Reflections on a Job-esque Week

From Jim Jordan's website - November 4, 2007

I went to see one of my best friends in the hospital this week. He's struggling with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). Two weeks ago he passed out and fell in the same hospital while they were doing work on his wife's broken foot. Their travails have been horrible lately. On the way in I called his wife to see if they needed anything. It turns out that she needed someone to be there to receive my friend from his therapy session because her car had just been broad-sided by a delivery truck.

While I waited for him to be wheeled down I looked around for something to read and saw their Bible sitting by the window. It didn't take me but a second to decide what I wanted to review, I picked the book of Job. You know the story, Job was wealthy and happy, blessed in every way, until Satan made a deal with God that Job would be tested. Everything goes wrong in Job's life. His children are killed in a windstorm and he loses his livestock. Job's wife and friends give their two cents on what God was trying to tell Job by these terrible events.

There were two new things that stood out even though I'd read this story numerous times. The first thing I noticed was reading God's response to all the ponderings ("words without knowledge") of the humans in chapters 38 and 39. He uses nature to make His case. It becomes plainly clear that the idea that Job and friends would even try to "figure out" the Creator's purpose is absurd. In chapter 42, Job confesses his sin. This is the way The Message puts it:



Job answered God: "I'm convinced: You can do anything and everything.
Nothing and no one can upset your plans.
You asked, 'Who is this muddying the water,
ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?'
I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me,
made small talk about wonders way over my head.
You told me, 'Listen, and let me do the talking.
Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.'
I admit I once lived by rumors of you;
now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I'm sorry—forgive me. I'll never do that again, I promise!
I'll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor."



Job didn't know what he was talking about. And neither do we. There are times when God annoys me, honestly. But that is not a hindrance to my undying love for Him. Job was right to ask "Why me?" And many times I see the stupid things that happen to me and ponder the incredible turn of bad luck that my friend has had. Both my friend and I have grown closer to God in recent years and yet our fortunes have been ransacked by a superhuman assault during the same time. Thanks be to God? Do we blame Him? Do we accuse Him?

The second nugget I had overlooked in the book of Job was the name "Satan" in Hebrew. It means "accuser" or "adversary". It is a logical distinction for the prince of darkness but it speaks volumes to us. Do we desire to be the accuser, the adversary of God? Will our discontent, as rational as it is, become fertile ground from which we oppose our God? The answer is "no"!

A few days after my friend fell in the hallway at the hospital, passing out and falling dead weight onto the tile floor, his left eye was still bulging out of the socket, green, red, and black, I went to visit. I arrived just as the chaplain showed up to the room. Seeing he had a visitor she said she was praying for him and would come back later.

My friend sat crumpled in his wheelchair, swollen eye and broken shoulder, withered arms at his side, he leaned forward slightly and spoke softly. "God...is...good." He nodded his head for emphasis and then repeated the statement.

What a testimony! It's easy to blame God, to become His adversary because of the crappy hand you've been dealt. By all our human standards His timing is awful and His blessing of our fidelity is often nil. But there is nothing more rewarding than simply being at peace with your Creator. He is good. He is awesome. He is perfect. Did we not always know that?

Heavenly Father, You are almighty and all-knowing, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Though you lead me to the cross, breaking down each of my muscles and limbs, even though you slay me, yet will I trust in you. For you are all there is, all there ever was, and all that will ever be. I stand in awe. I can do no other than worship you forever.

Give my friend strength in his journey and bless his wonderful and devoted wife with your peace that goes beyond understanding. Indeed "beyond understanding" is where you are taking us. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.