Disciple Bible Study 11, Job Part 2

Well again, welcome back.

And I'm curious to know what we did with last week going into this week or what sort of new thoughts or prickles or inspiration you got in conversation with the rest of this book.

I kind of um I got a little kind of anxious towards the end when um I kind of got the impression that what God was trying to do was to make Joe much more human being.

And uh I thought why.

And I couldn't, I still don't understand exactly why all this happened.

It kind of reminds me a little bit of what John Hicks was saying when he decided as a toll building uh to build your soul so that you know you would be prepared.

I kind of see a little bit of that in in this in this work.

Thanks.

If I'm hearing you right, Job is really concerned throughout the book that God is too big to contend with.

And one way to read God's response is I'm too big to contend with.

That certainly would prove that Job is right, that God ultimately just overpowers humanity even when it's not okay.

I mean, I think I think that is an option, for sure.

To me, that was about the only thing everybody agreed on.

Is that God's too big for humans to contend with?

I mean, that was about the only, to me, thing that everybody could agree on.

Umfortunate, isn't it?

In some ways, in the evangelical tradition, I was raised with the with the kind of the short phrase, who are human beings to question God?

And there's a lot of assumptions there, like we're limited, we're mortal, we're sinful, we're fundamentally not as good.

So even though we have in our head like a really good argument, it's essentially that the that um it's inherently flawed because God is greater than us.

And in Job, I think it works a little different.

Uh human beings are not strong enough to contend with the divine, and therefore, even if we're right, we lose, because in a certain way of reading it might makes right.

And God is mightier.

And that's sort of a scary thing, but I and that's I'm not telling you Job says that unequivocally.

I think it is one way to read what happens here is that God says, I am stronger than you, and I will I will crush you like an egg.

I think that's one way to read it.

A valid way.

Um I've always been one of those do-it-yourself people kind of so on.

But anyway, uh what I'll come to later in my life is that there are there's just gonna be chaos that happens.

Sometimes it's maybe not God's doing, other times it's because what human beings do.

But the thing is this, the only way that I can get through it is I just let go and let go.

And um there's a peace that comes with that.

And uh when I went through Harvey, uh, there were some really tight moments in that.

But in the beginning of that storm, I had said, Okay, God, we are in your hands.

I trust you.

And then I, you know, and everything began to unfold for my brother and I had it a lot better than a lot of other people had.

So my way it was Job here, you know.

Oh no, are you trusting questions?

Because I am here.

But the thing is, is I have found for the last decade of my life in particular.

Let go.

Let go.

In other words, trust God.

Be listening, you know, and that doesn't mean God's going to come say, okay, now you go do this, but things begin to work to your benefit.

And even and also even when they're not working to my benefit, I hang on to God.

In other words, God, you know, help me through this.

I I want to see what you're telling me.

Just please leave me.

And uh you will know we work through it, and you then get on the other side of it and go and then later down the road you begin to look back.

I begin to look back and see, okay, this is because of that, this, and this happened.

But the key is getting to that point in life for me to watch where I can really and truly say, I angle God.

I've done all that I know to do.

You know, I'm prepared, I've done all this ready to know nothing.

But it's right.

And God gets me to it.

So I understand Joe.

I don't I I still don't quite understand why Joe had to go to all this.

Uh that's still somewhere in some uh somewhere in the last chapter says, I I want to make a new human.

I guess I'm not satisfied with the answer.

You know why he knew if he knew how this was all going to end anyway, so why would he do it?

Well the question is, is this Joe a real person?

Or is this a part of a story from mythology, ancient mythology that has been rewritten by a person who is in touch with God and worships God and has given up human condition, set up this human condition because of the suffering that people are going through?

Because it's just like the Adam and Eve story.

That's that's what you call a myth.

You know, because there wasn't anybody around to record stuff at that time.

And um, so people sat around and said, Well, you know who is God, and they came up with you know discovering God.

But so the question is here, is this story written as uh for comfort or for a life lesson or to remind us that you know bad things are gonna happen, but God is still in charge?

I mean, what's the purpose of the story?

I think that's something we get to tease out, and of course, I don't know that there's we never know the authorial intent.

We never know.

All I think we can do is respond to what we have and examine what are ways we can do this, some of which are life-giving and some are life-taking, and hopefully we cling to what gives life at nobody else's expense.

And I I just want to raise this up.

I I I do think you ask a really great question.

I still understand why this had to happen.

And I want to suggest one way we could read this is that this was so Joe could learn a lesson.

And there's this popular song that comes on the radio this time of year called Christmas Shoes, and it makes me a vomit in my shirt.

Because um the thing goes that um, you know, God gave this woman cancer so I could buy them some shoes and learn to care about other people.

And wow, like what a sick image of God to like afflict and kill this woman through a lot of suffering to teach me a lesson.

And I think we could read Job that way.

In fact, I would tell you, that's probably the way I was taught as an evangelical, is this God introduces this suffering ultimately to refine Job's faith.

And I think if we read the book that way, which I think Proverbs invites us to do, everything happens for this ultimate reason, we come to that conclusion.

And like you say, I think that starts to be an unacceptable conclusion for a lot of ways, because one, suffering becomes God's instrument of pedagogy, and that seems morally questionable to me.

Not, I mean, even at the human level, that seems really, really tough.

Um, but beyond that, I think that that reaffirms the idea that the universe is linear and everything happens for a reason.

And I want to suggest to you, I think the book fundamentally denies that.

I think there's another way to read Job that no, no, Proverbs is right sometimes, but not all the time.

Not everything happens for any reason.

I think it affirms that suffering is real, and I think the way it does that is not by saying there's an evil being out to destroy us, but but rather there is some threads of entropy or chaos or whatever you want to call it that are woven through the universe.

And that doesn't fit in a in a logical understanding of the world.

It does not fit.

And that's the bottom line, it doesn't fit.

Now there is I read where there is a story that's very similar to that in the Sumerian literature and in Babylonian literature.

So would they would this be an amalgamation of all those stories?

You know, I think what's fair to say, and we we never really know what our authors were reading because we didn't know who wrote it, and we don't even have precise dating.

But I will tell you, for example, when we read Genesis chapter 1, most scholars will tell you that was the writers responding to the Babylonian creation story called the Enuma Elish.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

They were familiar enough with it, there's some common elements, but in general, Genesis 1 is resistance to that.

And it's very possible that this is familiar with Mesopotamian wisdom, but also saying not that.

You know, a response against it.

Now it's really hard to make that claim definitively.

Right.

Really hard.

And you know, it's I would tell you that if you wanted to read the Epic of Gilgamesh again, you can find some common threads here.

Some.

It's about human mortality and what we're meant to do.

Um, and and Gilgamesh coming to terms with that.

Um I I I can't say that the Enuma, I mean that the Epic of Gilgamesh is as um direct an input to Job as the Enuma Elish is to Genesis 1.

I think there's a much stronger case for the second.

Where would I, um, if I were a Jewish person, uh, where would I encounter this story?

I mean, what in ancient times?

Would it have been told to me as a children's?

Yeah, so I think you would have encountered chapters one and the first half of chapter two and the second half of chapter 42 at a campfire.

Okay.

It's a story about this person and the fact that there's chaos in life.

Interestingly enough, Hebrew people, like I said last week, seemed much more able to hold on to that tension than we are, because we've decided that every God is all good and all powerful.

God can't be involved with not only evil, but God can't be involved with chaos at all.

That's sort of a decision that we've made in the Western world, and it gives us these hiccups because when chaotic things happen, evil or not, we say, well, where's where's God in the hurricanes?

And you know, there's this corrective, right?

The world's got weather systems that are tough.

That dog is insufferable.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I just have to, yeah.

She is something else.

Okay.

So I I think, like, in some ways, what we want to have is our cake and we want to eat it too.

And this this book is sort of saying, I don't know that you can do that.

And I think that's probably a pretty fair assertion, you know.

There are some weird bits in here, and and if you didn't mind me speaking about them, the the behemoth and the leviathan, right?

In in the picture, I don't know if you saw it, those get depicted as like the hippopotamus and the crocodile, as if those are like the creatures in the book.

Please, those are not at all what this book is describing.

I mean, a hippo is a pretty doggone big thing, and I will tell you this, right?

It is without a doubt the most dangerous animal in the zoo.

We usually forget that, mainly because they're like four tons.

And if you're in a boat, who cares that teacher says they're a vegetarian?

When hippos get riled up, which happens in a heartbeat, but that's the most volatile animal that they is that there are, you know, they need to really eat eucalyptus and go to sleep.

But you know, they they still continue to sink boats in the Nile today.

I mean, like big boats, because they're just huge.

Um in Africa and uh and to move on a boat and everybody's three hippos coming towards us.

And they're not cute, they're more like, oh my god, like that's a four-ton submarine coming at our one-ton boat.

Um, crocodiles too, right?

They're big things.

But please notice the book is not talking about this.

The book is talking about like animals are four, you know, animalistic powers that are so big, demigods can't slay them or approach them, right?

I mean, is this the Lochness monster?

I don't know, because the Lochness monster doesn't have those kinds of teeth and scales, etc.

These are mythic.

I'm sorry, these are these are being named as as demigods or titans.

Like you want to think when you hear Leviathan, you want to think the Kraken from Clash of the Titans.

And when you hear about the Behemoth, I mean, you're not even talking about like a Brondosaurus.

Again, you're you're talking about like a Titan.

Um and God made those.

And and there they are.

That's that's it.

Um how we reckon with the fact that God not only created order and time and people and called them good, but also God created these fundamentally chaotic entities that are not slayable.

That's that's a pretty that's a pretty bold claim.

I think part of what's hard for us as like logical people is we say, okay, well, maybe not everything happens for a reason, but God works miracles sometimes.

And to be honest, I think in our logical brain, it would be easier if God never worked a miracle than that God sometimes does.

Because we wouldn't expect we wouldn't expect.

Because we want to know when and how God will do it.

And what's interesting is that miracles that don't happen every time are chaotic.

And we'd rather have no chaos and therefore no miracles, than some that we can't understand how they they got.

We want to know how do we pray in such a way that God will answer our prayer?

And and proof of that, having grown up evangelical, is there's ways we pray, like, Lord Jesus, we just, Lord, Lord, we just come before you this day, and Lord, you hear how I keep saying the word Lord, right?

It's a magic word.

And if I season my prayer with it enough, God will answer my prayer.

No one would ever tell you that's what they're doing, but I promise you that's what they're doing.

Because it makes no sense to say the word Lord like it's a comma.

It makes no sense whatsoever, but I promise you it's to get God to answer our prayer because it's a magic word.

We don't believe in magic, but yes, we do.

All of us do.

There's something we can do that's magic that'll make God do a miracle now.

And I think part of this book that's interesting is miracles are chaotic.

So what do you what do you pick?

Really, do you pick God never intervenes for our good?

Is that preferable to God seemingly arbitrarily works miracles?

There cannot be anything arbitrary about God.

Is that true?

I I don't think it's true.

I think it's true.

Well, let's talk about it.

That he can't there can't be anything arbitrary.

Oh, okay.

From our perspective, as opposed to God's perspective, God might not see it as him being arbitrary, but we might.

You know, because God knows the reason why he's doing what he's doing, and we're not privy to that information all of the time.

So we really can't understand.

We don't know what he's thinking.

I mean, it uses our imagination as to what he may be thinking, but we don't really know.

Yeah.

And it it would seem to it would seem to me that if he is all-knowing and he already knows what's going to happen, then things can't be arbitrary.

I'm very confused.

But I'm afraid I understand that line of reasoning.

It makes a lot of sense with the idea of like intellectual perfection that we have, right?

That if God is perfect, then nothing can be arbitrary, it all must be planned.

But I'm afraid the conclusion that brings with it is therefore who are human beings to question God because everything happens for a reason.

I think you're locked into that.

I don't think I am locked into that.

I think I can say I have to re I reject both of those claims.

I don't necessarily believe he does know everything that's gonna happen as far as choices humans are gonna make because of the free will we were given.

I don't think he necessarily, and this is just my opinion, I don't believe he necessarily knows, he knows our hearts, and he might be able to predict how we're gonna react in a certain situation.

Um but we ultimately and and I only say this because I work with children and I am constantly saying, your choices are in your hands, you know.

I mean, so our our choices are in our hands.

Our choices is how you know our attitude is gonna be, um how we're gonna handle different things.

I mean, one of the kind of things that kind of got me about this is I wouldn't have necessarily questioned a whole lot of the stuff happening to Job.

And at the beginning, God himself hadn't said Job was a righteous man.

Yeah.

You know, I if God declares this man a righteous man, not me, not you, not then we know it's true.

Then we know it's true.

Then yes, I do question why did he allow because if if another human or the accuser or whoever had come to God and said, Oh, he's a pretty righteous guy, that wouldn't have It may not be true.

Right.

Whereas, you know, with God's God saying he was a righteous man, that was where I was kind of like, well, if you know he is, if you're saying he is, then yeah.

But I I I just personally don't necessarily believe he knows.

I believe he knows what we're thinking as we think it.

Um but I personally don't necessarily believe he knows how everything's gonna go because I to me that would make things almost pointless, um, like it is a show.

And I think life is a yeah that we are given to live and be enjoyed and work through.

I don't think I would.

This sounds so important, but I've had some values in my life that as much as I wish, I I really don't.

This point is I wish I hadn't gone through any of them.

I definitely would not appreciate the mountaintops and the generosity I see in people and the kindness I see in people.

I would not see those or appreciate those as much as I do if I hadn't been in some chaos.

If any of that makes sense.

If it doesn't, I'm sorry.

Well, I think we have a couple of choices there, and I think it's probably not either-or.

I think it's I think in general our minds like to oversimplify things, and it's interesting the video sort of said Job is in this either-or, and God introduces actually not either-ores.

I love black and white thinking.

I do, I'm very drawn to it.

But I think I have this constant minder, oh, there's like a lot of grays, and it's really hard, I think, to get up in church and say, hey, you really want a black and white and too bad because it's not how life works.

I actually think people find that not comforting.

And I'll tell you, I think that's probably why evangelical churches are more successful than open churches, because life is stressful enough without having religion to be like that.

Um I do want to suggest to you though, um, what I hear Meg saying, when when I was a kid, I learned that God has a perfect plan for your life.

One, it's perfect.

So we were taught as youth we're supposed to pray for the perfect woman that God has made for us to marry, with the supposition that everybody's supposed to be married and a straight world, right?

So we're supposed to do that because uh there's only one person God's made for you, that's your soulmate, and it's perfect.

And um anytime you sin, you've come down from that line, and it's hard to know whether or not you can ever make it back up there or not.

So be really careful because God's got a perfect plan and you can miss it.

Heaven forbid you marry the wrong person because now you're stuck there.

Think about all the pressure that is.

Oh man, if you pick the wrong major in college, you've missed God's perfect plan for your life.

And it might work in an okay, but more like at that level and not at that level.

Is that what you thought about say?

No.

I this is what I grew up as a young person.

Then I think there's another opportunity to think about this, which is that God is the God of infinite possibility.

Oh, by the way, this one tells you be really careful which toppings you pick at the salad bar, because if you didn't pick God's planned toppings, you've missed God's perfect will for your life.

I know that sounds silly, and my youth group leaders never would have said that, but that's the logical conclusion of that way of thinking, right?

Oh Lord Jesus, direct me to which toppings to pick from my salad.

I know that that sounds nuts.

I've had those thoughts before.

Crazy.

Another one that is, right, is this idea actually that instead of one way, God always has infinite possibilities.

So God works in a decision tree.

Look, uh, I had like four choices of major before me, and I picked this one, and God says, okay, given that, here's like a bunch of possibilities you can do.

So God is always rerouting, redirecting the course.

Um it's an interesting way to think.

When we think about what God knows, you know, I'll tell you, interestingly enough, I pretty much know what my kids are going to do in many situations.

They don't know what they're going to do, but I do.

Um sometimes, even though I know what they're going to do, I give them the choice.

Not so that I can be confirmed in my knowledge, but hopefully so that they will pick the good thing and will have some trust.

So the bottom line is I give my kids opportunities to tell the truth, even though I know they're going to lie to me.

You do too.

You you you you you do this.

I mean, we all do this.

And we hope, sometimes against all hope, that they will surprise us by picking to tell the truth, even though we pretty much know they're not going to.

Sometimes that happens so much, we no longer give that choice.

We no longer give opportunities to lie, tell the truth.

We just say, I know this happened.

Well, and actually in the long run, they finally end up learning because at some point they'll get in trouble for something they didn't do.

But we never know what they'll learn.

No, we never know that.

And this I think is a really interesting thing to think about when we talk about things like chaos and randomness, is that you know, there's there's linear minds.

There are linear minds, and to be honest with you, the only way you can have a linear mind is if you had a secure attachment as a child.

Now, there's other things that can destroy linearity.

Things that will destroy it for sure are fetal alcohol syndrome.

If you're born with fetal alcohol syndrome, you have a very difficult time associating cause and effect.

It's cognitively impaired in your wiring.

You might be able to get correlation.

Like in general, A goes with B.

But sometimes if the fetal alcohol syndrome is so strong, you don't even get correlation.

Which means the world is always a random place.

If you were neglected as a child or abused, the world will always be a random place for you.

Because you cried and no one came.

Sometimes you didn't cry and people came.

See, as a little boy, I cried and somebody came.

Sometimes I didn't cry and people came.

Cause and effect, or at least correlation, world a reliable place.

For people for whom nobody came or nobody changed them or nobody fed them reliably, the world is a behemoth and a Leviathan.

It's interesting to think.

That's not anything they earned or deserved.

That is how the world is for them.

And in some ways, the fact that that exists says the behemoth and the leviathan exist.

And that's just a tough, that's a tough bit.

Now, I I I want to return, I don't want to like cut this short.

I want to say last week, if we insist that this book explains God's justice, I'm a hundred percent sure we're gonna be disappointed.

And I want to suggest to you, this could be about that, but I'm not sure the book is about that.

I think this book is about other things, like love and friendship.

So, how is it about the relationship between humans and God?

Well, you know, one of the phrases Carol Newsom gave us last week, and it was in the book, is this question do we love God for who God is or for what God loves does for us?

And that's a really, I think, interesting question.

To be honest with you, no matter how liberal we think we are in answering it, I want to tell you, I think most of us love God for what God does for us or how we perceive that.

I do.

I think most of us, I think a lot of our piety is conditional, and I think we try, to me, a mark of maturity in our relationship with God is that we move away from that.

Same with on our relationships.

If my love for my wife is conditional, we will get divorced, or else we will become bitter with one another because we will disappoint.

Or both.

Yeah.

But in any relationship, really.

Well, and I want to suggest, if I, and this I think is the real core, right?

If my love for myself is conditional, I will be disappointed most of my life.

And that's an interesting thing because you will never perceive anything else from anybody.

You can't.

And the other thing that's interesting is in loving ourselves, chaotic things happen.

Like we get injured.

We were working out so hard, and our body was so important, and sports were so important, and then there's this injury we didn't deserve.

We were working hard and busting our tails and eating right and not overtraining, and then like we blew our ACL out, you know.

And uh oh my god, like I hate my body.

These are really hard things to deal with, and they're they're not earned or deserved.

They just happen.

And they're but there is a causal link there.

There can be, but it is arbitrary.

I mean, I'll just tell you, for example, I mean, I guess we could say the cause is that it's in our DNA, you know, that people don't have a DNA.

But I I don't know about that.

I mean, I don't think there's a causal link between cancer growth.

We know that there's factors that grow it, and then it's just sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it does.

That seems to be what the cancer science is telling us.

We all know people who, everyone in their in their family dies from a heart attack, and they're fine.

You know, like this is strange.

So our DNA talks about correlation, but does it talk about causation?

I mean, these are hard bits.

That I think is before us with ourselves.

And I wonder about this with God, and I and I also think this book talks about meaningful friendship.

And at a certain point, Jeb's friends aren't good friends because they won't go, they won't actually really listen to him.

They say, I hear what you're saying, but there's always a but.

You know, there is this friendship part.

There is this relationship part of God.

And like any relationship, like a relationship between you and being two love one another.

Because as long as that love lasts, and as long as we feel love, then we reciprocate love because we love.

To me, it works the same way with God, and that God is in my experience a very candidate and uh um you know, and listening to God uh every day and trying to be attentive to whatever it is that God wants to learn that day.

Um there is a gotta be warm.

I don't know, it's it's it's uh it's a two way to do it.

In other words, when I focus on God and uh even when I'm all focused, the thing is I'm trying to live my life in that direction.

God resign.

And there's a warmth and peace that comes with that.

So uh, you know, of course the same with Joe, you know, bad things are going to happen all of a sudden.

Oh to me, the only way to get home is just ready to rely, to want to talk to God, rely on God, and listen.

But you know, I think what God calls us to do is to put God first.

When we look in our lives and say, where is God in my life today?

And then my list of priorities is it up number one place, or is it down here on number five or something like that?

Or how much time do I put aside during the day just to sit and listen or to read a little scripture or something of that sort?

Those are all things that go into fostering a relationship with God, and God responds to that.

Now they're gonna be right, though, because God I I always look at them like saying, okay, now I've told you what I think.

Now let's see how you're gonna live and don't feel too much.

But the thing is, but the thing is this, it's a term, and I can't explain all the chaos either.

I know some of us cause it's a human being.

We don't take care of the earth like we're paying for it.

But the thing is this, but the thing is this, when you're in a relationship, the guy is a friendly walk with you daily.

There is a relationship there.

There is a give and take.

And I mean that doesn't mean you're gonna know everything or know it perfectly or anything, but you know that you're when you're walking with God, you stand a good chance to get it right.

But that relationship is there, and uh because God is not gonna leave you out hanging dry all the time.

In other words, when God says you're serious about being in communion with God, then God is going to respond.

I want to tell you, at my core, I probably believe what you're saying.

But I want to tell you I think it's wrong.

Well, that's my experience.

So if I'm sorry, no, no, no, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

I want to tell you, I actually think I believe that, but I want to push on it a little bit if I can, not just to be nasty, but I think I believe it, but I think I I think I'm worried about where that that that takes me for a couple of ways.

Um I don't know that that God responds to us, because I think the truth is God is always giving.

I think really the question is whether we respond to God.

Um and I don't think because I accept the gift, God gives me more.

I think the truth is my res my response to what God gives is what determines whether or not I've actually accepted these gifts or not.

You know?

So I I don't know that if I say, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna take this gift that God says, oh, you take that one, I'll give you more than normal.

I think we're just aware of what God's doing.

I mean, I sort of think this this by the way, I don't actually trust this, but I think I'm thinking this.

Does that make sense?

You're talking about we open the door by our response to God.

I I yeah, but I didn't and I don't think God pulls away to teach us things.

I don't think that.

I think we have this, I think when chaos happens to us, we think that's what God's done, and I think we're wrong.

But listen, I I believe God does that, but I know that can't be right.

Do you get what I'm saying?

I mean, there's this difference between like really good, beautiful ideas and what I really believe.

And I think we're trying to get somewhere, and I think the book is inviting us, right?

Did God did this to do this to you, or is that your perception of how God behaves?

I mean, I always think that's an opportunity to weigh this out.

I do want to say one of the I'm not understanding how what you're saying is different from what she's saying.

Well, I think what I'm saying is what I heard you say is when we put God first, God responds.

And uh I think I I believe that, but I think that can't be right.

I think when we when we receive God the what as as giver, we respond.

So your response is important.

That's what I think, but I think God is frankly always giving and not pulling back.

That's just our misperception.

And I will tell you, usually I have that feeling, that belief, but I think it's not right.

So I like trying to reconcile that I think is really important because I don't think God is reactive to our choices.

I think we perceive God as reacting.

You know, and this is like the hardest thing about that Desmond Tutu phrase: there's nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to make God love you less.

That is so not linear.

Yeah.

But what that invites us to say is God doesn't react to sin by punishing and virtue by rewarding.

God treats us the same no matter what we do.

It's really our awareness that changes.

And that's really hard, I think, when chaos and randomness happens.

So it's led me to this thought that I'm just going to err.

God is not afraid of pain.

And I will tell you, we are extremely afraid of pain.

And uh, I I would tell you in the hospital what I know this more than ever, more than anything, people in general are not afraid of death.

It's an interesting thing.

We're not afraid of death, we're very afraid of dying.

And the thing that people always say is he didn't suffer long.

Because that we are so afraid of pain.

And I I was when I was running, I read this entry, I was listening to this book called Born to Run, and there was this quote, and I think it was learn to make a friend of pain, and you'll never be alone.

And it was a really interesting thought.

And um, you know, I I said this on Sunday, and I've really emerged in my thinking experience the last couple of years that there is a fundamental difference between being alone and being lonely, and those two things have nothing to do with each other, and I've confused that most of my life.

And um, boy, you know, I will tell you, like all people, I'm afraid of pain, but I you know, and like hurting, but I'm just really not convinced God is afraid of that.

Well, let me also refer to uh what I what I said about you know the glass bells.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, my take on it doesn't mean that's what God's take on it is, is that you know um that was just a way of ideating was when there are glass bells.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the thing is this one thing I've also noticed about glass bells is that at one end there's something positive to that.

So I I don't know whether that's God's way of getting the glass bell is God's way of getting my attention and preparation for what's coming or anything of that sort.

I don't.

But the thing is this, I agree with you 100%.

It's our response that it counts.

But I'm telling you, if you respond to God and keep God close to you, your life is a change.

I and I think I think part of what this book asks us to do, though, is consider how we view God as giver.

Because I think the truth is Job does keep God first, and then he has this terrible stuff happen, and and it taints the whole way he looks at God.

So I think this book is an opportunity for for us to reconsider who God is and how God works.

Yeah, well, you know the people in California are dealing with it because one Monday morning they woke up and things were normal, and that Friday they had nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah, I want to tell you, I think I think we can explain that a lot easier than the fact that people have abused us or that people have rejected our love systemically.

I think those are the harder ones.

I mean, the fires and stuff are hard, but I think like loving somebody who refuses to accept your love and in fact acts in such a way as to that feels like rejection for years, I think that's harder.

Is that okay to say I'm not loving God?

Oh, I know, and no, no, I know that for sure.

And we but human beings do have the responsibility to care for the earth, and we are not doing that.

So there are consequences.

That's where that's coming from.

God doesn't have to do anything.

You know, in America today, I don't know that God is even thought about very much.

If people don't listen, then God just says, okay, we'll let you have your way and you'll pay the consequences.

But that's my thinking.

I'm not saying that's God's thinking.

No, and I think I think, like, you know, and and just like a like continuing that thread, what's interesting is like I I grew up in churches where we thought about God all the time, but we thought God was as hateful as we were.

And that's this interesting thing.

And I would tell you, I'm not criticizing one party over another.

Another, but I just think it's really interesting that we can say, like, God is but backing the Democratic Party or God's backing the Tea Party, and and women are second-class citizens and aliens don't have rights.

And you know, I just I'll just tell you, as a kid, as a kid, I thought God was like that.

And how could how could you think any different?

If God backs the Tea Party and the Tea Party says no one deserves any assistance, well then God backs not assisting people.

I mean, that's like the therefore, that's the conclusion that you make, right?

I mean, so I want to say, I'm afraid we do think about God quite a bit.

I just think we think about the right way.

We think about our God, not like actual God.

The God we've made in our image.

Well, we always seem to be the human attribute on God.

Absolutely.

And and I don't think that I don't believe that.

I mean I don't know.

I don't think he you know kind of intervened if I'm going down the street and there's an accident.

You know, there's chaos in the world and it's there because it's there.

Yeah, I think the relationship with God is you know, if if things aren't working right, then you step back and say, okay, what's happening here?

You know, how do I do this differently?

And I think that's a that's where I understand.

Uh-huh.

Oh, oh God.

I don't think he comes down and says, Well, you know, I'm gonna give you a good day today or a bad day today.

I don't know.

Yeah, and I I think actually, again, you're this is all like we're kind of like churning around this really strong idea, and I think one of the hard conclusions is does God give us what we deserve?

Because the truth is you don't love people because they deserve it.

You love people because you've chosen to do that.

And and this is really hard then.

Like, wait a minute, so you love me undeservedly, but I would like some rewards or consequences.

Like, I would like your love to be linear and explainable.

And this is my biggest like poison gift from fundamentalists.

My fundamentalist religion is God loved me, but I had to earn it.

And the way I earned it was by avoiding sex, drugs, and rock and roll and praying all the time, and heaven forbid I ever danced.

I mean, these were slightly like I'm just kidding, we didn't actually have that hang up, but I like these I think is a really hard bit is okay, like God loves me, and now I need to do a good job and keep earning that love and making God happy, because if I don't, God will be mad or I'll disappoint God.

And you know, that's like this interesting place.

There's only a few relationships in my life where really I can't be disappointed with the person that I love.

I can feel sad for the consequences they make that hurt them, but they can never disappoint me because my love wasn't predicated on what they did for me.

My love was predicated on who they were.

There's only a few like that.

So you're talking about worthiness in that case in contrast to just loving someone.

To gift.

Because that's what God does.

So if we're going to be in God's image, then it would be good if we just could love people.

Well, and I I actually think that's an interesting bit about God's response in the whirlwind, is God says, Listen, Job, don't tell me who to love.

Because I love the ostrich, which is the stupidest animal in the world.

And the book says that.

The book says the ostrich is the dumbest doggone animal in the world.

It doesn't have any compassion for its own young.

It runs around wild as can be, and I feed it.

And that's an interesting bit because how can God love something that gives I I want to tell you, I think that's what these speeches from God's speech might be about.

Is God loves entities that give no return.

That's what love is, right?

That's unconditional.

See, see, I want you to think about this book might be asking us not to consider why there's suffering in the world, but it might be asking us to consider what love is like.

And that's very hard to accept.

I I I really I hate it.

Can I tell you, I hate it.

I'm hating the non-linearity of it.

And this is like why I think in Advent we heard this a little bit ago.

The wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, and the lion will lay down with the calf, and it will choose to eat straw, and little babies will crawl over the den of the adder, and a child will lead them.

Um this is so impossible.

Because remember, they're not just gonna lay down when we sedate them.

Like they're going to choose.

So it's the non-linearity that you're not liking?

Because that's the part I like the best.

Well, of course, but I think the thing that's hard about it is that it gets rid of cause and effect relationships.

And then what's really, really hard is if I'm the kid and I've been preyed upon by the leopard to think about coming to a point of reconciliation where I can rest, not just in the leopard's presence, but I can like spoon with the leopard, and that helps me rest.

But it's telling you, isn't it also telling us that the leopard has to choose that first?

No, I think it's telling us that actually on God's holy mountain that's going to happen regardless of what we choose now.

I think I think we always have choices, and we've got to do it.

I didn't think we I'm actually not convinced we get choices after we die.

I I I'm not really convinced of that.

Why wouldn't we?

I think God knows.

Yeah, in some ways, I hope we do.

I hope God gives us what's better than our choices.

I think we get choices now about whether we're going to live into that in this lifetime or not.

But in some ways, I kind of hope that God takes our choice away and gives us the reconciliation we didn't even know we could have.

Because we got choice making with us to have.

I think I understand.

That's personally upset heaven.

C.S.

Lewis sort of thinks we get choices after we die.

And he says, right, people live, hell's only eternal if we choose that.

And I I think that's not really a great way to think about after life.

I think it's a better way to think about life now.

Yeah, right.

We can choose to live in hell now, but I sort of think part of hope is that God's gonna work about reconciliation later, so why not live into it now?

Why not?

Why not?

And I think part of the why not is because the damn leopard has been biting me.

You know, and I think the hard thing about reconciliation is that I can want so badly to be reconciled, and if the leopard chooses to bite me again, we there's not reconciliation.

I'm being preyed upon more.

Like I think this is the hardest thing, and I think Job is about this.

I have no control over reconciliation, it's chaotic.

The book is about that.

I have no control over genuine love, it's chaotic.

I want it to be earned so that I can feel like I did something, and it doesn't work like that.

Well, I think even beyond that, let's let's think about a little slightly different way about love, which is attraction.

And let's just, I'm not talking about sexual, I'm talking about attraction to other people.

As a teacher, they were students I was naturally attracted to because they did the work I wanted them to do.

They had nice handwriting, they were upright kids.

But oddly enough, if I was honest, there were kids I had this attraction toward that did none of those things.

And I could not understand why I felt attraction toward them.

It was so chaotic.

Isn't that interesting though?

I find that the most interesting.

Isn't it dis isn't this book about that?

The chaos of attraction in some ways?

It's chaotic.

I could not understand why I had this affinity for one particular student who I mean, I just had no idea.

And at a certain point I said, who cares why?

I'm just going to choose what I agree with it.

But I really wanted to understand it.

What is this teaching me about myself?

And am I trying to save this student?

And do I want to be the but loving someone is not the intellectual uh exercise that you're so I completely agree with you, and I wonder if this book isn't about that.

Yeah.

I think the linear thinking, you know, it to me it goes back to what you were saying earlier about wanting to know what to do to avoid pain.

We'll do whatever we can to avoid pain.

Emotional pain, physical pain, whatever.

You know, I live with a six-year-old.

No, but get out of the street, you know, you're gonna get hit by a car.

Do you see me getting hit by a car?

I'm standing right here.

I'm not getting hit by a car.

You know, but I think we want to know, and that's one of the yeah, the we look to religion.

When when my husband and I moved to Texas, he he grew up going to many different churches.

He was in an orphanage for a long time and blah blah blah, lots of churches.

We went to the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts, we moved to Texas, we went to St.

Peter's in Pasadena, and he was ecstatic to see that the prayer book was the same as the prayer book, and it made him so comfortable because he knew what to do.

Um, and I think um nobody, you know, I get a little one of the things I'm doing in my morning devotional right now is reading some of Paul.

And Paul loves to say, I rejoice in suffering.

I take it as a you know a great thing when I suffer for Jesus, when I suffer for God.

And my natural mind is like, no, suffering's not something to rejoice about.

So we want we desperately want to know why we do the things we do.

Um, and we don't understand ourselves sometimes, but to me it does kind of go back to wanting to avoid pain.

Yeah.

Um and I think until we accept that it is inevitable that there are going to be struggles in life, whether they be physical or mental or financial or with our relationships or what the heck, maybe all of them.

Yeah, you know.

Um we can't if we spend all our time in the why, why, why, why, we get stuck.

I get stuck.

If I'm really busy trying to figure out why this is happening to me when there isn't a very evident cause, um I stay stuck in the suffering because I'm not doing anything.

I'm not even asking God to comfort me in the suffering.

I'm not saying, give me everything back, just give me a little comfort, make my heart feel that warmth.

You know, I don't even do that because I'm so obsessed with the why.

And I I've learned in the last 10 years or so to let go of more and more of that and just kind of hold on tight and ride the ride.

Yeah.

Um but I'm not there yet.

Well, the ride too.

Yeah.

And I have stood in my closet and yelled, what in the world do you want from me?

Because I didn't I, you know, wasn't gonna walk away.

I wasn't full of disbelief.

I was mad.

I was really mad.

I was like, I have done everything you told me to do.

Yeah, and this is still this one day started falling off the rails.

You got it.

I could relate to that.

I felt years, you know, oh now I did not go through the little people hung on my every word and listen to what I said.

I never felt that way, but I was like, what?

Compared to the way I was living in my college years, we're doing great.

You know, yeah.

See, you just said it.

You just said it.

What do you want from me?

What do you want from it?

As if God has engineered everything that happens to us.

It's really interesting.

You know, I and I just we talked about this-me to respond to it.

Yeah, we talked we talked about this word, we talked about this word escapism a few weeks ago.

Martin Heidegger says religion is a charade because it's a way of us trying to get away from the fact we're going to die one day.

And I'm gonna tell you, I think there's something even more insidious about escapism.

I think we try to escape from pain and suffering.

And maybe that's what he says about death.

So, you know, when the Buddha says life is dukkha, life is pushing the shopping cart backward with a broken wheel, and the cause of dukkha is desire.

I wonder if the Buddha isn't really saying the reason it the reason life is suffering is because we try to escape suffering, and thereby we try to escape living.

And one of the ways we try to do this is by saying why does it happen?

Because the truth is, if you knew why it happens, you would fix it so it didn't happen anymore.

Absolutely.

Because the truth is we don't accept life.

Yep.

And I and I and I wonder if this isn't another way to think about not necessarily why do bad things happen to good people, but just the nature of life.

Life has pain, and God isn't afraid of that.

And just think through.

I have no idea whether it hurt my daughter to be born.

It probably did.

You you do you know what I mean?

But I would say that her birth was a very good thing, and I think you'd say that about any child's birth.

You know, I I can tell you that like to do a race like a marathon, if you are not willing to suffer, don't do it.

Because I don't care who you are, that race hurts.

And you have to decide that you're going to be okay with the pain or you're not.

No, you don't you don't accrue heavenly favor by finishing a marathon.

That's a goal you set, and you get to judge whether or not you accomplished your goal.

But I think that this part of it, you know, is making peace may not be the right word, but maybe it is.

Maybe it's making peace with the fact that suffering is a part of making these goals.

I don't know that that frees the whole problem up, because I I will tell you, I have a few relationships in which I just I try and I try and I try, and I continue to get not just equanimity, but responses that feel to me like rejection.

And you know, like I am very much afraid of that pain.

So sometimes I say, I just can't suffer that anymore, so I I have to give up.

Like I I can't try anymore.

And by the way, I think that's okay.

Like I'm not judging that.

And in some ways, right, like there's accountability, and I will tell you, like, one of the things I suffer most from is the difference between accountability and forgiveness.

Because they're very, very different things.

And and I, you know, there's this thing like, well, I'm supposed to be forgiving, which means no consequences, which it does not mean that at all, but how it is you you love somebody and they perceive you as loving them when you in fact are imposing consequences, it's really, really hard.

I and I just I wonder if this book doesn't offer us to say, listen, one way of coping with life is escapism.

God's engineering it, you'll learn something, hey, maybe this is an opportunity, you reflect, you'll repent.

I think this book is saying, you know, actually pain is real and it hurts, and God loves people who don't love God back.

And um what do you choose to do with that difficult reality?

This is why I think this book is wisdom.

You you know what I mean.

Like this is this is wise.

It doesn't explain God.

I think it just begs us to really consider not just like evil, but like love and friendship.

I mean, look at this loser uh Elihu, by the way, right?

You know, he comes out of nowhere.

What a dang loser, you know?

And what's interesting, like, is we read that, like, these friends are losers.

But we're often loser friends.

I mean, we do this stuff all the time.

And you know who's more guilty of it than anybody?

Churches are, and pastors are, because we want to escape suffering.

We want to get ourselves, and we definitely want to get God off the hook because since we're afraid of pain, God must be afraid of it either.

But you know, I think like that's part of the truth of the incarnation.

God's not afraid of pain.

Yeah.

God, I think, is not, God does not approve of inflicting pain on other people.

But pain itself is just it.

I mean, again, God created a birthing process that is painful and said that's and said that's good.

And I think I'm just by the way, I didn't premeditate this.

I mean, that this idea has come to me about God's tolerance for pain that I don't like.

But but but God made it hurt, sorry.

God made it didn't have to hurt having the baby, didn't have to hurt, didn't have to hurt mom, didn't have to hurt the baby, but does.

Well, our logo is the man God suffering on the cross, right?

Yeah, that's kind of our thing.

Yeah, and now and that's a little bit different because that was imposed by human beings.

But I just mean even like growing hurts.

I don't know if you remember getting growing pains.

Growing pain, that's achieving.

It it hurts.

And when you get older to it, then the pain comes back.

Yeah.

This is I think this is one of the things we have to contend with that we rarely want to do.

God made that happen.

God did not make us impervious to just sorry, natural pain.

I mean, there's no malicious force that makes arthritis happen.

God made arthritis.

And God's fine with that.

We're not.

God is fine with that.

I mean.

But you know, when with all these questions, when it comes back to uh loving others and those that we don't like and so forth, what it's that everything I mean, uh it just comes back to us, because how are we going to handle that?

And uh, in other words, we forgive other people, not just we forgive other people more for our sake than for theirs, because I've been in relationships before, in which um doesn't work.

And so eventually you get to the point where you gotta break it off because it's not like living any longer, you know, and so but uh but when you put um and um then that frees you up to move in your direction, the direction you feel you need to go, and you know, life can change.

But when we look at all these problems that are in the world, and you know, because you know, God made the world out of chaos.

So there's chaos in the world.

Um what it comes what it comes down to in the on the bottom line, so to speak, is that how do we relate to our world?

I can't do it for you, I can't do it for you, I can't do it for anybody else.

The question is, what and how am I going to relate to the world?

Yes, I don't understand these problems.

Uh no, I don't know that I can see anything through the light at the end of the tunnel.

But the thing, the only thing that I can do is say, okay, God, I know you're with me.

Help me walk through this.

Learn from it, whatever it can be learned.

I don't know that it's a lesson for me, but I mean, you gotta you're probably gonna learn something just because you didn't do it, you know.

So and so I would suggest uh you know, I I got real upset with God about the migrants and the children, and I'm still angry about the children.

But you know, I can't do anything worse for them than to pray for them.

That's all I can do, or contribute to causes that would help them, or something of that sort.

And uh and my you know my heart hurts for them.

But the thing is this that's what I can do.

And uh so it when I meet other people who are they who say, well, they need to be locked up, then I can stand up to them if I think it's worthwhile.

You know, but the point is, I don't know that I'm making any sense, but the point is it really all comes down to our lap, what's in our lap, and how do we choose to live life?

And it's God first in our lives, if we have a relationship with God, because otherwise life makes no sense to me if there's no relationship with God.

And you'd be it would be handling the pain the same way.

In other words, you get pain.

You know, I've got this thing in my head now, and I'm 82 years old, you know, so lidocaine doesn't help it a whole lot.

When is this like size enough?

It will go away.

But uh thing is this uh I guess in a way there are no answers in life.

It's just how do we handle life?

Companionship with God.

To me, this uh it comes from the arrival of Christ and God's sacrifice.

But is that uh and when I was a child, I think I was lucky because my mother prayed and taught me to pray.

When a dear friend was uh had polio in those days, it's really really scary.

And then I just started maybe at family problems.

My father was an alcoholic.

And so I had this Guinean Bible, and every night when I went to bed, and I wouldn't worry, I guess, I would ask God to fix everything, list everything.

But I was kind of comforted.

And and I still do that.

Um I I don't really blame God for anything, and I guess I learned then that you could pray for things, but they wouldn't come, you know.

But so and I still don't think that God brings bad things to me or keeps me from getting anything I need.

All I know is that God is present.

And the one time I felt in the present of God, because I didn't know one of those prayers where I tried to tell him everything I was gonna die to knots, is that um this just hugely compassionate being was there that knew me, like in the psalm says, that knew me totally and accepted what I was.

And it also seemed to have a sense of humor with it too.

But anyway, that that's sort of my my feeling and how I interact with God.

I'm afraid with pain too.

And as you get older and things happen, you know, you want it to work out okay.

But but I do know that God will always be with me.

Yeah.

You know, I do I do want to say having been in hospitals where people die, again, we're so afraid of how bad it hurts, and of course we have no idea what the person's feeling.

We have no idea.

But because they're twitching, we know it hurts.

And and it may not hurt at all.

It may not.

And um, it's this weird thing, right, in in in in Buddhism and having lived with chronic pain too.

When I don't accept for the pain, it hurts worse.

I mean, I know this because I've lived through it.

And the interesting thing is that the Buddha says pain is an unwelcome guest, and we treat all guests with hospitality.

I'm not it's an interesting thing, you know.

And I I I again, what's great about this book and about this conversation is there's really no way to draw at the closure.

There's no closure here.

And I think part of what she's thinking, yeah, because he gets his stuff back, he gets kids back, but we all know you don't replace dogs and you don't replace kids.

They're not replaceable.

So interestingly enough, she says it brings to this ending in her commentary.

She says the ending destabilizes the whole book.

And and and she probably might maybe right.

Excellent.

I actually want to read.

I make sense of the book because I believe in something that's going to last forever.

But is the book written where they think they die and they go to the dirt?

Yes.

It's like it kind of messes the story up for me, but there's no eternity.

Well, I think what's a really interesting thing.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's actually a really interesting thing to think about.

I mean, I think it comes back to this one of the questions they ask.

Do you love God because of what God gives or will give you?

Or do you love God because God has made life what it is?

And I don't know that it's an either-or.

I mean, I think this question is, is our faith predicated on God will reward me when I die, or is it God has something for me right now, even though it's way more complicated and non-linear than I want it to be.

So I want to say, why can't it be both?

And what's great about this book is it didn't even have that other conclusion about all this good stuff happens.

It says, right now, what is God like and what are the opportunities in life?

And in some ways, again, it's not fair that God loves the damn ostrich.

You know, like that's not fair.

But God does.

And I again, it's not fair.

It's not fair that God loves my enemies that reject me and reject God.

And God does.

And the question is, does that in does that invite me to a bigger way of living right now?

And I really I really think that's why this book is so helpful.

It's not just about later, it really is about now.

It's amazing that they settled for that.

And now you can see why it became really important that there's heaven later.

Like, and that idea emerge.

I mean, you can, you can, you can.

And I didn't know that heaven later is escapism.

I think it's actually living into the ideological perfection that we want to have now and we can't seem to see.

So it's really helpful for us to believe God is going to work it out even if we can't.

I mean, that's really what heaven says in the end.

God's gonna work out what we can't work out.

Um thanks for conversing.

Uh please don't skip next week because it definitely is about love.

Um we're reading Song of Solomon.

So um I have a question.

We so we are meeting.