16 April 2023
We are crucified with Christ.
I've said that our God portrays Himself as a barbarian nomad sheikh. His value system is quite different from what is common among western societies. He very specifically commanded His servants at times to commit genocide, to assassinate political rulers, to destroy and plunder, and to take slaves. He did not hesitate by His own hand to bring droughts, pestilence, diseases, invasions and other sorrows to His own people. Who would dare to criticize Him? Even Jesus cracked a whip once.
We are not on His level (Isaiah 55:6ff). It is our duty to submit ourselves to Him for judgment. Whatever He decrees is good and right, simply because He said it. Sin is defined as declaring anything different from what God says. We must conform to His ways.
Part of that submission to Him is accepting any sorrow that He ordains for us. When a thirty minute car repair turns into 3+ hours because your hands and the tools you have can't make the parts go where they must go, does it occur to you that, if God were just, you would already be dead? We are cursed by the Fall. If we got what we deserved, it would be a short miserable life, a lingering painful death, and eternity in Hell. Fallen people are quite fortunate when they do not suffer. That includes His children.
God's wrath falls on sin. To the degree you are wedded to sin (anything that argues with God), you are liable to suffer. Yes, He is merciful. Yes, He sometimes gives us a break -- lots of them. But sometimes the only way we can take the next step of faith is to get bitten by the fiery serpents. It's meant to drive you farther into His arms.
There is something soldiers have done for centuries in all cultures: revel in the madness of their position. They are ordered to live in serious discomfort, take on impossible missions, and in general embrace with gusto a crappy existence. I've heard troopers referring to themselves as just human toilets. But they also said they would take on the inexplicable mission and get it done, or die trying.
Have you ever felt that God Himself was crapping on you? It's not blasphemous to think so. God does not portray Himself as a "nice guy". You might weep and curse the day you were born. That's no sin. Take a look at Job; his complaints were not sinful. Rather, toward the end of the narrative, he had drifted outside the safe boundaries of his role as a fallen man called to a very difficult task. God chooses to reveal His glory in ways we cannot comprehend, and it's okay to lament that you are being abused, as long as you realize that it's what you are here for.
Why do God's people suffer? It's redemptive. Sinners don't gain anything from it. Their suffering is random and meaningless; so is their wealth and comfort. Your suffering is the hand of God passing you through a time in the hands of Satan. You are being tested and tried so you can show Satan and all Creation that God's Elect can take it. And if you don't do that well, you may face the same test repeatedly until you get it. Take another lap around Mount Sinai.
Yeah, I've been there.
I can empathize. It's not likely I can make it hurt less, but if I could, I'd sit with you and hope I don't say the stupid stuff Job's friends did. You'll come out of the fire tougher and more pure in your faith, and so will I. Let's be there for each other.
Comments
DarkMirror
Last time I read Job, I got the sense that he questioned everything because he was looking to see where he might've gone wrong. He assumed the bad fortune was invited by some sin he hadn't rooted out. I remember that God declared Job righteous, but Job never labeled himself as such. I must read it all again.
Catacomb Resident
On the one hand, Job appears to know that he wasn't being punished for something specific, but that his suffering was part of the Fall. It's his friends who kept insisting that he was hiding some secret sin. On the other hand, the longer this verbal torment went on, Job sort of lost the point. Yet, in the end, the narrative absolves him of any real sin, just that he got lost.
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