Don’t we have all we need?
What happened to Job when he had everything going for him can happen to us. This day we have everything going for us too. Hiccups, sure. But a gulp of water can remedy it.
In the land of Uz lived a man named Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. (Job 1:1-3)
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” (9-11)
At this, Job got up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “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.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (20-22)
Job was struck by calamity, ironically, because of his holiness and devotion to God. It became the subject matter of his test. When everything was taken away, the ‘transactional’ in Job, Satan said to God, would emerge. Job would curse God. Satan misread. Job did not curse God. He discovered God in a new light. His relationship with God deepened. An absurdity. Yes?
We are church-going and are diligent with our prayers. We have no police record of violence or theft. Maybe a couple of traffic tickets, because patience is not our virtue, or we fear saying ‘Talaq’ to the mobile phone even while driving, and that too without seatbelts. We tithe. We are charitable. Do we fear God? Are we meant to fear God? Is God fearsome?
God is not a stalker or a mugger that we should feel unsafe. In fact, He is our protector. He is our provider. He is our redeemer. Why should we fear God? God is love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” (1 Jn 4:18)
We do not fear God, as our human mind understands it. We fear sin, which our human mind often does not want to understand for fear of feeling restricted. What is sin? Sin is anything that displeases God. That’s a broad statement. Because sin is broad. It is all-encompassing. Every act of unkindness to another is sin. What is unkindness? We will know when it is done to us. We know sin when it is done to us. That is the simplest answer to what is sin. “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 Jn 4:20)
A founder of a retail coffee chain was acclaimed as a pioneer in his field. I recall having coffee in the first internet café of its kind, in the early 90s. Coffee houses are where plans are made, Venn diagrams drawn on napkins. I had quit my well-paid job. I was a man with a dream. An entrepreneur. My own boss. Hoping to be very rich one day. I was reasonably rich by middle-class standards. But that’s a tale for another day. I can tell you one thing about my wealth. I did not file for bankruptcy. I was never that rich.
The founder of a coffee chain became enormously rich. Politically connected, by marrying a prominent politician’s daughter. All was going well. The political connections, a boon, became the bane of his life. His father-in-law’s fallout with the powers that be affected the son-in-law’s progress. The meteoric rise tilted into a crashing fall. His net worth could not pay his debt arising from borrowed money and poor bets.
Like Job, did the coffee-chain founder, when he lost everything, put on sackcloth, smear his body in ash, and cry out to God? No. He chose a tragic path. Possibly, he could not face the idea of loss, humiliation, and the dread of possible jail time. He killed himself. So did Judas Iscariot. Leaving his wife to bear the burden of his debt. That is unkindness. Sounds unkind to say that of the dead. We lay our debt on others by not doing what is right by God. That’s unkindness.
While all deserted Job. God did not. God restored Job to full health. Not just that. He multiplied his wealth manifold. As a believer, God could have done the same for the coffee-chain founder. He does for you and me. Many of us undergo such situations. When we lose our job, EMI on our home, car, and ostentatious living tighten their grip on us like cling wrap. Every penny saved and invested in times of plenty is money earned when we are not earning. Good times shield wisdom from us.
Where does wisdom come from? From God for those who seek diligently. What makes some buck the trend of their fellow youth who have chosen a path where faith and God are not fashionable? It cramps their lifestyle. Their friends would find them boring. They will poke fun at their piety and ignore them. Do we have resilient faith to bear it?
We deliberately choose the temporal over the spiritual. Temporal is fun, even if it is temporary. Spiritual is a black box. Good for philosophy. It does not bring in the big bucks. A canard spread by the evil one. It brought the bucks for Job.
Job stood by his belief in God even when everything he was going through should have led him to desert God. God seemingly deserted Job. Job gave God the benefit of the doubt. Job sought answers from God, and God answered him. We, too, should trust God to answer. However, we must also accept that our temporal life has affected our hearing. We cannot cultivate it overnight. A flowing beard does not grow overnight. We need to desist from shaving. Likewise, we must desist from unbelief to acknowledge we need God. He will answer. In His time. Not because we took time to come to Him. But to give us time to shed our temporal ways and fully embrace Him. To hear the small whisper in which he speaks. (1 Kgs 19)
- Mathew Anthony
