10.25.12
Job 16.12 12 “I was at ease, but He shattered me, and He
has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as
His target. NASB
One time when we were coming home from somewhere we drove
past a neighbor’s yard where a large dog had a small dog in its mouth by the
neck and was shaking it to pieces like a rag-toy. After we parked, I got out of
the car and went back over to the neighbor’s where this was happening to see if
I could save the little dog. It seems the two dogs had been playing and the
play turned rough. Eventually the big dog either lost interest, or wore itself
out with the shaking, so it dropped the little dog on the ground. The little
dog actually survived. Weird. I thought about this (obviously) when I read Job
today. Sometimes the circumstances of life grab us and shake the living crap
out of us…
Job was apparently minding his own business and doing his
own thing one day when his ranching operation was attacked by marauders and his
herds were stolen, lightning started a raging fire, and a tornado destroyed the
house where his children were having a dinner party. I think at this moment,
rancher Job felt the shaking start: my
life is breaking apart. And then to top it off, he got really sick with
boils of some kind – ugly, gross, painful boils from his scalp to his feet. The
shaking was breaking him into pieces…
Job couldn’t find anyone to blame for his catastrophe but
God but Job’s worldview was this: “Naked
I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1.21) I
think Job, the practical man he was determined that there was some way out of
this and given time, he’d figure it out. I don’t think he planned on getting
sick; I don’t think sickness factored in to his getting it all figured out.
I wish there was some lesson we could learn from reading
Job that would make us feel better about a boasting in heaven becoming a bane
on earth. Job had no control over what was happening but God said, Have you
considered My servant Job? God thought about him and God knew what Job though
of Him.
Sometimes the only way we can learn is through great
calamity, distress, or to be grabbed about the neck by God and shaken until the
crap all falls out. Like the little dog, we’ll be sore for a few days, but we’ll
learn and we’ll survive. As long as
there is a God, there isn’t a thing in the universe that can harm us, apart
from His permission. Have you considered
my servant _____________? (Insert
your name)
What happens to us when the shaking starts, depends a lot
on our worldview: Job pretty much figured it was all God’s stuff anyway. Job
thought he’d offended God. God just lovingly called him, ‘My servant’. That
seems to be all the lesson I can come up with today: God calls me His servant. I think that’s enough lesson for today: that
God calls me His servant. And He takes responsibility for who I am, what I am,
and what I go through for His goodness and glory. If that’s the way God cares
for His own, I feel sorry for those who think they can do it on their own…
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