Poor Job

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Today our ladies Bible study began a new book: Job. The first chapter leaves us breathless watching four of Job’s servants delivering nonstop bad news. In seven verses we learn that this exceedingly wealthy man has lost 11,000 farm animals, all but four of his many employees, and his ten precious children. Later in the story he also loses his health.

Interestingly, as today’s Bible study leader began, she first updated us on the health of two hospitalized men from the congregation. Both were not doing as well as expected, and our group was disappointed by the news.

Part way through our morning, the other pastor arrived to say one of these men had taken a turn for the worse, his family being summoned to say goodbye. We talked of the two wives who were suffering also, and the woman sitting behind me whispered, “It’s too much.” Suddenly we felt the relevance of the Book of Job.

We’re learning that the same calamities Job experienced 3000 years ago still happen today: losses of family, wealth, possessions, business and health.

Why does God let/ask people to suffer? Today our group talked about the reasons in relation to Job. Maybe his relationship with God was strong only because his life was bursting with blessings. Removing those would test him.

Maybe God wanted to increase Job’s trust in him by letting him discover that when you have nothing, you still have God. Maybe he wanted to deepen Job’s faith by allowing Job to show himself how he’d weather a storm. Or maybe Job’s story is simply a teaching example for the rest of us. As we look at his life we think, “Job made it, so I think I can, too.”

Those may be valuable reasons for his suffering back then, but knowing them doesn’t lighten our loads now. When my husband got cancer and died, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But who’s to say my suffering is over?

Our world is broken. The last time it wasn’t “out of order” was in the Garden of Eden. I’ll bet there was no suffering there. Although Adam and Eve were people much like us, until they sinned against God, their lives were without struggle or sorrow. Their world was all “good”. God even said so.

Our world isn’t so good.

I’m steeling myself for what I think we’ll learn from Job, that more suffering is coming for me and all of us. Until we leave this earth as Nate did, through death’s door into a God-created, “good” paradise, we’ll be challenged with losses of family, wealth, possessions, business and health.

The miracle for each of us is that we’re not suffering on a continual basis. Although God allows losses, he also provides periods of non-suffering, times for recuperation and strengthening before the next challenge. I think Job will teach us that when things are going well, life hasn’t “gotten back to normal.” Our real “normal” is to do battle with adversity.

But if Job can make it with his faith in tact, so can we.

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” (Job 13:15a)

Kind of Kind

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My friend Carole was visiting me in the Chicago ‘burbs a few years ago, and we were grocery shopping together. As we urged our loaded cart toward the exit door, another woman maneuvered her cart in front of ours, slipping out first. I didn’t think much of it, but that move made a mark on Carole. She shook her head and said, “I’m glad I live in North Carolina. People are actually friendly there.”

On the way home we talked about the head-down, rushing-around mood of most big cities. People are overloaded with commitments, running late continually and thinking elsewhere while pushing shopping carts. Carole, originally from the Chicago area too, has never succumbed to such cold behavior. For example, she’s friendly with the check-out girls where she shops, and they love to see her coming. She remembers their names, asks about their lives, and lifts their spirits with her laughter.

Today I got a chance to be Carole but threw it away. Shopping for fuses at Home Depot, I turned into the electrical aisle and saw an elderly man planted exactly in front of what I needed to buy. He was studying the small fuse boxes through bifocals and looked like he’d been at it for a while. Leaning on his shopping cart with both elbows, he had one foot propped on the bottom bar and a box of fuses in each hand.

I lingered at the other end of the aisle to give him a chance to move, but he didn’t. Finally I rolled my cart up to his, hoping to quickly reach around him for my fuses and be gone. He smiled brightly and said, “Boy, this stuff is confusing. And the print is mighty small.”

I managed a mini-smile with an “un-huh” but zeroed in on the shelf.

“What are you looking for?” he said.

“30’s.”

“Well, here you go then,” he said, extending one of his boxes toward me. “These are the last 30’s. I’ll take one, and you can have the other.”

He was being Carole. I was being a jerk.

Scripture has a great deal to say about being kind, first by detailing God’s kindness toward us, and second by lauding people who are kind to each other. Kindness is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and ought to be pouring out of every Christian. If I dodge opportunities, I’m in trouble. As a matter of fact, it’s worse than that.

Because God has exhibited the ultimate kindness in extending salvation to me, I ought to be jumping at every chance to be kind to others. If I don’t, it’s bad news:

“…Hezekiah’s heart was proud, and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him.” (2 Chronicles 32:25)

Learning that it’s a bigger deal than I thought, I want to be more like Carole… and the man at Home Depot. After offering his box of fuses to me, a box he’d probably planned to buy himself, he said, “I’ve been to three other stores this morning, and this price is the best one. You won’t find a better deal.”

(…additional credit for his wanting to give one to me.)

I tried to refuse but ended up receiving his two-part gift: fuses and kindness. This stranger had shared what was rightfully his, had pleased God whether he knew it or not, and had taught me how to be Carole.

I wonder how many more tutoring sessions I’ll need before I finally get kind.

“ ‘I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:24)

Almost the Duggars

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Last week while driving from Michigan to Chicago I listened to a fascinating radio interview of Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, the Christian family with 19 children and TV fame. Our family had its own Duggar-esque experience in 1989 when my sister’s family moved in with ours for a while.

We were 12 children and 4 adults, morphing into a family of 16 for six weeks. The kids look back on that time as the highlight of their childhoods. Mary and Bervin’s family was adding a second story to their ranch home. Without water, heat or benefit of a roof, they needed a place to stay.

We begged them to bunk with us, knowing how much fun it would be, and they agreed, but with one stipulation: that they buy all the food for the duration. Of course Nate and Bervin wrangled over this, but I saw it as God’s lavish blessing. Our family was at its low point financially with Nate’s business collapsing that very year.

I’ll never forget the night Bervin walked in our front door after a day at work carrying a fresh watermelon. Nate and I hadn’t splurged on fresh fruit for many months, and the sight of that big watermelon refreshed my soul. With 18 around the dinner table that night (my folks included), that melon came and went pretty quickly, but it tasted sweeter than any I’ve had since.

During the weeks we were together, the chicken pox hit, as well as the school science fair, but we also celebrated several birthdays, a couple of graduations and a few blue ribbons for those science projects. There were no squabbles, despite having to sleep on the floor, cram into vehicles and wait for meals. It was a happy time for all 16 of us, and when my sister’s house was ready for them to move back, we mourned the separation.

Not everyone likes to “live large.” Having to wait for the shower or being without private space can be frustrating. But God is deliberate in putting families together. He matches up husbands and wives and calls some to be single. He sends biological babies or not, sometimes choosing to bring children from the other side of the globe to complete a family.  He asks some couples to be childless in order to parent the children of others. His creativity in grouping us knows no limits.

We can arrange or rearrange things to suit ourselves, but stepping away from God’s lead is risky. His best may seem endlessly “just around the bend,” but we can trust that whatever he’s preparing will be worth our wait. Putting people into families was his idea first, and he knows how to satisfy our needs to love and be loved.

I’m single now, but I’m not lonely, because God has called me to it. Remembering our Duggar-esque weeks as a mega-family, though, makes me grin… and want to take a nap.

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families. Rejoice in his presence!” (Psalm 68:5-6,4b)