Welcome again to another episode of Struggling Well. And for those of you that are faithful, listeners, this is our 50th podcast. We are very excited about that and we are thankful for you that listen. I do want to correct something I said last week because my husband and our producer who are both pastors and think very highly of themselves. No, I'm kidding. But I spoke about be still and know that I'm God from Proverbs. It's not from Proverbs. It's from Psalm 46:10. Because I know all you biblical scholars there are going to be, you know, wanting to wamp on me, but it's from the Psalms. So, thank you, Jimmy, and thank you, Tim, for your presence here this morning. Take it away, Jimmy.
How am I supposed to go after that?
I don't know.
I don't know. So, we're in the midst of talking about struggling and suffering and where it comes from. And like we said last week in Jeremiah, it's obvious there that it happened because of the people's disobedience. They didn't follow God's design. God's ways and the result was they suffered consequences. But what happens when you're not sure why it's come? You're in the midst of suffering and you don't understand why. and I there's a great example of it in the Old Testament in the book of Job. Job is described as a man who was blameless, upright, feared God, and turned away from evil. That's that picture right there. And if you move it into our culture today, we would say that's really good and that means that life will go the way you want it to go because you've done everything the right way and nothing should go wrong.
Right?
And Job's friends are later going to say to him, why don't you just confess what you've done wrong and your fortunes will turn. That's not the issue. The issue comes in verse 8 of chapter 1 when God says to Satan, that's that in of itself is a very interesting confusing, unsettling description that Satan was in the presence of God. And God says to him, "Have you considered my servant Job? There's no one like him in all the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil." So there it is. God's calling attention to this person Job, this man Job. And Satan says in essence, well, of course he does. Of course all those things are true because look at the way you bless him with all the things of life. He's got wealth, he's got family, he's got all these things. And Job then says or God Satan says about Job. Take those things from him and he'll curse you to your face. And so there begins this duel, if you will, between God and Satan. And Job is the one who's caught in the middle of it. And if you know the story of Job, you can read the first two chapters of the book and you can discover the story. God tells Satan, you can take anything from him, but you can't touch him. Well, Satan proceeds to do that in a very short rapid period of time, he takes away his wealth, his standing in the community. his children die and God then back with Satan God says, "See," and Satan says, "Yeah, but touch him and he'll curse you to your face." So God lets Satan at Job physically, personally, short of killing him. And that's when the whole story begins to take place. so here's this man who's doing life and living life in the way he should and yet all these things happen to him and it's that I think it's the clearer picture that there is the battle that exists between good and evil between God and Satan and it rages and many times we don't see it but we experience and feel the consequences of it and so Job's friends for the rest of the book try to basically say Job just confess what you've done wrong it's deep it's hidden and all the rest if you do that and God will be pleased with you and everything will turn out okay. And you get to the end of the book of Job and God says to Job's friends, you're the ones I'm angry with cuz you didn't speak of me correctly. Job did and I'm going to have Job pray for you and restore you. So there, that's a quick synopsis on the book of Job. But it's that behind the scenes kind of thing that produces in our lives sometimes suffering, struggle, but we don't necessarily know what's going on. behind it that caused it.
But one of the things that happens with Job is he does what Jeremiah does and he laments and after everything has happened, his wealth, children, everything has been taken, then his health has been also impacted. He says in chapter 3, "Let the day of my birth be erased and the night I was conceived. Let that day be turned to darkness. Let the darkness and utter gloom claim that day for itself. Let a black cloud overshadow it." And he goes on and on. And everything that's in scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit and we believe that it's without error. So when I look at this and see that God through his spirit has had this recorded for me to read, then I have to make a decision about it and that is can I lament like Job did. The answer is yes. I mean he goes on and on. Why wasn't I born dead? Why didn't I die out of when my mother gave birth to me? Had I died at birth, I would be at peace now. And he goes on and on to explain the agony that he is feeling as a result of this. And again, here's the place, the thing you said, Jimmy, he doesn't know why everything has happened the way it's happened.
No. And he never does. The story is at least the way it's recorded in scripture. Job never understands what brought all this on and he's left with it. Here here's the other thing that's amazing about Job to me is he never stops going after God.
Yeah.
So when he's struggling, when he's suffering, he continues to pursue God. And what he wants, call it his arrogance or whatever, I call it his determination. He just wants five minutes with God
to let him argue his case before him.
When he finally gets it, he realizes there's a huge gulf between who God is and who he is. And he basically ends up being quiet and lamenting and repenting of his arrogance that he had the answers. But he never stops going after God. You know, you would think at some point in time here's this blameless upright man who fears God and turns from evil that when all this disaster happens in this life and the suffering and the struggles and in fact it's many people today talk about well that sounds like a job like struggle that you're in the midst of he doesn't curse God and say I'm done with you
which is what his wife initially wants him to do
why I mean why is she still around that's my question
I don't know but anyway he doesn't do that
yeah And I would think that's one of the things that defines struggling well is when I will not turn away from God even though I don't understand. I will not turn away from him. I think how many people are at that crossroads maybe in their life of saying I don't I can't trust you anymore.
Yeah.
And I'm going to turn from you or I don't understand but I'm still going to trust and I'm still going to go after you.
There's another interesting little subplot in here and you spoke about Job's friends and they're, you know, telling him like Jimmy said, "You've sinned. Go ahead and confess it." And I think when we view someone's suffering or their struggle, first of all, I we've all experienced the people that try to tell us how to get out of that struggle. people oftenimes use scripture and other things to kind of beat us into what they think is the solution. And so when somebody's in the midst of suffering, it makes us really uncomfortable. We don't know what to do with it. it gets messy. We don't know how far to go into it. And so his friends are telling him all this stuff. They made a judgment call according to their grid of how they viewed God. And I think we have to be so careful when someone is suffering that we want it to end. Some of that comes from the fact that we someone we love, we hate to watch that pain and suffering, but some of it also comes from we are afraid. We're afraid of God and wrestling with God and here's a crazy thing, but it's like if this suffering doesn't end for this person, I might catch it. It might come on me. It might be maybe it's one of those things where I there's something going to happen to me because I can't figure out why this person is suffering and struggling. And I remember years and years ago I read this book about grief and it talked about the I don't know how many stages there are of grief. And I've always thought anytime there's a book that lists out steps to, you know, know, success or whatever or how to take care of your children. What if you go through all those steps and you're like at there's 10 steps and you're at like 12 and there's no step there. There's no steps to suffering. There's no nice and neat and tidy steps to grieving. And Job's friends tried to give him some steps about what to do. And they were very, very eloquent. And it's a little surprising to me that Job was as strong as he was because he knew that there wasn't something going on in him. and he spoke very clearly to them.
Yeah. And it's that collision of the forces of good, God's kingdom, and the forces of evil, Satan's kingdom, and the collision that takes place, you know, in the New Testament, cuz people often times look at Job and go, "Yeah, that was the Old Testament. That's not the New Testament." Trying to I think trying to find this sense that if I live a certain way, everything will go okay. and It's in Luke's gospel where Jesus is talking to Peter and he says,"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat." So, there's the demand. It's the New Testament version of Job, I think, Satan demanding that he has his way with Simon. And what I want it what I want the verse to go on and say is that Jesus said, "But I've told him he can't."
Cuz there's a sense in which, you know, you're one of my followers and I told him you can't and but what his response is but I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again you can strengthen your brothers and I'm going that's not the answer I want
no
I pray for you I prayed for you that when you your faith survives and that's just before he tells Peter that he's going to deny him three times of course Peter's like offended that would even be a thought in Jesus' mind but Jesus knows and so Well, all of this in sol in saying all this is there are going to be things that remain a mystery to us.
I think sometimes we when something bad happens to somebody, we love to have a reason for it. Oh, well, you did this. Oh, well, this is why. And I think these two stories are examples of the fact that you don't always have an answer because there's this mystery that I can't see of the larger story that God's telling and what he's doing and the battle that exists, which is to me one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul in Ephesians talks about every day putting on the armor of God. because I may not face a flesh and blood opponent that day, or at least I don't think I will. But the enemy is constantly at work. And if I'm not prepared to handle that by being in God, in his word, connected to him, as he says in John, that I abide in the vine, as a branch, then I find myself having already lost potentially that battle.
I think when you talk about putting on the armor of God, that is you know what Ephesians talks about the that we're not wrestling against flesh and blood. And one of the interesting things that always kind of grabs me is in the beginning of Job when God says to Satan, "Where have you come from?" And Satan says, "I have been patrolling the earth watching everything that's going on. That ought to put some not fear because we have God, but some what's the word? What could I say?
Oh, I think it causes some heightened awareness.
Awareness. Yes.
that this is a re reality that this is a reality that this you know until Christ returns and sets up his kingdom and ushers in eternity Satan has limited access but it still is a powerful access to this world and he is aware of what's going on in this world and uses it to his advantage.
So, maybe not the most uplifting podcast, but I want us to be aware that this battle goes on and this struggle goes on and these sufferings go on and in the midst of all that, can I keep my eyes on Christ?