Job: Lessons in Suffering and Comforting

Ray needed a man weekend, full of backpacking through the woods, body odor, “bacon jerky” (yes, that exists), and no estrogen. So while he was off trekking through the woods, I bought a bottle of my favorite wine, slept in until noon, and have yet to get out of my pajamas (don’t judge me).  This introvert needed a quiet, solitary place for a bit.

((In truth, the man weekend ended pretty abruptly due to weather and the hubs came back home this afternoon, promptly showered (thank you Jesus) and has fallen asleep, TV remote in hand, “watching” a college football game. ))

With slow mornings normally come solid quiet times and a completely finished cup of coffee. Somehow the coffee always gets poured but never consumed in the morning. I’ve been hanging out in Job and Luke lately, but mostly Job. I’ve read the story before and heard it multiple times, but I feel like God is blowing my mind this time around. Here’s why:

1.       Job is the best defense against the Prosperity Gospel I’ve ever encountered.

2.       God was not the source of Job’s suffering, but He did allow it for the sake of His glory. He did not do this maliciously but confidently – He knew Job’s heart and character. He bragged about his kid Job.

3.       God was ok with Job bringing his grief and complaint before Him. Job did this without ever blaming God.

4.       Job’s friends sucked at comforting because they spoke in their own wisdom. They stood in the way of God using them to comfort Job and became a source of grief for their friend.

5.       Job’s hope in the Lord never wavered because he trusted God’s character even when he didn’t have all the answers.

Why the Prosperity Gospel is No Gospel:

                 

The Bible clearly states that Job was a righteous and blameless man.  Just look at the way God viewed Job and spoke so highly of him (Job 1:8). Job was highly favored and esteemed, and he was loaded.  When Satan attacks Job’s character and taunts God’s glory, God gives Satan power over all that Job has except his person (1:9-12). When Job refuses to curse the Lord, God gives Satan power over Job’s person but not his life (2:6). God did not author Job’s suffering but He did permit it for the sake of His Glory and limit it in His sovereignty. ((I don’t believe God ever willed sin or suffering, but I do believe He wills freedom in relationships. Freedom in relationship only comes through choice, and in Genesis 3 man chose something other than God*. The natural consequence of that choice ushered in sin and opened the window for suffering.)) Job’s response to Satan’s attack was to fall down in worship and acknowledge God’s sovereign right to give and take away (1:20-21). In all of this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong (1:22; 2:10). Job never lost sight of the holiness of God in the midst of his suffering.

 At its core, the prosperity gospel says:  Doing good things/obedience brings physical wealth, comfort, health and prosperity. The logical converse of the prosperity gospel would then be: poverty, sickness and suffering must point to sin or disobedience.  This is what Job’s friends believed. They could not wrap their minds around a righteous person suffering. They could not wrap their minds around having a spiritual enemy.  So they blamed Job for his suffering – they assaulted his character, pleaded with him to repent of sin he never committed and shared all of their wisdom with Job uninvited. They became a source of grief for Job rather than a source of comfort. How often have we, as believers who make up the Church, responded in kind to those in the midst of great suffering?

How we respond to those who are suffering greatly reveals what we believe about God’s character and what we believe about the Gospel.  If we believe God’s favor towards us depends on our actions, if we believe in the Prosperity Gospel, those who are in the midst of suffering will find us a source of grief instead of a source of comfort. They will find in us nothing but criticism, confusion and hurt. If we believe that God’s favor towards us has been forever won on the cross of Christ, that He is constantly sovereign and loving, and that we live within the context of spiritual warfare then those who are in the midst of suffering will find in us a source of comfort, peace and strength.  

Vessels of Comfort

In order for others to find in us a source of comfort, we have to get out of the way and learn what it is to be a vessel of God’s presence and voice. I’m sure Job’s friends had the best intentions – they really wanted to “fix” Job’s suffering and argue him into repentance they thought would help – but they spoke from their own sources of wisdom, knowledge and experience.  Not once did they intercede on Job’s behalf before the Lord. Not once did they invite God to speak to Job through them.  They tried to be their own source of comfort.  Job’s response?  I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you; BUT I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief. – Job 16:4-5 NKJV

I’m not going to lie; I think I’m a terrible comforter. I remember going over to a friend’s house in college. Her boyfriend had left for the summer and she was in tears – I mean, weeping because she missed him, long distance was difficult, etc. I felt like a deer in headlights… I didn’t have a boyfriend and I’m not a huge crier. He’s just gone for the summer, it’s not like he’s dead my bewildered brain thought, but you can’t say that to your sobbing friend. In fact, if someone ever said that to me I’d probably cry worse than she was. She leaned in for a hug; I’m not a hugger either. Hug her back, Alex! My brain cued my arms to wrap around her in an awkward hug. We probably spent the rest of the day watching chick flicks and binging on brownies… the cure to all girl problems, right?

Even though that’s a funny example, the truth is that I really don’t know what to do when someone is grieving or suffering. I don’t know what to say or how to act in a way that will ease their pain and not add to it. It’s easier to try to “fix it” with my own wisdom than it is to put my soul in their soul’s place and invite the Lord into that place with us. To sit quietly with them, standing in the gap for them, interceding on their behalf with the Father, and inviting Him to speak to them through me. To listen to them pour out their grief and complaints, knowing that God’s okay with them bringing that before Him, knowing that God is present and good even when everything around me screams lies that He’s absent and malicious or unfaithful. To commit to speak only what the Lord impresses on my heart to speak, and to shut up all that is not of Him because His words bring life, strength, peace and comfort in a way that mine never will or could. To usher peace into the situation, not through understanding the “why” but through inviting the presence of Holy God to dwell among us. After all, genuine peace is not found in knowledge but in the presence of Christ.

How differently would the situation with my friend have looked like if I had placed my soul in her soul’s place and invited God to speak through me? How different would my response have been if it had not been me speaking but Christ in me? Not me hugging but Christ in me embracing my dear friend? How much comfort could I have brought to the situation if I had asked the simple question, “Lord, is there anything you would like to say to her in this moment?” before I opened my big mouth?

At some point in our lives we have all experienced some form of grief or suffering, whether it was a consequence of a poor decision we made, abuse from someone else’s sinful choice, or something similar to Job’s story. Chances are we’ve probably encountered people like Job’s friends. I know I have, and I’ve honestly wanted to punch them in the face. Chances are we’ve also been like Job’s friends to someone else (ouch), I know I have unintentionally – saying those cliché things you think sound okay because you’re really at a loss for words. It’s okay to be at a loss for words… it’s actually a great opportunity to invite God to share His word through you.

Father,

Thank You for being the Author of Job’s story. Thank you for your sovereignty and faithfulness even in the midst of suffering and grief. Thank you for the hope that we have in the Gospel – the reality that You have indeed rescued us by Jesus’ death and resurrection into eternal life, relationship, with You. We confess our great need for You and invite you to fill us anew with Your Spirit, that we might be vessels of comfort for those who greatly need Your comfort. Fill us with wisdom that is from You, that is peaceable, gentle, and life-giving. Tune our hearts to the sound of Your voice, that we may be quick to listen, quick to invite You into our conversations, and slow to speak apart from Your leading. You are our Peace, and we are so grateful for Your love.

All of my love,

                -a

* Notes taken while listening to Bob Hamp and Alan Smith. Highly recommend checking out Foundations of Freedom at http://bobhamp.com/foundations-of-freedom/

Spiritual Physics

I find myself reading about Newton’s laws of motion this morning. Yes, I’m on Wikipedia. Yes, my head is swimming with equations I don’t understand. Yes, I’m thankful I got to skip physics class – if this is physics? I’m honestly not sure if it’s English yet…

From Wikipedia, the source of all tested and approved knowledge, Newton came up with three laws of motion. The literal English translation of the laws is as follows:

Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.

Law II: The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

                English please?

Law II: The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.

                Thanks?

Law III: To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

All of these laws in their simplest form take place in an inertial frame of reference – “a frame of reference that describes time and space homogeneously, isotropically and in a time-independent manner.”  Thanks for keeping that simple, Wikipedia? Apparently there are many types of frames of reference, and those types can be interrelated, and praise Jesus I’m not a physicist!

Why am I talking about physics on this rainy Tuesday instead of being curled up in my favorite Clemson hoodie with a cup of tea watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix? Because I found myself ending my Monday in my lifecoach’s office and this “object persisting in a state of forward motion” met a compelling force in that black leather chair. The force of all that I was carrying, all that I was afraid to put words to, all that I was hesitant to acknowledge broke the emotional dam in my soul and flooded into the room, into the light. I was stunned by the weight of it – my chest felt heavy, my lungs burned as I inhaled, suddenly aware that I had been running and functioning, moving in one constant forward motion with a tremendous burden I was too afraid to release.

                The truth is, as little as I understand about physics, I know that we do not live in an inertial frame of reference. I know that time and space are never perfectly balanced and that humanity dwells in a time-dependent manner. I know that the force compelling me to keep moving forward is also the force that compels me to go backwards at times. I know that force is fear.  Perfectionism, the driving forward force, is the fruit of fear of man, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of mediocrity, fear of judgment, fear of indifference, fear of insufficient grace. 

                According to Newton, when the force that compels me in one direction meets another force, there is always an equal and opposite reaction.  Wikipedia gives the great example of walking – when I push against the floor, the floor also pushes against my foot in an equal way, allowing me to be able to walk and not fall through the floor. Again, this is within that perfect inertial frame of reference – Newton wasn’t thinking about you walking through a creaky old attic and falling through the floor boards. When it comes to interacting with people, I can see this law at play. We tend to go through life, each compelled by a forward force, but we bump up against one another don’t we? We interact and react with one another, and outside of that inertial frame of reference, that perfectly simple world, we become reactionary. Your force of anger might meet my force of fear and I react by fleeing, fighting, bottling up a burden and continuing in whatever direction you just pushed me. Your force of need just met my force of fear and I react by giving you all I can because I’m too afraid to disappoint, so I bottle up that burden and continue in whatever direction you just pushed me. Your force of fear just met my source of fear, and we’re both too afraid to call it like we see it so we continue in whatever direction the other pushed us in.

                But what happens when the force that compels us, that impresses the direction of our lives changes to something constant despite the ever changing frames of reference we find ourselves in? What happens in the law of motion when the force that compels me is not a natural force – when the force is perfectly balanced and independent of time? What happens when Jesus becomes the compelling, forward moving force in my life – when he intersects and changes the direction of my thinking, of my life, in a black leather chair and says “Walk forward this way. Let the reality of who I am, of the Gospel, be the force that compels the motion in your life.”? What happens when other people’s forces of need, fear, anger, dependence all bump against my life – when I can choose to react to their action or to continue to be compelled forward in the grace of the Gospel?

                Because maybe the Gospel is really described in Newton’s second law – I was going about my way, in a forward motion compelled by the force of fear (a slave to the force of sin) until the force of grace, of life, of freedom all found in the cross of Christ intersected my life and entirely changed its trajectory.  While the breadth and depth of the Gospel cannot be contained in a physics lesson, or in laws of motion, it can be evidenced. It can be seen. The Gospel was written by a Holy God who receives the most glory when His people find their satisfaction in a personal relationship with Him – and in His presence there is complete freedom. Complete freedom means that I don’t have to continue being compelled and impressed by natural forces – by slavery to fear or anger or codependence, by my circumstances or by yours – it means that I don’t have to be the source that fuels the force of my life. It means that Jesus has forever changed the course of my life, and with him as the compelling force I don’t have to live reactionary. It also means that when our lives intersect, the impression of Christ meets you – the Gospel intersects your life and impacts the direction of your motion in the life-giving way that my fear never could.

Father be the force that compels the motion in our lives. That we might not move forward bottling up burdens that were never meant for us to carry alone but to surrender to You. Jesus be the impressed force that sends us out into freedom, that when we intersect the lives of others we do so marked with Your compassion, grace, and wisdom. Overflow in us that we might overflow into others the life and freedom of the Gospel. 

all of my love, 

a