temptations, our sickness, weariness, regret, failure, anything, and give it to the Lord.  We consciously and intentionally offer whatever it is to Him as an expression of our recognition of His worthiness, i.e., as worship.  

 Maybe you have to work through lunch and your fast is involuntary.  Your stomach is growling and you are getting light-headed because all you had for breakfast was three fried eggs and six pieces of bacon – you’re trying to cut back a little, and now this.  Instead of focusing on your pain, say, Lord, I’m going to offer the suffering that I am going through here to You.  I’m doing this for You.   When we are tired and have to keep going, when we are mistreated, when things, whatever they are, fall apart, we can offer it to the Lord. 

When we are tempted, instead of giving in, we say, Lord, I’m going to do the right thing and not the wrong thing for You.  Please accept this as an offering of gratitude and love for all You have given me.  I lay this dead aspect of my life on the fire of judgment, and I’m going to let it burn. 

I think that is the correct way of giving our sins to Jesus as an act of self-sacrifice and acceptable worship.  When we miss the mark and do fail and fall, we get up and go back to the altar and put the whole thing on there to be consumed, to go up before the Lord in smoke.  There is no sense trying to hide anything from God.   

Suffer for the Lord, and rejoice in the Lord; live for the Lord, and die for the Lord. 

Purpose Built

And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from his birth.  And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" -- John 9:1-2 (KJ21)

All of us know of those whole lives have been handicapped in some way, and, like those disciples, we are inclined to ask for the cause of such troubles.  The ninth chapter of the Gospel of John answers this question — to a degree.  But it also poses a question or two.  Is it a greater wonder that blind eyes may be opened, or that the open eyes see nothing?  Where, then, does the sin lie?

All of us also encounter obstacles in life.  We might even say that the notable absence of obstacles becomes an obstacle, in that one without difficulties is more likely to be weak and hapless.  The weakness of soft and easy living yet may develop a certain strength to endure it.  We should, at least, not be envious of those for whom life appears to flow so smoothly.  The modern urban dweller and information worker is never going to gain much strength from packing around digits, so some pay good money to sweat, strain, and suffer down at the gym.  It is a strange world. 

The question asked of Christ goes to the heart of existence.  Is there a reason for suffering?  Is there someone to blame for the imbalances, the unfairness, and the pain of life?  Is there someone to blame, or to praise?  The random collisions of packets of energy, of particles forming matter, clinging to one another, coalescing to create ever larger clumps and clusters -- is that it?  For if there is no one to blame, or to praise, if it is meaningless to suffer, why suffer?  Why allow suffering?  Why endure?  If suffering is meaningless, so is life.  Who can blame a purposeless universe for being also pitiless? 

But we are human.  An ape wonders at "what".  A man ponders "why".  A cat may be intrigued by the how of something, as will a human, but the better among us will not be content until we have pushed our reason to find a reason.  All that we see has a hidden essence -- that even a blind man may know.  A favorite quote of mine comes from Anaxagoras, "Appearances are a glimpse of what is hidden."  Most of us are wise enough at a minimum to recognize that the outward appearance of a thing or of an event is shaped by forces and factors not immediately visible or sensible.  This is true of our very existence. 

Molecules, atoms, particles and particles of particles, light and energy, magnetism and gravity manifesting in massive, starry fires, in fragile, passing points of life -- there is more than we see.  More, perhaps, than we want to see. 

Jesus answered, "Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him" (John 9:3, KJ21).  Much of the time we want to focus on what precedes an event in the past in order to explain it when we ought to look to the future for what follows.  What causes a man to plant an apple tree?  Is it because he tasted apples in the past or because he wishes to eat them in the future?  We think our past determines our future, but perhaps we should look occasionally through the other end of the telos-scope. 

The Plot Thickens

What do you plot against the Lord?  He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. – Nahum 1:9

The only thing that bothers me about that verse is “trouble will not rise up a second time”.  It seems to me that trouble, like the bogeyman in a horror movie, will rise on every turn.  I have to admit, though, certain kinds of trouble, certain sources of trouble – and I think that’s what we have in the context of Nahum’s prophecy regarding Nineveh – once vanquished, are done.  Some adversary challenges us; some weakness besets us.  We struggle and struggle, fail and fail again, yet, when at last we have beaten it, weakness becomes strength.  Failure becomes a foundation, becomes the solid rock on which we stand. 

A complete victory in some area of contention comes only through the Lord.  Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”  Only God can turn adversaries into allies.  It occurs to me that, from a sheep’s perspective, a sheep dog must look a lot like a wolf. 

Even the devil does not presume to plot against the Lord.  But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” (Jude 9)  The devil as the adversary and the accuser of the brethren was only doing his job.  Being the natural patron of prosecutors, I’m sure he made a decent case against Moses, as there was indeed one to be made, and so much the more against me.  It is often, however, the devil’s arguments in the mouths of those who do plot against God and His children.  Rabshakeh (or the Rabshakeh, depending on the translation) of the Assyrians made the case against Jerusalem in Isaiah 36.  The Assyrian invaders dismissed the God of Israel from their plans.  This did not end well for them. 

It will not end well for those today who forget that the Lord is on His throne, who think earthly powers and principalities of darkness may overcome and enslave the righteous.  Though we may suffer for a season, the plots will fail, the yokes will be broken, and God will make a complete end of those foolish enough to conspire against Him. 

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. – Psalm 2:4