Still taking lessons from the book of Job

[[ Before I begin this post, I feel the need to share a very important note: when I share in these posts vulnerably about some of my private moments with God (as you'll see below), specifically my worst moments, I do this not to boast about it. Generally, I do not and will not encourage people to yell at God. Yes, He can take it, because He loves us so much that He wants to reach us, including when we are hurting. But, I've also encountered, both personally and in the lives of a few people I've known over the years, situations where yelling at Him and giving Him the "what for" becomes an indulgence. I specifically remember one friend from a previous era of life sharing about plans he had made with another friend to go on a retreat for the express purpose of yelling at God. This friend went on to share that, although he identified as a Christian, he felt closer to this aforementioned friend (a non-believing, non-practicing individual of Jewish heritage who just happened to know about God because of his heritage) than he did to any other Christians. As such, he was particularly looking forward to bonding with this person over yelling at the Lord. As it turned out, due to other circumstances, the retreat was canceled. I took note of that. I believe that God still judges our hearts. It's one thing to vent to Him when we are genuinely in pain (emotional, spiritual, physical, whatever). It's quite another to vent to Him because we think that by doing so we can manipulate Him into doing for us what we want. In my story, I've crossed the line over from the former to the latter. As you'll read below, particularly in Reflection #4, I want you to bear this note in mind. I share about these experiences not to boast about what I've done, but rather to highlight what God has done for me in those moments, out of His great mercy, and not because of any magic combination of words and feelings that I expressed. ]]

Reading-wise, I'm now deep into the book of Genesis, and the below reflections are at least a week or so old. But, the book of Job has resonated, triggered, affected, and given me lessons from which to take, years after my first experience with it. In I dive with what has come up in my most recent pass through the book:

Reflection #1: God is always still good, and I've read this book a number of times that I know the outcome at the end. And yet, even though I know the outcome after not only all the trials Job went through, and even though I know the outcome after God in His glory and might calls Job out for his lack of faith, that God restores everything to Job once he repents of his words and actions...

... I still hate that this happened:

Satan Attacks Job’s Character

6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”

So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”

8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”

9 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.”

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Job 1:6-12, NKJV

...and this:

Satan Attacks Job’s Health

1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”

Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”

3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

4 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”

6 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”

7 So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

Job 2:1-7, NKJV

Still, it's a good early lesson for teaching the harsh reality of being a sinner living on an evil planet, even a sinner redeemed by grace. Trusting God is paramount, and He rewards those who walk the walk of trusting Him. But a harsh reality I've had to learn (and am still learning, sometimes still resisting to learn) is that it doesn't automatically mean a good life the rest of the way. In fact, Jesus promised that there would be suffering. Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles, anointed with Holy Spirit power, did many miraculous deeds. But they also endured much suffering, persecution, and even a painful death.

Reflection #2: What I'm also finding about reading the book of Job is that reading it is a good litmus test for any Christian. Between myself and others I've chatted with in the past about this book, it's not a very popular book. But every time I either find myself reading through Job again, or hear someone preach on it, I always learn something new, and it's pretty much always been good. One key crucible to my faith over the last couple years has been differentiating between when God is doing something vs when Satan is doing something. I grew up with the idea that just because God is all-powerful, He causes absolutely everything to happen, both good and bad. But as I've grown I've learned that to be a false belief. While God does test us (or allow things to happen to us) it's for our personal growth and development which can lead to reward. When Satan attacks us there is no purpose except to tear us down. Interestingly, this difference is played out early in the book of Job. Job 1:6-12 and Job 2:1-6 (shown above in Reflection #1) show the dialogue between God and Satan. Satan wants to tear down Job; God allows it but in the text God still defends Job. God is still on Job's side. Why this jumps out to me, I contrast this to a verse (Job 1:20) where Job speaks/prays: "the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away." Job is not privy to the conversation between God and Satan, as we the readers are. Job assumes that God is behind all this, and over the course of the rest of the book his friends tell him that he's being punished because he did something wrong.

Thing is, I wrestled with this for a long time, too, and for that reason in the past I had a hard time reading when God yelled at Job toward the end. Along the way, I did learn that Job gradually got more and more jaded as his "friends" tried to advise him, and it's something I've known for a while now. But now, it's fascinating to read through it and see that Job appears to make a critical judgment error from the beginning. From Job 1:20 it appears to me that he thinks that God caused his children and slaves to be killed, and his livestock to be stolen.

Reflection #3: Job's faith was the last thing he had, which he managed to hold on to even as he lost all his assets, his children, and even his health. However, his judgmental "friends" pushed him over the edge, to the point that God needed to yell at him. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar kept challenging Job when he was vulnerable and low, causing him to fight back, and over the course of the lengthy conversation, cause Job to lose even his faith. He had already lost everything else, but at least when his "friends" first came to try to comfort him, he still had his faith. It was just that he then lost his faith when they tried to "help."

Ironically, when I read through the part where God yelled at Job for daring to challenge Him, I felt peace. A sermon that the current senior pastor at my former church preached, before he had become the senior pastor when he was preaching as a guest preacher, was about how God yelling at Job was a way of Him showing His presence. The point was that, when we go through incredibly hard times, we think we want answers, but what we really want (and need) is presence. Specifically, God's presence. To further illustrate it, this pastor, when his children were little, one of them had scraped their knee and (naturally) began crying. This pastor went on to explain that trying to explain to the little one why they were in pain and what they needed to do to avoid it again next time wasn't going to make them better right in that moment. What the child needed, this pastor explained, was the comforting presence of a parent. Even in adulthood, this doesn't change. When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, we become God's children. Yes, we also become men and women of God, but we are still His children, because, even as Job confessed to God after being chewed out, that the things that God does is indeed far too wonderful for any of us to comprehend. Job went on to admit that his complaining (circumstances aside) was rooted in ignorance and not knowing what God was up to (or trusting Him, for that matter), and repented. To wit, the passage itself:

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:
2 “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
4 Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.
6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6, NKJV

Reflection #4: I myself had kind of a "Job 40" moment, not one where I lost everything and God yelled at me, but one where I saw an image of Jesus' face, and everything changed. I was on my way to a friend's wedding out of state a few years back, had stopped for lunch, and got upset over something insignificant that I don't remember. I started yelling at God about it (I might have even crossed the line into cursing Him; I don't remember). It happened while I was in my car after having stopped for lunch. I was seated in the driver's seat, and I hadn't started the car yet. This image of Jesus's face was a very sad one. It had the look of either: "why are you cursing Me?", or, "what's wrong?", or both. I stopped immediately. I didn't say another negative word the rest of the drive up. On the drive back, though, it was gradually revealed to me that a very deep pain that I had been holding onto for almost four years (and if I'm honest, off and on for much longer than that) was behind why I had not only said harsh words against God that weekend, but also a number of times over the previous six months or so. I was in the wrong for what I had said, but I was also hurting, and that moment showed me that, contrary to my assumptions, He had not forgotten me, nor had He forgotten about me.

When I was almost home from this weekend trip, after another small rant but this time telling God what was really behind my sinful attitude, He gave me a sign: a license plate that basically said "forgive me." I pulled over and broke down. It was a direct answer to my last rant. I pulled over and let myself grieve, because I knew that God was interacting directly with me regarding this particular pain, after years of feeling like He had been completely ignoring it.

I didn't get off scot-free, though. I had already lost my previous relationship, likely in part because despite my ex's efforts, my faith wasn't really growing (if anything, it was shrinking). My music career was falling apart, and by the point of my experience with God while on the driving trip, I had been in this place of "we may be out on the street in a month," for many months already. A few key friendships had already splintered, with a couple having already ended while a few others were in dire straits. And I had recently decided I was "done" with a lemon of a car that I had bought 2 1/2 years earlier, after pouring money into it hoping that this one repair would finally take care of everything. (I had borrowed my dad's car for the trip.) 

And then, over the next year, when He blessed me again with a bunch of new things, there was one aspect of one of those things (a big change that was being asked of me) that I got angry enough to yell at God again in my prayer life over it. He responded by showing me that hell still existed, in case I'd forgotten. I shut up. That may have been the closest in recent memory to a "Job 40" moment. But looking back, when I finally agreed in my heart to make the change (one that I was previously very resistant to making), I'm glad I did it. Even in the heat of anger, I experienced an aspect of God's presence, His firmness yet again, but also once again His love and care and protection. His command was -- and is -- for my good. Just like His command long ago was for Job's good. I still may strongly dislike that God allowed Satan to cause torment to be over Job, but in the end, God restores everything double.

And in the end, in his absolute worst moment, Job got the one thing he needed most: God's presence. And we get to see how His presence more than reversed everything bad (no matter its depth) that ever happened to him.

I'm still taking lessons from the book of Job.