Up and ahead

 

            Sometimes we are blindsided by a sudden shift in life. We thought we were on stable ground, and then someone starts shouting at us in a routine meeting, or tells us we don’t have a job anymore on a Monday morning, or a loved one leaves on Friday evening with no plans to return. We are left with broken piece of something that once made a kind of sense to us. We knew, and now we do not know.

            Where is God? We can’t see Him anymore. We cannot understand where He went to, or what he was thinking. We trusted Him, didn’t we? Now look where we are… It is the better part of wisdom to be quiet when these calamities come to visit and to wait. It is the one wise thing Job’s friend did, when first they saw the plight of the miserable man, they only wept with him.

            When later they decided to try and explain things, it did not help Job at all. What could they tell him? They didn’t have answers. And a lot of times we do not have answers either. We are too scared to have an answer clearly. If it happened to someone near us, it might happen to us. We try to explain away our own fears, reasoning the disaster further and further from ourselves. We leave our friend alone in their weeping, we do not want to be close to them and the potential disaster.

            In Job 38 God shows up and speaks while he has Job listen, not to an explanation, but to a series of questions that serve only to reveal God Himself. God Himself is the answer. We do not trust God because we understand. We do not understand everything because we trust in God. By trusting in God, we find we do not need to understand everything. We can leave everything in the only hands big enough to hold it all.

            God handled Job’s disaster. He handled the bigger disaster of sin and its eternal penalty on the Cross, making a promise that whoever believes in the God-Man who died on that cross will have a life that no one can unsettle for all eternity. So, the answer to calamity that unsettles us is to keep our eyes fixed up and ahead.  Sounds simple, because it is; but it is not easy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Conversation with Grandad

  The Last Conversation with Granddad; A Eulogy for Marshall Helms             There is so much that needs to be done, and so precious little time. There are some here who need comfort, and some who need assurance, and some who need encouragement, and some who need to be admonished. Yes, there is much to do, and precious little time. So, let us pray. Father, the task before me is overwhelming, and I have no strength for it. Abide with me please that in my weakness Your strength might be perfectly evidence, and Your word might go forth today to accomplish all Your good and perfect will. I ask it for the sake of Your glory, In the name of Jesus. Amen.             It has been rightly said that it is not wrong to mourn. Indeed, in Matthew 5 our Lord says those who mourn are blessed for they will be comforted. We mourn death because it is unnatural. It discomforts us bec...
Read more

Against work addiction

  It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Psalm 127:2 ESV             When work becomes anxious toil, something has gone wrong. Something has gone wrong in our society when it comes to work. Several decades ago, Wayne Oats coined a new word, “Workaholic” to describe addiction to work.   The description Oats came up resonates with the psalmist describes. Anxious toiling, long hours, and little if any enjoyment of the work itself or the fruits of the toil. Addiction is another word for slavery, and it is easy to be enslaved by the anxiety over our work for it drives to work more, and that increases our anxiety while also burning through psychological energies.             Not only is workaholism addiction/slavery, it is idolatry for if we stop to think about it the workaholic ...
Read more