Messy Church: Encountering The Wall (Andrew Meher)

Andrew Meher: you you open up your Bibles with me to Job chapter 23. It is not pronounced Job, it is pronounced Job. And let me tell you, when I'm looking for a few images to put on my slides for Job, it's very hard to just Google ⁓ pictures of Job and get what you need. Paintings of Job. Google doesn't understand. I had to... make Google biblically literate. ⁓ Mixed reviews so far. ⁓ Job chapter 23, we're going to get there in just a minute. We are in this season of Lent in a sermon series that we call messy church. Because last time I checked, a church is not the building. A church is the humans in the room. And humans are kind of messy. Just look at the person next to you and say, you're kind of messy. Lovingly. Lovingly. And now look back at them and say, I know, and you are too. So one of the things, one of the hopes in this series and the point of it is to help kind of in some ways not take ourselves so seriously. We come into church and we often put on a false front. I have to act a certain way or be a certain way instead of actually just letting what's really there come out and then allowing Christ to transform. Because if we hide it, like we talked about last week, real change can't happen. Adam and Eve hid their shame from God, and God had to come find them and meet them in order to deal with their shame the way only God can. We're gonna hit another theme of messiness. The first week we invited you to, from Proverbs 14, to stay in. the mess that if we are going to be fruitful Christians, we need to be people who are willing to stay in and acknowledge the messes of life in our own lives with each other. The sin, the stuff we want to say I'm fine, but we haven't dealt with, the brokenness, the past pain or trauma that has been done to us, all of these things need to be acknowledged if we're gonna be fruitful. The week after that, we talked specifically about naming and confessing sin. That confession of sin is really about saying, God, I trust you with my life more than I trust myself. And so I am willing to submit to your way. And I'm going to acknowledge that this way of living is actually sin, and it is not the best thing for my life. And we discover that what comes out of that is God's joy. And then last week, we talked about the way that losses and pain or trauma or abuse that has been suffered in our life can often create ⁓ deep places of shame and pain. And instead of dealing with it and facing with it before God, we like to try and cover it up. And we have fig leaves like Adam and Eve that we try and cope with. And the invitation was to remove those fig leaves and allow God to meet us and meet the real need and be covered by God alone. Now this week we're going to encounter a kind of mess that is in keeping with that song that Lindsay led us in and the team led us in and that I invited us to just sing a part of again. It's in keeping with that theme because it is probably the most challenging of all the kinds of messes that we have to deal with as Christians, but it is probably one of the most significant in terms of seeing change and life change to become like Jesus. And so we're gonna read Job chapter 23. It is a response of Job to his friends as they're having this conversation. about suffering that Job is experiencing that seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. And so let's read Job 23 as we talk about ⁓ what I'm calling today, encountering the wall. Encountering the wall. Let's read this starting in verse one. Then Job spoke again. My complaint today is still a bitter one. And I try hard not to groan aloud. If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his court, I would lay out my case and present my arguments. Then I would listen to his reply and understand what he says to me. If only it were that simple. Would he use his great power to argue with me? No, he would give me a fair hearing. Honest people can reason with him. So I would be forever acquitted of my judge. I go east, but he's not there. I go west, but I cannot find him. I do not see him in the north, for he is hidden. I look to the south, but he is concealed. But he knows where I am going, and when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold. For I have stayed on God's paths. I have followed His ways and not turned aside. I have not departed from His commands, but have treasured His words more than daily food. But once He has made His decision, who can change His mind? Whatever He wants to do, He does. So He will do to me whatever He has planned. He controls my destiny. No wonder I am so terrified in his presence. When I think of it, terror grips me. God has made me sick at heart. The Almighty has terrified me. Darkness is all around me. Thick, impenetrable darkness is everywhere. Let's pray again as we come before the Lord's word today. Lord, as we approach a somewhat mysterious text and a difficult text for us to wrap our heads around, I pray, Lord, that you would meet us in our unknowing. I pray, Lord, that you would meet us in not necessarily words that we are able to comprehend and fully understand, but you would meet us with a sense that you are leading the way, whether we understand the way. In Jesus name. And all God's people said. There is a classic movie that some of you will know and some of you were not born yet called Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Anyone seen this film? You guys know what I'm talking about? Yeah, it's like on TV I think all the time now. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles starring Steve Martin and John Candy. And it's a classic kind of movie where, you know, ⁓ Steve Martin plays a character who is kind of a high powered ⁓ business executive and he's in New York City on business and it's right before Thanksgiving and he's trying to get home and he's got a really indecisive client and it's keeping him and he finally ⁓ gets to the airport and his flight's delayed. There's a lot of weather and they're really hoping they can take off before this blizzard comes through. They finally are able to take off. The blizzard detours them. trying to get back home to Chicago. They end up having to land in Wichita, Kansas. And so he's stuck in Wichita, Kansas with John Candy's character, who's already thoroughly annoying him by this point. And they go on a journey to try and get to their destination in Chicago through various and hilarious means of transportation. And along the way as they encounter different challenges on their journey, especially Steve Martin's character undergoes a significant transformation where he moves from being kind of a jerk at the beginning of the film, especially to John Candy's character, to a more kind and compassionate human being. And I won't spoil the ending beyond that. you should check it out. ⁓ This is a movie that is ⁓ part of a genre or a type of film called a road movie. You know road movies, there can be like, this is a road comedy, there are road horror movies, road adventure movies. They all ⁓ are based in this idea of going on a journey and yeah, the destination kind of matters for the plot of the movie, but what really matters in a road movie is exploring the transformation that occurs in the characters along the way. How are they going to be changed as a result of what happens to them on this journey? And we're engaged in the story because we want to know what is going on. What kind of change is going to happen with Steve Martin from the beginning to the end? What is going to happen? Is it ultimately going to change him for the better? For the worst? Is it unclear? And these movies really catch our attention because it's so much of what life is like, isn't it? The journey of life Though that feels like there's destinations that we're trying to get to, does anyone else feel like you never quite arrive? Does it always feel like you get to where you think you were going and then there's a little bit further to go? There's a next thing, and some of that is ⁓ stuff that we need to adjust our expectations or learn how to be content with where we are. But there is a sense because of this broken world that we live in, because of what we talked about last week with Adam and Eve falling into temptation and sin and brokenness and this fractured human existence entering the world, the text in Genesis actually says that they left the garden and the language in the Hebrew sort of implies that they're now on this journey in the wilderness. And this is now the life that we are in. And so the book of Job, in some ways, is picking up on that theme. Job is part of the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament, along with the book of Proverbs, the book of Lamentations, the book of Ecclesiastes. And Job, in some ways, is like the masterpiece culmination of all of the wisdom literature. And you know why it's the masterpiece? Is because the The story ends, if you've not read it, the story ends and you're not quite sure why all that happened. Because there's a journey that's unfolding and there's certainly transformation that takes place along the way. But we're not exactly clear whether this was a good journey, a bad journey, an indifferent journey. And what our response is to a story like Job's actually tells us a lot about what our own personal expectations are. what's happening in our own soul, what we think about God and what he should or should not be doing in our lives. And so there's all of these challenge that we wrestle with in the book of Job. And it's so helpful to us because the Christian life is really a journey. It is one big road movie where we are journeying towards being united with God as it says in the book of Revelation at the end of the Christian scriptures where God will be with his people and the people will be with God. That's the destination. It matters tremendously. That's where we're headed. But there is a journey that we're all in along the way and there is transformation on that journey if we allow God to do the transformative work. God wants to do. If. If we don't, we get stuck. We get bitter as Job is saying here. We get stuck in a place where we expect God to do it our way as Job says in these early verses where we think that if I just got God to sit down with me and I give him my very rational argument for why this shouldn't be happening in my life. then God will give me a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why this is all happening and then everything will be fine. Some of you. More experienced folks in the room know how silly that is. Yet we all still succumb to the same kinds of mistakes, don't we? But what I want to suggest today from this text in Job is not just that the Christian life is a journey, but along this journey there are seasons where there are messes so big we can't comprehend them. And I want to suggest that when you encounter those seasons that you are exactly where God wants you to be. You are exactly in the season that God wants you to be in. It doesn't make sense, and that is good news, because that is where God is doing the most significant work in your life. Let's look at Job, just to get a little more context. The opening ⁓ chapters and story of Job is kind of what sets up the whole book, and it starts with introducing Job, who's this very wealthy, prosperous man in the ancient Near East. ⁓ He has a lot of camels, which really doesn't mean anything to us, but it means his bank account and his stock portfolio are in very good shape. He is doing quite well. He is very respected by other people and is doing incredibly well, but he's also righteous, a generous man, a good man. This is like what we all aspire to be, right? Super generous and I just don't know what to do with all my money. And it's just, but I keep giving it away and God just keeps, nothing's wrong. He's got, but he's also got this wonderful family. He's got sons and daughters and a loving wife and they've got this amazing life and everything. And then we have this scene where Satan is in God's throne room and he says the only reason that Job worships you is because you've blessed him. If you took it all away, he'd curse you. And this kind of sets up the opening of the book of Job and Job's and God says to Satan you can do whatever you want you just can't kill him Now you're all mad at God. And this is what Satan does. All his children suddenly die in a tragic house collapse. His wife is thoroughly embittered against God and against Job at this point because of what happened. I think she blames him to a certain extent, blames God. All of his wealth is suddenly gone, stolen or the herds are killed or various means of loss. And then Job's body begins breaking down. He is covered with skin diseases that leave him in excruciating pain all the time. Job goes through these horrible, horrible things, and this is only like the first couple of chapters of the book. Most of the book is these three very well-meaning friends, how many of you have well-meaning friends when you're going through something really difficult and inexplicable that come to you, and then most of the book is a conversation between Job and these friends saying, Job, listen, you must have done something to make God mad or sinned. You deserve this for some reason. Or other friends saying like, everything happens for a reason. It'll all work out. I want you to know that these are not things to say when people are experiencing suffering and excruciating loss. These things are inexplicable and that is part of the story of Job and the point of Job is to help us gain what real wisdom is, is to understand that sometimes these things happen that are absolutely inexplicable. And so we're at this point sort of towards the end of this long back and forth conversation. And Eliphaz, one of his friends has just said, listen, you need to value God more than your gold. And he's making all these statements, come on, Job. And Job is again going to insist that he's done nothing wrong. But I want you to notice that his ⁓ insistence and his belief that he's done nothing wrong is actually making him bitter. This is why he opens up saying, my complaint today is still a bitter one. Because he believes this shouldn't have happened to me. Because I'm righteous. And if I got a fair hearing with God, we would get this sorted out real quick. So this is the challenge of suffering for all of us is that when it's happening, it is so often inexplicable and we don't know where to go with it. And it leaves us feeling confused, disillusioned, bitter, argumentative. We feel distant from God. How many of you have been in a season where it's just like you're so excited about what God's doing and then all of a sudden it's like the floor just dropped out from underneath you and you're just like, God, where are you? I was interested in following you, but now the wheels have just fallen off. God, this Christian thing, I'm not feeling it like I was at first. It just doesn't seem like there's anything really happening. God, I go here and you're not there. I go and he goes in every direction to the east, to the north, to the south, to the west. Where are you? You're not there. You're hiding from me. But then Job stumbles on a really profound insight and this begins to be the turning point in the whole story of Job. God, I don't know where you are, but in verse 10, but he knows where I am going. He knows where I am going. Job can't see God, but God can see him. And he says, when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold. Job recognizes that what is happening is a test from God. Job recognizes that what's is not a temptation in the sense where the enemy is tempting you to sin in some particular way. There's sin that gets exposed in this, but what is happening is a test from God. And we call these tests, the early church And the writers in the early church called this the dark night of the soul. St. John of the Cross has a very classic work called the dark night of the soul. A more ⁓ recent ⁓ way of describing this is called the wall. And when we encounter walls like Job did, we have to realize that we have entered into a season on our journey of transformation that is about to be a test directly from God. not to punish us, but to purify us. Not to frustrate us, but to show the value that is in us, just like gold. Let me talk more about the wall. This comes from ⁓ Janet Hagberg and some other folks. If you can go to the next slide there. ⁓ They talk about in their book, The Critical Journey, a spiritual formation process where you come to faith, that's stage one at the top. There's a recognition of God, how many of you, when you first decided that you were gonna follow Jesus or you came into the church or something like that and there was this initial awakening, there was a sense of joy, there ⁓ was a rush of excitement, you had a lot of questions, you wanted to read the Bible, you were showing up to everything maybe at your church, you were constantly curious and you entered into stage two, this life of discipleship. All right, what do I need to do? How do I need to live this life? How do I serve? You join a team or you start serving in connection with the food pantry or you join a life group and you're doing the stuff and you're active in your Christian life and you move into stage three, what's called the productive life where you begin to do these things with great regularity and how many of you have felt like you've done that? Stage one, two or three, how many of you identify with one of those stages or you go, I remember that time. in my life and you get to the point of doing, right? And then you get to this stage four which is sort of ⁓ interconnected with the wall and in stage four what begins to happen is sometimes things start to not go right. Or the kind of neat like way that you understood how everything was functioning in your new Christian life sort of like doesn't make sense anymore. And you start wondering, hold on, like this is not coherent like I thought it was. Something's not, and you might begin to line up. Sometimes you experience painful betrayal or loss. Maybe sometimes even in a church community, something happens. Or something happens in your marriage or something happens where you inexplicably lose a job or where there's a long ⁓ season of health issues or whatever it is. Something happens where the nice neat pattern of ⁓ connecting with God, growing in God and serving God just isn't working anymore. By the way, this is us who are evangelicals, if you grew up in that, the connect, grow, serve is like the typical way we think about discipleship. But here's the problem with that is everyone in the Christian life on this journey hits a season where you hit the wall. And none of that stuff in the first three stages makes sense anymore. How many of you resonate with that? Where you've gone like, this doesn't make sense anymore and I don't want to serve anymore and I don't want to read my Bible anymore and I'm mad at God because this isn't working and I thought this was going to be different and that question that my pastor keeps asking me annoys me now and I don't even think I can do this anymore and you know what brunch sounds really good on Sunday mornings? Let's go do that. This is what happens when we come to the wall and the challenge is because everyone has to face the wall, are we going to stop at the wall? Are we gonna run away from the wall? Are we gonna try and dig under the wall? Are we gonna try and go around or over the wall or are we going to allow God to bring us through the In the Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross says, this dark night, souls begin to enter when, hear this language, when God draws them forth from the state of beginners. And so that means eventually you're on this journey where John says this, you move towards what he calls the divine union of the soul with God. Notice what the St. John of the Cross says there. says, and this is what Job is saying here, you move from being a beginner when you go to the wall. How many of you feel like a failure when you've hit the wall before? I don't know how to do this Christian thing. Maybe I'm not actually faithful. Maybe God's actually not with me. Maybe I need more faith. Maybe I'm not as good as praying as other people are. Maybe I don't know enough about the Bible. Maybe I'm not serving enough. And we go to that stage three, that doing stage that we had up there before. And you're in that and you just try and do and you do and you do until you burn out. Or you get super good at trusting in your own. But in those seasons what God is actually trying to do and this is what st John tells us is God is actually trying to draw us out of the beginning basics of following Jesus and If you're going to follow Jesus beyond being a beginner you are going to need to move through the excruciating pain of the dark night You are going to need to move through the wall Can I get an amen for going through the pain of the wall two of you? Thank God It is, I'm going to say right now, it is ⁓ the most painful and isolating thing you will ever experience and it is the most profoundly life-changing and fruitful thing that your soul will ever endure. The point of the wall, if I could just make this really simple, is to ultimately draw us nearer to God. Out of the state of being beginners, where we know how to be excited about God and do the basic things, and into the place where this moves into a different depth of our heart that we have not been able to hold before, because we weren't ready for that, we were beginners. And so I just love to reframe when you hit those seasons of like, Should I just give up on church? Should I give up on following Jesus? Should I just...is this...I'm done? I want to actually invite you to reframe. Now want to say like a couple weeks ago, sometime, and we need to confess our sin. Don't re-confess it. If you've confessed it, you've been forgiven, you're not doing it again, you don't need to re-confess it, but do that. You're not living in shame, you're not living in hiddenness, you've done all that, right? Okay? What you might be experiencing is a test from God that's meant to purify you. And St. John tells us this is the normal thing that moves you from a beginner following Jesus into the middle stage of following Jesus before we become what he calls perfected in the faith. And so it's going to require that we be willing to be people that are going to withstand and endure the excruciating challenges of the wall. Job makes two really interesting observations here. He says, when he tests me. I will come out as pure as gold. Now, I don't know how familiar you are with metallurgy of the ancient Near East. I'm sure most of you are. ⁓ Obviously, who's not? But they would have to heat up gold to tremendous temperatures. in order to get all of the other metals that are mixed in out of it. So there'd be like bits of silver or iron ore or different things. And so they eventually developed the methods to get hotter and hotter temperatures. Do you know what ⁓ gold's melting temperature is? It's over 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit. But did you know that 2,000 degrees, the real impurities out and make sure it's really good, they've got to go over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. So you can do an okay job at 1,900 degrees, but if you really want to get the impurities out, we've to turn it up. I'd like to suggest that we face trials and temptations of many kinds, James says, and that's like kind of like turning it up to like 1,900 degrees. But when you go to the wall, we're turning this up to 2,000. It's that little extra that God draws us into. We cannot lead ourselves there. God draws us in here and God does this for two reasons. Here's what you do. ⁓ Gold can be melted down and heated up and purified for two reasons. One, because there's impurities that need to be extracted or to prove that this gold is already perfect. So you might be going through a test because it's time to deal with the impurities of life. Or you might be going through a test because God already knows it's precious gold and he just wants to prove it. I know that's backwards from how we all think about how life should work. If I'm good, shouldn't I be left alone? That's what we want. But Job, by describing his testing and his journey through the wall as being purified like gold, is telling us about the value that God sees in us. One commentator put it this way. says the comparison of Job with gold is actually riffing on ⁓ Eliphaz. Remember Eliphaz in the previous chapter? You should value God more than gold. And Anderson says here in his commentary on Job, says, there, Eliphaz urged Job to make God his most precious thing. Here, Job is saying that he is precious to God. Only valued metal is put through the What God values most is put through the wall. The writer of Hebrews says, discipline seems good at the time, but painful. But in the end, it produces a harvest of righteousness. Elsewhere he says, the Lord disciplines those he loves. How many of you are like, thank you Lord, for your testing and your discipline. But just sit with that for a minute. How profound is that to think that Job is teaching us that seasons of darkness, the seasons in your life of the deepest mess when God seems furthest away are actually the seasons of the most profound transformation and the seasons when God is most near saying, you are so precious and I'm gonna show But if we resist... that doesn't get to be shown. If we resist, if we don't surrender to the work that God is calling us through in the wall, We don't get to see. The world doesn't get to see. No one else gets to see that God sees you as precious, more precious than gold. So what do we do if we're in these seasons where we're at the wall? Now to be clear again, I mentioned, James talks about trials and temptations of many times. I'm not talking about an inconvenience or you had a bad day. That's not the wall. The wall is an extended season of suffering, of betrayal, of loss. It could look like an unexpected sickness. could like financial loss. It could be a betrayal. It could be any number of significant things, but they are seasons. that seem inexplicable and God seems far away. There's no sin usually involved. It's not something we did. We're not hiding anything. It is simply something that God has led us into to show that we are precious gold. And so what do we do when we're in a season like that? Two things from verses 11 and 12 here. And the first answer is really simple. You need to keep going. You need to keep going. What does that look like? First, you need to stay faithful to the last thing that you know the Lord said to you. Now you might not know God spoke very clearly or specifically, but you might know the last thing I knew I was supposed to do was be a part of a life group and just learn how to read scripture with them. Whatever it was. Or the last thing God called me to do was to deal with my unforgiveness towards so and so. Or the last thing God told me to do is commit to a rhythm of prayer where I make space for God every day. Whatever it was, ⁓ there's something that God's called you to and all I can say is keep doing that. Don't stop. If you're not sure, What to do? Get in community, Christian community, and begin to just share your rhythms with them. And you don't have to have much to offer. You can literally just sit there. And this is why we need to develop language as a community. like, guys, I am in a season where I think I'm at the wall. Because then we know how to support each other. We know not to ask dumb questions. We know not to say dumb things. to pray and just listen and be present with. But the other thing that becomes so powerful about doing the last thing God said and being in community is this. We need to in those seasons treasure the scriptures. I love what Job says here. For I have stayed on God's path. I have followed his ways and not turned aside. Job is completely blind, but this word ways implies that he is following God's teaching and God's law. He is just saying, don't know what's going on, but I have his word, and I am just going to be faithful to stay in that and treasure his written word in the text until I get something else from him. So that means read the scriptures on your own. It means have the scriptures read to you. We undervalue, because everyone can have their own Bible or have like 8,000 different translations on your phone. ⁓ We undervalue the public reading of scripture. This is how most of the church has read scripture for almost 2,000 years. For at least 1,500 to 1,600 years, it was a group of people gathered and the scriptures were just. And there's something different that happens when we sit under the word together. And when we're in the dark night seasons, we need to be a people that just sits together treasuring the word. Now here's the thing about keep going that I wanna just encourage you in. We live in an age of authenticity. If it doesn't feel authentic, I don't wanna do it, because then I won't be honest, right? Bring your I don't feel like doing it. But as you bring, don't want to do it, or I don't feel like it, or I want it to feel more authentic, bring all of that, but still do it and keep going. Does that make sense? Or as my wife, Julian, likes to say, you need to fake it until you become it. That is a huge part of what this season is, because we begin to lose that initial motivation of our early life of faith. That's normal. I want you to know that's normal. You're not broken. You're not doing it wrong. It is normal to lose that initial sense of excitement and spark and awe. And God is, because God wants to call you to a deeper maturity, you have to shed the sense of excitement and just do it because he said it, whether you feel it or not. You still need to acknowledge the feelings that come up, the inauthentic dissonance you feel. You need to name that, journal it, share it with community, but you continue to submit it and keep going. Are you with me? That is how we are called to do that. We have to keep going, even if it feels completely fake. And be honest that it just feels fake right now, but God said this, so I'm just gonna trust him. But here's the other thing that we need to do when we come into a season of the wall. here's this. In one sense, we need to keep going. But in another sense, we need to do absolutely nothing. In one sense, we just keep going with the last thing that God said and trust him, but in another sense, we have to do nothing. As I heard one pastor say, as he was ⁓ talking with someone about his own dark night of the soul that he was in, very type A kind of person, and he starts talking to a spiritual director, okay, what do I do? How do I do the dark night of the soul really well? I know you're in the room, you type A list people. Like you're like, I am gonna do the dark night better than anyone's ever done this. And the spiritual director said to him, the dark night is not something you do, it's something that is done to you. When God draws you to the wall, only God can take you through the wall. Your role and my role is not to force our way through. Your role and my role is not to stir up more faith and pray better so we can get through it. Our role is to give up control and surrender to Jesus. Part of why we're talking about this in the season of Lent is because of how this is leading us to the cross. What were Jesus' words in the Garden of Gethsemane? He's there after the Last Supper. He's there in the Garden. It says in the Gospels that he was so anxious and worked up about going to his death by crucifixion that he was sweating drops of blood. And he says to his father, if there's any other way, let's do that. but not my will. Yours be done. But what we often do is we bypass the excruciating drops of ⁓ sweat that have blood and we skip the pain and we skip the bargaining with God. We skip all of that and we just go to, bless, I trust God. God's gonna work it out. And my friends, if we do that, we are trying to do the wall. on our own terms instead of surrendering to what God wants to do. We must name the mess that we are in. We must name that we are at a loss, that we are angry, that we are grieved, that we are out of control, that nothing makes sense. And then when we come to the end of ourselves and there are no more words, we are able to come to a place of We don't seek God for more breakthrough. My charismatic side of me gets all agitated at that part. We can't seek God for more breakthrough. We can't pray for the Spirit to refresh us and break us out of this. The Spirit actually wants to take you through the wall. You can't stir up more faith or worship more or read your Bible more or serve the poor more. Nothing will get you through the wall faster because the wall is done to you. And we must give up control and surrender. When we do, when we allow ourselves to be submitted to the heat of the furnace that purifies like gold and sit through the melting. and sit through the crushing as we sang. gold is proved to be pure in the hands of if we do this. Pete Scazzaro says, life on the other side of the wall will look like a few things. He says there'll be a greater level of brokenness. When we come through the wall, we live in a place where we recognize our own brokenness more readily. It makes us humble, much more compassionate and understanding. Kind of like Steve Martin's character gets in planes, trains, and automobiles. We have a greater appreciation for mystery, Scazzero says. We have a greater level of comfort with just not knowing and being okay with that. And that is why Job is part of the wisdom tradition because ultimate wisdom in the Christian tradition is not knowing and being okay. Saying we trust God. We will be tested and he will purify us. The third. ⁓ identity that'll come out of, the third characteristic that comes out of these seasons of the wall is we have a deeper ability to wait for God. When we're in the early stages of doing, there's a lot of, gotta do the next thing, I gotta do the next thing, I gotta do the next thing, what's God doing now, what's God doing now? When we come through the wall, there is a greater willingness to just wait and really pay attention to what God is doing in a moment, if God is moving in that moment. how God is moving in that moment and responding not anxiously, but out of a response to his nearness. And then finally, it leads us into a greater detachment. Scazzero says it helps us have a better relationship with ourselves, our lives, the world, our careers, our money, our relationships. We hold everything like Job learned to do loosely where he said, Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will depart. I came in this world with nothing, going out of this world with nothing. I came here with nothing but all you have given me. So Jesus make new life out of me. shared this story many times, but there was a woman named Agnes who ⁓ felt called to work with the poorest of the poor. And when she died, her journals came out and her letters between her and her spiritual director. And in the letters, Well, you encounter a woman who was definitely clinically depressed and maybe needed to at some points be in a hospital on watch. She just described constantly the terrible darkness she experienced in her life. That God seems so far away. For like 50 years she felt this darkness, constantly. That woman's better known as Mother Teresa. Saint Teresa now in the ⁓ Catholic tradition, who gave her life to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. The untouchables, they created a home for the dying, that no matter what your faith tradition was, you could come there and die in dignity instead of being out on the street. And they would just be with you and sit with you in silence. They would love people dearly and deeply. They would teach children on the street. But all of that fruitfulness, now there are offices of her order and ministry that are all around the globe now. They have offices everywhere. There's one in the Bronx. They have orders that are gathered now around the world doing the same ministry globally. And this fruit came out of a life that felt Such a level of darkness and separation from God for most of it. In the crushing In the pressing you are making new eyes Friends, you and I are not going to be able to be effective ministers of the love of God unless we are willing to move on from being beginners and encounter the wall. If you hear anything from me today, here are two things. The normal way God transforms us is on a deep, dark journey through the messiest stuff of our lives. The normal way. Second is this, God is at work, perhaps more significantly than you can ever imagine in those darkest seasons. And you will become like gold. Can just turn to the person next to you and say, you will be tested? Because you are precious to Him. Some of you are ready to receive that and some of you are not and that is okay. Be where you are on this journey.

Job 23 · chapter mention Job 23 · chapter mention Job 23 · chapter mention