It is pretty crazy what world views and beliefs that God … we as humans, twist around in our head. I was sitting at home watching church on TV and it was the week before’s sermon. It was on this concept of Linearity. To be totally honest I have never heard that word in my life and could have guessed it would have been a math term or something. Which I am right with what I had thought but as applied to m walk with God it is dangerous. In essence, this law is, at a basic level, is the main difference between Christianity and Catholics. It is this idea that if I am a good person I will be blessed by God. If I have sin in my life then I will get cancer or some other horrible thing. This idea was taken from a passage…well actually it was taken from the whole book of Job.
Chapter 1
20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.[c]
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”
22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Chapter 2
9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish[b] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
11 When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
Okay so I have seen these first two chapters in a totally different light in the last couple days. First of all, Job is the icon of a man; successful, blameless, and humble. He understood that everything came from God and he deserved nothing. God looked at Job with great pleasure and blessed him. Then the tool satan comes along and ruins what blessings that God had given him. The key for me is that Job did nothing wrong to deserve this treatment. Job was shit on. Even worse than that, he had everything taken away from him. These “earthly things”, yet, Job continues to trust and obey God. Then it turns to crazy when God allows satan to harm Job physically. I can only imagine what he is going through by what I hear about the shingles. I have never had them but I have heard that they are terrible. So make that shingles times 5.
Job’s wife cracks me up and his response to her is classic. I wish in my hard ship that I had the attitude of Job. She tells him to curse God and die. Wow. Job earns some more points in my book because this in the top of the peer pressure chart in my book. Your wife is your second half and when he calls her a “crazy” I can just picture in my mind how dumb she must feel. Job is stubborn but unlike me he is stubborn for the things that matter. I am stubborn for dumb things.
I get to the law part of this later in the book but in the last part of the passage Jobs friend arrive. The sit in silence with him for a while and then in later chapters they begin to ask Job what he did to bring this on home self. These friends are like me in this linearity line of thinking. That when my behavior goes up my circumstances follow. The truth of the matter is that I am a wretch on a good day and I am a wretch on a bad one. Job doesn’t live by this law. He tore his clothes and said the Lord gives and the Lord takes. Naked he came and naked he will leave.
I have lived my hole live in the mindset that when I do well at life God gives me more of what I want. I need to start living like I deserve nothing and even though I should have nothing God loves me with such incredible intensity that he enjoys blessing my life. He gave up the closest, most important thing for me and sometimes I don’t think I could give up my boat, or my Xbox, or any”thing”. God help me to not think linear but grateful even when I don’t have or I am in the land of UZ, like Job.
Nos & Rehtaf, Dnabsuh 