Accepting the Good & Bad from God
This year with God has been a rollercoaster. When I moved from California to Atlanta back in April, I was filled with such a mixture of emotions. I loved my life in California. I felt like God had used my time there to truly heal me from the previous year, a year I affectionately named “the year from hell.” I felt the insurmountable pain of what I was leaving behind, and yet I was anxiously anticipating what was to come in Atlanta. The Scripture I selected for my journey was Job 2:10, “Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” And let me tell you… this was a borderline prophetic selection.
It felt like only moments after I planted my feet on the Atlanta soil did my life seem to start falling apart around me. I lost over 25 pounds from the grief I was experiencing from the horrid concoction of trials and loss that I was suddenly drinking. Grief… you know, the kind of grief that seems to make sleep a distant stranger and tears a more frequent meal than food itself. “God, I knew I said I would accept the bad to come, but this feels like a torrent that I cannot withstand.”
One time, I broke my ankle surfing (“How is that possible?!”, you say. I know right…). I jumped off of the board in what I thought to be a few feet of water that, in reality, were only inches. When I hit the sand, I felt my ankle snap. To make matters worse, I had fallen right where the waves were crashing. I kept coming up for air to call for help, only to be pounded by the next incoming wave. Wave after wave pulling me under, I just wondered when someone would notice and come to rescue me. But isn’t life like this sometimes? We are just waiting for someone to come save us out of the waves, carry us safely to the beach and attend to our wounds.
Year 14 with God has not only felt like this beach allegory, but it has been one of the most oxymoronic years of walking with God ever. I have had months where I felt like God was so clearly speaking to me that, despite the challenges, I was grateful for the intimacy I was building with God and the growth I was experiencing spiritually. Conversely, I have experienced some of my darkest times as a follower of Jesus, questioning the nature of God Himself and feeling like I was holding on for dear life.
The Silence of God
Recently, it has felt like God has been silent. I have wondered if God is unmoved by my distress, or worse, He finds some sort of purpose in leaving me floundering in my confusion. I have questioned God’s care or concern for me, “Do you care to see me happy?”. And as I have begged Him to speak, to remain faithful to His promises, He has often chosen to not answer my prayers directly (or quickly), if at all. This has felt like a hot iron to my soul. “God, do I care more about our relationship than you do?!” The deep theological & philosophical questions ushered in by this period of suffering have brought me to my knees, and have become the paramount suffering themselves.
All of these thoughts, feelings, and questions swirled around in my head for months until they all came to a head in the fall. I distinctly remember calling a friend on a drive one November night. Weeping, I thought to myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” The subtle temptation to give up was pressing on my mind more than ever before. My friend asked me, “Where would you go if you gave up?” And the answer is… I don’t know. In all of my confusion, I had never doubted God’s existence, only His loving concern for me. And I think that is what made this time so challenging. Two things were simultaneously true: God is real, and right now, God is allowing me to quietly suffer. I had kept holding onto the hope that God would bring some sort of meaning to my trials, some sort of silver lining or resolution… but my patience was wearing thin and I was out of breath.
As I sat in my car that night, I thought of Job’s words once again, “To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.” (Job 12:13). I silently prayed, “God, I don’t understand… but that is not my job. I don’t see how you are working right now, but I believe that you are. You are God, I am a mere man. My endurance is running low in waiting on your promises to be true, but I still believe that you are good and you will fulfill your promises to me.”
You know, I have never been a fan of turning to Job in the midst of suffering because the rebel in me finds it too predictable. #Basic. But simply flipping through the pages of Job has taught me a great deal. Although Job’s circumstances were incomparably challenging, I think the space it brings him to with God is unfathomably relatable.
Job’s Story
When I read Job 23, I felt like I was reading my own journal back to myself, “Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say to me… But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” (verses 1-5, 8-9).
Job just watched his whole life go up in flames and all he wants to do is hear from God. He wants the answer to the question we all ask at some point in our lives. He asks, “why?” and God doesn’t seem to answer him. In fact, He doesn’t even speak. As Job suffers relentlessly and his friends make a mockery of him, he sits surrendered to the fact that God is real, He is powerful, and His will prevails. A profound, beautiful truth that is tough to swallow amidst a torrent of torment.
I love Job’s realness and I respect his struggle. When he starts speaking in Job 3, he immediately curses the day of his birth and drools over death, which seems far sweeter than continuing to bear this miserable life. His worst fears have been realized (3:25) and he begged God to take his life because even the permission to live felt like cruelty in the midst of his never-ending suffering (6:9). He cries, “What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?” (6:11) and “… my eyes will never see happiness again.” (7:7). In acknowledging God’s power, Job seems to struggle to believe God will ever relent saying, “Even if I summoned him and he responded, I do not believe he would give me a hearing. He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. He would not let me catch my breath but would overwhelm me with misery.” (9:16-18).
Job continually admits God’s sovereignty over his life and circumstances. But this recognition of God’s might and power brings him to the same theological question that I have found myself wrestling with: Does God care? Job pleads, “Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile upon the plans of the wicked?” (10:3). Job was living in the same beach allegory I mentioned, “your forces come against me wave upon wave.” (10:17). These quotes from Job are dripping with doubt, hurt, pain, and disappointment. Job sees no value in living and questions if God enjoys watching him drown in his agony. But somehow Job still chooses God.
Job’s clarity chills me to the bone when he begins surrendering, “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him…” (13:15). His wife prompted him to give up, “Job- you are knee-deep in sorrow and God seems to, at best, be a bystander to your terror. Why stick around? Why wait? Curse God and die.” It is almost as if Job asks himself the same question my friend asked me that November night, “If I give up, where would I go?” Job couldn’t escape the pain, he didn’t have the answers to his questions, his friends were the definition of adding insult to injury and Job still hadn’t heard from God. But even in God’s silence, Job chose to hope in Him. There was nowhere else to go. And I believe that this is what makes Job a man of heroic endurance, as Charles Swindol describes him. Even when all earthly logic prompted him otherwise, he chose to put his hope in God.
Is it odd that I find comfort in the fact that Job wanted to die? Seriously. So many of his honest thoughts are mirrors of my own. I have wondered if I will ever “be happy” again. I have wondered if God’s only concern is my “spirituality” and He could not care less about anything else. And I spent some time this year pushing down each of these “sinful” questions as my mind discipled my heart. Job wasn’t only a man of heroic endurance, but he was also a man of heroic integrity. He said what was on his heart. He laid it all out before God, respectfully, but fully. Job was called righteous. Ezekiel 14:14 describes him so. So why do I feel so “unspiritual” when my questions echo those of Job’s?
It wasn’t until I began to actually tell God what was on my heart that I started to see true breakthroughs. And even if my questions remained unanswered, I knew that I was walking away with my integrity and my relationship intact. I have been radically committed to following Jesus as the Lord of my life for the greater part of my time wandering this planet. “How could I ever struggle with such ‘basic theology’?”, the devil tempts me. Even in Job’s questioning, he was not deemed “unspiritual” or “unrighteous”. He was real. He was fighting for his relationship with God. He was brave enough to ask God the questions that were pressing on his soul, “Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face.” (23:17). He was humble enough to wait for the answer.
A Struggling Faith
It has taken the greater part of 14 years for me to be okay with struggling. God doesn’t expect me to show up to every trial with a perfectly executed dismount. If that were the case, I wouldn’t need Him. Job is helping me to be confident in my struggle and in my fight to know God and hear His voice. Job is an example because, when most would run away, he ran towards God with an unquenchable passion that could not be snuffed out. He doesn’t run perfectly, but he runs honestly. That is faith. Faith is found in the struggle. True faith is born in adversity. Faith is a choice to believe, even when our circumstances are void of convincing evidence (Hebrews 11:1).
14 years in as a Christian and I can say that I am struggling more than ever, and yet… more faithful than ever (yes, both can simultaneously prove true!). These past several years have taught me that God is powerful, His will prevails, He is in control. God is kind, merciful, and full of justice. He judges people with equity, He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish. God is loving, forgiving, relentlessly pursuing… and sometimes God is silent.
In all of Job’s questioning and grieving, he fervently fights to come to the defense of his Maker. “The fear of the Lord — that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.” (28:28). I have been praying all year for understanding… but I think what I really was praying for was surrender. So year 14 as a follower of Jesus for me has been characterized by letting go of my need for control and understanding and just simply letting God be God. God is powerful. Sometimes God is silent. But He is always good. And that I can understand.
“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” – Job 19:25-27
