Did you think the book of Job was just about the suffering of a great servant of God, Job? Did you think that the whole book was just about the suffering of Job to prove that God's hold on Job's heart was stronger than Satan's power on Job's wealth, physical health, and family bonds? No, it is not just the tale of the testing of a good man, it is also about the deep love of God within a mortal man named Job, but most of all, it is about great faith expressed through great pain, consistently.
When our faith is seriously tested what do we lean on? We often lean on our intellect, our looks, our reputation, our discipline, our hard work, our previous history of reliability, and yet, those are like spider's webs... They just aren't strong enough to support us and our needs.
Bildad, Job's friend was only trying to help his dear friend, and yet he had it all wrong anyway. He wasn't much help at all, and God rebuked Bildad and his two friends in the end. Are we sometimes guilty of unconfessed sin and that is why our needs don't seem to be heard by God? Yes. Are we sometimes guilty of disobedience and small or absent faith and God doesn't seem to hear us? Yes. Are we sometimes guilty of holding grudges and resentment against someone and God doesn't forgive us until we forgive that person? Yes!
God says to obey Him and He will reveal Himself to us. His plan for our lives will be clarified through our CONSISTENT obedience, over time. There was much wisdom in Bildad's words, yet he missed the vital point, sometimes the path IS hard, and rocky, and troublesome, and sometimes the journey breaks us down until we feel we cannot walk through life any longer... because we lean on spider's webs that WE spin from our own capacity, and not of God's capacity. In one sense Bildad was correct to not assume that because of the appearances of God's blessings upon Job because of Job's apparent faithfulness that Job was, in fact obedient to God.
How many people do you know that behave one way in church on Sunday then live an entirely different scene Sunday afternoon through Saturday night? Maybe it is you that is incongruent with what God wants from you? Maybe your obedience is like a spider's web, it just won't hold up under the pressures and weight of your real life lived by the real you. We often suck our guts in and try to appear as though we aren't as "heavy" as we really are, then we lean on the spider's web, the web knows the truth about us and it falls away like the nothing it is... revealing us for who and what we really are.
We need God. He is a Fortress, a Rock, a Friend that never fails, and never falls for our crap we sling at Him. He knows us and so does the spider's web... Don't go leaning on spider's webs!
Job 8:1-22 (NIV) Job 8:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied: 2 "How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind. 3 Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right? 4 When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin. 5 But if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty, 6 if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place. 7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be. 8 "Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, 9 for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow. 10 Will they not instruct you and tell you? Will they not bring forth words from their understanding? 11 Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without water? 12 While still growing and uncut, they wither more quickly than grass. 13 Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. 14 What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider's web. 15 He leans on his web, but it gives way; he clings to it, but it does not hold. 16 He is like a well-watered plant in the sunshine, spreading its shoots over the garden; 17 it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks and looks for a place among the stones. 18 But when it is torn from its spot, that place disowns it and says, 'I never saw you.' 19 Surely its life withers away, and from the soil other plants grow. 20 "Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers. 21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. 22 Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tents of the wicked will be no more."
1 comment:
Fantastic, as usual. Thank you!
Teresa
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