All in Hope
Finally, God breaks His silence. But He doesn’t come walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8) as He came to question Adam and Eve. Nor does He come in a gentle whisper as to Elijah on the mountain (1 King 19:12). He comes out of a storm, a literal whirlwind, not angry but overwhelming and intense, questioning, challenging.
Exit stage left Satan, off to do mischief somewhere else.
Job had indeed passed Satan’s tests without sinning (1:22; 2:10), but the suffering he continued to experience was surreal. His children had been crushed in a whirlwind (1:19), his livestock raided or burned by fire from the sky (1:15-17), his servants put to the sword (1:15,17), his skin afflicted with sores from head to toe (2:7).
By reputation, Job’s character was exemplary: Job was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion (1:1, MSG). There was “no one on earth like him” (1:8). Now that’s saying something.
A World War II veteran shared some of his experiences at my church. He recounted carefully maneuvering through a minefield with his troop. Terror filled the group as one of his buddies up ahead inadvertently stepped on a mine. This soldier knew he had no hope unless someone helped him. All he could do was stay extremely still, remain calm and wait. One wrong move would end his life.
I don’t know about you ladies, but when life’s distracting noises bombard my senses I best regain my equilibrium in the wonders of creation. There, the voices that declare God’s glory ring loud and clear.
“How are you doing in these uncertain times?” I asked this of some of my long-distance relatives by email at the beginning of the worldwide pandemic.
We all tend to experience less peace and have plans thwarted during troubling seasons.
A few years ago, spring brought rain. And more rain. And more rain. It lasted days and days. Gray, heavy clouds hung overhead, and not one stitch of sun appeared for 10 days straight. This may not seem like a lot for many areas of the world, but this Texas girl was starting to feel waterlogged and melancholy after day three.
It is inevitable. We wake up one day and realize we are in the valley of life. Life is like that. Mountains and valleys. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. If you aren’t living in the valley right now, chances are you just came out of one or you’re heading into one.
It is as Eugene Peterson says in the introduction to his Message translation: “Ours is not a neat and tidy world in which we are assured that we can get everything under our control…there is mystery everywhere.” Truth is though, we don’t need to be caught in the spin of uncertainty when we know the God who made the world and everything in it.
So how’s your 2020 playing out? I confess to being an Olympic junkie, so when Tokyo was cancelled this summer, my sole consolation was the reruns of previous highlights. This caught my eye: Rio 2016, just over 3000 meters into a semifinal of the women’s 5K, USA’s Abbey D’Agostino clips the heel of Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand and both runners fall to the track. Dazed after her tumble Hamblin lay there in tears. She had been running a good race; now all hopes of gold were dashed.
I am the queen of unfinished projects. I started painting the rooms in my house a couple of months ago. Then life happened, and I haven’t gotten back to it. A chair sits in the corner I’ve been hoping to recover. I removed the old fabric and bought new fabric. I ran into a couple of problems. I am trying to decide how best to rectify the issues. So the chair sits unfinished, not far from the paint cans and brushes.
Have you ever had the feeling of Spring Fever? You just want to get out and do something. You might not even know what it is you really want to do. These words came to me during one of those times:
In what do we put our faith? Do we put it in our health, our government, our family, our jobs, our financial status? While all of these may be worthy of thought and consideration, God’s Word tells us that the victory – true victory -- comes from Him.
Picture this: Take a dry sponge and pour water over it. All its holes fill up, and it doubles in size. When it gets to the point it can hold no more, the water flows over the edges. It is “satiated;” the Hebrew meaning of satisfies, in our verse today. It is the filling and even overfilling of appetites or desires.
As I write, our entire world is experiencing the Coronavirus. It is a time of lost jobs, financial uncertainty, sickness, and death. As a result, many are unnerved with unrest. Even those of us who love Jesus may find our circumstances causing disheartening thoughts to race.
2020 has certainly thrown the world a curveball. Normalcy, where did you go? All you moms with kids at home, are you wondering what to do next? You working women, is virtual meeting all it was cracked up to be? I prune the azaleas in front of the house and neighbors from far and wide walk by. A man on a bike way-too-small pops a wheelie and impresses his son. Do you wish it would end, or are you loving the change of pace?
Easter came and went with a decidedly different flare this year. Granted, the online services were phenomenal and reached way more than even the usual Easter crowd. A sense of worship was in the air.
Esther is another example of a woman in crisis, albeit of a different kind. More precisely, all the Jews in the vast Medo-Persian kingdom ruled by Xerxes were in dire straits and Esther was the only one who had any hope of getting the ear of the king. You see, Haman held a grudge against Mordecai, Esther’s adopted caregiver, because he refused to bow down and honor him (Esther 3:2). So Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes (3:6). He persuaded Xerxes: “They do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them” (3:8). The date was set to annihilate all…on a single day (3:13).
And so, somewhere between bargaining and acceptance (Kubler-Ross yesterday) I got to thinking: how in the world did the folks of yesteryear handle their crises?
The story of Ruth and Naomi is a classic. It all began in the days when the judges ruled (Ruth 1:1), a dark time for Israel. Eugene Peterson (introduction to Judges, MSG) calls it “nearly unrelieved mayhem”: Everyone did as he saw fit (Judges 17:6, 21:25).
2020 is definitely one for the history books. What details will you cling to? For instance, where were you when JFK was shot? I was on my way with my mom to have my prom dress altered. On 9/11 I had turned on Fox News as I dressed for Tuesday morning Bible study, in time to see the second tower fall. My husband, September 1945, vividly remembers his mom propelling his terrified 4-year-old self past the barricade at the Vancouver (BC) train station to meet this uniformed stranger who tossed him in the air asking, “Where did you get that red hair?”
