Confronting Anxiety Meditations No.22: Whatever disaster? (1)
Trusting God no.6: Earlier on in this series we confronted the fact that we live in a fallen world, a dysfunctional world, a world that is going wrong because of the presence and outworking of Sin, of godless, self-centred humanity, jostling for space and for identity in anguish and acting in self-destructive ways. We may not be part of it in terms of outlook, but we cannot help having to experience it and its fruits.
Example of Jeremiah: In this context, I always find the picture of Jeremiah sobering. Here was this amazing prophet (not quite a lone voice because there was also Ezekiel prophesying) pouring out his heart pleading with the nation’s leaders as well as the people in general, to turn back to God before disaster fell on them. But they wouldn’t heed him, and so it did. For them in their spiritual blindness, it seemed like the end of the world was there for Israel, as Nebuchadnezzar and his great army came into the land a third time, with a might beyond anything Israel could withstand, right up to the front door of Jerusalem which, after a long siege, they took and razed to the ground, including its famous temple.
Jeremiah Taken: And all the while Jeremiah had been faithfully speaking on God’s behalf, and what was amazing was that as hundreds are being killed in the sack of Jerusalem, Jeremiah is saved on orders from the Babylonian leaders. He is given the choice, return with them to Babylon or stay here – so he stayed, and that seemed the end of it, except it wasn’t. Foolhardy elements who had survived came and killed the Babylonian-appointed governor, Gedaliah, and then realised what they had done and so fled to Egypt taking all the surviving remnant with them – including Jeremiah! How unfair! One minute it looks like he can enjoy retirement in the Land, and the next minute he’s been dragged off to Egypt, where he keeps on prophesying. Presumably he eventually died in Egypt.
How would we feel if we had been through all that, remaining faithful to God throughout it all, only to be dragged away into oblivion? I suspect if we run across Jeremiah in heaven he will simply say, I just did what God gave me to do, to say what He told me to say; that was what it was all about, not my comfort, but His bigger plan to constantly seek to draw His people back to Himself. Whether they would respond or not was not down to me, I was just His messenger in the midst of the mess.
Jesus’ Teaching: That’s what true servants of God would say. How do I know that? Because that’s what Jesus taught in his parable about faithful servants: “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” (Lk 17:10) Indeed he said of himself, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” (Mt 20:28).
Options: If this sounds hard stuff to you, consider the options open to each one of us. First, we can serve ourselves, struggle for meaning, for achievement, for ‘success’, for self-aggrandizement, for self-glory, only to find all that is meaningless, that it seems great and wonderful for a while, but it still leaves us feeling empty inside. The alternative, second, is that we can wholeheartedly receive the salvation that Christ has earned for us that turns us into children of God with new goals, new resources, a new sense of identity and purpose, and a new destiny, and catch the wonder of the glorious presence of God. We also have the joy of hearing His, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” (Mt 25:21) as we share in His purposes of redeeming the world, and the joy of seeing (at times) just one sinner coming to Christ (Lk 15:7,10).
Servants: Even more, when God chooses times and seasons to move more openly, how amazing it is to be part of all that, but that isn’t why we are there, not for the glory, at least ours. We are there as children of God who also act as servants (in that they fulfil the works of the Father) through whatever the times bring. In the ‘last times’ or ‘end times’ it appears they will bring difficulties in which many of us will lose our lives (see Rev 6:9,11). Easy to read, not so easy to prepare for, should it be in our (limited) lifetime.
Job’s Example: But what has all this to do with our starter verse from Job? The point of Job, surely, is that he went through times that made anything we go through look mundane – and he came through it and the starter verse is his response to the most terrible of attacks on him by the enemy. Perhaps one of the lessons of Job is that Satan threw everything he could at Job, yet despite that, Job revealed a most amazing truth that many have also found true – the human race is capable of the most incredible endurance under the most trying circumstances.
Coping: How do you cope in such times? With God’s grace, His indefinable resource that enables you to cope. When does it come? Often ONLY when the situation demands it. Hence the incredible saints who refused to capitulate when thrown to the lions in Rome, those saints burned at the stake, and even those amazing first ten apostles who all died for their faith. And if you missed it in passing – often that grace ISN’T there until we actually need it, so there is no point worrying about it beforehand.
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