What is the chief purpose of man?
According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
What does that mean?
A couple of verses we like to quote that we often use to bring us some comfort are Romans 8:28 (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”) and I Corinthians 10:13 (“…God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able …”)
But then I look at the lives of so many Saints and think, I couldn’t possibly face what they faced.
Or perhaps I look at those verses and think, “What, if I wasn’t so spiritually mature, this disaster might not have happened to me?” Those that know me know my wife went through a horrible automobile accident a few years ago, with injuries from which she may never completely recover (although we always hope and continue working toward that end). If The Trophy Wife was not so mature in her faith, would she have been spared that accident? Would a friend’s child not have been born with a disability? Is the untimely death of a friend's spouse a sign of her great spiritual maturity?
Those questions are why I love the book of Job - a book that is both very disturbing in some respects, very unsatisfying, and yet one that has come to bring me great comfort, particularly in times of confusion and trouble.
It’s an interesting book. It has the longest speech in the Bible attributed to God. It also gives us a strange glimpse behind the curtain into heaven (which I discussed in the previous post). The big picture of Job is that there was a man who was, in one sense, blameless in God's sight. He was leading a basically upright life. And there is a reality called Satan who challenges God that his man is not as good as he thinks he is. God gives Satan permission to attack Job, and he does so first through his family and possessions, and then through sickness.
We learn that Job was Wealthy. A community leader. Husband of one wife. Father (good father). Feminist (includes daughters as heir; after his ordeal he has seven sons, who remain unnamed, and three daughters so remarkable they are mentioned by name in Job 42:15.) Good friend. Faithful family priest. Trusted advisor.
And then we get this event that I call “the Wager.” God is apparently pleased with Job. Satan thinks Job only pleases God because God has given Job so much. If Job were to lose everything, then Satan is convinced that Job would turn on God. On the other side, God is so confident in Job’s faith that He says, “Go ahead, do your worst – within certain parameters – and we’ll see what Job does.”
I have to admit, to think that Job is simply a game chip, the "ante" if you will, in this cosmic game between God and Satan bothers me. But of course, Job is not just a toy; he’s a human being, created in the image of God, who has, I believe, Free Will. Job is apparently free to choose how he responds to what is coming, else there is really no wager going on.
And while we, as readers, get to know the reason for all that is about to befall Job, Job never knows. Even in the end, when God shows up and actually talks to Job, God never says, “Well, see Job, Satan showed up one day and was ragging on you, and I just had to shut him up so …” No, if anything, we’ll see God never explains himself and apparently feels no need to enlighten Job as to what is going on.
There is really a lot about this story that troubles me. Here are just a few of the big ones:
Satan has to ask permission from God to do evil. Doesn’t that, in some way, make God culpable for evil? That doesn’t fit with my comfortable theology of God and the Fall and Sin.
Killing of the Innocents – Job’s children; his servants. When Satan attacks Job's possessions, ruins them all, and then takes the lives of all ten of Job’s children, we learn how terrible Satan can be. But beyond that, what did those children and those servants have to do with the contest between God and Satan? Aren’t they, in a sense, innocent bystanders? Are they just collateral damage? And think of the implications of that – what if what you feel are major events in your life are really just a small part in another person’s story?
God fails to protect one of His most faithful servants. All things work together for good? Nothing happens that is more than Job could bear? We get death of Job’s children, then the death of Job’s servants, then the loss of Job’s wealth, and then Job is hit with some kind of horrible disease: boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And his wife even finally has enough and tells Job, "Curse God and die."
I don’t know about you, but I don't like anything about the story. I don’t like God having a conversation with the enemy. I don't like God watching from the sidelines. I don't enjoy the blood-letting. I can’t help but wonder, in particular, where is the fairness in Job’s children having to die.
Nothing about this story seems to make sense, and it certainly isn't satisfying.
But at the same time, there should be comfort in being reminded that Satan is subordinate to God. Satan goes to God with a desire, and must be allowed to carry it out. This is an awesome thing to realize, that Satan does nothing in this world except by God's permissive will. God is the governor of the universe. Satan does not have a parallel role to play with God, but rather a subordinate role to play under God. Anytime we think we can blame Satan for something that is happening, we must also reckon with the fact that God is permitting it, which is what Job remarkably does.
While it certainly looks like Job's children and servants were collateral damage, remember this is a story about Job. There are a multitude of stories going on all around us. Maybe for the purpose of this story, Job's children/servants were secondary characters, like the best friend in a movie who comes to an untimely death. But that doesn't mean there wasn't another story centered on them, something else God was accomplishing. I don't know that, obviously; it just makes me feel better about my own life. What I suspect, though, is that the things I think are major events in my life may be supporting stories in the bigger scheme of things. I have to leave that to God.
And we will see that God doesn't fail to protect His faithful servant Job. God did, after all, put limits on what Satan could do. It just reminds us that our own ideas of what constitutes "protection" are not God's ideas. Remember the story of the blind man in John 9, where the disciples ask Jesus, "Who sinned - this man or his parents?" Meaning that he wouldn't be blind if it wasn't the natural result of some sin. And Jesus says, "No one sinned to cause this blindness; this is so God's Glory could be revealed in him."
As for everything else that happens – death, loss of wealth, friends abandoning him, wife seems to turn on him, health deteriorates to the point that Job has to get out of his own house and go sit in the local landfill where he spends his day scrapping his sores with broken pieces of pottery – Job’s response is, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
And the writer says that Job did not sin.
Isn’t that exactly what God told Satan would happen?
Two stories from my own life that I want to share here.
One occurred when I was a sportswriter, covering the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. I was in Olympic Park that Friday night when the bomb went off. It was shocking. This was pre-9/11. Stuff like this didn’t happen in the United States. I walked around, seeing people dazed and bleeding, and when they were willing I listened to their stories. The scene went on literally all night. And all around me people were asking, “Why?”
Then I thought of friends who have lived in other countries where bombs do go off, where kids have been known to walk to school knowing there could be snipers, in countries where what we might consider the simplest of illness can mean death. And it hit me that we in the United States shouldn’t ask “Why?” but rather “Why not?” Why should we be spared what so much of the rest of the world lives with on a daily basis?
The other story occurred on the morning of September 11th, 2001. It was my father’s birthday. My father lived with us. I remember standing in my living room, watching with horror the events of the Twin Towers in New York City ( as well as the other events of that day), and thinking to myself, “I’m so glad I don’t live in New York. That would never happen here.” And I swear almost the moment I thought that, something in my heart or soul or mind said, “So you put your faith and confidence in where you live, and not in God?” That may sound silly, but it really had an impact on me. It was like the rich man who built extra barns for all his wealth, thinking he was safe and secure. He quickly found out his barns and wealth and position did not protect him.
Therefore, it is clear that Job was right to say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away," and "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and not receive evil?"
Some things – most things – are just out of our control. Even if we’ve worked hard to accumulate wealth or power or good looks, most of us didn’t get to choose where we were born or who our parents are, which plays a lot into our ability to parlay our talents and intellect into a comfortable life. So much is just ‘chance’ – or providence, as the old-timers would say, properly giving God His due.
What this part of Job tells me is that all these things that I go through that I consider “epic” might actually be just footnotes in the bigger chapter of something else. Even though in my view, I’m the star of this movie and everything centers around me, Job shows me there may indeed be a bigger story, one I can’t see, one I can’t begin to fathom. I may not be anywhere near as important as I think I am.
But then again, I might be. Just as Job was.
So what is my role? To live out my faith regardless, to not think more or less of myself, to be faithful.
Because so much of what happens to us seems senseless. But maybe that part of the point. Suffering doesn't make sense. The more natural expectation in life is spelled out in the first paragraph of Job. We want for every new baby a good family, a good childhood, a good education, eventually a fulfilling and well-compensated job, a good home, and a retirement set against the sunset of a perfect life. We want the first paragraph of Job, which tells us this man was blameless, upright, righteous, and the greatest man among his people. He was a man who did without something we'd all like to do without. He was a man without suffering.
If only life could really be that way.
What the heck is going on here?
I tend to agree with Job when he wishes he could take God to court in Job 9.
32 “He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
33 If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
34 someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
35 Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot…”
Job is hardly alone in this feeling persecuted by God.
David, in Psalm 13 – “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?”
Jesus, as he genuinely wrestled with the internal agony before the crucifixion. "Must I really do this?" he asked, under such stress that blood vessels popped in his forehead. "Is there no other way?" (See Luke 22:42-43)
But wait – what did Job say? Something about, “If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together?”
Who is Job asking for here? Could it be Jesus?
What does Job – way back in the Old Testament, know about Jesus? About a redeemer? A savior?
Job 19:25 “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth….”
That’s pretty profound for a guy who lived thousands of years before Christ; who lived before the giving of the Ten Commandments (the law); who wasn’t even, as far as we know, Jewish!
Maybe Job isn’t such a strange story. Maybe it’s our story – all of us. Maybe this is just part of the plan - We commit to being followers of God, so God choses, for whatever reason, to risk His reputation – His glory – on our actions.
What we need to be reminded of is that this story is not about you or me. It’s about God – His Glory.
And our opportunity to be part of a great victory for God's Glory, one in which that great cloud of witnesses shouts in triumph while the Accuser, Satan, slinks away in defeat.
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