Tag: A chapter a day

Bildad speaks again, and it is more of the same.
“All memory of [the existence of wicked men] will fade from the earth. No one will remember their names.”

Isn’t it often the case, however, that the opposite is true. How many godly men and women have lived and died without any notoriety at all?

As poignantly expressed by Gerhard Tersteegen in “Pilgrim Song”:

“We follow in His footsteps;
What if our feet be torn?
Where [God] has marked the pathway
All hail the briar and thorn!
Scarce seen, scare heard, unreckoned,
Despised, defamed, unknown,
Or heard but by our singing,
On children, ever on!”

Job lost his family, his possessions, his health, his friends, the encouragement and support of his wife and even the sympathy of those around him. “God has made a mockery of me among the people; they spit in my face.”

Even his hope is gone. “My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken.”

But still he does not curse God. His wife thought he would. Even Satan, the Accuser, was sure that he would.

This is the story of one man’s suffering. In many ways, it is not unlike the stories of many men down through the centuries. Men who have suffered great misfortune, and endured miserable circumstances.

But this is the story of a godly man. A man who acknowledged (even though he didn’t understand) the sovereignty of God. A man who did not bitterly turn away from God because of his circumstances.

To Job’s probing questions, Eliphaz offers very shallow answers.

This life is all there is. God’s judgment is meted out in this life according to one’s deeds. Do good, and you will prosper. Do evil, and you will suffer for it. And although one may point to evil men who seem to prosper, “their riches will not last, and their wealth will not endure.”

Job seems to be the only one who is wrestling with unanswered questions. The three men beside him have it all neatly figured out.

But, in their defense, if a righteous Judge is behind it all, and in control of it all, and if this life is all there is, is it that far out of line to understand our good and bad circumstances as either the result of God’s favor or displeasure?

There has to be more to it.

“Can the dead live again?”, Job asks, almost wistfully.

Since life on earth is so short, and death is endless, what eternal purpose did God have in mind in forming man from the dust of the ground?

Prolonged suffering. Profound questions.

Job says again, “I am a just and blameless man, yet my friends laugh at me.”

Job is at a loss to explain his circumstances, but he cannot accept the explanation offered by his three “friends”.

Job is certain of this: Although God’s ways are mysterious, and his purposes inscrutable, yet “I call on God and expect an answer.” This that has befallen me is of God, for he is very much at work in the affairs of men, and is in control of everything, even the very breath we breathe. All creation knows this. “Just ask the animals, and they will teach you.”

The God that Job complains against is surely a God to fear, but not a God to love or respect.

Forming us in the womb, giving us life – but only so He may set a trap for us, so to speak, by catching us in some small sin, and then punishing us severely for it.

And this He does in a capricious, arbitrary way, since many very wicked men seem not to be held accountable at all.

But either way, what is the point? After a few short years of misery or bliss on this earth, we pass away – never to return – to a land of gloom, as dark as midnight.

Job is either venting, or lashing out at what he perceives to be a cruel reality. In any case, these are very serious charges, charges that beg for a response from the God of Enoch, the God of Noah, the God of Job.

In a painfully honest way, Job puts into words his deepest feelings. “What recourse is there with God? If He is right in punishing me, what have I done? How can my punishment be just? And if He is wrong, what difference does it make; is He not all powerful?”

“He wounds me without cause”, Job exclaims. “The blameless and the wicked are alike to him.”

But are they? Would Noah have agreed with that? Is that the lesson of the great flood?

Surely the God of day and night, springtime and harvest, flood waters and gentle rain does nothing without cause. Surely He makes a distinction between the blameless and the wicked.

It is Bildad’s turn to speak, and his words must have cut like a knife. “Your children must have sinned against God, so their punishment was well deserved.” How many times had Job offered burnt sacrifices on behalf of his sons and daughters, concerned about their party lifestyle?

To Bildad, Job’s success prior to this calamity was like a lush plant growing for a time in the sunshine, only to be uprooted and destroyed.

How terribly difficult it must have been for Job to cope with his suffering. He cries out, “Where is God when I am hurting? He surely sees and knows. But does he care? Is he mad at me? Do I deserve all this? If I confess my sins to him, will the pain go away? What if it’s not clear to me how I have offended him?”

The existentialist would answer, “That’s a dead end.? Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by how we react to what happens; not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life.”

But is that really? true? ?Is life no more than a video game, where the goal is to run through the maze as fast as you can while looking out for sudden, seemingly random dangers? The monster jumping out from behind a rock, for example, or the explosive coconuts falling from a tree?

No, as every computer game programmer can tell you, these seemingly random events are anything but random, resulting from thousands, even millions of lines of code. There is a grand method behind the madness; it’s just beyond the ability of the gamer to fully understand it.

As was revealed in the first chapter of Job, there is a grand scheme to life too. God is in the circumstances for his own purposes, and he also wants to influence our reactions to them.

What a difference a day makes. When Job got up in the morning, he was the richest man in the country. By nightfall, he had nothing. And Job was blameless. So much for the prosperity gospel.

Some might say, “Well, you just deal with what you have to deal with.” Sounds manly enough, but even a dog does that, doesn’t it? A dog deals with a full bowl, or an empty bowl. With lots of affection or with very little. A dog doesn’t think beyond this moment’s experience.

Humans are much more than dogs. Man was made in the image of God, created to bring Him glory.

In his initial reaction to sudden, horrific circumstances, Job did exactly that.