Have you ever thought of your Christian faith as a last resort option?
Not a very flattering confession when so much more is promised from the walk of faith.
But it’s a position in which many former saints found themselves, and many still do. Have you read about Job? David? Elijah? Peter?
At the top end of the walk, there’s an immense, other-world pleasure in following the Lord Jesus Christ: joy and peace are readily present, love abounds, and victory is promised. But there’s a bottom end too, inevitably experienced once established on the narrow Christian path. The top end is cast temptingly by many a pastor and fisherman of the faith, wanting to make the lure appealing; the bottom end is more often gilded, or buried under pretence.
Job (the Book of) gilds no pretence.
Scholars have spun Job (pronounced ‘Jobe’, apparently, according to those earnest scholars) as a parable of suffering and the folly of construing suffering as a consequence of sinful behaviour.
Perhaps they’re right; there is some truth in what they write.
But if you read Job it just feels like an endless complaining monologue punctuated by pious, self-righteous platitudes from misguided friends; at the end of which the poor, innocent and unfairly-suffering Job gets seriously scolded by the Lord God Himself. It’s almost enough to put you off LGH altogether. Except that the parable (if that’s what it is) is bookended by (in front) the affirmation that Job was, indeed, a very faithful, godly man and by (in the end) the record that everything was eventually doubly restored to him (42:10). A very happy ending. LOL.
If unfamiliar with the story of Job, here’s a brief summary. And here’s an even briefer one: God allows Satan, the ‘accuser of the brethren’, a crack at Job, a certifiably good man. Job’s prosperous life and family are destroyed, and the poor man himself bottoms out in the gutter, diseased and bereft and wishing he was redacted (3:4-6) altogether. Four friends come and give him relentless sappy advice, little of which is helpful or relevant. God eventually shows up in person, belittles Job et al, and draws cries of awe and humility from the suffering man; and they all live happily ever after.
It’s all very well for me to be facetious and satirical – actually, the story itself seems to set that tone – but deep things come out of it. Don’t miss them.
Even when Job is in the pits of despair, even when he wants his life to be expunged, even when his wife urges him to “curse God and die”, Job digs in like a falling man clawing at a crevice in a rock, like a fishing line – hook and sinker – wedged stubbornly in sunken rocks. Resolute and immovable in his ultimate confidence in God. Why? It’s the cleft of last resort. The alternative to hanging in there is unthinkable, regardless of pain. Some verses in Job, once you’ve waded through those relentless passages of bad advice and values instruction, are jewels if you can find them.
Here are three such, nay, four:
(To his wife, advising that he commit suicide) “You’re talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (2:9-10) And, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” (13:15)
“Oh that … God would be willing to crush me. Then I would still have this consolation – my joy in unrelenting pain – that I had not denied … the Holy One.” (Extracts from 6:8-10)
“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. … [And] I myself will see him with my own eyes. … How my heart yearns within me.” (Extracts from 19:25-27)
There is so much more to reflect on, but let me thumb over to the Gospel of John. At a particularly challenging time in Jesus’s journey, it seems that his followers were leaving his caravan. ‘The twelve’ are gathered for – who knows – a liquidation meeting, and Jesus says to them, “What about you guys, will you leave me too?” [paraphrasing!] Peter – grunty, earthy, Everyman Peter – answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:66-69)
And, that’s the point of Job, yes? That’s the bottom line! No matter how dark things look, there is no viable alternative. Where else can we go, what else can we do, but cling in here to the ‘cleft in the rock’, and weather whatever circumstance throws at us?
This is the true gutsy stuff of the faith journey, where we find ourselves more often than we like to admit. And some Christians get way more than their fair share of suffering. Why? We can’t know. Job didn’t. It simply seems to suit the God of Creation – of galaxies and oceans, leviathans and behemoths – to allow some of his faithful to suffer.
If you’re feeling bottomed out (and this is written with the sense that someone out there needs to read this today), channel Job and Peter. Don’t complain (beyond practical problem-solving). Read Job through without reading the advice from his shallow friends – just the words of Job himself – and you’ll find perspective on how to process anguish and suffering. Read it and draw strength. That’s the bottom line. From there the direction is wearily, warily upwards.
Ken Francis
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