When Job's kids died

No one likes to see someone young leave this life too soon. 

It is especially sad if their passing was tragic.

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Job offered regular sacrifices on behalf of his children just in case they messed up and offended God in some way while they were enjoying life.

Not long after, they're all dead after a storm struck the house they were in.  Gone.  Just like that.

It's one of those features I'd overlooked in Job for a long time.  I was usually focused on the boils on his body and the sackcloth and ashes and just skipped over the loss of all his stuff and his kids.

The story of Job is thought to be the oldest story - meaning that it's likely one of the first things that was written down in the Old Testament - if you remember that they weren't necessarily in the order that you see them in most all Bibles.

That's a really old story.  And it makes sense that it is so old.  This situation with Job is timeless.  It's the stuff we deal with in our time, though the details are different in scope and quality.

Who doesn't worry about their kids?  Who doesn't work hard to get and keep a livelihood/a living and have to keep an eye on money and the stuff we accumulate?

And Job was a good guy apparently.  Good reputation.  Known for being the best guy in his area.  A guy who did things right, inside and out.  Feared God and the whole enchilada.

And none of it helped keep bad stuff away.

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I worry about my kids too.  I'm not morbid about it, but I regularly ask God to "watch over them" and to "bless them". You know the drill - keep them healthy, wise, successful, and close to him.

Nothing completely terrible has happened to any of them, just some things like a lot of people face - the occasional health challenge, a job or money issue, relationship issues - things you hate to see them go through.

Sometimes my prayers for them are sedate, plain, and normal.  Sometimes my prayers for them are rage filled, repetitious, gut wrenching - moving between begging and accusing God of being deceitful.

From the story of Job, I know that in spite of my wants, desires, and dreams for my kids, things can go south really quickly and it has nothing to with how good I am or how deserving they are or how prayerful I am.

Life just happens and even though people sometimes claim Jeremiah 28:11 over themselves and their kids, that doesn't always happen. You can spiritualize it all you want, but that's the cold reality.

If we read through Job a few times, it seems God's plan for Job was not a plan that Job would have voted for - it wasn't Jeremiah 28:11.  At.  All.

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So, we wrestle with God for a better deal, all the time.

Like Jacob, the weasel who plotted and planned to steal from his brother, we'd "stab people in the back" to get the kind of blessing Jacob and his mom were working for.

And later, Jacob, facing the consequences of living in a world where people compete for the best deal for themselves - he has a night of reflecting on all that he'd had done to him and all he'd done to other people.

Maybe it was "the dark night of the soul" or something like that.  Whatever it was, it's described as wrestling with God and that, as the match went on, Jacob was getting the best of his opponent.

I don't know if he had him in an arm bar or a choke hold or what, but it was strong enough that his opponent, God or someone God sent, had to cause damage to Jacob's hip to get him to let go.

Jacob refused and said he would NOT let him go until he was given a blessing.  

Man, what was it with Jacob and blessings?  He was always wanting blessings.

I think the blessing he was wanting this time was some kind of confirmation from God. He knew what he was like and what he was about and he wanted to know if God would still be with him in his situation.

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Ever done that?  Ever been in a moment of clarity where you can see your past and have a sense of your trajectory and you realize how much grace you burn and how fragile you and everything around you is.

Sure, we're strong people at times and can handle a lot. And then there are those times we realize we're as vulnerable as Job and we, like Job, don't know what's going on - we don't know what we don't know.  

And there are times when we're like Jacob - we know we are a blend of success and slimy-ness and that our success part isn't necessarily due to anything great on our part - but we're willing to exploit whatever system there is to benefit from it and we cross our fingers that God has our back.

We sometimes get a glimpse of something that makes us wonder - IS God doing anything?  And if so, it is a good thing?  DOES he have my back?  

And that quickly turns into a prayer - "ARE You doing anything?  And if so, it is a good thing?  And don't play word games with me God about how we define the word "good".  Do You have my/our back?!"

We wrestle with God because we realized there is a "behind the scenes thing" happening, like with Job, that we don't know anything about except through stories like Job.

We want to set things up for ourselves and we especially want to set those things up for our kids.  

We see that time and chance still happen upon everyone. Even though success favors the prepared and disciplined, sometimes no amount of preparation or discipline staves off a storm or disease or tragedy.

The favor of God doesn't stop every storm, disease, or tragedy. 

The wisdom of life that comes from God can set us up to do all the right things that statistically result in a long, healthy life, but even then there are Job-like events that push away the expected good life.

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A friend of mine always asks about Job's first kids.  You know, at the end of Job, he is blessed with even more wealth than before and more kids. 

My friend wants to know, "but didn't Job still grieve that first set of kids?"  Sure, the new kids and greater wealth were great, but they didn't replace the first set of kids.

Job got no answer from God about why all that bad stuff happened.  God didn't say, "well let me read to you from a book that will be written about you - here's chapter 1..." so Job would know.

At the end, all Job knew was that God WAS aware of all that was going on.  Job's answer from God to his cry was, "It's bigger than you can understand and I'm with you all along through it all. I wasn't unaware."

WE know from the story that it might be because God had something to do with it and we often go out of our way to avoid making God look bad in our telling of the story, but the story is the story.  

Read it for what it is.  There's a reason that God had it included in the body of literature that would shape how we think about him and ourselves.  We don't have to like it, but it's good to acknowledge it.

No matter how good Job was, it didn't stop his kids from dying.  

No matter how good you are, it won't stop bad things from happening in life.  Maybe to your kids. Maybe to you.  Maybe to other friends or loved ones.  Maybe to complete strangers you'll never know.

At the end of our times of wrestling with God, we, like Job, can know that he knows.  He knows we worry at times that he's not going to stop that speeding train or that heartbreaking thing that is coming.

He knows we want to know NOW what is next and how we can stack things in our favor and avoid the bad things happening.

Like Job, his answer is - I am with you and I will always be with you, now and forever.

We have to decide if that is enough.  

That is the question of whether we trust and depend on God.

Even if we don't think we can do that, he's faithful to us anyway.

And sometimes acknowledging that we don't trust him to do what we thought is an actual statement of faith - we are saying he does exist and that our understanding of him and what he does is growing and that we currently don't believe we can trust him for some things we used to trust him for.

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Wrestle with God. 

Sure, ask him for things, but listen for what he's saying and not saying.

Avoid spiritualizing everything and chalking it up to God working in mysterious ways.

Sometimes acknowledge that he simply does things you don't like and that you wish he'd pony up.

This sounds like a terrible, depressing, and sad post -- but it's actually one of hope.

When you step away from some of your former expectations and images of God, he shows you a little more of what he's really like and a new kind of relationship begins.

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More about that later...

Grace and peace.