The Patience of Job?

You know a Job.  Just about everyone does.  In fact, as you read this post, your Job is already coming to mind.  They experience an inordinate amount of misfortune.  Emergency contacts and insurance company phone numbers are posted on their fridge.  They know which phone buttons to poke to talk to a real person at those insurance companies.  Jobs are regulars on church prayer chains and in sharing times.  Sickness, accidents, financial crises are not occasional visitors, but residents in their homes.

No one knows why some people seem to live Job lives.  If ever you find yourself thinking, "They must have done something to be in that position" then take another look at the book of Job.  It's true that there are consequences to our actions, but suffering isn't, by any means, always a result of some hidden character defect or moral failure.   And yet how often do we fall into that judgment trap?

Job's "friends" (with friends like these...) quickly deduced that Job must have done something to deserve such a rotten turn of events.  Little did they know that it was the Accuser, the satan, who had been given permission by God to "afflict" Job with any terror he wished, short of death.  And that permission presents a whole assortment of problems and questions for those who want to follow a loving God.  What sort of a God does that?  The ending of Job, when health and wealth are restored and he gets a new family, is hardly satisfying either.  I can't imagine a father thinking, "Well this kid's better than the last one anyway.  No harm no foul."  So where does Job leave us?  As a friend recently posited to me, are we simply a part of "...a big experiment and God will decide when he's ready to intervene...?"  


This week's message is the final in our four part series, Where's God When Life is a Mess?  We will review Job's trials and what he learns from them about God, friends, life.  Come to get confused, frustrated, and just maybe, closer to God.  
- Curtis

Chained for Good: Jeremiah

I sometimes wonder what the dedicated prophets of the bible would have to say about some of the big name preachers today.  Consider some of the top selling books and audio CD's by one of the most famous preachers in the USA today.  His works include:

• It's Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God's Favor
• Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day
• Good, Better, Blessed: Living with Purpose, Power and Passion
• Living in Favor, Abundance and Joy 
• Living The Joy Filled Life (Six Easy Steps To Living A Life Of Victory, Abundance And Blessing)

While I'm certain he has some very good things to share, I can't help but wonder how Jeremiah would respond to advice about Six Easy Steps to Living a Life of Victory.  Jeremiah spent a good chunk of his life being hated by his own people, persecuted by those he was sent to save, and tortured for doing exactly what God called him to do.   He's known as the weeping prophet.  

Imagine a conversation, then, between Jeremiah and a Big Name Preacher (BNP) from today. . .
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BNP: Jeremiah, my friend, you're not living a victorious life.  Look at you.  You're sad, you're unsuccessful, you're a mess.   But I can help.  Let me share with you the easy secrets to living a life of victory. 
JEREMIAH:  Really.  Do tell. 
BNP:  Clearly you're doing this prophet thing all wrong.  You'd have favor, abundance and joy if God were pleased with you!   You need to activate your faith! 
JEREMIAH:  I'm about to activate you.  
BNP:  You see that?  That's anger.  Let God can turn your anger to action;  your sadness to sufficiency; your trials to triumphs!  
JEREMIAH: You've got a knack for catchy phrases.  
BNP: Thank you.  I'm writing a book about that. 
JEREMIAH:  Of course you are. . .   But here's the thing.  God told me, the day he called me, that my path with him would be terribly hard.  That my work is to warn people of God's coming wrath.  This is what he's called me to.  
BNP:  Of course he didn't.  You misunderstood.  He doesn't want anyone to be unhappy.  He wants to turn your inner Eeyore into a Tigger!  It's right here in my book, "Living in Favor, Abundance and Joy."  
JEREMIAH:  My inner Eeoyore is about to kick your . . . never mind.  I have to go.  Someone wants to throw me into a muddy cistern.  (walking off)
BNP:  Read chapter 3 - God Has More In Store!  
JEREMIAH: (muttering) What I wouldn't give for a little fire and brimstone right now. . . 

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Truly, Jeremiah had a tough row to hoe.  So tough, that at one point he curses the day he was born (Jeremiah 20:14) and wished it hadn't happened at all.  But in the end, he stuck with the thing God had given him to do.  He realized that life wasn't all about him, but about God's purposes and Kingdom.  That's a huge thing to remember.

It isn't all about Me.  

A good friend reminded me of that this week, when I was lamenting some of those tough rows God gives.  We'll see what else Jeremiah has to say to us this week in worship.
- Curtis

For Sunday May 18 - This is Easy?

1 Peter 4:12-19
The picture here is of a bombed church in Iraq. Would you go to worship the next Sunday if this happened to our church?
One of my biggest, and I mean BIGGEST pet peeves in modern Christianity is the way the faith is portrayed as a remedy for life's tough stuff. That is to say, Christianity is peddled as solution to all of life's problems, and that God will replace your troubles with comfort and ease if you do things right. Smiling preachers all over media spout that dribble. Suffering is a result, according to some teachers, of "some hidden sin" in a person's heart. While that may, in fact, be the cause of some kinds of suffering - Peter even says we need to make sure that that's NOT why we are suffering - the Christian is told to embrace suffering as a path to deep faith in God.
There is an essential difference, at the same time, between the normal suffering that comes with life - ie sickness, accidents, death and grieving, etc. - and the suffering that comes our way as a result of being a follower of Christ. In the West we don't often deal with the latter brand of suffering very much. But Christians all over the world know such suffering well. The Church in China (check out this BBC article from 2004) and Iraq, for instance, know what it is to suffer. Instead of seeing ourselves (the Church in the West) as specially blessed because we do not suffer, could it be that we are somehow poor because we don't know the riches that result from such suffering? Could it be that sacrifice is part of what opens the door to being a suffering people - and we're not so good at genuine sacrifice? What would happen if we began to really sacrifice? Is that a frightening prospect for you? What would that kind of sacrifice look like in real life? - Curtis