Christian Fatalism?

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. - Job 1:21

I love this verse in the Bible, but for a long time now I wondered if Job's attitude was more of a believer's fatalism than anything. I mean it seems to me like he is throwing up his hands here and saying, "Oh well...who can resist Him? Who can stand against His will?" And that is partly the point of the verse I am sure. This is a high picture of God and one that I am not altogether comfortable with. But God couldn't care less about a comfort sourced in anything but Him and He is not interested in presenting a picture of Himself that is the least bit not true. And I am thankful that He isn't interested in either thing, but I am digressing a bit here.

So what of Job's attitude? This morning as I was rummaging around for some bread in the lazy Susan I was struck by the last bit of the verse, namely, "...may the name of the Lord be praised." The focus that Job brought to his calamitous situation wasn't that God took away a bunch of his stuff. He probably knew it wasn't his anyway. Nor was his focus that evil people (the Chaldeans) were the ones responsible for taking all of camels and killing all but one of his servants. Maybe there was some righteous anger in his heart and mind but we don't see it here. His focus was on praising God's name.

Job had this rather "stupid" idea that no matter what God did he was to trumpet to me that God is to be praised. He even realized that that it was God (not evil men, not the weather, not Satan) that took away everything he owned leaving a rather unhelpful wife and His name was still to be praised. Did Job see this as a loving act of a loving God? I am not sure, but I need that focus in the midst of my struggles. How different would it be if I were to lose my right arm and truly have this in my heart in the midst of it? How unnatural and "new-creationy" would that be? I know it is fine for me to mourn, grieve, pine, and celebrate what was given and then taken from me but I can't stay there long. Soon, sooner than my flesh would like, I need to embrace my purpose for existing in the first place - to praise the name of God.

Righteous Job - what a picture you are of who I want to be. Righteous God - there is no life apart from You is there?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tightvnc keyboard mapping problem in Ubuntu 9.04

Image
I have been, off and on, having an issue with the keys on my keyboard mapping to the correct values when using the tightvnc client when paired with the vncserver vino in Ubuntu 9.04. I am not exactly sure what keyboard layout the client and server was expecting, but it seemed like every time I restarted the OS the keyboard mapping problem would come back and I would be at square one again. Well, I think I have found the workaround I was looking for . Hopefully this will help anyone else that is having this issue.
Read more

The manifestation of the "I" and the gift of self - Part 1

I am continuing my journey through Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and I had never realized how body-focused the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis truly are.  But then it all makes so much more sense when it was brought to my attention that the body we have been given in a manifestation of me, or to put it another way, the "I". And it goes beyond that still. Not only does it reveal me, but my body also reveals, in no small measure, the image of God. That is not to say that God is made of flesh like me as is depicted in so many Renaissance paintings. The old man in the sky is nothing like the God as revealed in the Bible. However, the love that God is, the holiness that he is, the justice he is, the righteousness that he is...all of it is shown to the world through my body. In a very real way, my body allows for others, and for me, to participate in the mystery (the hiddenness) of the image of God. That is by design; from the beginning.  If God is revealed in nature...
Read more

Let me learn what I need to learn

In the “I don’t know what God is trying to produce in me…” portion of the blog: I work across (not with) an incredibly loud person. We are in cubes and he refuses to use a handset when he is in a conference call…or headphones. Everything is done via speaker phone. Maybe his handset is broken? I don’t know and am too timid (read “interested in keeping the peace”) to ask him. Of course he shouts into his speaker phone as well when he talks. Now he even refuses to use a keyboard. He has a speech recognition program that allows him to speak to the computer rather than type. Good for him! Now we can all hear “Comma…open parenthesis…close parenthesis…tab…tab...tab…” Was it my sin or my parents sin that relegated me to this placement in the office. We all know the answer to that but man…it sure feels like I am getting punished for something.
Read more