THE STRUGGLE WITH GOD IS LIFE.
“What strength do I have that I should Hope? And what is my end that I should prolong my life?” (Job 6:11). “I am blameless yet I do not know myself. I despise my life. It is all one thing. Therefore I say, He destroys the blameless and the wicked” (Job 9:21-22).
We have here a question and a comment from the lips of the patriarch Job. Now I see Him walking into a congregation of solid believers who believe in the sovereignty of God. He is covered with boils and the look on his face is a version of death warmed over. He stumbles to the first available seat. After the sermon he laments to one fine gentleman sitting next to him who is dressed in nicely tailored suit. Job opens up to him despairingly. '“What is the use of living?” Job says. “I suffer without meaning and there is nothing for me to look forward to. May God simply take me. I am useless.”
“Oh dear,” says the man in the nicely tailored suit. “You must not think that way. Suicide, or even thinking of suicide, is a sin against almighty God. Don’t you understand His sovereignty in all things. He has allowed you to suffer and you must trust Him. And don’t you know, you have a glorious heaven to look forward to where there will no more pain and no more unsightly boils? Rejoice, my friend, rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven” (quoting Scripture). Having done his part to defend God by doling out a hefty serving of Scripture the man in the finely tailored suit gives Job a light pat on the back, rubs his hands together in satisfaction and walks away smiling.
Job remains seated. He wonders what just happened. This is followed by self-doubt. “What have I done wrong?” he muses quietly. “This brother evidently has it all together and I don’t. He entertains no doubts about the meaning of his life and I do. Something must be wrong with me.”
Job’s depression only deepens.
But just in time a fine older lady with flowing gray hair and a stoic air about her, seeing Job with his head bowed down in his hands, sits in the pew in front of him and turns around. She asks with an air of sternness, “What is wrong with you, young man?”
Hearing these words from the rather stoic looking lady, and still frustrated by the last conversation, Job looks up sheepishly and says something to her no self respecting church member should say. “Who is this God who punishes good people and lets evil folk go free?” He means every word.
“What!” shouts the stoic lady now turned emotional. “How dare you question God? Don’t you know He is good… always good. Whatever you else you might think about God, know that He may not be questioned. You know what your problem is my friend?” she asks aloud, “You don’t really know who God is. You have been taught bad theology. And wait… you’re from a different church, aren’t you?” She continues. “Don’t you know you are to accept everything God sends your way because He cannot do wrong - no questions asked? Trusting in God…. that’s what it means to be a Christian.” Her next comment makes Job jerk his head up. “And of course you know that God would not punish you unless there was sin in your life.”
Job does not want to defend himself but at this point he feels he must. “My dear lady,” Job says in a faint and quivering voice, “I have tried to live a godly life. I serve God and my reputation in the community has been blameless. I continually pray for my family, and I worship God faithfully. Surely God has made some mistake. If only I could speak to Him directly then…….” His voice trails off and his countenance sinks into a blank stare. The woman shakes her head and walks away. She is unmoved by the encounter. So Job is left sitting, wounded and all alone. Another victim of Christian “compassion.”
Scenes like this happen in churches all across America. The reason is simple. We as Americans do not like to suffer and we surely don’t like it when others do. Of course limited suffering is okay. And suffering that is attended by a smiling countenance and the rah, rah cheer of “I’m doing great, God is in control” is also acceptable. But bring into the mix a believer who questions God and enters and exits Psalm 88 with a confused lament, and no longer is the suffering tolerable. “No, no,” says the counselor, “you must not stay in that condition.”
The Book of Job teaches otherwise. Not only does the book give the stamp of approval to one’s misery, it does so in the frail frame of a most righteous man. Job suffered not because he was bad but because he wasn’t.. This fact made no sense to Job so he questioned and doubted God. All of this was given to us by God to show us that suffering is not a bad thing, that crying is a better thing and that questioning is often the voice of the righteous. To suppress these things under the thick veneer of wooden theology is like covering a toxic waste dump with a row of tulips and then building a house over it smiling all the while. Jefferson did a masterful job of cutting out all the miracles from the Bible. The happy-clappy Western church has done the same to all those verses where God is questioned and wrestled to the ground. And it will not be long before the famous cry of a righteous man, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” will be re-translated to “My God, My God, You never have forsaken Me.” To get rid of all questioning in suffering, we would even domesticate Jesus.
And in all of this we continue to hide behind the sovereignty of God.
So what does it matter? Easy. It kills real prayer. Because we believe all things are ordained of God we subtly begin to believe that we need not pray. Oh yes, we will thank God and praise God and ask Him for a thing or two. But since we are not to supposed to struggle and doubt we never really pray. Why should we?
So here is the great sin of the many churches that love sovereignty. And just so you know I have Job standing behind me nodding his head.
As those who believe in God’s sovereignty (and we should), we have reconciled in our wounded spirits to the truth that God will do what God will do. Thus we stay away from prayer closet and the prayer meeting and opt instead to rest in God’s sovereignty and do nothing. But this we soon forget, Christians have always been those who wrestle with God. Sometimes the wrestling takes the form of doubt and anger as it did with Job. Have we forgotten that it is in the wrestling that true communion with God takes place? It’s in the sphere of real suffering that we work through the tension between a God who simply does not care and the God which the Bible declares does care. And it’s only while suffering that we experience that cognitive dissonance. So in desperation we do the only thing that is left for us to do: we pray. We pray not because we understand God but because we don’t. And it’s only when we get down on our knees and shout (or groan) to the living God in faith that any modicum of relief comes. This, of course, does not solve the cognitive dissonance. And it certainly does not satisfy our logical minds. That is, prayer does not suddenly help us understand more about God’s ways. Rather, prayer sets reason aside and allows us to crawl to God as our loving Daddy and to fall into His arms. And once there we find that all those theological explanations that we once used to ‘help’ those who were hurting melt away into that great and restful sea of childlike faith.
Job questions and doubts… but he also prays. Those who only know the sovereignty of God will continue march forward in triumph. But they pray not. But Job shows that the hurting man was right and the doctrinaire counselors were wrong. Now finally we get it. To be a Christian is to struggle, wrestle, question, pin down, push, doubt and stalk God. Anything less than that is but a warmed over version of ‘Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be.’
I opt for Job’s model.