Day 29: Job 40:6-42:17; Psalm 29

Yesterday Bob Howell died of a massive heart attack. Bob & Ella are our church custodians...the best church custodians I have ever worked with. It was their ministry. Their daughter, Jessi, also died suddenly a few weeks ago...and Ella's mother is currently in the hospital in very serious condition. Right now our congregation, the Howell & Strunk families, and Ella specifically are reeling from grief. Ella is living Job's story. There are questions. "Why?" "What did I do to deserve this?" There is guilt. "If I had only..." And, let's be honest, there is anger.

Submission is hard. It goes completely against my nature. This whole book seems to me to be about submission...submission to God. I suppose, in one sense, we have no choice. He is, after all, God. He made the universe and fashioned every molecule of all matter including every cell in my body.

Who then is able to stand against me?
Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
   Everything under heaven belongs to me. (40:10-11)

But, in another sense, we have a free will. Granted, that free will was also part of how He made us but He made us that way nonetheless. Since we have a free will I suppose we could choose to not submit. If we decide to go this route it will seem like we are in control for a time...but at some point it will become painfully obvious that we really aren't in control. The randomness of this life will strike us down eventually...in death if not before. Then, what are we left with? Only anger. Or we can choose to willingly submit - in which case we need to understand that there will be times that things happen that don't make sense to us and we may never be given an answer. The randomness of this life will still get us eventually, and we will likely still be angry. But if we've chosen to submit to God we've chosen to trust Him. We may not understand and we may not like what happens...but we trust that God has something more in mind. Job said it this way:

I know that you can do all things;
   no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, "Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?"
   Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
   things too wonderful for me to know. (42:2-3)

And then, the last words we hear Job speak:

My ears had heard of you
   but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
   and repent in dust and ashes. (42:5-6)

I have to admit that I'm a little uneasy with the way the book of Job ends. I feel like it should have ended with the above verses but in the final verses of the last chapter we read this:

     The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
    After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years. (42:12-17)

It has a happy ending. And if I'm not careful I may begin to think that I should expect that. If I've learned anything from the book of Job it's that I don't really have the right to expect anything. I'm happy for Job but I think I'd better be careful not to expect the fairy tale ending...at least not anytime before eternity in heaven.

In Psalm 29 the word LORD is used 18 times...I counted. There's only 11 verses.

How can He be my LORD if I don't submit?