Job

Briggs has been reading the book of Job, so it's wandered into our conversations lately.  This morning he commented how full of himself Job was in chapter 29 when he finally vents his frustration and grief upon his friends and God.  He referenced this passage:

"When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square, the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood; the princes refrained from talking and laid their hand on their mouth; the voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.  -Job 29:7-10

As sometimes (perhaps even often) happens, Briggs and I see a passage differently.  In this case, I agree more with the perspective that Job's reminiscences are yes, perhaps slightly inflated, but mainly a romantic longing for the better, sweeter days of his past.  I don't think he's full of hubris as much as nostalgia. To me, this fits Job's stellar character--a man described as upright in the best ways, a man who made the hard choices and generally held strong.

In contrast, Briggs feels Job is spewing out a stew of pent up vanity---the vanity and self-accolation all men are capable of when pushed to their limit, even the best.  And maybe it doesn't have to be one or the other; surely, man is full of conflicting aims and perceptions--a hot mess of good intentions and bad executions.  If we are honest with ourselves, even our intentions are suspect at times.

On another Job musing, I came across a great quote this week that noted that Job held his own until his friends showed up.  Ha!  I thought that funny, sad, and unfortunately at times, true.  I suspect we all are guilty of saying stupid things when trying to relate to our friends in their sufferings. Walk a mile first, as they say.  It's much easier to be a bad friend than a good one.  For the above reasons, I like this too:

A wise word, though I hesitate to propagate LDS sources.

The bottom line is although I hate the suffering of Job, I'm thankful for his faithful account. I'm thankful for the record of his troubles, his obtuse friends, his outbursts, his raw outrage at the hand God dealt him.   In one sense, it's true--we are all dealt seemingly uneven hands--some appear much better than others. Some strike us as particularly unjust.  And yes, we know that in the final estimation, God doesn't owe any of us anything.  He's God after all.

All the same, I find great comfort in knowing that God can handle my temper tantrums---that He's strong and present in the thick of the thickest difficulties.  That He's God.  Somehow that's enough.

Knowing more...seeing farther

O Jerusalem, Greg Olsen, oil on canvas

Entering into John 13 and the subsequent tumble of Christ's final days, I'm fascinated by the fixed purposefulness of his actions.  Earlier on, Luke tells us that  Jesus "steadfastly set his face toward Jerusalem." (Luke 9:51)  He knows the path before him.  He's ready.  In striking contrast, his disciples are not---working in the dark, oblivious, trying to make sense of the events in medias res, in the very moment.  It's such a handicap.

Our role as parents is strangely similar in that the adult knowledge that we possess--ours won from hard-edged experience rather than omniscience---always trumps our children's finite experiences and youthful idealism.  The very limited scope of their lives is delightful specifically because it is limited.  It suffers not from the caution and cynicism that results from navigating the many twists and turns that we know lie ahead.  Of course we don't know the particulars of their journey, but boy can we testify that the road will be wild and unexpected at times.  It's rarely true to our expectations.

Our children's joys are charming and familiar because we've looked at life through their eyes. Like Wendy in Peter Pan, childhood echos yet.  Ironically, their very joy is a key source of our frustration when counseling and teaching them.  We hold some of their answers, have seen more of the answer key, yet our children don't listen well; they don't even want to look carefully at the questions sometimes.  And when they do, they tend to figure the problem in their strength, to "do the math" by their own method.  It's maddening.

It's the burden of the mantle of each generation---casting off the wisdom of the previous generation, remaking the mantle in their own fashion, and after some success and much failure, realizing that the old mantle wasn't so badly wrought--- their elders were indeed right about many, many things.

And Christ was right.  He knew what had to be done.  He was willing to do it.

May His grace be on all of us: on parents in our still limited knowledge, failing in our own ways, though trying to do better by our children; on children, blissfully unaware of the fixed nature of certain things, of their eventually diminishing ability to confront them in their own might.

I am thankful that He steadfastly set his face toward the difficult choice, that He went before us, that He still goes before us all.

Pondering this verse this morning...  When I was a young Christian, I resisted John and his sweeping declarations which struck me as over the top.  But, as I've grown older, the simplicity and profundity of his observations have grown on me too.   What a way to lead into the washing of the disciples feet (an event only recorded in John), all of this a prelude into the Upper Room discourse and last supper.

I've been ruminating on Psalm 16 this week--such solid images to grasp and turn back to Him in petition, pleading.  Here are some of the images I've created in this process:

        

The Psalms Project Band has a song for this psalm here.   I particularly love this bridge:

"You will not leave my soul in the grave,

You will raise me up and I'll fly away.

You did not leave Jesus in the grave.

You will raise me up and we'll fly away."

One more for good measure: here is an image from Psalm 17:5 I created after exploring the definition/sense of preserve from Psalm 16:1.

Preserve (from Strongs)
shâmar
shaw-mar'
A primitive root; properly to hedge about (as with thorns), that is, guard; generally to protect, attend to, etc.: - beware, be circumspect, take heed (to self), keep (-er, self), mark, look narrowly, observe, preserve, regard, reserve, save (self), sure, (that lay) wait (for), watch (-man)

Another use of preserve from Job:

William Blake, Job's Comforters

from Spurgeon's Treasury of David:

“Preserve me,” keep, or save me, or as Horsley thinks, “guard me,” even as bodyguards surround their monarch, or as shepherds protect their flocks. Tempted in all points like as we are, the manhood of Jesus needed to be preserved from the power of evil; and though in itself pure, the Lord Jesus did not confide in that purity of nature, but as an example to his followers, looked to the Lord, his God, for preservation. One of the great names of God is “the Preserver of men,” (Job_7:20), and this gracious office the Father exercised towards our Mediator and Representative. It had been promised to the Lord Jesus in express word.

from the Biblical Illustrator:

The Psalmist will be “preserved”; he will not only be created. There is a cold deism which says, “Having been created, that is enough; the rest belongs to myself; I must attend to the details of life; creation may have been a Divine act, but all education, culture, “progress, preservation must fall under my own personal care..... It is, then, not enough to have been created; even that Divine act becomes deteriorated and spoiled, impoverished, utterly depleted of all ennobling purpose and inspiration, unless it be followed by continual husbandry or shepherdliness, nursing or culture—for the figure admits of every variety of change; the end being growth, strength, fruitfulness. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)

This sense of continual trust and growth in God seems right---much greater than believing that a God set our lives in motion--is the truth that He preserves us each day, continually.  Also that His preservation is so much greater than sparing us from harm but growing us up in Him.