Posts
In the ongoing continued inner dealings of the spirit of God, our being trained in the schooling of being loved, is the Father of our spirit pontificating or is he postulating regarding the intense breaking that continues their redemptive crushing and crashing upon our souls?
Is that how it seemed to our brother and friend Job when God basically told Job to stand up on his hind legs and listen to a wisdom that was intricately apart of all that was undoing this man’s life!
Starting from Job chapters 38 to 41, you are brought into this close encounter with God and a man whose life has been up to this point been defined by misguided and darkened counsel. Soon there is to be a forth coming illumination in Job’s life, out of the whirlwind God is now going to speak.
Rich
4 comments:
Dear Rich! Will you be content with the fact that God loves you and recieve nothing more in this life on earth than this wordless confidence of His love towards you?
Maris,
When I first read your comment, I agreed, and yet I felt there was something yet to be seen, as was in Job's life.
All of his living had been based upon what he had heard and learned from others, the oral teachings of God had been handed down to him, but, when this encounter was consummated, he saw God personally, and that was the difference that totally changed his life.
His living was now contingent upon seeing and hearing from God himself, and no longer simply mouthing what others had said!
I hope this makes sense, even if it doesn't, it's my story and journey, and I'm sticking to it.
Rich, I would be interested in hearing further your explication of Job's experience.
I spent many years as an atheist -- not an angry one, but a happy one, blissfully ignorant of the existence of God, actually pretty convinced that God was the delusional fantasy of bad people who needed to make themselves feel better. (That probably was the not totally unexpected outcome of being raised in a highly abusive environment.)
In any event, when God decided that it was time for me to acknowledge a divine designer of and presence in this world, for the first time I felt some hostility. I wanted God to answer the question why 50% of my children were born with birth defects -- they were innocent (and until I had been made aware of God's presence, I was satisfied with the explanation that sometimes genes from the two sides of a family don't match in felicitous ways). I challenged God with a simple question, "Why?"
I was told to read Job. That took some doing; I knew that this was a book in the Bible, but I had no Bible. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to track down the Book of Job, which I had to read five times before seeing how it could be an answer to my question. From the fifth reading, I understood that what happens to us and our relationship with God are not necessarily (nor should necessarily be) cause and effect. God loves us, we love him, and life happens good and bad for all kinds of reasons, some of which we can understand and others of which are beyond are understanding because not all the facts are available to us and, in some cases, not all the information is within our capacity to understand.
Accept and love. Be accepted and be loved. That's what I got out of Job -- and my kids are fine just the way they are (as I had always thought they were). They, too, just need to be accepted and loved and to learn to accept and love.
I wonder what other insights you might have into interpreting this "go do the research" answer I was given that led me to the conclusion that there is nothing greater than being with God, in all meanings of that preposition.
Beth
Beth,
Do to the length of my/our response, I thought it best to share it in another blog entry.
I look forward to additional dialogue.
Rich
Post a Comment