Your Brother Daniel
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Job: Dealing with Suffering in the Midst of Confusion
I think that we become most
tormented when we can’t understand our experience of pain and loss when it
seems to contradict Scripture. For instance, I love to read about the
missionaries. They are my heroes! However, they had experienced enormous loss –
children, spouses and even their own lives. Why? They had committed their
entire lives to their God and His service, and yet they experienced such loss,
despite God’s promise to work all things to their good.
From our point of view, this just
shouldn’t be! It seems to violate all of God’s promises, and the apparent
contradiction sends us spiraling down into a spiritual vertigo. Job experienced
this vertigo. He had lost everything, even though he had given his entire life
to his Lord. He was convinced that what he had experienced wasn’t fair, and
that God was at fault. Although he never cursed God, he certainly was not
lacking in indictments against Him.
And, in a limited sense, Job was
right. Although God might not have directly caused Job’s misfortunes, He
purposely allowed them to happen! Job therefore was certain that God’s Word had
failed, and that God had failed him.
Eventually, Job repented of his
accusations against God. Why? It wasn’t that God had given Job a detailed and
reasonable explanation of everything God had done. Job never received an
explanation for his loss and suffering, but he received something else that sufficed.
God revealed to him that his indictments were products of ignorance. He showed
Job that Job lacked the wisdom and understanding to make such indictments:
·
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is
this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace
yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where
were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line
across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its
cornerstone (Job 38:1-6)
Of course, Job could not answer any
of these questions. He had been like a first-grader complaining that his math
teacher couldn’t teach math. However, God dramatically showed him that he
lacked the necessary intelligence and experience to make such charges. Job got
the message and repented:
·
“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You
asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I
spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know… Therefore
I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6)
Often we become too confident about
our level of knowledge. We become convinced that we know more than we actually
do know and therefore judge God.
While wisdom and knowledge have an
exalted role according to Scripture, we often rely upon our own wisdom more
than we should. We are warned against this:
·
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in
all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs
3:5-6)
Contrary to this, we are often told
to trust in ourselves and our judgments. However, Scripture cautions against
this advice. Job had trusted in his own understanding, but this only deepened
his woes. He finally came to the realization that his self-trust had cut him
off from his only hope – God.
There are some things that we can’t
understand. Scripture warns us of this – that we only see in part. I must admit
that I too am troubled about the way God does things and the things He allows
to occur. Our beloved nephew just took his own life after battling paranoia for
years. He was a believer. Why did God allow this to happen? This troubles me!
Our pastor-friend’s son took his
life. His wife died after many painful years of battling cancer, and now the
pastor also battles against the same foe. Another pastor-friend died a long and
painful death. Both of these men had been men of exemplary character. God, why?
If You allowed such torment to befall these godly men, what hope do I have? You
want me to trust You, but how can I in light of what I see?
This had been Job dilemma. How could
he love and trust God after what had happened to him? He was convinced that he
no longer could! However, he subsequently repented of his attitude. What made
the difference? It wasn’t that it all suddenly made sense to him. We see no
evidence of this! Instead, he came to see that he couldn’t trust his own very
limited and juvenile judgments. This understanding once again opened the door
to trusting God, once he saw that he could not trust in his own understanding.
Just recently, my knee went bad, and
then my back went out. In desperation, I went to the chiropractor, who broke my
rib. I subsequently went through a Job-like crisis. I asked, “God, can I really
trust You? Will you let me down as you did my pastor-friends?”
Leaning to my own understanding, it
seems that God had let me down. But perhaps it was my own understanding that
had let me down. I recalled God’s humbling counsel to Job:
·
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the
deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you
seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended
the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.” (Job
38:16-18)
Truly, there is so much that I do
not know! “Lord, humble me and leave me not in the grips of my own feeble and
fearful understanding.”
Nevertheless, I think that there is
understanding to be had. Our Lord will never allow us to have enough
wisdom and understanding so that we need not cry out to Him for more. We will
always need to depend upon Him for understanding, and we must. He therefore
hides from us the extent of His grace – His responsiveness to our prayers. He
did this with Abraham!
Abraham had been granted an
exclusive audience with the Lord, who explained that He was about to destroy
Sodom because of its great sins. Abraham interceded on behalf of his nephew Lot
who lived in Sodom with his family. Finally, he got the Lord to agree that He
would not destroy Sodom if there were as few as ten righteous people in the
city. However:
·
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had
stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and
Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from
the land, like smoke from a furnace. (Gen. 19:27-28)
We have absolutely no indication
that Abraham ever knew that the Lord had rescued Lot and his daughters.
Consequently, he never tried to find them. Instead, it seems that Abraham was
so stricken by this loss that he had to relocate elsewhere, away from any
reminder of his great “loss.”
We are not ready to truly fathom the
depth of our Lord’s grace. We cannot handle it. While bleeding to death from a
grievous chainsaw injury, I had the most incredible pre-salvation encounter
with God. I was utterly filled with His love, joy and peace. I was in ecstasy
through the knowledge of His omnipotence and the certainty that He would never
leave me. I was miraculously rescued and spent four days recuperating in the
hospital. On the second day, my surgeon informed me that I had to begin
exercising my hand or I’d loose mobility. However, I blew-off his advice,
convinced that God was omnipotent, and therefore, it didn’t matter what I’d do
in regards to my recovery.
Consequently, I never regained full
mobility. Although I correctly understood that God is omnipotent, I lacked the
maturity to correctly apply this knowledge and suffered loss as a result. I
leaned on my own limited understanding instead of the word of the expert.
I was not ready for God’s truth. Can
we teach a first-grader trigonometry before she learns addition and
subtraction? Trig is ridiculous – even dangerous - for those unprepared for it.
So too is a comprehensive understanding of God’s ways. Instead, we need to
learn from Job and repent in dust and ashes, acknowledging that we speak “of
things [we] did not understand, things too wonderful for [us] to know.”
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