Job asked the question: "Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil"? Job 2:10.
Job was a man who feared God and turned away from evil. A husband, a father, a well respected man in his community.
10 children. 7,000 sheep. 3,000 camels. 500 yoke of oxen. 500 donkeys. Numerous servants. One of the greatest of all of the people of the east.
Then. Fire and tornadoes claim every animal, almost every servant. A great wind strikes down all 10 of his children. What would we think as we bury 10 children? Could we even lift our head? Job thought this: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21. This is a very difficult book to grasp. It's a very telling first response from Job. He had made peace with his Maker. Called to the Almighty God as the center of his rich life, even with all the wealth washed away. An irrevocable calling.
God's Love does not stand outside of His justice. Nothing He does violates anything about Who He is. He is kind, merciful, just, love. Never out of balance. So, how do we understand this enormous kind of suffering? The presence of evil.
The 5 key words in this book: Almighty/ Evil/ How/ Why/ Wisdom/
Had Job heard of Adam and Eve? Had the Creation story been passed along to him through travelers? Job wasn't wrestling with if he would follow God. He is wrestling with how much he has to suffer. There are irreversible things in Job's life just like in mine and yours. Irreversible Love. God never stopped loving Job. God may have changed his mind about whether Job could keep the temporal gifts given to him but Romans 11:29 says that God does not change His Mind about whom He chooses and blesses. God was not finished with Job. And He is not finished with you and with me.
C.S. Lewis, one of the most acclaimed apologists, admitted doubt when his wife passed away from cancer. Madeleine L'Engle wrote: It gives us permission to admit our doubts, our own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are a part of the soul's growth. C.S. Lewis knew the stakes were high in life. "You are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man–-or at any rate a man like me. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.” Open our eyes to see, O God, where we are, and give us the courage to call it what it is.
PHOTO: Standing on a million grains of sand on Santa Rosa Island watching the sunrise. Remembering this story from June 2006: A stranger, a young woman in her twenties, approached me and said: "I've come to tell you that the LORD is with you in what you are going through." My husband had just been let go of his church job of 27 years. She didn't know. No Words. I walked a mile or two and sauntered back to the sacred spot where she was. She was gone. There was no one on the sunlit beach. Just the LORD and me. I walk by that spot every summer. Just did.
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