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junkyardboy
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Posted: Sat May 5th, 2007 07:48 pm |
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Job 13:15
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
i have been spending some time contemplating God's divine nature and this verse popped out at me.
who is this God that Job would say such a thing?
would God do such a thing?
is this just an old testament concept that doesnt have relevance to us today?
if it doesnt why not?
if it does how does it apply to us in our day to day life?
does this say anything to you about God's nature?
is this a God you want to know aqnd worship?
do you find this verse difficult or easy?
is it something you would say and if you did, what would be the implication for your life.
just a few thoughts, would appreciate any others.
peter
____________________
have we been abandoned by God?
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/11/dr_john_macarth.html
http://www.valleybible.net/position_papers.php
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sat May 5th, 2007 11:19 pm |
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Regarding Job 13:15, it makes me think that God gives life and takes life when He wants to because it is His right to do so and we must trust in Him because we are helpless, weak and depend on Him. Stephen
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gaylon
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Posted: Sat May 5th, 2007 11:34 pm |
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junkyardboy wrote: Job 13:15
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."...
do you find this verse difficult or easy?...
This has been point of struggle for me, as well, and I suspect for most of us at one time or another. I hate the concept of having to suffer anything at all. And, my addiction pretty well illustrates my immature outlook on life.
Paul talks about it, and explains the idea. I don't like it, but it seems to be the way of things, and seems to be about the only way we get humble enough to really walk with God. I have always admired Job (alternating between thinking he was crazy) for his unwavering faith in God.
Heb 12:
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. endure bchastening, God dealeth with you as with csons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? fathers of our flesh which bcorrected us, and we gave them creverence: shall we not much rather be in dsubjection unto the eFather of fspirits, and live? holiness. peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are bexercised thereby.
HTH,
--- Gaylon V.
Last edited on Sun May 6th, 2007 01:40 am by gaylon
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junkyardboy
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Posted: Sun May 6th, 2007 01:43 am |
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this has the promise to be an interesting discussion.
is this an attitude or desire that God would have us pray for?
do we have the courage to do so?
what would it mean in our lives if God were to answer that prayer?
____________________
have we been abandoned by God?
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/11/dr_john_macarth.html
http://www.valleybible.net/position_papers.php
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geeky_student
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Posted: Sun May 6th, 2007 04:18 am |
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Ahh, i remember in the book of Job where God asks if Job knows this or that not. I saw somewhere, the guy was writing about this topic, he was saying that it's not justice how we see it, it's justice how God wants it to be. He is a just God, we should have faith in Him.
He purifies us, He does not destroy us.
God bless!
i will continue praying for you guys
keep clean!
____________________
For God, for her, for my parents, for own good.
tip: when tempted, think of God, think of that special someone you love. 
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sun May 6th, 2007 02:46 pm |
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Peter, I didn't answer any of the questions you posed. Sorry, I find such a quantity of questions bewildering but I will make an attempt here.
Firstly, to say that the verse is not in context and one has to try and understand the struggle of Job, his contending with God (wrestling with his mind) and the range of emotions that he expresses. At times, he is very bold with his questions to God and perhaps when he speaks of the wrath of God it is with this thought in his mind - that he is trying God's patience to the limit. For example, Chapter 10, verse 3 "Is it right for Thee indeed to oppress, to reject the labor of Thy hands, and to look favorably on the wicked?" I would hardly dare to say some of the things Job dares to say to God.
So to the questions.
Who is this God that Job would say such a thing? Would God do such a thing?
Job must have heard the histories of his people from the time of Abraham, and Job would have grown up with a view of God as the God of destruction (how He destroyed the Egyptian army in the flood, brought the plagues on Egypt, judged the Israelites in the desert for their wickedness and idolatry, etc.) Dating of the book of Job is not certain - some say exilic (Babylon exile) or post-exilic (after the return from Babylon). Job struggles with the idea that God is punishing him for sin and rejects it. He doesn't find the answer in his circumstances but through a direct encounter with God through faith. God's will for Job is reconciliation, healing, restoration, not his destruction.
Is this just an old testament concept that doesn't have relevance to us today? I think that the idea of a destructive, vengeful God is not easily reconcilable with the new testament's God of the new covenant who is a God of love, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness. In the old testament, these attributes are also described but are perhaps not so conspicuous. I would say that it is relevant but would find it difficult to explain why.
If it does, how does it apply to us in our day to day life? I think that we should all live the next day as if it were our last. I think the idea that God could take us any time He pleases, should be a chastening for us, a reminder of our transience on this planet.
Does this say anything to you about God's nature?
Yes, it tells me that He is in charge and has the power to destroy me, if He wished to but He doesn't. I think that fear of God acts as a deterrant and in our day and age, we don't have enough of that, partly (I think) because we live in fractured societies where discipline has largely been thrown out the window. That's my experience.
Is this a God you want to know and worship?
Yes - fear of God focuses the mind.
Do you find this verse difficult or easy?
I find it difficult
Is it something you would say and if you did, what would be the implication for your life.
No, I haven't said that to God. I did say this prayer, Nov. 4 2006, which is on subject of mortality, "Lord God, though I be mutilated, burnt by fire or whole, I surrender to you." In other words, whatever happens to me in my life, I give you my life.
Re. Hebrews 12, verse 5, quoted by Gaylon, I read that a few months ago and had a struggle with it, partly because of memories of being beaten as a child. It is hard to think of God as a father who will whip you if you do wrong. Nevertheless, the principle of discipline that runs through scripture, should be a part of our Christian walk. We all need to be disciplined. It doesn't literally have to be a scourging. I am not an advocate for such punishments in our modern age.
Last edited on Sun May 6th, 2007 02:49 pm by guitarist63
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TimM
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Posted: Sun May 6th, 2007 09:03 pm |
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Peter,
This isn't an answer to the questions. It's just a personal reflection on trust in God and on how that has played out in my life as a recovering addict.
For me, the beginning of my real recovery came in the early spring of 2005 when I accepted that I was powerless over my addictive behavior. Part of what this powerlessness meant to me was that I needed to be willing to ask other people for help and to trust their advice. What I learned from other people, though, was that they were living a program of daily and immediate trust and relationship with God, and that this program was keeping them sober when nothing else could. I had always had an intellectual belief in God, but I had never really been willing to offer Him control over my whole life.
In the spring of 2005, I was finally able to do that, able really to surrender to God. I didn't quite pray Job's prayer. My version went more like this:
"Lord, I've been struggling all my life with this addiction, and what I've been doing hasn't worked. I'm stuck right where I was 35 years ago, and I don't have another 35 years to try that again. I'm out of ideas. I've failed. I'm thinking of suicide. I have nothing left.
"So I give up. I'm ready to trust you and to do absolutely anything you ask. I'll take a chance and trust you with everything. Even if I'm wrong, there's nothing left to lose. Take what I have left, and please find a way for me to serve you and to serve the people around me. I hope you'll do that by making me sober, which I can't do. I think I'd be a better servant if I were sober. But that's your business, Lord. My life and my sobriety aren't mine. They're yours. If you choose to make me sober, then I'll be sober. If not, then I won't be. You're my last hope. I'm yours, and you can use me however you like. I don't have a right to ask for sobriety. I'll try to serve you whatever you may choose to do with me, your servant. I'm yours."
That's not quite saying, "Though you slay me, yet will I love you," but it's pretty close. "Even if you leave me in my addiction, I'm yours," is only a whisper away from death.
That act of surrender was the most desperate thing I've ever done. It was also the beginning of real faith and the beginning of real recovery. I'd like to say I've been sober since that prayer. I haven't. I'd also like to say I've never failed to put God first in every action. That's false, too. I can say that the drive to form a real relationship of trust and faith has been absolutely central to my whole life since then, and that struggling to maintain that connection with God is a focal point of my life.
I can't answer the question of why God would kill me. I can give an answer to why God might allow me to fall into addiction and to stay there for decades. As an active addict, I thought God judged me and hated me. I knew this was bad theology, but it was the truth of my heart. When I finally was able to begin to surrender, though, I found that this was completely false. All my life when I thought that God was far from me and hating me, I was wrong. All that time, God was next to me, nearer to me, the Qur'an says, than my jugular vein, waiting in pain and in love for me to have suffered enough to be able to trust his love. A better person than I might not have needed to spend 35 years in hell in order to reach that point of surrender. It turns out that I did need to do that. A third of a century in hell wasn't the blessing I wanted, but it was the blessing I needed, and it was the blessing I received. Those decades in addictive isolation and pain and despair were the teacher I turned out to need to bring me to God, and to bring me to trust other people as well.
So far I've talked about emotional death and spiritual death. In my mind, those are just as real and just as desperately important as physical death; but I can imagine someone saying that I'm just playing with words, while Job is talking about ending up dead in a very concrete, non-poetic sense. So let me also talk about physical death.
In the past year and a half, I've had a couple of medical emergencies: a heart attack which I thought could easily result in my dying in the next hour or two, and a seizure in which I awoke convulsing and unable to speak or breathe and thinking I might well be dead in a few minutes.
Had these things happened a year or two before they did, I would have found them enormously hard to deal with. I would have feared death and feared hell. I would have feared leaving my wife and kids in a state of deep alienation. I would have feared my addiction being exposed posthumously. I would have feared God's judgement. I would have been desperate to struggle to make myself well even though basically I couldn't do anything. I would have been horribly depressed afterwards by the vision of my own mortality and hopelessness, and by the clear message that I would sooner or later face death still struggling with a hopeless fight against my sin and still deeply separate from my wife and kids.
In the event, though, this wasn't my experience at all. I've learned that often I am not in control even of events of deep importance to me. I've learned that I can turn those things I can't control over to God, and that I can trust God to manage my life in the way that serves him. I've learned that I can trust others to do all they can to help me. I've made my peace with my family.
So for me, both those emergencies were occasions in which I could lie back and be at peace. I had a lot to live for - something that would have been completely false toward the end of my active addiction - but I could be OK with dying if that was God's will. I didn't have to panic. I could give thanks to God for what he had given me, and I could relax and let others work while I did the little bits I could - giving good answers to their questions and trying to experiment with how to get my muscles to breathe.
In the end, too, both experiences have been occasions for growth. I've been granted a vision of just how much I have gained in my recovery, a vision that sustains me as I continue my work. In a way, too, the heart attack serves as a nice dividing line in my life. Here is where a life of addiction and isolation and stress left me. Now I have another chance for another life, a life I am learning to live rightly.
Is trusting God with one's life difficult? Absolutely. I resisted it with fierce strength for decades. I still don't trust God effortlessly or well. Seen from this side, though, it is unthinkable that one might not trust God. To return to my life of isolation and fear and addiction and despair seems the worst nightmare I can imagine.
Not to will to serve God regardless of how God chooses to use what he has made is an unimaginable step back into the hell from which I have only so recently been lifted.
Trusting God wih my life needs work every day, but from this end, yeah, it's easy.
That's my meditation. It's not from a scholar or a saint or a theologian or even from an addict who has been sober very long. (I last acted out in November of 2005.) It's what I can offer from my own life, though, on a deep question we all have to face in our own way.
Thanks for the opportunity to listen and to share.
Tim M.
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