Job and the Dandelion

The year 2011 was rapidly coming to a close. I was catching up on my blog reading one day, innocently lingering, enjoying the last of the break from school the holidays had to offer. There were posts full of yearly Bible reading plan recommendations, and I skimmed them rather absentmindedly until I heard the unmistakable nudging of the Spirit, "Which one would you like to do?"

Oh boy. 

I have studied the Old Testament ad nauseum and was really enjoying the time I was spending in the New Testament. 

But I knew what this meant. I needed to just do it. Obey.

Coincidentally, after a bit of research,  I chose a plan very similar to the one our church used to walk through the Bible chronologically year before last. I admit to having heart palpitations at seeing the reading plan again. As much as I am a type A/OCD person, and probably other letters that indicate further neurosis, as soon as I am saddled with a schedule, I tend to rebel. 

This is a large portion of my charm, I am sure. 

Part of me dreaded starting over again. I especially hated the thought of committing to a "plan."

 Then I decided for once in my recent past to just obey. So January 1, I flung myself into Genesis 1. 

And of course I was blessed. I learned and meditated and worshiped and thanked God at how He provides for me. 

He knew I needed this. 

I knew what was coming, though. Since this was a chronological plan, Job was coming after Genesis. And I'm going to be honest: I didn't feel up to studying Job. 

Even though the book of Job starts well and ends well, Job spends the majority of the book in a trash pile covered in ash and dirt.

And though I fully acknowledge my tendency towards being a drama queen, I feel like I've been sitting in my own pile of trash and ashes for a bit. 

And I wasn't sure I felt up to visiting Job in his.

I want to make very clear that I'm not equating my life with Job's. 

He lost everything. I have not. 

I do think that this book underscores and very clearly illustrates a believer's struggles with God. Trust through suffering. Dealing well with the difficulties of life while struggling with God. The unseen that goes on around us that we are completely unaware of yet figures significantly in our struggles. 

Did I say trust?

Oh yes. Okay. 

Trusting God. 

Nevertheless, Job came after Genesis on that blasted reading plan, so I plunged in, very nearly holding my breath. 

Oh, Job. 

I get teary at the mention of your name. I ache for you. It's not just that you lost. You lost nearly everything. I can't comprehend the magnitude of the loss you experienced. It nearly takes me outside of myself. 

source

I stared at this picture for a long time. I needed to grieve with Job, as strange as that sounds. 

I'm convinced that quick readings of the Old Testament deprive us of the depth of the teachings that it offers. These were real people who struggled in ways that most of us never will. To barrel through texts for the sake of checking off a daily reading plan will never teach us all that God intended for us to learn through His Word. We must linger over texts, sinking deeply into the stories, spending time with the people there. 

Maybe this is why I dislike those reading plans. And maybe it's why I'm decidedly far behind and it's only March. 

Anyway. 

Oh, Job. You lost it all. You crawled to a trash dump outside the city. You turned your face to the heavens and looked to the One who was supposed to care for you and provide for you and be faithful to you always and you asked, "Why?"

Haven't we done that? 

One doesn't have to go far to identify with Job. 

Haven't we all asked that singularly worded question?

Why?

I am convinced that you can be the most passionate and dedicated follower of Christ and still be taken to your knees in brokenness and pain and sob out to the Father, "Why?"

Why are you letting me suffer?

Why are you far away?

Don't you see?

Don't you care?

How is this best?

Why did you allow this path for me?

When will it end?

It's easier to read Job than to live our own lives because we know how it ends. You read the story with the benefit of knowing how it ends. If at any point you become overwhelmed with Job and his story, you can flip to the end of the book and see him restored. That's comforting.

But to visit Job in his trash heap, you feel his pain. It's palpable. 

I wept with him verse after verse. Chapter after chapter. I cannot see Job 13:15 through dry eyes:

Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.

And consider the last half of Job 23:

Behold, I go forward but He is not there,

         And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;

When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;

         He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.

But He knows the way I take;

         When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

My foot has held fast to His path;

         I have kept His way and not turned aside.

I have not departed from the command of His lips;

         I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

But He is unique and who can turn Him?

         And what His soul desires, that He does.

For He performs what is appointed for me,

         And many such decrees are with Him.

Therefore, I would be dismayed at His presence;

         When I consider, I am terrified of Him.

It is God who has made my heart faint,

         And the Almighty who has dismayed me,

But I am not silenced by the darkness,

         Nor deep gloom which covers me.

I've been there. I am there. As I continue to walk in obedience to Him, feeling Him stretch me and push me and use me, I squirm under the pressure. I plod forward, face turn upward, trusting and studying and praising and worshiping and working and resisting the urge to do what comes naturally to me:

I plant my feet and scream into the wind, "What are you doing?" I point to all the wrong and incomplete in my life and in the midst of the storm and the wind and the raging waves, I plead for Him to move. 

Yet, He knows the way I take. 

I feel Job's pain as he pours himself out before God, angry. Hurt. Exhausted. He pours himself out defiantly, honestly.

And then my favorite. 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind...

God answered all of Job's hurt and longing and pain and questions with more than sixty of His own.

These aren't my original words but they are true and I say them to myself a lot: In response to all of Job's questions, God only reveals Himself to Job. He doesn't answer Job's questions. He just reveals Himself.

Isn't that good? The Lord owes me nothing. He knows that if He gave me answers to my questions, I would only have more questions. The only things that satisfies me is Him. More of Him. The only thing that quiets the storm is Him. 

As God's questions start to flow from Him in chapter 38, I find it hard to breathe. Is He revealed anywhere in Scripture as clearly as He is here? Or is it just that my heart is so thirsty for Him after swimming in Job's pain for the proceeding 37 chapters? The tears stream reading question after question which evoke such worship. We are but nothing. "Behold, I am insignificant..."  He is all. 

Oh, the worship. 

I tried to picture Job's face. How quickly after God started speaking did his anger melt away? How quickly did he bury his face in the trash heap? Did he fall, prostrate? Did he regret questioning the Creator and sustainer of the universe?

And then God was done. 

And I love Job's response:

I know that You can do all things,

         And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

         Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

         Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

         I will ask You, and You instruct me.’

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;

         But now my eye sees You;

Therefore I retract,

         And I repent in dust and ashes.

But what kills me is that nothing had changed for Job at this point. His children were still dead. He was still destitute. Homeless. His wife was still devastated. He was still covered with the most heinous sores. He was still deathly ill. He was still sitting in a garbage dump. 

Nothing had changed.

Except his view of God.

I can't get past that. 

Nothing had changed. 

On the outside. 

I can't control my circumstances. I can't control the world around me. I can't control what comes, or what doesn't. I can't control death or sickness or disaster or catastrophe or heartache or pain or loss or hurt.

I can acknowledge Who God is. 

It was a long couple of weeks in Job. So, so many tears. So many struggles. So much trusting and desire to trust and prayers begging God to help me trust. 

And as I stepped into Exodus, I still thought of Job, in his trash heap, questioning God. And hearing God. 

I kept thinking of God's response. All those questions. "Do you see how perfectly I wove the universe? Do you see how how perfectly I created it? Do you think I am doing the same thing in your life?"

And why don't I see it? I see His perfection all around me. Yet in my own life, I think He's making colossal mistakes. Because He's not meeting my demands. My longings go unfulfilled. And it feels like it's killing me. 

I wrestle with this day after day. 

I walked one morning, again, pouring out my doubts and fears to an ever patient, ever present God.

I noticed a dandelion, nearly reaching out into the sidewalk in front of me, dancing in the breeze.

I stopped and dropped to the cold, damp sidewalk. 

It had been a long time since I had studied a dandelion. It's perfect. Perfectly spherical. Each light, delicate white fluff anchored in the most perfect interval. Soft and beautiful. I studied it in the morning light for a long time. 

And you know what? It's a weed. A nuisance. We dig them up, mow them down, douse them in chemicals and tell our children not to enjoy blowing them because they will wreck our pristine yards. 

A weed. 

Yet God took such care to make them perfect and beautiful.

How much more care is He taking care to craft my life just as perfectly?

Would I have continued on by that dandelion that morning had I not been thinking so deeply about Job? And God's questions to him? 

I don't know. I took pictures of that dandelion. I made a picture my screen saver on my phone so that every time I saw it I would hear God start out His questions for Job by saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

I still struggle. Daily. But I know there are truths in Job that I must choose to believe. And there is no way to read Job 38 - 42 without worshiping and submitting to Him. 

There is just no way.

So I go back there often. I think of Job in that trash heap. He stays there in my mind. And maybe someday I will think of him happy and restored. But for now, he's there. Trusting. And waiting. 

And I'm there too. 

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"He doesn't tell you how long this particular episode is going to last. And so? You and I trust Him. We trust HIM. We wait. We serve Him. We keep our feet on His paths. We treasure His Word, and whatever God desires, He does. We keep leaning on Him, even though we can't understand what He's up to."

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"Everything that happens, including the things you cannot explain or justify, is being women together like an enormous, beautiful piece of tapestry. From this earthly side, it seems blurred and knotted, strange and twisted. But from heave's perspective, it has an incredible pattern. But best of all, it is for His greater glory. Right now, it seems so confusing, but someday, the details will come together and make good sense."

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"You couldn't piece it together if you tried. You aren't able to understand it and there will be times you won't like it. But as we're learning from Job, He's not going to ask your permission. And so? We trust God. Those who do that discover without trying to make it happen that they have begun to demonstrate grace under pressure." 

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"The Lord was nailed to the cross; you can count on being nailed to the wall. It's helpful to see each ordeal that way - as being crucified with Christ... God gives us over to such bruisings because they are part of the process to make us what He intends us to be. The hurting makes us sweeter, more mellow, We lose the fear of losing out; we learn to let go of what we want. We're not so easily provoked to wrath by harm or reproof. We learn to absorb abuse without retaliation, to accept reproof without defensiveness, to return a soft answer to wrath. It makes us calm and strong." 

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