We Are All of Us Jobs

I ran yesterday. A short run along a country road. Uphill and down. Uphill again. On the way home relentless wind against my steps at least 10 miles per hour. Had I wings there is no doubt the forces against me would have lifted me sky high.

I stagger in to a disorienting blend of Our God's Alive in my earphones and Fox News on the television.

Me running head-on into wind.

Wind running head-on into people and structures and vehicles.

At the same time.

We left in the evening for my daughter's end of the year school program, The Principal and the Pea.

The grace was not lost on me...

 

 

Last night I finished the book of Job to the din of reporters and meteorologists.

 

 

Because when the world offers death tolls and figures, we need some godly poetry to remind us that God's love is a big-picture kind of art, an act of true heart.

 

 

Because when the chaos of a moment takes the life out of a person, we need some godly wisdom to clue us into a perspective that works always for good. Always for eternal and right-here-and-now good.

 

 

Because... When we want to know answers God simply wants us to know Him. -Ann Voskamp

 

 

He gave me some words hard to swallow in my first chapter of reading for the night. Chewing words and truths like gravel in my mouth. I sat long enough to grind it in, "Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen." Job 37:13.

 

He causes it to happen.

 

Job is so appropriate. The Word, the only Wind that can take the destruction of an EF-5 tornado and draw forth blessing.

 

Ever since I lost my babies I have loved Job. What before had been tedious whining I now read as legitimate offenses against a decent and godly life. Did I not make those same claims of the Lord in the face of death?

 

What did I do to deserve this?

Why didn't You stop it?

Where are You?

 

Don't you care?

 

In my heart I cried the words of Job,

                  Behold I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him. (23:8)

 

and Mary,

                  Lord, if you had been there... (John 11:32)

 

and I took the company of believers beyond belief.

 

Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

John 11:40

 

The fortunes of Job were restored. The dead were raised.

 

I too was raised, as gradually as Job's children were born and as completely as Lazarus' heart beat.

 

But I'll always have that connection. I'll hear those words the Lord spoke out of the whirlwind that blow me back into my place,

 

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

 

 God's words, the "know your role" reminder for the prideful Job. You tell him, Lord!

 

But more than that. Our God, who takes and brings life in a single breath, is making more than a point. He is answering Job's, my, most heartfelt questions.

 

Job 38-

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding."

Where am I? I am where I have always been. I am here. I am.

 

"Who determined its measurements- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

Do I not care? I took great care in creating all my creation, and I delight in caring for it. I always have. I have never stopped caring. Never.

 

Line by line, chapter by chapter, poetry and wisdom weave a portrait of a God who is not summed up in a formula of our own design. We are unbelievably blessed to have a God whose ways are far beyond ours, but whose heart is known in His word, whose love is known in His Son.

 

Whose Spirit works within us and through us to point the "why's" of a grieving nation to the Whom of the Savior.