Sackcloth and Ashes: Travels with Job (6)
“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?” Job 3:11 NASB
Expire – The end of erosion is questioning. Questioning is not doubt. We don’t doubt that God exists, that He is good, that He is just or that He is sovereign. We question His motives. So does Job. Erosion in our belief systems leads to questioning, not just the meaning and content of the beliefs, but to the reason behind God’s actions. We can survive concerns about meaning and content. That is the stuff of doctrine, dogma and ways of life. One system of beliefs can be replaced by another. But when it comes to the motives of God, we are often left in the black hole of the inexplicable. We simply can’t understand why a God who is all the things we believe Him to be would act as He does, or in some particularly troubling cases, does not act when He should. This is not a matter of intellectual incapacity. It is of no value to assert that “His ways are higher than our ways.” While that is rationally conceivable, it makes no difference to the existential anxiety of living with tragedy. What is the point of telling me that I simply am ontologically incapable of understanding? That leaves me without an answer, without even the hope of an answer. It is as if God said, “Well, I know the secret and I could tell you, but I won’t. Too bad for you!”
Questioning is about motives, intent, purpose and plan. It is not about how it all happens. We can readily admit that we don’t understand, and perhaps cannot understand, how. But we don’t really need to know how. A child doesn’t need to know how an automobile works. He just needs to know that it can take him to school so that he doesn’t have to worry about walking. We just need to know that God actually has some purpose behind all our experiences. And we don’t even need to know exactly what that purpose is. We just need to know that there is a purpose. That much He needs to communicate in a way that makes us confident about Him. If God can’t even do that, then either we are so incapacitated as to be no better than instinctual animals, or God is so removed from us that it is foolish to believe He even cares. The desire, perhaps even, demand for God to give us some sort of explanation of motive isn’t blasphemous disrespect. It might be if we served a God who operated as a tyrant. Tyrants can order compliance without explanation. They can issue ultimatums simply because they have the power to do so. But this isn’t the way God is described in the Bible. He is a Father, compassionate, intimately involved, concerned, loving and gracious. What Father like that would refuse to provide even the slightest hint about motive? If God does refuse to tell us anything about why He does what He does, then we should rightly dismiss His claims to care.
Questioning is reasonable, that is, it is morally reasonable. We don’t need responses to make sense. We just need them to have some purpose we can grasp. In the ancient world of the Middle East, the gods often did things that didn’t make sense—and they refused to explain why they did these things. But YHVH, the God of Israel, was uniquely distinguished from all the other gods precisely because He offered explanation. He made promises. He revealed purposes. We should expect Him to continue in the same vein. When our questioning arrives at a concrete wall, when no explanation is offered, when grief over moral injury is rejected, something happens to the human soul. It retreats to silence.
Topical Index: questioning, Job 3:11
About questioning HaShem’s purpose, we usually forget the meaning of the word Torah: Instruction
We ask for more faith… well, we learn about faith by going through situations that demand faith… He instructs us while living situations… not only by reading.
This doesn’t mean that we should rely only on experience and not read Torah. As a matter of fact, I think that when a specific situation arises, we could step out of our selves for a moment, go and find who else in the Scriptures went trough something similar and find out what God’s instruction arises that is applicable to us… I know doing this is hard while being inmerse in chaos in our lives, but I think that it might be very useful to us…
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Romans 15:4 NIV
I think we naturally attribute to God what we experience at the hands of earthly authorities – particularly as a child. This is a good thing when those authorities are properly representing Him, and can be particularly awful when they aren’t. The flesh is hardwired this way. We naturally do as we are done by.
I have suspected that many people who say they follow God are really just following the same way that they follow earthly authority, and call it God. That sounds harsh, but it is human nature to resist change and to ignore the need to examine paradigms. Only if we are FORCED to change do we have the impetus to question the status quo. Disaster has this ability to blow the last status quo out of the water and make us become willing to start over. Disaster exposes the gaps in function, as well as where we are actually connected. In disaster, we learn who our friends really are, as well as who we can’t count on, too. Disaster reveals hidden strengths as well as hidden weaknesses, and shows us what beliefs are true, as well as which ones were actually just ropes of sand.
Disaster is a fire that only consumes chaff and dross. If can FEEL like it is destroying our faith, our joy, our connections to others, but when I went to look more closely at mine, I saw that those things I thought I could count on the most were often just empty promises or were even nonexistent. I found that I was traveling on a whole lot of stuff that I had made up just to be able to stay in that status quo, too. Disaster days, I slowly learned, were trash days, for I could always find something that belonged in the trash, that had become too heavy to carry. There were a lot of Jonahs on my ship, too, just saying things so that I would carry them, but really they were dumping their rocks in my tote bag. I lost a lot of supposed friends, and even family, when their rocks became too heavy for me to carry.
God NEVER asks for unquestioned obedience. I have searched the Word from cover to cover and never found it. Now, earthly authorities? Different story. Rare is the earthly authority who does not punish the questioners in some way, even if by ignoring the question. We can assign this experience to God, and just ASSUME that He is going to punish, or that He is ignoring us, when actually, because we have never even learned HOW to question, we are just blaming Him, like Skip says, because we don’t know how to question Him. I mean, in which school would we have learned that skill set? Nary an earthly one that I have found. In fact, only in the school of hard knocks was I able to even find the question manual, much less permission to question, for when you are having a hard time, it has always amazed me how quickly the Pharisees scoot themselves over to the other side of the road! Well, that left me with no one left who was claiming responsibility EXCEPT God. I found myself alone with Him, for the first time. This was very revealing!
I discovered unreasoning terror when I found myself (finally) in the place where I just wanted to know why. I was afraid to ask! Well, where did I learn that terror? Not by experience with God. No, I learned it by experience with earthly authority. I learned that I had been confusing the two, and had no way, other than disaster, to show me exactly where. In the heart of the storm, when you find yourself deserted by all, you might just find yourself also deserted by those who were standing in between you and your Saviour, too. In the heart of the storm, I found myself safer from the liars than in any other place, for the only One left was the Truth. It was the biggest shock of my life.
Thank you Laurita! Your posts are helping me tremendously right now. 🙂
Dear Claudia, hang in there! You are probably farther along than most people, for most people don’t even realize that they are miserable.
I am happy you are figuring it out, and that I can help, but I am only a vector, you know. I haven’t a clue how to help others; I can only witness. The Holy Spirit does it all for you and for me. All praise to Him!
I wanted to take a minute, if I could, to say praise God for Skip! I think of Today’s Word as not only food, but as the ability to digest it in this Body. Living food, in the nutritional world, is food that comes packaged with its own digesters; it’s own enzymes and probiotics, etc. Most of our DNA, come to find out, is not ‘junk’, but produces short RNA strands that inform cells as to what enzymes to make. Our body uses tens of thousands of different enzymes, for all tearing down and rebuilding of molecules depend on enzymes. As we age, we lose the ability to create and utilize enzymes, and become more dependent upon other sources of them. What is interesting to me is that our bodies not only use enzymes we produce, but the enzymes that our friendly biome (foreign organisms) produce, and we use the DNA of these organisms to inform our enzymatic production, too. We swap around all the time!
Living food. Skip provides me with friendly DNA information, a good source of living food, and fun, zippy (or unzippy) enzymes with which to utilize it. He is a great catalyst, too! Thank you, Skip, for making it possible for us all to eat and have energy for the day. Yum!
Moral responsibility: Questioning but no answers. Our son, James, 19, committed suicide 2 years ago. He was raised to know the Lord, yet, he ended his life without us knowing why; no drugs or alcohol in his system. Why didn’t God send someone to stop him? Our questions to God have gone unanswered. Yet, had we not walked so closely with God’s presence for so many years, we would have stumbled and turned our backs on Him. God=Rock; our foundation. God has not shown us motive; but, yet, He has been faithful to bring His presence to us. He is close to the brokenhearted and binds up wounds if we chose to cry out to Him in our time of suffering. He will answer someday, either here or in heaven. We believe God is faithful, God is good. We chose not to switch His role with the enemy.
Yes, Skip, we agree and know who the Father is and chose to stand in Awe and trust Him until that Day.
Only Trust Him (Now).
Is He (always) Faithful? Is He (always) Just? (notice I did not say “fair” — “fair” according to who? Me? (ha!). Only One knows the “end from the beginning..” — not me, btw.. Yes, His ways r higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts!! Short answer? My brain is far too finite… Not that I’m complaining. My friend, “it is what it is.”
He (alone) is as good as His word. EVERY word of God is pure… – remember? Our Bible states “the LORD is good.” Please do notice, – there is a period after this sentence and it is a statement of glorious finality. Just the facts, ma’am, and when you get a good grip on this, a “confident expectation” (This is Biblical “hope”) will be the end result. My goodness, look who shows up here: “faith-hope-and love!!” – what a blessed theological “trinity” for each believer!!
~Trust in the LORD with all your heart!! ~ (and?) “lean not according to your own understanding!!” Lol! Oh LORD! Give us eyes to see and a heart to obey!! In “good times” – in “bad times..” and yes, even unto death!! “Worst case” scenario? “to die is gain…” Our loss is Heaven’s gain!! Praise G-d for this “blessed hope!” Blessed IS the Name of the LORD. (Amen!)