18. Love God and be content with the “no” answer to our suffering

Earth’s afire with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he sees who takes off his shoes, the rest … see only evil.

Men dance in tune with the Lord, but if there are those who cannot hear the music, they perceive the dancers as mad … and complain about the dance”, bringing in resources to forbid it. This unknown author pens what we know happens in constricted environments. They see change and are afraid.

So the tormenters in our life on earth make it grossly unfair. The sinless Christ found that out. But he also found a God of sacrificial love. No one is exempt from tragedy or disappointment. And if we stake our life on justice and a fault proof life, with every contingency considered, and every escape route covered, then we set ourselves for a loss of faith.

In any case, if miracles do happen and people are revived from imminent destruction, those miracles do not prevent their eventual death. Sure, out of darkness, and from the unfairness and unrighteousness, a bright light can shine, like the miracle of the resurrection morn for Jesus Christ. The cross overcame evil, and gave us a way to relate to righteousness, but the cross did not take away unfairness and unrighteousness, and so we need our resurrection morn as well. That requires a new heaven and a new earth for which in expectation we pray.

To love God”, the first commandment, requires that we love Him, not only in the good times but in the difficult times as well, even in the terrors and tragedies and the fear and the loneliness and the persecutions, when we are in the wilderness of life. He does ask us to run with broken legs, or sing when our throat is dry, to pray when the words cannot come, to sit on an ash hill, and argue with tormentors who take wrongful points of view. He does expect us to ask for blessing upon detractors. For hurting hearts that is a very hard task, but blessings on detractors, bring blessings back to us. That’s God’s goodwill revolving around about us.

We might doubt our value to God when our tormentors taunt us with “Do you think God cares about someone like you?”, “Do you think the Maker of the Universe would ever drop down to speak with you?”, “Does He need to explain Himself to you?”, “We have God’s mind on Truth, and we know that He does not want you”. That’s when the little spark in the cloud comes by and God reaches down and speaks to reassure us, and asks us to bless the tormentors.

Here in four chapters, (Job 38-41) is God’s defense of the charge of His role being unfair and disappointing. It is not an acknowledgement of the unfair, and “over the top pain” we feel over our trials, or even an understanding of our disappointments. It is a lesson given by God in how He manages the physical universe, and how Job cannot do that, and how we cannot do that.

By implication then it also means Job cannot manage the moral universe either. So we get our lesson as well, that we also are unable to manage the moral universe. Job repents in dust and ashes and every trace of thinking God unfair, and any disappointment with God, vanishes. God asks us in the lesson of Job, to do likewise.

But we are not told the full answer, still. God declined to answer specifically as Job had asked, and the friends and comforters withdrew themselves with their mistaken ideas and pompous speeches, and Job himself withdrew His questions. Then it was that God vindicated Job.

If we can also cast ourselves upon the Lord even when we do not know all the answers, He will vindicate us as well, at a time when He deems it is right. As Job eventually accepted the ways of the Lord, withdrawing his questions, we also, not fully understanding the way of the Lord, nor His measure, can trust in Him to do it right, without question. Then we will be able to accept the “no” answer with better equanimity, and therewith be content.


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