Uz Too! Part 1

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." "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 stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." Job 1:8-11 NIV



The biggest question in religion has nothing to do with the existence of God. Children wonder if He is myth but not adults. There is too much evidence for a creator to give serious thought to tired arguments for a God free universe. Evolution proves nothing of the atheist contention that life spontaneously generates or even more importantly that matter exists without an atom builder. God is accepted everywhere as being present…to contend otherwise is to beat your head against a thorn prickled stone wall. What we do ask a thousand times a day in ten thousand different languages is what ancient Job also asked. “What is happening?’

Everyone loves to hear the success story but even Michael Phelps has crashed into the swimming pool wall, lost his keys and said something completely ludicrous when he was nervous. Yet the daily pound of difficulties is not what makes Job’s question so universal. If the troubles were expected, we would simply roll with them like the gold fish that looks up at the top of the bowl and sighs, “Fish food again!” But that is not how it is! Human beings expect something different, something better…especially of a God they know is there.

The difficulty the introduction to Job presents is that it would be easy, if that was all of Job you really took with you is the horrifically but understandable mistaken belief that somehow Satan got in to the mix and like he did with Eve, made a mess of God’s ideals. There really are only two ways to think of God if you aren’t careful, God is really good but sometimes blunders and lets Satan talk Him into making life blow up on us or God is not really good and needs us to help Him develop a warmer and kinder personality. Like the wife who tries to help her husband realize he needs to spend more time with his kids, we pray with the same sort of corrective motives.

The other day I was praying for God to help me fix my broken door. After much frustrated effort, it still would not stay closed and I angrily wondered why God hadn’t made it right. The entire pagan system of human sacrifice and pantheon of gods was an attempt to make God work, or at least find one who would sympathize with your plight. Islam is built on the same principle…Allah is harsh and unbending; better make sure you meet his demands or he will take away your lunch…paradise. Witchcraft and astrology both make much of wielding power over supernatural forces so that you can get a fair shake in life. Karma turns life into a giant equation that forces fairness into everything. Each false religion is a human attempt to get at the paradox everyone intuitively recognizes. God is and life at times seems senseless.

Continued Tomorrow