Faith in the Midst of Suffering: Lessons from Job

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey everybody, and welcome

to the Bible Guys. And I guess today is I think our first time

where we were gonna call it the Bible gal. Hey, yes, pretty

yeah, I'm pretty pumped about it. Yeah. Yeah, you have broken

the title mold Bible gal. I love it. Yes. And so this

is Debbie Zence. Debbie has been on the staff of the church that I

work at, and you were here long before me. Why don't you tell

everybody how long you have been on Heritage Church staff? How old is Heritage

Church? I don't even know. It's twenty four years old, almost almost

twenty four we are, so yeah, twenty four years old, twenty four

years Yeah? What month did it start? January? January two thousands?

Did it really? Yeah? Okay two thousand? Wow, So it's just

over twenty four years. That's how we our anniversary every January here. Oh

gotcha? So you have been around since the dinosaurs? Okay, all right,

Hey, that's that's not the way to start out, man, No

it is not. I'm the oldest person here. No, you're not for

a while. That's true. That's true. So listen, I cannot give

Debbie enough praise and my respect because you everything you touch is awesome. So

any anything from volunteers to events, to programs and everything else. Uh and

you used to do a lot of what I do, I know, I

love. It was like my my love ye music, right, my whole

family we played. Yeah, I play keys, my husband still plays bass.

I got drummers in the family. Yeah. Even actually had a dancer

once that might have my daughter years ago. So little kids. So you

were you were the von Trapps of absolutely yeah, if anybody knows what that

is. So uh So Debbie today, because Jeff's out of town, of

course, we're having different guests and you sort of are buttoning up the week

for us. Uh So, here's how the Desiree wrote on the show notes.

She said, Debbie is the queen of planning and throwing events. So

here's today's question. If you could create your own holiday, what would it

be called and how would people celebrate it? That is such an unusual question.

Okay, that is an unusual question because you know what my mind goes

to. Initially, let's just have a dark chocolate day, Like, let's

just eat dark chocolate. I don't care about it for no reason at all

other than you like dark chocolate. Right, dark chocolate day. Oh we

could have a butter pecan ice cream day. Oh, as long as that

he has like chocolate in it. No, no, no, no,

I'm talking about me. Okay, Well, it's gonna have your own.

But I'm fantasizing about my day. Debbie. You're an ice cream guy.

You can't. You can't come into my fantasy. You're the only people who

eat butter and pecan ice cream or old people, old people. I know.

That's Jeff makes fun of me. Yeah. Yeah, old people eat

eat better pekan. My husband loves butter pecan, so okay, and he's

old like me. Well, I'm not going to say that, all right.

So what holiday? What holiday? Yeah? You know what, I

think we need a ketchup day. Do you ever feel like you need a

ketchup day? Not the red ketchup? Oh day to just get caught Because

I was really going to be floored here. I was like, Hines Hines

ketchup. No, No, I think we need a day to just catch

up, get all things done that we did never have time for. It's

just one day dedicated to it. But isn't isn't that every holiday? No,

this would be a day where we don't have to come into work.

We could actually just stay home and you could do drawings or painting and I

could like watch HGTV or whatever I want to do. All this, I

think a lot of people probably take advantage of, like Labor Day and President's

Day and all all the days that the yard work day, like yeah,

those usually sometimes, yeah, but not for not everybody, not everybody.

Right, you're not a yardwork person actually, yeah, okay, see I

like to plant flowers that somebody else already put together. Like I just bring

out the pot and send out of my fortune. People think, looks amazing.

Yeah, yeah, way to go, good job. It's like it's

like ordering in, uh ordering in uh gourmet food right in your own containers.

Right, that's great. So you think catch up day to catch up

on your household chores just and whatever. Maybe it's catching up with a friend,

Maybe it's catching up on your sleep. I don't know. Maybe it's

like just hey, it's a go out to lunch with somebody you never have

time for, you know, if I were to create a holiday. So,

because because you did that so quickly, we have we have a minute

or two. I'm going to answer my question seriously. So if I were

to create a holiday, I would create a holiday where everybody served one another.

They were required to serve one another in Jesus love. That sounds very

spiritual, I know, because it's just who I am. It's who I

am. Debbie, you have you can have your ketchup day, and I'm

gonna have serve people, serve people day for Jesus. Okay, I don't

know why. I just don't believe that right now. I don't know.

Hey, you know what I call that. I call that Jesus juke.

Jesus juke. Yeah. There was a guy on staff who who left staff

recently, but I won't mention his name, but he was famous for Jesus

jukes. And and like I would say something like hey, nice beard or

whatever, and he'd say, you know, I have a beard because Jesus

has a beard, you know. Or I'd say, hey, I went

to Las Vegas and I saw the show in Vegas. Well I'm a Christian,

so I don't go to Vegas. Right He always but Oh my goodness,

it was every other sentence. It was a Jesus juke. And that's

really good. Yeah yeah, yeah, So the pay It Forward Day,

I think there might be a national paid Forward Day is really have to look

it up. I want to say, remember when the movie came out?

Oh yeah, yeah, I remember. It's a great movie. Right,

yeah, you're the movie guy. So yeah, I think I think they

made a national paid forward day. Huh like that kind of in line with

what you're thinking. Yeah, that's cool. Well I was just trying to

be righteous. I was trying to Jesus juke you because you didn't. Because

honestly, I would choose better pecan ice cream day probably if it was within

my power. I mean, not that, not that it's more important.

I'm selfishly wanting a better beecon ice cream day. So well, we could

go do that afterwards. Hey, that's true. Let's go get some ice

cream. That's true. After the podcast, We'll have ice cream for lunch.

Ice cream for lunch. Right, let's do that. That could be

our holiday ice cream lunch day. There you go, ice cream for dessert

for dinner, dessert for dinner. There you go. Okay, all right,

these are all good ideas. Hey, you heard it first here on

the Bible Guys and Gal. There you go. That's right. Well,

I guess it's Bible guy and Gal right right for today, right, so

awesome. So, hey, today we are actually in Job chapter number nine,

and uh, yesterday's podcast we read chapter three, so there was really

just a lot of dialogue between chapter three and chapter nine where really they're just

they're working through it. Job has three friends who are there, who are

you know, surprised that job is is still not sinning or cursing God.

His wife has already spoken up, you know, and and said just yeah,

she's she's not at all and and uh and so Job is uh,

you know, he's lamenting, he's uh, he's in anguish. He is

not only has he had everything taken from him, but then now he is

sitting there with uh boils on his skin and it's so painful that he has

to sit in ashes, which, by the way, we didn't even talk

about We didn't even talk about that like with I mean, imagine how bad

you have to be, because I'm sure in those days they didn't have like,

you know, foamy bean bags or fluffy you know, bathtubs with veno

soaks. Yeah, like ebs and salts, Like they didn't have any of

those things, so they were forced to like say, what is the softest

thing that we can think of? Ashes? So, like that sounds horrible,

It sounds absolutely horrible. Yeah, And so he's and because he was

a rich man, I'm sure he has no shortage of, you know,

resources to create a big pile of ash, but he's and he's scraping the

boilers with a piece of broken pottery. Who that's just disgusting me. There's

no other way to describe that. No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But today we're picking up on chapter nine, verses one through twelve, and

Job is going to be it says Job's third speech. So you want to

take it away? All right? I read it. Then Job spoke.

He said, yes, I know all this is true in principle, But

how can a person be declared innocent in God's sight? If someone wanted to

take God to court, would be possible to answer him even once in a

thousand times? For God is so wise and so mighty, who has ever

challenged him successfully? Without warning? He moves mountains, overturning them in his

anger. He shakes the earth from its place, and its foundations tremble.

If he commands it, the sun won't rise and the stars won't shine.

He alone has spread out the heavens and marches on the waves of the sea.

He made all the stars, the Bear and the Orian, the Pleiades,

and the constellations of the southern sky. He does great things, too

marvelous to understand. He performs countless miracles. Yet when he comes near me

I cannot see him. When he moves by, I do not see him.

Go if he snatches someone to death, who can stop him? Who

dares ask? What are you doing? Well? Yeah, you know,

this is actually a pretty deep There's a lot twelve verses in there that really

truly because isn't it funny how it almost seems like this could be taken from

the posture of like he's on the brink of anger, but at the same

time he's at the brink of futility. But then at the same time it

could be totally taken positive, like he's just acknowledging God's sovereignty. Right,

He's absolutely acknowledging that God has the power. Oh, he's omnipotent. Right,

He's going for it. This whole chapter in those verses says that,

and yeah, he's sitting there saying, yet here I am. I don't

even see him. He walks by me. I don't even know he's there.

You know, it implies certain things, but it's almost like reading between

the lines, because it's almost as if he's working it out, you know,

after all, I mean, this is just chapter after chapter of him

just crying out to God for him, you know, just lamenting and and

you know, expressing his thoughts. And it's almost as if this is a

resolve of like of like I want to challenge God, but I know I

can't. Doesn't ever, doesn't it sound like that? It's like, not

only can I not, but nobody can challenge him? Right. In other

words, it's it's futile to even try to challenge him because he's the God

who's going to do what he wants, right, and so he when he

talks about this, it is really truly like if you didn't know that it

was actually in lamenting. These are some pretty inspiring verses, like verse number

ten on its own, if you were to take that and put on a

poster, right, and you know, it's some inspirational card or quote.

It says he does great things, too marvelous to understand. He performs countless

miracles. And somebody would say, amen, right, like what a great

verse. But no, it's not in the context of something great. It's

in the context of him saying, you know, God is great and I

can't challenge him and and nobody can. Right. I also think it's really

cool that he actually lists constellations that we recognize today. I almost wonder which

came first, the chicken or the egg, right, like, like that

is that is a good question, right? We did? Like like like

the astronomers of the world took their cues from the Bible, right, like

pleiades? Which one's pleades? H oh that's pleades? Uh? The orient

of the awry? And which one is that? Let me think it's kind

of cool though, isn't it. It's cool? Yeah? Yeah, I

think Job when when I read through Job, I don't know. I think

everyone who as a Christian has felt like they've had their job moment, right,

they've had their job moment. And I mean my feelings about the about

what Joe was thinking here. Joe only knew what he knew at the time.

Right. He only knew is Hey, I don't think I'm sinning more

than most people around me. Right, he says, I'm not that bad

of a guy. I don't think he ever said that he thought he was

sinless, right, right, He never admitted that or tried to put that

out there. But he's like, I am suffering way more than how much

I'm sinning. Like it feels like life is out of balance, and so

if I can't become righteous with God, right, who can? Yeah,

that's a question. I think a lot of us feel. Yeah, Well,

I mean I felt that way. I felt like for a long time.

I think I've told this from the stage before a couple of times,

but I felt like there was a season in my life where I was just

serving, serving, serving serving, and then just getting nothing in return.

And the way that I described it was, I felt like I was in

a one sided relationship. And I was just like, come on, God,

just throw me a bone, right, And it's just like, Gosh,

it's like, can you please just acknowledge the fact that I'm your servant,

that I'm trying over here, and yes, I'm not perfect. I

had all those thoughts. I remember, geez, the lowest point of my

life. I remember actually saying that in my prayer. I actually said,

throw me a freaking bone. Is actually the way that I put it,

right, And not to be disrespectful, but I mean I was on the

brink of madness just about and you know, certainly desperation. But you know,

but again, it's interesting about Job because you can't read tone into text.

Yeah, right, So you could almost hear this speech as inspiring,

or you can hear it on the brink of desperation. You could hear it

on you know, maybe it's maybe it's at the other end of questioning and

now he's you know, sort of like he's spoken and resolved. You know,

you can almost hear it in so many different tones because you know of

the intent and because of the circumstances, right, right, So it's really

hard to to sort of, you know, process this. But here's one

thing I do know. I do know that Job has no doubt that God's

in control, no doubt he knows he holds all the cards and all the

cars. Yeah, he's just struggling with why. Yeah. Really, I

remember one time when I was a youth pastor and there was a circumstance.

We were trying to get all these kids to go to camp, you know,

summer camp, and you know, and it costs a bunch of money,

and we had more kids than money, and we didn't know how it

was going to work out. And I remember just being extremely frustrated. I

had a moment of, oh no, what are we going to do?

Kind of thing. And I had a friend who has actually now since passed

aways in heaven with God. So maybe he'll laugh about this with with God

one day, or maybe we're both together one day laugh at it. But

he looked at me and he goes, Chris, He goes, do you

actually think that God's on the throne right now? Saying, oh no,

how are we going to get Carly to camp? Oh no, don't.

I don't know how this is going to work. He goes, do you

actually think that God is stressed like you? And I just I just had

a calming sense, you know, just come over me, and I thought,

you're right, God is not on the throne, saying, oh no,

I didn't foresee this happening. I don't know how I'm going to solve

this. It's like God's going to come through and sure enough, he did.

It worked out, something came through, somebody donated, somebody served someone,

someone gave sacrificially. It happened, she went to camp, you know,

and it was great and everything else. But in that moment, I

just remember his resolve and he's like, he's like, why are you stressing.

God's on the throne. God's God's got this right either way, and

that's a big burden to lift off your shoulders. In those moments. I

think we've all been in those places. You know, we've been through a

lot, like I, you know, I have my son Ben, who's

had a lot of health issues over the years, right, so we've dealt

with a lot of that. And there have been times sitting in the hospital

room dark right, feeling like you're praying and it's just sitting that ceiling and

falling right right back down, like it's not going anywhere, it's not leaving,

and you're like screaming out to God in your spirit, You're screaming out

to God in your heart, like you're like you're giving up basically in every

single thing that you could possibly do, and you realize it's only God,

and yet you hear nothing. So have you ever have you ever struggled with

wanting to know why? Because you know you've had your share of challenges and

still still continue to face things. Right, and but have you ever have

you ever just really wrestled with why? Or do you find it? Do

you find it easier to just say, well, I don't know why,

and that's okay? Like which one the pendulum? Where does it swing?

I think it depends on where you are sometimes. I think a lot of

times I don't ask why. A lot of times I just have given up

on that understanding and that I have will never know why. You know,

a lot of people even about Ben, right, like why does he have

to suffer? Why has he had to go through all these things? I

don't let our listeners know what hell struggles he has? So Ben is severely

disabled. Right, So Ben was born perfectly normal, six weeks old,

shaken. We adopted Ben, We brought him home on hospice. Right,

They never really expected him to survive. And he's twenty By the way,

he's twenty years old. He's very loud, he loves to chat, but

he doesn't walk. He doesn't talk right. But he's had over eighty some

brain surgeries and lots of other medical procedures. So he's in a short period

of time, like through like a seven year period of time, he went

through extraordinary suffering, like extraordinary suffering. And I remember laying on his bed,

like literally laying over his body, like while he's just throwing up and

throwing up and having all these horrible things, saying God, it's okay,

like take him, like relieve his suffering, and yet nothing. It's like

God could have snatched him out in that moment and he would be running in

heaven, right, And we were as heartbreaking as it was. We wanted

that for Ben, you know, but he didn't, and so he allowed

that prolonged suffering. So I remember sitting in the hospital reading the Book of

Job. Some of the chapters are a little long and a little right hard.

I'm just forty two chapters. There's a lot. Yeah, yeah,

there's a lot. But I could really connect with Joe at certain times in

my life. Right, So where do I stand on the pendulum. I'm

not going to ask God why. I just want to accept the fact that

God knows something I don't know, right, Yeah, and that's something that

it's a good place to be. Yeah, Yeah, it doesn't mean that

we're happy about it, no, I mean we're not still battling for like

what we hope for what we want right right, it's still battle for that.

And we as Christians know that, you know, the effect the effective

fervent prayer of a righteous person avails relg right. So so we know that

prayer changes things. We know that God can change direction of his original intent.

Right, So he was going to wipe out uh, you know,

soldom and Gomorrah and and uh. And Abraham said, hey, if you

find this many righteous people, would you spare the city? And he said

yes, I would, you know. And of course it turns out that

there was no righteous people in the city, right except for you know,

we just we just get done reading with that with Abraham, Lot and Sarah

and everything else, and so you know, and then here is God and

Satan having a conversation and God at first says, well, don't touch his

health. And then Satan comes back and says, I just know if his

health would be attacked that he would he would curse you. And then God

says, okay, go for it, go for his health, right and

uh and so yeah, so we know we are taught even Jesus said,

he said, remember that parable, that crazy parable that he says, there's

a there's a man that heaven is like the Kingdom of God is like a

man that knocks on the door, and that man inside says, go away,

we're sleeping, you know. And he says, but because of his

persistence and because of his you know, shameless audacity, basically he will get

up and then give this man a loaf for bread. And he said,

in the same way, pray this way to God. So we know that

we should pray big. We know that we know that our relentless, faithful

prayers can move God. But at the same time, just like in the

case of Ben, sometimes it just doesn't happen, you know. You know,

it's interesting because a lot of times when you go through those things,

you're assuming, and people are assuming, Oh, there must be something wrong.

They've done something wrong, right, I mean, what has been done

wrong? He was an infant, he did nothing wrong, right. Obviously

that's not the cause of it. But you're thinking, is God punishing me?

You know, in the same way. I don't know how if you've

ever had this happen for you. But people will be like if you just

had more faith and you prayed, you know, God could heal Ben.

And do I believe God could heal Ben? Absolutely do? I believe God

is omnipotent. Absolutely, does he have the power to do whatever he wants

to do. Absolutely? Do I truly believe that God will heal Ben here

on earth. I guess that depends on your definition of heal, which is

a whole conversation, right, But I don't think he will be healed here,

Chris, if you've got a Cai wreck and your head your arm amputator,

right, you lost your arm, nobody will be saying if you just

had enough faith and you pray, your arm would come back. Well.

So I actually think I believe that there are people who actually would say that,

but most of us would probably understand that you don't believe that, right,

that's trying that can happen just right, there's just human law of nature

things. And for Ben, I believe the same thing. But I believe

that God's using everything that's happened to Ben in our family through Ben, right

yep, which has been a great thing. So, yeah, I really

kind of resonated with a lot of job struggles in that. Yeah, you

know, it's interesting too, because there are people and I get angry at

this, I really do. I get angry with a lot of things that

Christians say that are wrong and abusive and spiritual abuse, but one of them

is sort of not everybody's fault, right, because there's a group of people

that believe this, and I believe that they believe it, probably because they

believe it's true, right, So I'm not too angry, but they believe

if the reason why you pray for healing and you're not healed, it's your

fault. You don't have enough faith, which is what you alluded to earlier.

Right now. Again, I try not to be angry at those people,

but the thing that I do get angry about is when they put the

blame on somebody. Right. So I had a really good friend who had

something that they were struggling with, seizures, you know, for years,

and they came to a healing service and they said, well, it's your

fault. Right. That person walks away and said, well, you just

don't have enough faith. And that's where I get angry at, right,

the spiritual abuse part. But anyway, the point is this is that did

you know that Nowhere in the scriptures did Jesus actually say you needed more faith.

He actually, when he said how great is your faith? People think

of great in terms of size, but he said great in terms of impressiveness,

right, the true authentic faith. Because Jesus actually said you only need

this faith of a mustard seed. But he's talking about true faith when he

says where is your faith or how great is your faith? He never said

you need more faith, not once. So I'm under the firm belief it's

not the size of your faith that matters. It's the size of your God.

Right, It's not the size of your faith, it's the size of

your God. If you have just the faith of a mustard seed, but

that true faith that believes that God can do anything, and it's true faith.

You know when God says you can move mountains, right, So that

kind of faith can do anything. So the idea, and again I'm not

trying to I'm not trying to attack anybody. If we have people listening around

the world, which we do, who say like whoa, whoa, whoa.

I've taught my whole life that you have to have more faith in order

to be healed. That's fine. I would just lovingly challenge you and say,

look into that a little bit more. Because Jesus doesn't say that's the

remedy. He never says that's the remedy. He never says if you just

have more faith, or you know, if he says a lack of faith,

again, it doesn't mean quantity. It means a lack of true faith

and faith. It's the kind of faith that the Roman centurion had when he

says, he says, you don't need to come to my house to hear

my son. He said, just speak the words. And then what did

Jesus say, Never have I seen such great faith in all of Israel.

He didn't say quantity of faith, This guy has more faith than everybody in

needs wor he didn't that. He said, how great is that faith?

That's what he said. So I believe that this is the kind of faith

that job has. You know, he has faith in the moment that God

is who he says he is, that God can do whatever he wants to

do, and he is at the mercy of a God that he never sinned

against, never cursed, never spoke against, never even gave any indication that

he blamed him. Right although he did say God has chosen to condemn me,

right, He actually did say that. In other words, what he's

doing is is he's he's not cursing God or blaming God, but he is

attributing the cause from God. And technically he's right. What God is allowing

it. God allowed it. God allowed it, right, And that's what

you have to understand, is God's allowing this for a reason that's far above

what we can understand, right, right, And so yeah, that's what

I think. I love it at the heart of the whole book of Job.

Yeah, so any closing thoughts, because our time is coming to an

end. If somebody's struggling out there, and you know, any last sentence

to encourage it, to concourage them. I think if you're going through like

we all go through our dark days, right, our dark times, just

a trust that it's not what you're trusting about, it's not the situations who

you're trusting in. And so I think that that's what Job was acknowledging this

whole chapter, is like he was acknowledging all of God's power. I mean,

he created all these beautiful things nature, right, the sun, the

moon that starts, he hung them for goodness sakes, it's not just he

painted a pretty picture. I mean He literally placed all of this into our

being for us, for our value. And so when we're having those days,

I think, just like Job did, just say hey, I know

God could do it, and to step back and say I'm just surrendering to

that. And I think surrender is a big piece of this too. Ye,

faith too. Yeah, yeah, never stop praying, don't stop praying

big, but ultimately trust in the God is in control. Yeah that's awesome.

Hey, that's a great place to end, and we will see you

next time on the Bible. Guys,