The Bible has more than a couple of crazy people. Think Noah building a boat for 100 years. Think a prophet talking to a donkey. Think Peter who actually climbed out of the boat in a storm. Crazy. Of course, most just dismiss them. But not us. We're believers. We're followers of Christ. We are the faithful. So we understand those "crazy" people to be quite sane in doing what God requires despite what it might look like. We trust our Bibles. Well, mostly. There is one point that we're not convinced of regardless of what we say. Peter, Paul, James ... they all said crazy things about how we ought to rejoice in trials. Nuts! They all said that trials were a good thing. Insane! No, no, we're believers, so we agree ... as long as you don't look at what we actually do when we encounter trials. If what we do tells us what we believe, it looks a lot like we don't believe that trials are for our benefit, because we don't really rejoice much over them, do we?
Look at Job. The man lost it all -- wealth and family -- and said at the end, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). Really? Notice that it was at the start. He didn't spend time thinking about it or praying over it or reminding himself of the truth. It was just ... there. Even after the final indignity -- the loss of his health -- as he sat there on that ash heap scraping boils with shards of pottery, he said, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). Job had two basic thoughts here, both of which confound us. First, while we're all pretty good with "The Lord gives," we don't really agree much with "The Lord takes away." We'll either deny that He does (while questioning why He didn't do something about it) or we'll agree that He does and be angry about it. Not Job. The second thing was "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job believed God both gave and took away -- that God was ultimately responsible for both the pleasant things that happen to us as well as the unpleasant -- and that He was good for doing so.
Even we believers have a hard time with that. Have you lost income, a job, a house, health, friends? Did you think, "Blessed be the name of the Lord"? Have you lost a loved one -- perhaps a spouse or a child -- and thought, "Blessed be the name of the Lord"? Do you think, when the bad things happen (and they will) that 1) God is ultimately responsible for it and 2) He is good for doing so? Mind you, Job still suffered. He still scraped off boils. I'm not suggesting we should claim that trials aren't unpleasant, painful, difficult. If we did, it wouldn't be a trial, would it? But is our bottom line, "Blessed be the name of the Lord"? Or are we miffed at God (or worse)? Sometimes those crazy people in Scripture who actually trust God and obey Him are right. Are you one of those? Am I?
2 comments:
Withstanding trials with joy is probably one of the hardest things to do, but clearly something that can and must be done. Lord, forgive my unbelief.
It's not easy, but I try very hard to praise YHWH when things don't turn out the way I'd like them to, or when I go through difficult situations. Gratitude in all circumstances is something I've been focusing on for a year or two.
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