This weekend I finished reading Genesis. I love the characters in Genesis, and I love all the stories. Although I’m always a little taken back by the dysfunction of the first family. I read about Sarah and Hagar and Leah and Rachel and can’t help but think I’ve stumbled across the script for next week’s “Desperate Housewives.” While I know the culture was far different then, my heart still breaks as I read story after story about sibling rivalry, murders, mistresses, bitter envy, and affairs.
And then we get to Joseph. When I think about my own pain, it’s sometimes humbling to think of Joseph and what he went through. Being thrown in a pit and sold by his own brothers would be enough to make most of us give up. But then he goes to prison, framed for a crime he didn’t commit. And after interpreting a dream for Pharaoh’s cupbearer, he’s forgotten again. Left imprisoned for two more years.
Tragedies happen, bad things happen to good people, and at the end of the day, most people are left asking God one question, “Why?”
Can this be God’s plan?
When things are going great it’s easy to fully trust in God’s goodness and grace, it’s when he doesn’t hand us life on a silver platter that what we really believe about God comes to the surface.
When something goes wrong or life fails to go as we planned, I’ll be the first to admit that I often put God in a box. I stop believing He’s big enough to handle my problems. But how can I fully trust God if I believe He randomly vacates His throne? Or if God’s goodness can’t break through the darkness of my world, if there are pockets of my life outside of God’s grasp? If these things are true, then I can’t really count on Him.
This was a convicting truth to stumble across a few days ago. I do believe God is all powerful, that He can stop all pain, but that doesn’t mean He always does. God’s plan makes sense on paper. But then, paper goes up in smoke when a fire starts.
The world is not just an everlasting game of teeter-totter where sometimes Satan wins and sometimes God wins. Society tells us that life is about cause and effect. If you work hard, are a good person, pay taxes, and exercise daily you’ll reap the benefits of such. You’ll be wealthy, healthy, and happy. But recessions happen. A healthy weight-conscious runner can get lung cancer. Loving parents can have children who experiment with drugs and worse. When these sort of unexplainable disturbances come up, we’re quick to blame Satan.
This is what most people think about Job. Satan, tricksy little man he is, questioned Job’s loyalty to God. He believed Job’s faith was selfish, and that it wouldn’t hold up if God weren’t blessing Him. (I’m sad to admit this seemed to be the case with my own faith). In Job, Satan doesn’t win. God does. God allows Satan to do test Job’s faith.
So, through a series of unfortunate events, Job’s ten children are killed, he loses his home, develops painful sores, and is even at odds with his own friends and wife. But, Satan’s plan backfires. When most people in the world would throw up their hands in defeat, Job simply leans on God all the more. You see, the central theme of the book is not what Satan’s doing, it’s what God’s doing. The plan that falls apart is Satan’s, not God’s.
Elisabeth Elliot says it well, "The problem starts when we make up our own minds what will give us happiness and then decide, if we don't get exactly that, that God doesn't love us... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us more like his Son."
God is in charge, and not even Satan can touch us without his permission, but when he does have permission, God is there to work through Satan’s schemes to accomplish good for us.
Most people then feel relieved when Job’s suffering seems to come to an end and he is rewarded. In the last chapter of the book, Job’s wealth is doubled and his wife gives birth to ten children. But rewards and happy endings aren’t the point. Having ten more children does not take away the searing loss of the first ten. In some ways, Job will always suffer. But as Jerry Bridges so eloquently puts it, “God never wastes pain. He always uses it to accomplish his purpose. And his purpose is for his glory and our good.”
Job’s story and reaction to his hardships is similar to Joseph. Job wrestles with God, sure, but just like Joseph, he never gives up hope. Never walks away from God. Never stops trusting him. Job could echo Joseph’s words in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
Sometimes bad things do happen. Sometimes life doesn’t make sense. Sometimes Satan harms us. Sometimes other people do. Sometimes we bring about our own pain. What I do know is that it is never too much for God.
And what I now know is when I ask the question, “God, where are you? Is this really your plan for my life?” it’s my way of saying, “God, I don’t trust you, and I don’t love you as much when you’re not blessing me.”
What a great lesson to learn! When things go bad and I’m broken in pieces, or full of holes, I tend to think it’s my right to be angry with God and demand an explanation. Now I know, when I’m broken or full of holes, it’s the perfect opportunity to take a step back and see what I really believe about God.
What I believe now is that He is good, I love him. And I would rather be hole-y with Him, than wholly without.
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