Following Job II

You know the saying. Bad things happen to good people, with a big Why? Most of us melt under that sun and moan and groan and wonder, “What did I do to deserve this?” But no matter how tough the task, we see how Job does not give up on himself nor God. Nothing seemed to knock Job down. When he said he believed in God, he meant he believed in God no matter what loss, what torture mentally or physically, no matter how lonely or difficult would be the task to survive the worst. He may have questioned but never wavered. He is our model for righteousness and not letting critics or so-called friends take him down. 

God doesn’t explain why he chose Job to suffer all attacks. He had a bet, so to speak, with Satan. But we know God doesn’t rain fire and hail down on us to see how good or bad we are. Mankind might, but not God. But He also doesn’t pat our shoulder and say good job or that you did well because we crawled and stretched beyond our capacity and suffered through hell and back. If we are God’s children we are going to be challenged because, the truth is that this world, this earth is corrupt and abused and in trouble. Maybe that is part of the payment for our sins, to get them off the book, out of our way, so we can be the challenge, the task-maker, the fighter for righteousness and at the same time cleaning off that blocked heart to let love through to be shared and encouraged and hopeful for those who have no more strength. 

There is always an end and if you trust God, it will be for your good. So much of time is we don’t have the patience to stop and think about the moment. The suffering of the innocent because born into poverty or with some atrocious deformity or defect doesn’t always mean it’s not our fault. Mothers on drugs can birth monster children who must be taken from them to keep them safe and give them some sort of embrace of love and goodness in a better environment. 

But there must be a reason for every birth, and when we jump into youth, we are already formed good or bad, and learning how life’s challenge was and will be. Those who birth in glory and wealth are mindless until they go to school and are confronted with the fact others don’t have the same options and lifestyle. So, the poor and abused arrive, defensive, fearful, untouchable as they need to find power and answers and strength to not miss what they do not have.
 
There are so many relationships formed in tragedy. For example, pairs of people from different part of the world who run marathons together because they met in tragic circumstances, implying that there is a God who sent them together to give hope and happiness. I do believe there are angels who don’t realize they are angels but who God has put on this earth be it for a minute or a lifetime, to pick up and encourage someone hurt and distraught and sad and lonely. These are his messengers to hold us up to the end. I don’t believe Job’s so-called friends tossing up their solutions, their analysis of what was happening, their opinions were angels. But despite their arguments, they learned that only Job could handle his heart and soul. so that in the end, he was restored to all that he had lost, even his dead family.

But then there are so many who do not get that happy ending because they cursed and fought and gave up and fell and yet, they too are God’s children and I pray they can work their way into the clouds of heaven somehow somewhere, maybe by doing maybe just a single good thing to help another and might not even know it. We are each one, I say over and over, the children of God. I don’t believe one has to go to church or be a catholic to know God. I believe in all faiths from Buddha to Gandhi to Hindus to Native American Indians to Muslims who are so powerful and faithful beyond our catholic routine. Go anywhere there are Muslims and five times a day they will stop whatever they are doing to pray to God. Imagine how wonderful that must be to God, the same God we pray to. I envy them their discipline and their love for the same God we love. They just show it more their love for him, than we who are always wanting this, that and the other for our pleasure or sacrifice to help others.

 I’ve worked with incarcerated youth who find themselves through good programs, and realize they do have value, they have a story that can maybe help the next kid not have to commit crime or be hanging out with brutal criminals who are out to kill and own power. Each youth has the right to be young and learn things slowly but surely and have the opportunity to learn a skill or a profession and leap into it with their own ideas. But when they are killed before they reach 15, it’s useless. No one listens to them. No one wants to hear them. No one wants to give them a chance because they did what they did out of fear, out of loneliness, out of lack of parents or adults they could respect. It’s not their fault. It’s the fault of this society that puts power and possessions first, having the best car and the most jewelry, the fastest gun, the snazziest girl. Can’t they turn down the sound a bit? not be so fast an adult when they are just 14 or 15? 

There is so much in our formation that may be un-useable as we become an adult but then,  Wow! later on you will be the rubber band that binds you to your skills and talents and what you have learned, have absorbed, and learned about people and life and how you must deal with it - and still be who you are, who you have become. Somebody is going to appear either for a moment or for many days who is going to turn you into the right direction, though it be too late for humanity to give you a chance.  And hopefully with prayer and communication with a God you cannot see nor hear verbally but who people tell you is this or that so you must do this or that when truthfully no one really knows. No one has come back from heaven. Only Jesus came down from heaven in the form of a baby. We must trust that, but no one really knows because the Bible was composed of a group of writings by humans who tried to explain God and His power and His love.

 ~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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