J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Build Anyway”
From the Series "The Paradoxical Commandments"
Scripture: Job 1:18-22
October 28, 2007
I would imagine that all of us who have been watching the news lately have been saddened by what we’ve seen taking place in the San Diego area. Wildfires that have been stoked by swirling sea winds have become raging infernos, consuming everything in their path. The fires have been equal opportunity destroyers. Big homes and little homes, businesses and even churches have all succumbed to the flames. I just feel for the people who have seen their investments go up in smoke. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be secure in your life one day only to have it turned upside down twenty-four hours later.
One person who could sympathize, were he here, is the person of Job. Practically everyone knows the story of Job; he is the quintessential example of someone who got the raw end of the deal.
What makes the Job story so riveting is how in spite of the fact that he had built up an impressive life, he never seems to have let it go to his head. He never seems to have been the type of person who would make you feel small just because you don’t have as much as he has. The Bible describes him as “blameless,” which is pretty high praise. The King James Version ups the ante when it speaks of him as “perfect.” It doesn’t get any better than that. Job had reached a place in life where he could have kicked back and coasted on all he had built up, except for the fact that he was even too good to do that. So, he simply feared God and shunned evil, which wasn’t hard to do, considering how much God had blessed him.
That’s the tack that Satan took, anyway. It’s in the book of Job that Satan makes one of his earliest appearances in the Bible, at least by the name “Satan.” The word is Hebrew and means “the Accuser.” In Job, Satan is described as one of the members of the heavenly council who stand in the presence of God. His role seems to have been that of a prosecuting attorney, looking for chinks in the armor of mere mortals so that he could prove to God that they really weren’t everything that God had created them to be.
With Job there were no chinks, and as Satan pointed out, it was because of that “hedge” of protection that God had put around him and his household. “But stretch out your hand,” Satan demanded, “strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face” (Job 1:11). So, God did. And when the hedge was removed, Job’s world came crashing in – first, his livestock, then his servants, and finally his family. When the smoke had cleared, all that was left was Job and his wife, and when you read on in the story, you realize that she wasn’t much help.
The question that crosses every thoughtful person’s mind is this: “Why would God have allowed such a thing?” “Why would God have allowed Job to be put in Satan’s hands?” “Why is there pain and loss in this world?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” These are pressing questions that everyone at some point has to face.
Anne Lamott is a Christian writer. Now, before you rush out and buy one of her books, you need to be forewarned that her journey to Jesus hasn’t exactly followed the typical “Sunday School” path. She’s had some hard knocks and is, admittedly, still in process. But then, aren’t we all? How many “perfect” people do you know? How many “Jobs” are in your “Fave 5?”
In her latest book, Grace (Eventually), she reflects on how in her life “disaster usually happens…when everything I have counted on has stopped working, including all of my best skills, intentions, and good ideas.” I think all of us have those kinds of moments in life. But where I really resonate with Lamott is when she says of those times, “I overreact and shut down, then torture myself for what a fraud I am” (Grace, p. 246). In other words, she wants to give up in the face of the various challenges that come her way, because those challenges try her and they test her, and they show her that she is hardly the Christian she knows she ought to be.
So, why doesn’t she? She doesn’t, because, as she explains it, “some pitiful thing appears or occurs, entirely inadequate to help shift this grim situation, and it can’t possibly be enough, but then it is.” “But then it is.”
The wonderful thing about faith in God is that it doesn’t depend on how we feel about it. Faith isn’t dependent on our emotions. It is dependent upon God. Our faith isn’t based on our skills, intentions, or good ideas. It is instead based on a God who is purposeful and faithful. It is based on a God who is consistent and trustworthy. It is based on a God who is just and compassionate, and has shown that by His willingness to enter into our madness and our misery in the person of Jesus in order to redeem our pain and give us victory over our despair. His grace in the midst of our most challenging moments is what Lamott calls ‘that pitiful thing” that appears or occurs, and while seemingly is never possibly enough, always is. It always is.
Such a view of God is what sustained Job and kept him focused on what “pitiful thing” God might bring about. So, when Job’s world came crashing in, instead of carping and complaining, notice what verse 20 tells us Job did – “He fell to the ground in worship.”
“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.”
I’m not suggesting that you minimize the challenges that you’re facing in your life. I’m not suggesting that they’re not really as bad as they appear to be. I’m not even suggesting that God minimizes them or doesn’t see them as particularly serious. What I am suggesting is that they force us to think seriously about who we are and what really is important to us. What I am suggesting is that the challenges of life force us to think seriously about God and what kind of relationship it is that we ultimately want to have with Him.
Isn’t that what Job did? “I came into this world with nothing. I’m going to leave this world with nothing. In the meantime, I can’t build my life around things that are temporal. I must build my life on things that last forever. I must build my life on what seems to be the ‘pitiful things’ that come from God, that while never seem possibly to be enough, always are.”
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his disciples a story that speaks to this truth. In fact, he ended his sermon with that story. It was a story about two men – one who built his house upon a rock and the other who built his house upon the sand. And when the rains came and the streams rose and the winds blew, guess whose house was left standing? It was the house of the man who had built it upon a rock.
When Job worshiped God in the face of his adversity and when he praised God’s name when everyone around him was trying to convince him to turn his back on God, he was building a life on the rock of God’s faithfulness. It wasn’t easy. Building his life upon God’s faithfulness wasn’t a walk through the park. It didn’t happen overnight. There are 40 chapters between this first one and the last chapter, and in those 40 chapters there are “pitifully few” things that give Job any hope, at least not until the next to last two chapters, where God reminds Job that He is an all-powerful God whose will is just and whose way is true. And when Job turns his attention away from himself and onto God, he is led to the confession that all of us would do well to come to: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).
As someone has said, “Whatever your lot is in life, you must build something on it.” What are you building your life on this morning? Is it something that can sustain you? Is it something eternal that can never be taken away?
When I was watching the news of the California fires this week, I was moved by the story of one family who was shown digging through the rubble of what just a day ago had been their life. Now, their house was gone. Their car was gone. The film crews had caught them digging for mementos and family treasures they might be able to salvage. When they were actually interviewed, I was struck by the peace I saw on their faces. It was a peace I had not seen on many faces, even the faces of those who were celebrities and were more likely in a position to be able to rebound from such a setback. Even the interviewer noticed it, and when he probed each of them as to the reason for it, the husband put one arm around his wife and the other around their teenaged daughter, and said in as sincere a tone as ever I have heard, “We’re trusting God, and we’re believing that God is going to get us through.”
“Naked we came from our mother’s womb, and naked we will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. But when you lose and then build again, you bear witness that your spirit and your relationship with God are stronger than any calamity or any disaster. When you lose and then build again, you are giving testimony to how tragedy is temporal and how faith is eternal. When you lose and then build again, you are showing others that the joy is in the building, because that is where the grace of God is always found.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. But build anyway, on the rock of God’s faithfulness in Jesus Christ. There will be times when you worry that His faithfulness can’t possibly be enough. But if you stay with it, you will discover with Job and with Jesus that it always is. God’s faithfulness always is.