Unexpected (A SOAP Journal from Job 9 and Acts 13)

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Job 9:16

If I summoned him and he answered me,
    I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

 v.32-34

For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
    that we should come to trial together.
There is no arbiter between us,
    who might lay his hand on us both.
Let him take his rod away from me,
    and let not dread of him terrify me.

Job’s cry in his distress was that he might be heard by God, yet amid his great pain, shame, and grief, he could not believe or expect that God would actually hear and answer him. He longed for there to be an advocate, a mediator who could take away his fear and reconcile his relationship with God. A real-life man of peace. His words remain the profound longing of honest men and women in their pre-relational faith. I'm referring to those people who know that God must exist, and they feel like he is angry with them, and have no idea how to fix it. This is a common condition throughout the ages. Yet God, in His great love for us, has sent the promised savior. As Paul announced in Acts 13:32-33a, 38-39,

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus… Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe
 on Unsplash

I know that there are times that I ask God to come through with something or to answer my prayers, but deep down don’t expect him to do so. And when he does answer, help, comfort, and deliver, then I can doubt that my prayers had anything to do with it. Lord, have mercy!

The good news is that he heard the cry of suffering and confused people like Job, as well as those sinful and slow-to-believe people like me, and sent Jesus Christ. God the Son came in the flesh to save us from our sins, to spread his arms on the cross to put his hand on our shoulder and his other hand on the Father so that we might be restored to a right relationship with the God who loves us.

Lord God, thank you for hearing and answering my prayer in Christ before I even asked it. But Lord, I pray that you would also bless me with faith to believe that you do answer so that I might live my life expecting that you are near and that you are at work even when I can’t see it or feel it. May you not be unexpected. Hallelujah! Amen.

Trusting God in a Tottering World

Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash

In tumultuous times how will we respond? Will we care only about our own needs or will we bear one another's burdens?

Recently, in a men’s Bible journaling small group meeting, I read a handful of assigned texts including 1 Peter 2, Isaiah 38-39, 2 Kings 20, and Psalm 75, and I chose the following three brief passages for this devotional post. 

As the world "totters" it is through times of reading and sharing the Scriptures in community with others that the tottering seems to stop and the challenges seem to shrink as we stand together in Christ-centered faith, reminded of the goodness of God on our behalf.

Psalm 75:2-5

 “At the set time that I appoint  

 When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants,     Selah
   I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast,’
    and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn;
do not lift up your horn on high,
    or speak with haughty neck.’”

Isaiah 38:17

Behold, it was for my welfare    
but in love you have delivered my life
    from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
    behind your back.

1 Peter 2:21-24

                                   For to this you have been called, 

because Christ also suffered for you, 

                                        leaving you an example,

                                        so that you might follow in his steps. 

    He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 

    When he was reviled, he did not revile in return;

    when he suffered,      he did not threaten, 

  but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 

                 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,

                 that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. 

                         By his wounds you have been healed. 

   For you were straying like sheep,

                                                  but have now returned

               to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Comments: 

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

As Americans, we need to remember that not all suffering is bad. Some suffering serves the gracious purpose of turning us back to God. Yet even as we do so and receive deliverance, we should be careful not to claim it only for ourselves. Rather, we should share what God has done for us with others so that they, too, might benefit from it.

In Isaiah 38, when God delivered him, Hezekiah responded well (at first) by writing down his words of praise. However, later, once he was comforted by the envoys from Babylon, in pride, he showed them all that he had in his storerooms and was nonplussed when Isaiah told him that it all would be taken away and that some of his sons would eventually be eunuchs in the court of Babylon. Further, once he knew how much time he had left to live (15 years), he didn’t seem to intercede for his sons or do anything to try to change the trajectory of the nation despite having personally experienced the efficacy of fervent prayer!

Do I do the same thing? Do I cry out when I am in need and enthusiastically embrace God’s deliverance for me, but fail to really care about others and mourn over what they will face? Am I satisfied to get what I need when others do not have what they need? It is too easy to fall into an egocentric trap of success and blessing instead of working, compelled by the love of Christ, as ministers of reconciliation.

O Lord, thank you for suffering for me. You alone are my rock and my shield. Yet may I remember that you suffered for the sins of others and that they need to hear the good news that you judge justly and that you took our place. Lord, I also contend for the next generation that they would not be "eunuchs in a foreign land" but living stones and a holy nation built together for your own possession (1 Peter 2:9). May we continue, generation after generation, to praise and serve you alone!

So now, Lord, as the earth seems to totter, in a pandemic, in protests, in political schemes, and in personal suffering, I look to you to steady its pillars. My first call is to you and you judge with equity. 

Lord, hear my prayer!