Saturday, May 2, 2009

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IN THE WORLD


Job 40:1-42:17; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21; Psalm 45:1-17; Proverbs 22:14

“When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!”

“Whatever we do, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them…. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! ...We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”

I’ve learned a lot about the Book of Job the last two days. Yesterday was big, but the most important revelation – probably obvious up front to anybody but me – is the how and why of Job’s final restoration. I always thought the story was as follows: 1) Job is great and good; 2) Job is virtually destroyed; 3) Job mourns and questions God; 4) Job’s friends fuss at him without justification; 5) God challenges Job; 6) God restores Job. The end. Au contraire, mon ami.

Come to find out, I’ve simply missed the most important part of the book every other time through it. One verse makes all the difference, and brings light out of the dark. One simple verse (out of forty two LONG chapters consisting mainly of one diatribe or another) changes everything, even if it admittedly stops short of explaining everything. No verse, not even the book as a whole, adequately explains suffering. But one verse, standing alone, tells us everything God wants us to know about how to deal with suffering:

When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before!”

It may be just this side of impossible for humans to accept, but Job’s antidote for suffering was one thing, and one thing only: do something for someone else (and be prepared – that “something” may be for a tormentor, even if they call themselves a “friend”)! Job spent some forty-odd chapters grieving, questioning, arguing, feeling sorry for himself and just generally bottoming out around the question, “Why me?” God provided absolutely no answers. But the second, Scripturally speaking, Job began to pray for those who just heaped more anguish on him, he was restored and remade, even better than he was at the start.

Oh, good grief! I hear you, Lord. I really think I do. But that is just too hard! Talk about kicking a soul when it’s down and out, or adding insult to injury! I know myself; in a Job situation, I simply don’t think I’d have it in me to start praying for those who are giving me grief. My inclination, no doubt, would be to just curl up and lick my wounds in resentment. Kinda like Job did, at first… and very unlike Christ.

There it is again, at the Cross. “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” The antidote for suffering is to start thinking about, praying for and blessing others, particularly those who make our lives miserable. This cannot be avoided by anyone who is serious about the Bible. It’s not logical, easy or even necessarily possible in our own strength. But it is right. Christ clearly modeled what the Book of Job teaches. And Jesus wasn’t just restored, either. He was literally resurrected, and made completely new! Why did I not see it before? Maybe I just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept it. Jesus gave us a head’s up when He said to turn the other cheek and pray for those who persecute us. But that just sounded like the good and kind approach to bullies, bigots and others who abuse power. It wasn’t presented as a soul-saving prescription for the treatment of despair and alienation….

O.K., thinking about it, maybe it was; I just never saw it. Now, however, after thinking about it, the other shoe drops, too. The “why.” Why, when we are beaten down beyond our capacity to rise up, when we are wounded beyond our capacity to recover, and when the only priority of our minds and bodies is healing, are we nevertheless instructed to bless our enemies? The answer is found in another question. “Where?” Where, when we are the most depleted, are we supposed to find the strength to even pray for ourselves, much less others? Paul answers clearly: Christ.

“…We have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them….This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!...We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!’    

if we want to find life after death, joy after despair, it all begins with the Holy Spirit acting in and through us. It requires looking completely outside ourselves for the strength we need. But here’s the whammy: the power to save and be saved will never be ours until we first commit ourselves to giving it away, often to the ones we want to have it the least. There are going to be times this seems like the most difficult thing in the world. Pretty much every time, it may well be the hardest thing to do. We’re not wired to look outside ourselves when we are so torn up on the inside. But here’s the thing. When God wants to heal and fulfill a life, He never asks, “What can I do for you?” His question is always, “What can I do through you?” And the emptier we are, the more space there is for Him. Our challenge, always, is simply opening ourselves up and giving Christ the room to work.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Tom. I enjoyed reading your posts on Job, especially your insight on Job 42:10 (restoration following prayer). I chuckled to see that Ecclesiastes is following Job, when arguably, the two go together. Both find frustration at not being able to penetrate the unknowable; God's purpose.

What did you make of Ecc. 3:11 in light of all this?

Thanks for your insights
Dean

bibleblogger said...

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

I would say Solomon had a tad better vision than Job, but not by a lot. After all, Solomon didn't grasp the significance of what he taught, either. Otherwise, he would have realized that everything is NOT meaningless. Anyway, it's tough for me to fault Job. In the depths of despair lie monsters the rest of us only dream about.
T.