Saturday 21 February 2015

Godly Response to threatening Crisis and Suffering
This blog is for my Christian family, to help them as they face threatening crisis and suffering. May the Lord bless His truth to us at such times.

The Book of Job
The book of Job is the 'goto' book of the Bible when it comes to suffering. Our focus here is Job 38, that is, God's reply to Job and his friends. I would encourage readers, to read all of Job 38-42.
God's Care

Job 38:41: Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander for lack of food.
This verse tells of God’s amazing care - he even cares for the young raven when it cries out to God. This is particularly comforting. Have you ever heard the cry of a young raven? It is worse than the squark of the parent ravens which is bad enough. And have you seen a young raven - they are ugly!  - nothing pleasant about them. It is a sound and sight that anyone with an appreciation of beauty would turn their ears away from - but not God. If God hears the squark of a young raven, cares about it and responds - how much more his children? And God does hear their squarks - when nobody else does. God never misses it! And God hears our cries, no matter how untrained and how rough our cries might be. Like the raven, our cries may not be well articulated, they may not be clear, but God hears, cares and actually responds. Why does God respond the squark of the raven? Simply because the Raven squarks to God. And when we squark - talk to God, when we turn to Him, just because we come to Him, he hears, cares and responds. More about the raven later.
Job 42:1&2: Then Job replied to the LORD: "I know that you can do all things, no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

Here, Job is still in his suffering. It is while he is in the suffering he realises that God can do all things, and God has purposes which cannot be thwarted. Things have not gone wrong for Job - even though it looks and feels like it. Job believes, God is at work.

Job's Friends 
Then twice, in 42 verse 7 and 8, God says to Job’s so-called friends “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.”

Job had friends - as we all do. When suffering, God wants our friends to do more than be well wishers. God wants our friends to speak God's truth to us while we suffer. God is angry with Job's friends because, even if they spoke truth, they did not speak the most relevant truth to Job in his suffering. They failed to speak the truth about God in suffering. This is really important - but we'll come back to this point below.

The last thing we find about the book of Job is that God acts. For 37 chapters God was silent, and then he begins to speak in chapter 38. But it is at the end of the very last chapter that God not only speaks, but also acts. God completely heals Job and restores him abundantly more than his first state.

This shows us the total goodness of God throughout. God provided for Job in the midsts of His suffering - and that provision was, friends, who were supposed to speak God's truth to bring comfort, hope and direction, through the suffering, but they all failed - which made God angry - because they should have. Then God Himself speaks. And then God acts to restore.

Job's Restoration
However, we must be very careful, Job’s restoration is not to teach us that everyone who trusts in the Lord get’s restored in this life (as Job did). Of course we are right to hope for the best. Sadly, the truth is, many tragedies end in death - even for Christians. But Job's restoration does teach and assure us all that God is always good - even when he takes his own to be with himself. It is telling us we can trust God no matter what. We can trust that God will do what is good. 

Consider this: Had the Lord taken Job to be with Himself, then God would have done even better for Job. But as it is, God did the lesser good for Job by restoring him to this life, to this veil of tears, but God did the lesser good for Job in order to do the greater good for us - to show us His goodness because, if God had taken Job to be with Himself, it would have looked like a tragic injustice and that God doesn’t care. As it is, because God restored Job in this life, we know God restored Job. The point though, is not that God restores in this life, but that God always, fully restores  - even if not in this life. 

Speaking God's Truth
Now, to go back to Job 42:7 & 8 - Job’s friends "did not speak the truth about God.”
So what are God's great truths that please Him, that I, as a friend, am to speak to you, your family and to all who suffer directly and indirectly? These are the truths you can take comfort in, and these are the truths you can use to comfort those around you.
First we must know what is not God's truth.

1. The human perspective: The human perspective leaves God out of the equation, misrepresents 
Him and goes beyond God's truth with false assurances and false hopes - but usually all well intended!

Unbelievers will try to bring comfort derived from relying on the expertise, skill and capability of the doctors, nurses and the sufferer's own strength. He is young and otherwise fit. Being young, strong, fit and in the hands of the doctors and nurses, we might say, for those reasons, s/he will be fine. This is how the world naturally thinks. But the weakness here is it does not take God into account. It places hope, trust and confidence in the wrong place. Ultimately - all hope is in God.

2. God’s perspective: 
The Cry of the Raven
Remember the cry of the young raven - I said we'd come back to that. When God provides for the young raven - we don't see God's intervention at all. We see a mother raven fly off in search of worms, we see the mother find the worms and bring them back, we see the mother feed her young. But when we see that, we are in fact seeing God himself respond to the cry of the young raven. God Himself is working in that! The mother raven doesn't see God's good hand in it, the young raven doesn't see God's good hand in it, unbelievers do not see God's good hand in it - but for us, the curtain is being pulled back - God is at work - He has provided!

This is exactly why we do not really rely on doctors and nurses themselves. We look instead to God and we see, just like he provided the mother raven, he provides doctors and nurses and technology etc. So, when sickness comes - we begin seeing God at work, as doctors and nurses spring into action. Praise God!

Will the doctors and nurses fail or succeed? The answer to that question is, the doctors and nurses will not fail to do all that God has willed them to do, because, by their own human success or failure - they cannot thwart God's plan. We cannot know what the outcome is in advance (though we hope for the best) - unless the Lord has spoken prophetically to reveal His specific plan in a specific incidence, but we can know the doctors and nurses will not fail to fulfil God's purposes. We do not need to worry about that. This is God's truth. 

Speaking God's Truth
Now, back to the point of Speaking God's Truth in Suffering

When God allows suffering to befall a person or people, His desire is that we turn to Him, knowing He is in full, complete and total control. Everything comes down to the word God speaks. This is why it is no good relying on doctors and nurses - though we are thankful to God for them. 
They cannot withstand God's word and they cannot thwart His plans. We are to rely entirely upon God because, whatever word He speaks will come to pass

Remember creation? "And God said ... and there was ...". Remember Job? Why was he suffering in the first place? It is because of a word God spoke. 

Job 1 9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

It is that particular word "very well...". That is why Job suffered. But God himself set the exact parameters too. "But on the man himself do not lay a finger". It is also worth noting in passing that it is Satan who whips up the storm that results in the death of Job's sons. Satan can and does, within God's parameters, control the elements.

Then again in chapter 2

Job 2 4 “Skin skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”

Here we see the exact same - God speaks the determinative word and sets the parameter. But notice to that Satan tells God "Stretch out your hand...". God says "very well, he is in your hands". Just as God provides for the raven's young, God Himself takes responsibility for Job's suffering. In suffering, both God and Satan are at work, Satan is working for evil, but God for good. And God sets the parameters - and He does it all by His word.

Remember Jesus, by His word he restored the sight of the blind, made the lame walk, healed the sick, cast out demons, flattened the seas and calmed the storms. Doctors and nurses can only operate according to God's word. So we are entirely reliant upon God's word.

Luke 7:7 ... but say the word, and my servant will be healed

Everything hangs entirely upon the word God speaks. So to God Himself, we must turn. When we come to God, we come knowing that He is truly good. The really encouraging thing is, time and time again God does heal. All of us are healed countless times - for each of us, sickness can only end in death once. So we have good reason to expect a full recovery in most cases.

The Cross
The Comfort of the Cross
But lastly we come to God because of the cross. In the cross we find real comfort because, the cross reminds us that God Himself suffered directly in Jesus, and God Himself suffered indirectly as the Father watched the son suffer. This means God is not aloof in suffering. We are not alone as we ourselves suffer because (a) Jesus knows us completely and knows what it is to suffer, and (b) God the Father knows us completely and knows what it is to watch loved ones suffer and (c) His spirit is in us - sharing in our sorrow and suffering.

The Hope of the Cross

But we find more than comfort in the cross. We find hope. Suffering can seem dark and hopeless. Or we can have vein hope in suffering, mere wishful thinking. But in the cross is substantial hope.
Consider Good Friday. This was the day of suffering. There was nothing good that we could see about good Friday until Easter Sunday! Our suffering is just like that. Often we do not get to see any good in it. But what was Easter Sunday? It was on Easter Sunday Jesus was resurrected, so it is the resurrection that transforms a Bad Friday into a Good Friday. That means that it is at our Resurrection that all our bad Fridays will become supremely Good Fridays. We know this, and so when we find ourselves in the bad Friday - in our heart of hearts, we know it is a Good Friday. We will one day see it as a Good Friday - if not before, at the resurrection. God is good, and is working good in the suffering, and even if we don’t see the good God is working, we can fully trust that still he is working good, and one day we will see it. That is faith.