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| Share Agape for the week of August 11, 2003 |
| Proving Satan Wrong The Book of Job PART II (click here to read Part I) We've all met people who have plenty of money, nice families, a good job, and seem to have not a care in the world-yet they live sinful lives. Job asks, "Why God? How come I'm going through all this terrible pain, and yet those who don't even bother with you seem to go scott-free? Where is the justice in that?" When Jesus discussed prodigal sons and lost sheep, he told us that while God dearly loves his obedient children, like many human parents, he intensely longs for his "prodigal" children to return to him. And so he gives them every opportunity to do so. The issue isn't so much that we love God and others do not, but that God loves us all. Even so, the Bible tells us that despite appearances, those of us who go about making others miserable without repentance never get off scott-free. Humans are really very funny creatures. We forget that a year to us is probably just a blink of the eye to God. Like impatient children, we somehow think that evil people ought to be punished instantly! Right now! Yet, as is explained in 2 Pet. 2:4, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." The same is true of our prayers. We often pray and expect a result as soon as we get off our knees. But God works on his own schedule, and his timing is a lot more wise than our own. Prayer is not a tool to get God to do what we want. Prayer is the tool that God uses to get us involved in what he is doing. Still, we often ask: Why doesn't God help me now? Why does he test me so cruelly? Or, as I've heard it put elsewhere, "Why would a good God put his children through such a trial? I don't believe he is good at all." Again, I need to go back to the analogy of parenthood. It's not by chance that God describes himself as our father. A really good parent doesn't shield his or her child from everything. A good parent knows that, even in childhood, kids need to learn and grow--and that includes learning about painful things. I've heard it said that certain Native American tribes used to allow babies to crawl toward their fires and touch the flames, rather than grabbing them before they met with danger. They believed the child would touch it once, be burnt slightly, recover�and would always respect fire in the future. There's a lot of wisdom in that. If you can't imagine doing such a thing with your own child, then think about the parent who truly wants to aid their child, but doesn't because they know that to help them would be less loving than to let them work out things on their own. The book of Job (and other passages in the Bible) tell us that God doesn't happily sit back and watch us suffer. Like a good parent, it hurts him as much as it hurts us (perhaps it hurts him more). But he also knows that we must go through times of trouble if we're going to grow up. He allows us to suffer because he loves us. We also tend to forget that when Christ was on earth, his time here contained some pleasure--but it was largely made up of pain and suffering. Jesus didn't do anything wrong; he certainly "walked the walk." Yet he suffered anyway. He was rejected, he was hated, he was misunderstood, he had profound disappointments, he was treated cruelly� Well, it's been pointed out that he suffered at least in part for the same reason we all do. In Job, Satan claims that humans worship God only because they expect something in return. If instead they suffer, Satan argued, they'd curse God and move away from him. And indeed, some people do exactly that. But in Jesus' case--and I hope in our own--he proved Satan wrong. Christ showed us that God was worthy of our praise, worship, and service--no matter what. Ray C. Stedmon, in his writings about Job, offers an excellent example of how this applies to real life. "Some years ago," he wrote, "I was introduced to a woman who had just lost her husband and her son in an auto accident. Her heart was broken; she was devastated by this double loss that had suddenly come into her life. When I went to see her she was weeping, torn-up, hardly even able to speak because she was so overcome by her grief. Somebody had asked me to try to comfort her, but I wondered what to say to her. Looking to God in prayer, I laid my hand on her shoulder and said, 'You have been given a very high and holy honor.' Glancing up through her tears, she said to me, 'What do you mean?' I sat down with her and MORE ~~~> |
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