Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: Please Speak Responsibly

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Please Speak Responsibly

I know You can do anything;

no plan of Yours can be opposed successfully.

You said, "Who is this darkening counsel without knowledge?"

I have indeed spoken about things I didn’t understand,

wonders beyond my comprehension.

You said, "Listen and I will speak;

I will question you and you will inform Me."

My ears had heard about You,

but now my eyes have seen You.

Therefore, I relent and find comfort

on dust and ashes.

Job 42:2-6 (CEB)

Somewhere I will find all the pieces torn apart

You just left behind in Your mystery

Somewhere I will see all You've taken from me

All You kept deep inside in the mystery of You

From "Mystery of You" by RED

Job was a man whom one might call "blessed." He was married with ten children, and he owned so much livestock that he had to employ a sizable staff of servants to take care of all of his animals.¹ One might also say that Job was a good man. He was a true servant of God who was known for his integrity, for his generosity toward people in need, and for the kindness, respect, and dignity he showed to all people, including his own servants.²

In a single day, this good man lost everything. All of his animals were either stolen by bandits or killed by fire, and most of his servants were killed as well. Worst of all, while gathered together for a birthday party, all of his ten children lost their lives when his son's house collapsed on them.³ Soon afterward, as if his pain wasn't already enough, he broke out in sores from his head to his feet, and his wife became cold toward him. Job found himself sitting in ashes, scratching his sores with a broken dish.⁴

Three of Job's friends heard about what had happened, so they set out to console Job. When they arrived at his house, they wept out loud at the very sight of their dear friend, because they couldn't even recognize him. They sat on the ground in the ashes with him in silence.⁵ After seven days, Job broke the silence, cursing the day he was born.⁶ Job's three friends then made a key mistake a lot of us make when someone we love going through a time of turmoil: they tried to make sense of what had happened to their friend.

Job and his three friends all shared the same worldview: they all believed that prosperity and happiness are rewards from God for doing what is right and that calamity and suffering are punishments from God for doing what is wrong. Job insisted on his own innocence, unable to think of anything he could have done to offend God. Believing that God had treated him unfairly, Job desired an audience with God so that he might plead his case.⁷ Job's friends, on the other hand, basically took turns trying to convince Job that He must have done something to incur God's wrath. Maybe they were only trying to help: maybe, like many of us, they thought that explaining what had happened would somehow make his pain more bearable. They were wrong, for they only added to his pain.⁸

What Job and his friends did not know is that there was a "wager" of sorts going on in Heaven between God and someone aptly called "the accuser" or, in Hebrew, ha-satan.⁹ God was quite proud of Job, yet the accuser believed that Job wouldn't be so loyal to God if he didn't live such a charmed life. With God's permission, the accuser destroyed Job's life to see if Job would renounce God or be faithful to God.¹⁰

After much debate between Job and his friends about the nature of God and about whether or not Job did anything to deserve his turmoil, a whirlwind suddenly appeared, and God finally spoke. God did not tell Job why he had to suffer such tragedies, nor did God say anything about the cosmic wager going on beyond the veil that obscures the spiritual realm from the physical realm. In fact, God had no answers for Job but only questions.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place?

Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?

Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt?

Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?

Do you observe the calving of the deer?

Is the wild ox willing to serve you?

Do you give the horse its might?

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?¹¹

I think that God's poetic barrage of questions was meant to put the fear of God into Job and his friends. When I refer to the fear of God I do not mean some simple sense of respect for God, nor do I mean the fear that God will throw us into hell if we don't straighten up and fly right and start believing all the right things - a fear that so many would-be evangelists use to convince people to become Christians.

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis describes the fear of God as an "experience of the Numinous" or a sense of "awe." If you were told that there was a tiger in the adjacent room, you would be afraid for your life, but, if you were told that there was a ghost in the next room, you would be afraid for altogether different reasons. Though you know that a tiger is a predator with the capability to tear you limb from limb, you know nothing about an otherworldly being such as a ghost. Lewis suggests that the fear of God is less like the fear of the tiger and more like the fear of the ghost.¹²

An import part of the fear of God, I believe, is the humility to realize that one doesn't have God all figured out, not to mention the vastly complex universe God created. As I stated before, Job and his friends have lived their lives under a certain set of assumptions about God and the world, namely that success and happiness are rewards from God and that disaster and suffering are punishments from God. Though many still make the same assumptions today, Job's story was written to refute such a worldview. Job meets with great loss and suffers immensely for it, yet it is established at the beginning of the story that he has done nothing to deserve it.

When God grills Job with questions about the creation of the earth, the creatures that dwell therein, and all the things that happen in the world, I think that God is trying to get it through to Job and his friends that the world is far too complex for simple paradigms about how the world should work, that a person's behavior does not determine the actions of God, and that the God who created, understands, and maintains this complex universe is far too great for us to fathom. I think that God is basically asking Job, "Who do you think you are to make such grand claims when you know so little?" Utterly overwhelmed, Job admits, "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." I think that the humility Job learns is a hallmark of a proper fear of God. As one wise sage has said, "Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few."¹³

I think that, far too often when we talk about God, we don't really know what we're talking about, much like Job and his friends. When we speak about God, we need to speak with great humility, especially if we are speaking to someone who is going through a difficult time. We need to avoid seemingly spiritual platitudes such as "Everything happens for a reason," "God is testing you," and the ever popular, "God will never give you any more than you can handle." When we make such cheap statements to someone, I think we are probably doing more to make ourselves feel better than to comfort the one who is actually suffering.

If you have been reading my writings for any length of time, then I hope you would not expect me to claim that anything bad that happens to us is caused by God to test our faith or caused by the devil to destroy our faith. Though we are told that spiritual forces caused Job's suffering, this fact remains obscured to Job and his friends. Likewise, the spiritual realm remains veiled to us in our day and time as well, so I do not think it is a good idea to make claims about it. I realize that I know nothing of the spiritual realm, so I try to write only about what I see in the world and about my own experience of faith. What I will say is that the story of Job teaches us that we are all subject to forces beyond our control, be they natural or supernatural.

Sometimes good things happen to good people, and sometimes bad things happen to bad people. Still, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen to bad people. Sometimes we bring misfortune upon ourselves because of our bad choices. Sometimes other people bring misfortune upon us because of their bad choices. Sometimes we experience misfortune for no other reason than, for lack of a better word, bad luck. In the grand scheme of things, it matters very little what we think we deserve or even what might legitimately deserve. I suspect, for better or for worse, we rarely get what we deserve in this life.

Job's three friends did their best to console job: they rushed to his side, they cried for him, and they sat with him in silence. They did a pretty good job until they opened their mouths and started discussing theology. When we have loved ones who are suffering, we need to be slow to speak, eager to listen, and generous with our compassion. We must not rush to give easy answers - or maybe lazy answers - that we have no authority to give. Simple statements like "I don't know," "I'm so sorry," or "That sucks," are a lot more honest and would probably be more appreciated. In such times, our presence is a lot more valuable than any answers we could try to give. When we do speak about God, we must do so with reverence, awe, and humility, for we speak about what we do not fully understand.

Notes: