As the Sparks Fly Upward

If you are not familiar with the way the Lord works throughout the story of humanity, Job may appear at first to be a particularly hard read, especially considering in chapter one God straight up allows Satan to tempt Job to curse God by destroying everything he could possibly have on this earth. If you don’t understand that Job received only a tiny bit of the punishment that is due man for the evil we are born with, then you may not be able to see God’s mercy in Job. I’ll admit, I’ve had a tough time reading it before myself, only because I have the mind of man and don’t see myself the way God saw me before He redeemed me- deserving of death and eternal separation from Himself. Only God could redeem me from that mess.

So in the beginning of Job we see a man who has gleaned from the earth a mass of temporary wealth, who has been blessed with healthy family, material possessions, and what appears to be great happiness. He’s also one of those rare examples of a man who amassed great wealth but still glorified the Lord and honored and revered him. He continually gave his best to the Lord, and I imagine he was one of those people that you wish you could hate, but you couldn’t, because he was just genuinely a great guy.

Once the Lord allows Satan to have free reign over Job’s life (his only limitation was to spare Job’s life), we see Job lose everything in the blink of an eye. I mean, he literally can’t get through hearing of one devastating loss before someone else comes in to tell him of another. I keep trying to imagine what Job was thinking in that moment….but truly nothing comes to mind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone lose quite so much in one moment, especially in the ridiculous ways he loses them. (I mean, people come and kill all of his livestock at once and then a huge wind takes out his family---what??) Satan wants so badly to prove that Job can’t hold it together and praise God, it’s like he’s trying an “I Told You So” on the God of the Universe. And God just says, “Go ahead.”

That used to seem so mean to me until I really started to understand that Job deserved that. Job wasn’t a perfect man. In fact, Job deserved far more than God allowed him to bear, because Job not only deserved death, he deserved eternal separation and suffering for his sins against God. So when God removed His hand of blessing from Job and allowed Satan a cheap shot at him, it was His RIGHT to take that away. What Job had was bountiful excess of blessing, something he did not deserve or earn. It was all God’s to give and all His to take away.

So I guess the question is WHY. If God gave Him all these blessings, wasn’t that cruel to take it all away like that? I’ll argue that what God did for Job was actually infinitely loving, because that’s who God is. Man is born to sin, and therefore, born to trouble. The sins we commit are simply sparks that fly from the furnace of original sin, the preeminent corruption and separation from God in the Garden of Eden. It’s no accident that troubles come our way, they are flying directly out of ourselves and our nature. We were born to it!

So Eliphaz, Job’s good friend, encourages him in his times of trouble through truth. First, I love that his friends sit with him for seven days before they even say a word. Too often we rush into “fixing” our friend’s troubles when all they really want and need is someone to grieve with them, someone willing to sit in the trenches with them and cry, someone to truly mourn their state with them. That’s a good friend. So then, as Job starts cursing the day he was born, Eliphaz realizes it’s time for some truth in his life. He tells him to be careful not to despise God, but to see his troubles from a different perspective. God chastens those he loves. Also, these troubles of this world, they are temporary, along with every good thing on this earth. He reminds him that he has infinite reason to be happy, because he has not lost the most precious and worthwhile thing- his salvation and his claim as heir to everything the Lord promises. He has eternal security and life and joy stored up in the kingdom of heaven, and once he reaches that place where all troubles cease, he will be so overcome by the goodness and justness of the Father that he won’t even be able to remember his former life.

If anything, these troubles we face on this earth wean us from our dependence on it, draw us closer to the heart of God, drive us to the Word and land us on our knees. Yes, God does allow wounds, but He is also Comforter and Healer and Deliverer. Those things He absolutely promises. The trials we face remind us that this is not our home, we have a Father in heaven who sympathizes with our every need, and who understands our sufferings. He is not a distant God, no; He is actively involved in both the giving and the taking away! Isn’t that so much more reassuring than thinking God had nothing to do with it? Wouldn’t that limit His power and authority, making Him a fake, and our religion a farce? No, I want a God who is just and holy and rules over everything, even our trials. He allowed Satan to believe it was His doing, but no, our God is bigger than that!

Even though we may not be delivered FROM every trouble we face, we always have the opportunity to be delivered BY them.

Are we not kept from sin’s deceitfulness when we lay our dependence upon the Lord in our most trying of times? Isn’t being kept from sin, being made holy, of more value than being kept from trouble? The problem is not that we trouble, it’s that we don’t have the right outlook on our troubles, no real understanding of the state we were born into, no humble thought as to what we were saved from, or the very fact that we were, indeed, saved!

This is the very testing of our faith, the working it out with fear and trembling. How much of an exercise of faith is it when things are going our way? Sure, we can bless and thank God, just as Job demonstrated before he was tried; however, trials allow us to have a grave understanding of just a fraction of what we were saved from, and in that light, how much more can we honor and trust God?

“But if God raises a storm, permits the enemy to send wave after wave, and seemingly stands aloof from our prayers, then, still to hang on and trust God, when we cannot trace him, this is the patience of the saints. Blessed Saviour! How sweet it is to look unto thee, the Author and Finisher of faith, in such moments!”- Matthew Henry