Strange Encounters Of The 2nd Kind

Scriptures: Job 1, 2

What is the book of Job all about?

I first read the book of Job as a teenager.  I had struggled with God’s call for my life and after a year and a half of struggling, I surrendered, worn out by the fight and resigned myself to God’s providence.  I was not in love with the idea of being a minister but I learned one thing – you cannot prevail over God’s will for your life and find happiness.

And following the surrender, my parent’s rocky marriage began to disintegrate rapidly.  The last time that I saw them together was at my graduation.  I asked God why things should become worse in my life since I had made this step of surrender.  It seemed only fitting that since I had done what God asked me to do, that things should get better not worse.  God should fix things with my Mom and Dad.

I began to search this book because I knew that it was a story of hardship and I thought that I would find answers.  I found comfort and the spirit of God ministered to me but rather than answers, I found wonderful questions.  A good question is always better than someone else’s answer. 

We are not at a loss for answers in the world today.  Everyone has an answer.  We are at a loss for good questions.  That really is the way that God lead Job to the truth that He sought.  Not with answers relative to his calamity but with questions – real good questions.  The book starts with Job’s painful justifiable questions and it ends with God’s questions to Job and restoration.

o       Is it about what God does to us?  What does God do to us?  Is he the author of our difficulties in this life?  I don’t know how many times I have heard people ask the question, “I don’t know why God is doing this or that in my life?”  Whatever the reason, He is not doing it for himself.  Think about it, if God didn’t love you, he would either ignore you or erase you.  Your very existence is proof of your worth and God’s love.  If birth is merely biological then that is one thing but somehow if it is still a miracle that biological and spiritual processes converge to produce a living soul then it is as it has always been – something “otherworldly”.  The book of Lamentations 3 says:

33  For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

We know that he disciplines every child that He loves – Hebrews 12.  We know that he prunes us to makes us more fruitful. 1 ¶ "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

 2  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes {The Greek for prunes also means cleans.} so that it will be even more fruitful.

You know one of the major difficulties we encounter when we try to understand what is going on in our lives is not that we don’t suspect what God is doing but we refuse to believe that He may actually be doing it.  It’s not always our limited understanding but our ongoing struggle to let God be God.

You know what else God does?  He takes every circumstance of our lives, bad and good and weaves them all together to create a beautiful tapestry.

The Weaver

 My Life is but a weaving

 between my Lord and me;

 I cannot choose the colors

He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow

 And I, in foolish pride,

 Forget He sees the upper,

 And I the under side.

Not til the loom is silent

 And the shuttles cease to fly,

 Shall God unroll the canvas

 And explain the reason why.

 The dark threads are as needful

 In the Weaver's skillful hand,

 As the threads of gold and silver

 In the pattern He has planned.

 He knows, He loves, He cares,

 Nothing this truth can dim.

 He gives His very best to those

Who leave the choice with Him

I love that about God.  I trust Him for that today as well.  He’s at work creating masterpiece in my life just as He is in yours – not because any of us are special but because He is.

o       Is it about what the Devil does to us?  What does the Devil do to us?

Like God, he too may receive blame for more than he deserves.  People see the Devil differently.  While he is certainly more powerful than any earthly human being, we are never instructed in the pages of scripture to fear him because he is a defeated foe.  (A Mighty Fortress)  I hope that you do not fear him today.  For in fearing him you surrender to him, you bestow him with power in your life.  People who fear the Devil who seem to see him more than those who do not.

What can he do?  Can he afflict us?  I would say only with God’s permission and that is a rare thing.  Are you Job?  He was a big target.  Is sickness from him – no – I don’t believe so.  We suffer in our bodies at times because they are not our permanent dwelling.  We are not meant to live on planet earth forever.  I believe that sickness is a product of bad or forbidden fruit.  It is a part of the sin consequence that we inherit from generation to generation.  It is not partial to anyone in particular and no one is exempt from it.  And God does not guarantee our healing.

o       Does it tell us how to overcome every trial that we face?  In principle yes it does.  Specifically it does not.  We overcome our trials in our response to them.  Rather than creating fear and despair in us we can choose to trust God in the midst of the whole experience.  There are times that we will be spared and times that we will not

I think that the essence of the book is found in the question posed by the Devil in chapter 1, verse 9, “Does Job fear God for nothing?".  In other words, is it really possible that a human being could fall so much in love with God that he/she would serve Him for no other reason than that love?  Even more so – is your own relationship with God based on anything other than your love for Him?

Do we really have this capacity within us?  Are we serving God or playing Him in our own self-interests?  Nothing will answer this question like trials and tribulations.

The answer to his question in your own personal life will determine how you weather the storms of life that blow your way.  It will mean the difference between spiritual excellence and mediocrity.

The objective of the Devil in the book of Job was to create sufficient distress to cause this righteous to turn his back on God and curse him.  He would like to do that in your own life today.  He delights when he brings a person to the place where they give up and throw in the towel.  He loves it when he can get us to begin weigh or judge God’s performance by the standard of our comfort, our happiness, our prosperity, our physical well being, our emotional well being.  At that point we are vulnerable.  We are prone to come to the wrong conclusions simply because we are asking poor questions.

What is the source of life’s heartaches?

o       Life just provides the raw material for heartaches.  People ask that question, “How’s life?”  Another bad question.  Life is life – nothing more and nothing less.  There are times when the seas are calm and the sunsets are beautiful and there are other times when the stars are obscured and the waves churn and threaten to scuttle the vessel and we are hanging on for dear life.  Whether good or bad, life is nothing more than life.  It is a fragile, fleeting notion to look for our ultimate security and well being in this “life”.

o       God does discipline us. He will withhold from us the things that we think we want.  He is committed to taking everything and making it work to His purposes.  He requires a surrendered will in order to work unhindered.

o       The Devil would love to destroy us. The Devil will use anything that he possibly can to destroy us.  As much as God works all things for our good, the Devil works all things to our destruction.  He doesn’t care how he does it but his aim for you is the same as his aim was for Job.  He wants you to “curse God”.  With your lips or by your life, it doesn’t matter.  He wins when you do.  He will use anything to throw you off course.  Life’s impartial, nasty turns serve him well when he can make you believe this to be proof of God’s failure to answer your prayer or to spare you from heartache

What is God’s purpose in life’s trials?

o       To tell us something about ourselves and to further equip us.  Or even to further reveal himself to us.  Whether he was sleeping on the storm tossed boat or walking on the waves, it was in the difficult times that Jesus taught his disciples how to truly be sailors.  These “sailing” lessons saw them through after he had left this world.

What are the lessons that we learn from this encounter that are current, relevant and transferable to our lives today?

o       It concerns God that our hearts toward Him are true.  He already knows.  We think that we know as well but there are times when we deceive ourselves.  That is frightening.  There would be nothing worse then facing God with false hope.  It’s sort of like standing in a long line at the motor vehicle dept. thinking that you have everything that you need and discovering what is missing.  The prospects of returning to resume your place at the end of that long line are nauseating.  When we stand before God thinking that we have everything that we need and discover our lack, there is no “going back” to get what you forgot to gather.  That’s much worse.

o       Trials are self-revelatory. I believe that one of the great purposes for trying times, trials in our lives is to help us to discover what is really at the center of our own lives.  Does Karl serve God for nothing?  What would it take to get me to quit?  It is most merciful if we discover what is really there in this life.  That we not step from mortality to eternity thinking that we have a proper center when we do not.

The outcome of the trials that Job faced held no surprises for God.  It is a merciful thing to discover the truth of our hearts in this life.  Disability insurance - pay us now and fight with us when you need it.  The trials of life hold or communicate vital information for us relative to the state of our souls. (ill. gift from an estate)  - subtle shift from trust in God to trust in the things that he has given us.

o       An understanding of life as we see it and life as we don’t see it.  The book of Job tells us that affliction is no proof of sin and righteousness is no exemption from adversity.  It tells us that evil seeks license to destroy us, that God restrains evil from having it’s way with mankind in general.  It makes me wonder what life would be like if God withdrew his hand of restraint.  It tells us that there are spiritual forces, invisible that war for the hearts of men and women today.  It makes me take this thought more seriously and draws my heart to pray.  For this is where victory lies in my deepest despair, in my darkest hour.  When the heavens seem silent and no relief is in sight.  There is a Good Shepherd who is searching the hills and the crevasses to find me and hold me and to re-gather me to his fold.

4  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.