patience

The risk has been accepted. As we begin to travel down the pathway of our relationship with Christ, we must be prepared for the stumbling blocks that lay in our way. The risk of walking with Christ is that it won't be easy - our life will be beautiful, but it will never be easy. Anyone that says differently is trying to sell you something. But even at our worst, we can take comfort that Job has made it through arguably worse circumstances than we ever will as a follower of Christ.

To understand Job we must understand that he is much more than myth. As columnist Jason Jackson notes, "It is not accurate to say: 'The book of Job contains miraculous components; therefore, it is not historical in nature.' The same reasoning would demand that the record of Christ’s resurrection is not historically accurate — simply because it is miraculous." And to discount the resurrection as occurring means all of Christianity is useless and so is your faith. Even more so, both Ezekiel (Ezk. 14:14,20) and James (Jas. 5:11) refer to Job as an historical person. While there are definitely figurative passages throughout Job, there is a big difference between figurative-ness and saying that something totally untrue (mythological) can be represented as the literal history of the Bible.

As we press on as disciples in the faith, we know that we must strive to break through terrible and painful situations because a real man has been through worse. Indeed two if you bring Christ into the equation - for he was totally human as well. There will always be pain in the world. There will always been hardship, struggle, and ultimate hurt - we have our fallen nature to thank for that. We pray for God to make the hurt stop, wait, slow down, go away and too often we expect God to answer in the affirmative. But just as often, we forget God is also able to say "Wait" or "No". 

Is God uncaring because of that? Absolutely not. In fact, he is more loving because of it. He loves us so much that he will do anything he can to show us that we cannot get through the pain and hurt by ourselves - we must lean on Him. We must put away our humanistic pride and be wrapped in His arms and carried by Him. Throughout this all, we may not feel we can handle one single gram of more hurt but we must never forget that God has promised us that he will never allow the sin that drives that hurt to be beyond what we can bear. He will always be there to be our ultimate shield when the Enemy crouches to attack. Because Job is real, we have real hope. We have hope as modern day Christians that while there may be darkness and weeping now, joy will come in the morning. 

During this journey through Holy Week, this is beautifully demonstrated and is a constant yearly reminder of our life as Christians. We are triumphant at our first belief in Christ (the festive entrance into Jerusalem), we learn and take in as much as possible (his preaching and teaching in the City), and we become more reverent, holy, and (sadly) comfortable in that. But soon, in the midst of our growing life with Christ we see dark clouds on the horizon (the Last Supper) and soon betrayal (The Garden of Gethsemane), rejection, mocking, and questioning can occur (Judas' betrayal and Christ before Pilate). Soon, no way seems to be out as we reach barriers that seem to bad, scary, hard, and tall for even Jesus himself to ascend and break through (The Crucifixion). But through the example of Job and Christ himself, we can take solace in the fact that if we find even an ounce of strength to propel ourselves forward through prayer, faith, hope, and love, Christ will carry us through (The Resurrection) and "refine you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. (Isa. 48.10)