I had the distinct pleasure of joining some of my good
friends on a backpacking trip in Oregon along Eagle Creek over the
course of the memorial day weekend. As one among many aspiring
ministers and professional Christians in the group I was asked to
prepare a devotional for the group. I was doubly honored when they
asked that I be the one to speak in lieu of our normal church worship
service on Sunday Morning. I offer these thoughts up for your
consideration, edification and, should God be merciful, your
sanctification.
(A brief note on our context, at this point in the trip we were a full days walk from our cars, Ten miles up a mountain and a few among us were injured and all were exhausted. This talk was tailored to people in that situation, so if you take a moment to imagine yourself in a similar situation it may become more meaningful than it would otherwise be).
Man, a moment like this is a teacher's dream come true. Often the hardest part about teaching is leading the people you are talking with to see the world similar to the way that you as the teacher see the world. But thanks to our adventures over the last 2 days we have seen much of the same world. Our shared experiences and shared sufferings have given us for a brief moment in time a shared outlook on life. We all want the same things, cold water, hot meals, beautiful scenery and a good nights rest. One of the reasons I believe that the Bible so often locates it's addresses in the wilderness is because it is trying hard to get it's people to pay attention. After 24 hours in the woods nobody cares about their facebook, nobody wants to go back to their job. Our lives have become very simple and very similar. Much more similar than they were when we began our journey two days ago.
I'd like to share with you some thoughts from the book of Job. I'd like to begin by sketching the story in brief so that we can more effectively hear what the book is trying to say. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the story Job was a man much like Abraham. He loved God, worshiped God and worked hard to ensure that he conducted his entire life in light of his relationship with God. At the beginning of the story, God felt it appropriate to permit Job's material and familial blessings to increase dramatically. Job had ten children and numerous herds of cattle. This was a sign of success in the Ancient World. Job was the CEO of a fortune 500 company, he had it made.
One day Satan brings Job's life to God's attention. He complains that Job doesn't actually love God, instead Job is using His relationship with God to gain material blessings. Job's piety isn't genuine, if God were to remove Job's material prosperity he would learn the true condition of Job's heart. For whatever reason God relents to Satan's schemes and allows Job's prosperity to be taken away. In the span of a single day, all of Job's wealth disappears. Bandits stream in from the North and carry off all of his sheep, a freak lightning strike set's fire to the grazing pasture where his cattle were foraging and they are all killed. And most tragically of all, a tornado swirls in from the West and destroys the house where Job's ten children and having a party, and none of them survive. All that Job has left in the world is his wife and the three servants who survived these calamities to tell Job the bad news.
If you are familiar with the story you'll recall that Satan's plot fails, Job falls down in despair at the sorrow that has come upon his life, but he commits his sorrow to the LORD and does not curse God's Name. Satan complains again to God and Job's plight worsens. Job is afflicted with an illness, and as he sinks deeper into depression three of his closest friends come to visit him, and together they begin to think and discuss how such trouble could have come upon someone whom everyone thought was beloved by God.
The cornerstone of their entire discussion revolves around the justice of the world. Everyone believed that God created the world and everyone believed that God was a just God. So the question under scrutiny is this; “how could a just God allow what appears to be punishment to happen to a just man?” As it stands this situation does not compute, either God is not actually just or Job is not actually just. Because those are the two active parties. All of Jobs friends believed that God's action was indistinguishable from the actions of the world. So when calamities strike, they believed that God acted through them and that His character and judgment could be logically inferred from the action of these calamities. So the conversation goes back and forth, because none of Job's friends believe that God is unjust their worldview forces them to believe that Job must actually have done something to merit God's negative action in his life. But Job knows that he didn't do anything wrong. He is the only person who has true access to that information and he refuses to back down from asserting his innocence. Up until these calamities hit Job personally I'm sure he would have reacted much like his friends did. But now his experience has forced him into a world that he no longer understands. The categories no longer make sense.
As we watch Job continue to argue back and forth with his friends we notice some subtle changes come over Job. He continues to assert his innocence, and he never does accuse God of being unjust. The text makes it clear that Job never sinned against God in what he said. But even so throughout his dialogues he does not understand based upon his experiences how God can remain just when something like this has happened to an innocent man. Job never accuses God, but as he goes round after round in his debate, Job's assertions of his own innocence get a little bit bigger, and his perception of God begins to get a little bit smaller. By the end of his speeches Job seems to think that if I could just sit down with God over a pint, if we could just talk this over like reasonable persons we can get this matter sorted out.
This is why the posture that God assumes in His conversation with Job is so mighty. Job is not visited by a angelic messenger who looks like a man and speaks for God with a meek and humble disposition. Job is assaulted by a mighty whirlwind and the voice of God booms from the whirlwind. His voice is devastating, and he begins to ask Job a barrage of questions about the composition of the world. Job has forgotten that the relationship between Godself and Himself is not a relationship of equals. Job has forgotten that the only reason God has even bothered to speak to Job is because of God's tremendous grace that condescends to speak to a lowly man like Job. And when God begins to speak He reveals something curious about the world Job thought that he lived in.
Job and all of his friends assumed that God formed the world on the basis of Justice. God is a good and just God, and when you do good things you get blessed and when you do bad things you get smote. It may not happen immediately but it will happen eventually. This is called the law of retribution. And as we look at the speeches of job and his friends we see that their understanding of this law of retribution is based on a lot of empirical evidence. These men have spent a lot of time paying close attention to the natural world and concluded that it operates according to this law of retribution. But when God begins to ask Job questions, he reveals that human knowledge goes only so far. All of God's questions ask Job to explain what happens beyond the borders of human understanding. Have you seen the heavenly storehouses where the snow is reserved for the wintertime? Have you seen the place where the sun goes to rest before it loops around and rises again in the East? Job, there is so much more going on in this world than you cannot possibly comprehend. You have drawn conclusions about the world based upon your excellent knowledge and observations, but your knowledge base in insufficient. You just don't know enough about the world to make an accurate judgment about the composition and operation of the world.
God's speech to Job demonstrates to Job that this world of ours is not formed on the basis of justice, God is just and He will exercise his justice in the end, but his purpose in creation was not to create a just world. Justice is secured by the activity of God, not by the natural functions of the cosmos. God's purpose in creation was to create a beautiful place whose foundation is not justice but wisdom.
(A brief note on our context, at this point in the trip we were a full days walk from our cars, Ten miles up a mountain and a few among us were injured and all were exhausted. This talk was tailored to people in that situation, so if you take a moment to imagine yourself in a similar situation it may become more meaningful than it would otherwise be).
Man, a moment like this is a teacher's dream come true. Often the hardest part about teaching is leading the people you are talking with to see the world similar to the way that you as the teacher see the world. But thanks to our adventures over the last 2 days we have seen much of the same world. Our shared experiences and shared sufferings have given us for a brief moment in time a shared outlook on life. We all want the same things, cold water, hot meals, beautiful scenery and a good nights rest. One of the reasons I believe that the Bible so often locates it's addresses in the wilderness is because it is trying hard to get it's people to pay attention. After 24 hours in the woods nobody cares about their facebook, nobody wants to go back to their job. Our lives have become very simple and very similar. Much more similar than they were when we began our journey two days ago.
I'd like to share with you some thoughts from the book of Job. I'd like to begin by sketching the story in brief so that we can more effectively hear what the book is trying to say. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the story Job was a man much like Abraham. He loved God, worshiped God and worked hard to ensure that he conducted his entire life in light of his relationship with God. At the beginning of the story, God felt it appropriate to permit Job's material and familial blessings to increase dramatically. Job had ten children and numerous herds of cattle. This was a sign of success in the Ancient World. Job was the CEO of a fortune 500 company, he had it made.
One day Satan brings Job's life to God's attention. He complains that Job doesn't actually love God, instead Job is using His relationship with God to gain material blessings. Job's piety isn't genuine, if God were to remove Job's material prosperity he would learn the true condition of Job's heart. For whatever reason God relents to Satan's schemes and allows Job's prosperity to be taken away. In the span of a single day, all of Job's wealth disappears. Bandits stream in from the North and carry off all of his sheep, a freak lightning strike set's fire to the grazing pasture where his cattle were foraging and they are all killed. And most tragically of all, a tornado swirls in from the West and destroys the house where Job's ten children and having a party, and none of them survive. All that Job has left in the world is his wife and the three servants who survived these calamities to tell Job the bad news.
If you are familiar with the story you'll recall that Satan's plot fails, Job falls down in despair at the sorrow that has come upon his life, but he commits his sorrow to the LORD and does not curse God's Name. Satan complains again to God and Job's plight worsens. Job is afflicted with an illness, and as he sinks deeper into depression three of his closest friends come to visit him, and together they begin to think and discuss how such trouble could have come upon someone whom everyone thought was beloved by God.
The cornerstone of their entire discussion revolves around the justice of the world. Everyone believed that God created the world and everyone believed that God was a just God. So the question under scrutiny is this; “how could a just God allow what appears to be punishment to happen to a just man?” As it stands this situation does not compute, either God is not actually just or Job is not actually just. Because those are the two active parties. All of Jobs friends believed that God's action was indistinguishable from the actions of the world. So when calamities strike, they believed that God acted through them and that His character and judgment could be logically inferred from the action of these calamities. So the conversation goes back and forth, because none of Job's friends believe that God is unjust their worldview forces them to believe that Job must actually have done something to merit God's negative action in his life. But Job knows that he didn't do anything wrong. He is the only person who has true access to that information and he refuses to back down from asserting his innocence. Up until these calamities hit Job personally I'm sure he would have reacted much like his friends did. But now his experience has forced him into a world that he no longer understands. The categories no longer make sense.
As we watch Job continue to argue back and forth with his friends we notice some subtle changes come over Job. He continues to assert his innocence, and he never does accuse God of being unjust. The text makes it clear that Job never sinned against God in what he said. But even so throughout his dialogues he does not understand based upon his experiences how God can remain just when something like this has happened to an innocent man. Job never accuses God, but as he goes round after round in his debate, Job's assertions of his own innocence get a little bit bigger, and his perception of God begins to get a little bit smaller. By the end of his speeches Job seems to think that if I could just sit down with God over a pint, if we could just talk this over like reasonable persons we can get this matter sorted out.
This is why the posture that God assumes in His conversation with Job is so mighty. Job is not visited by a angelic messenger who looks like a man and speaks for God with a meek and humble disposition. Job is assaulted by a mighty whirlwind and the voice of God booms from the whirlwind. His voice is devastating, and he begins to ask Job a barrage of questions about the composition of the world. Job has forgotten that the relationship between Godself and Himself is not a relationship of equals. Job has forgotten that the only reason God has even bothered to speak to Job is because of God's tremendous grace that condescends to speak to a lowly man like Job. And when God begins to speak He reveals something curious about the world Job thought that he lived in.
Job and all of his friends assumed that God formed the world on the basis of Justice. God is a good and just God, and when you do good things you get blessed and when you do bad things you get smote. It may not happen immediately but it will happen eventually. This is called the law of retribution. And as we look at the speeches of job and his friends we see that their understanding of this law of retribution is based on a lot of empirical evidence. These men have spent a lot of time paying close attention to the natural world and concluded that it operates according to this law of retribution. But when God begins to ask Job questions, he reveals that human knowledge goes only so far. All of God's questions ask Job to explain what happens beyond the borders of human understanding. Have you seen the heavenly storehouses where the snow is reserved for the wintertime? Have you seen the place where the sun goes to rest before it loops around and rises again in the East? Job, there is so much more going on in this world than you cannot possibly comprehend. You have drawn conclusions about the world based upon your excellent knowledge and observations, but your knowledge base in insufficient. You just don't know enough about the world to make an accurate judgment about the composition and operation of the world.
God's speech to Job demonstrates to Job that this world of ours is not formed on the basis of justice, God is just and He will exercise his justice in the end, but his purpose in creation was not to create a just world. Justice is secured by the activity of God, not by the natural functions of the cosmos. God's purpose in creation was to create a beautiful place whose foundation is not justice but wisdom.
This world is place where seasons cycle back and
forth in a consistent rhythm. This is not a rigidly engineered world of immaculately designed lego blocks that fit together perfectly. This is a world if vast differences that interplay with one another in complex and extended rhythms. Beauty and uniqueness are some of God's values in creation not effeciency. This is a world where creatures beautiful and ugly,
strong and weak, slow and fast all find their place within the cosmos
and glorify God by being themselves. Ostriches and Alligators are some of the most ridiculous and inefficiently designed monsters planet Earth has ever seen. and Yet these monsters are beloved by God and they both have a
place and a purpose within this world. God delights in their
presence among His creation.
Part 2 coming soon. "Hast though considered the Godzilla?"
Part 2 coming soon. "Hast though considered the Godzilla?"
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