Tag: questioning god

Living Without Answers (Job 41:12-34)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

“I will not keep silent concerning its limbs
    or its mighty strength or its splendid frame.
Who can strip off its outer garment?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?
Who can open the doors of its face?
    There is terror all around its teeth.
Its back is made of shields in rows,
    shut up closely as with a seal.
One is so near to another
    that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another;
    they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
Its sneezes flash forth light,
    and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.
From its mouth go flaming torches;
    sparks of fire leap out.
Out of its nostrils comes smoke,
    as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
Its breath kindles coals,
    and a flame comes out of its mouth.
In its neck abides strength,
    and terror dances before it.
The folds of its flesh cling together;
    it is firmly cast and immovable.
Its heart is as hard as stone,
    as hard as the lower millstone.
When it raises itself up the gods are afraid;
    at the crashing they are beside themselves.
Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
    nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
It counts iron as straw
    and bronze as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make it flee;
    slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.
Clubs are counted as chaff;
    it laughs at the rattle of javelins.
Its underparts are like sharp potsherds;
    it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
It makes the deep boil like a pot;
    it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
It leaves a shining wake behind it;
    one would think the deep to be white-haired.
On earth it has no equal,
    a creature without fear.
It surveys everything that is lofty;
    it is king over all that are proud.” (New Revised Standard Version)

In a long anticipated response, God finally spoke to Job with his companions present. And it was nothing like anyone expected.

Today’s Old Testament lesson continues God’s questioning of Job, and talking of the great Leviathan – a large and uncontrollable creature.

Trying to figure out exactly what Leviathan is or was (e.g. a dragon, a dinosaur, or some dang demon) is not the point of having this chapter in Holy Scripture.

We can become obsessed with having our questions answered, everything neatly categorized and understood, every problem and mystery solved to our satisfaction.

If the Book of Job teaches us anything, it is that there are questions for which there are no answers this side of heaven. There are problems which we humans cannot logically and scientifically solve.

Ironically, we discover the presence of God through God’s absence; and hear the voice of God through God’s silence.

Any encounter we may have with God will typically shatter any preconceived notions about divinity. Any experience with God shall prevent us from packaging up an answer with some nice pretty paper and bows, as if we were enjoying a delightful Christmas at home.

Facing God is much more like coming face to face with who you really are, and what motivations and intentions are really in your heart. It’s more like Halloween than Christmas. It’s staring at a scary monstrous Leviathan, and not a bright jolly Santa Claus.

Coming to grips with our fears and anxieties, struggles and weaknesses, mortality and vulnerability, is the real sort of encounter people have with God. It’s not so much that God is scary; it’s we who are scary.

It’s scary what people will sometimes do in order to try and get answers to their questions. And it is equally scary what we will do to avoid the questions asked of us.

We don’t like hearing there are some things which are unanswerable. Yet, the mystery of God is real, which means that we are never going to know about everything we want to understand.

And we also don’t like being questioned. But what can you do, whenever you cannot move, and God begins peppering you with his own questions?

We would like to justify and vindicate ourselves – even rationalize our words and actions, if that’s what it takes. Yet, it is God alone who has the power to absolve and exonerate, to bring justice while in the teeth of injustice.

Furthermore, such justification comes in God’s own timing, not ours. Again, this is one of those realities which is far above us, for which we have only a very limited perspective on.

As we move ever closer to the end of the Book of Job, Job’s quest for answers and vindication hasn’t come, at least yet. We, along with Job, must handover the entire affair thoroughly to God in complete trust – without insisting that God say or do what I want God to say or do.

Living by faith is the only real option we have. All other options leave us in an existential angst, sliding toward nihilism.

Anyone who believes they can govern the world better than God, better brace themselves for some serious questioning.

There is not a person on this earth, including myself, that I would trust to run it for ten minutes. Because within ten seconds the world would be burning.

I don’t want that world.

I want a world with God – because I wholeheartedly believe that grace is the real and true operative force on this earth.

The grace of God allows us to see the divine without having to have our puny questions answered. Grace reassures us that we are not lost, that God sees and knows what is happening, and will do something about it.

So therefore, I can rest assured that everything is held in the sinewy strong arms of God. And no person, no monster, no Leviathan, is outside of God’s ability to effect justice and righteousness in the world.

It may take some time to realize complete and total justice, but God has given me enough faith to rest in mystery, and to live with uncertainty.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

Creator of the world, we pray

That you, with steadfast love, would keep

Your watch around us while we sleep.

From evil dreams defend our sight,

From fears and terrors of the night;

Tread underfoot our deadly foe

That we no sinful thought may know.

O Father, we ask your will to be done

Through Jesus Christ, your only Son;

And Holy Spirit, by whose breath

Our souls are raised to life from death. Amen.

Questions Without Answers (Job 38:1-7, 38-41)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
God Answers Job Out of the Whirlwind, by William Blake, 1805

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man;
    I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
    and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?…

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    so that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
    and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts
    or given understanding to the mind?
Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens
when the dust runs into a mass
    and the clods cling together?

“Can you hunt the prey for the lion
    or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
when they crouch in their dens
    or lie in wait in their covert?
Who provides for the raven its prey,
    when its young ones cry to God
    and wander about for lack of food? (New Revised Standard Version)

The Book of Job is rather long. After the initial two chapters which set the scene for Job’s awful suffering, we then get an extended and agonizing thirty-five chapters of speeches between Job and his companions. It’s a lot of words which generally go nowhere.

So, by the time we get to this point in chapter 38 of Job, we may likely say, “Finally, God speaks!” Indeed, this is the moment Job has anticipated.

Perhaps we are looking for something in Job’s story which may help us in our own story of suffering. Like Job, maybe we’re looking for vindication of our situation, a restoration to some semblance of life before the grief, or to have our reputation upheld.

But that is not what we get from God. For the next nearly four chapters, God only speaks in questions, and does not answer a single one of them.

If it’s answers to questions we’re searching for, it is unlikely you will get them, at least on this side of heaven. You are more likely to get even more questions than you started with. And then, imagine being questioned by God, and having no answers for God whatsoever.

Yet, that is the point. We humans know jack squat – absolutely nothing, in comparison to an omnipresent and omniscient God.

If it’s God’s voice you really want to hear, you may not know what you’re actually asking for. That was certainly true for Job and his friends. God’s questions are really rather rhetorical; there is no way any of us could really answer them with any sort of knowledge or understanding. It would be a bit like a parent asking their toddler to describe his own birth and how it happened.

God’s unanswerable questions revolve mostly around the workings of the universe. God is the Creator, and none of us were around when it all came into existence. So, of course, we have no answers.

Yet, with all of the questions, we quickly get the impression that humans have very little control over much of anything. And I think that perhaps God wants us to be aware of that reality.

It seems to me that with every question of God, we are led to believe that God is God, and is really big; and that we are not God, and are pretty dang small.

I don’t think any of this is meant to make us feel irrelevant or disposable. Rather, it gives us some needed perspective, that is, that our perspective on world issues, events, and problems is very narrow. But God sees the whole big picture and has a stellar full perspective of all things and all people.

The God in the Book of Job is no vending machine deity, in which we can pick-and-choose what we like and don’t like. There is no grand certainty that if we press the right buttons in prayer that we get what we want.

Therefore, God is not some automaton who predictably rewards the righteous, and punishes the wicked (according to our definitions of those terms). Yet this is the God that Job’s friends believed in – which is why they reflexively interpreted Job’s situation as Job himself being a sinful man.

Even Job believed in this sort of God, at least to some degree. Up to the point of his terrible trouble, he was good and righteous, and received due reward for his faithfulness. The divine system was serving Job well.

But then the system seems to have broken down. Job interpreted God as not doing the expected divine job of operating within the predictable divine structure.

Believers in every generation and era must come to grips with the reality that – although personal virtue and devotion are important – one’s piety does not necessarily lead to personal health nor wealth.

In other words, good guys don’t always win in this life, because having faith typically means we will actually suffer, rather than not.

This is, to me, good news. Why? Because it means, conversely, that persons victimized by violence, poverty, and loss are not necessarily to blame for their troubles. Frankly, there are times when bad things happen to us that are not our fault, and we don’t see any good reason for it happening.

Whenever God is silent, we might start to think that God is also absent. We may begin to entertain nihilist thoughts that nothing matters, that everything in this universe is just random chaos.

Yet, God’s response with all the questions lets us know that there is a solid structural foundation to this universe that we aren’t always aware of. In other words, there is meaning, purpose, and order to it all. We are not forgotten. God sees and remembers us.

I do believe there is a reason for everything. However, I do not believe that we are always privy to know what that purpose may be. Which means that oftentimes, like Job, we don’t have any answers to our existential questions of human tragedy and trouble. This line of thinking isn’t meant to be a cop out; it’s meant to help us accept that we are human.

Sometimes all we can do is affirm what we know to be true, and accept the limits of our own human understanding of things such as:

  • God is God. I am not.
  • God created the world. I didn’t.
  • God established order in the universe. I sometimes see order, and oftentimes see what looks like random chaos.
  • God is Love all the time. I love, but not always.
  • God is with us, even though I may not always sense or feel that divine presence.

Maybe what is most important is that we humans keep up our dialogue with God – our questions, musings, emotions, and expressions of faith and devotion. Because it is in the relationship that we discover the key to the universe.

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us to do, so that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble. Amen.

Exodus 6:1-13 – Our Own Worst Enemy

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
Moses and the Burning Bush by Marc Chagall

Then the Lord told Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go. In fact, he will force them to leave his land!”

And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh— ‘the Lord.’I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them. And I reaffirmed my covenant with them. Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners. You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians. And I am well aware of my covenant with them.

“Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the Lord!’”

So, Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go back to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and tell him to let the people of Israel leave his country.”

“But Lord!” Moses objected. “My own people won’t listen to me anymore. How can I expect Pharaoh to listen? I’m such a clumsy speaker!”

But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them orders for the Israelites and for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. (New Living Translation)

We can become our own worst enemy.

In Lodi, California, in March of 2006, a city dump truck backed into a car belonging to a man named Curtis Gokey. The car was damaged badly. So, Gokey sued the city of Lodi for $3,600. There is, however, a catch to the story: Curtis Gokey was driving the city dump truck that crunched his personal car. And he admitted it was his fault. The city dropped the lawsuit, stating that Gokey could not sue himself. 

Like Curtis Gokey, we are often our own worst enemies. We might get down on ourselves or on God. There are times when it’s easy for us to either justify ourselves or blame ourselves, while wondering why God and/or others keep doing things we don’t like. 

When life is not going so well, it’s possible to slide into a private belief system that thinks God is not good for his promises (James 1:16-17). At worst, one can start to think that God is the problem and the source of the trouble. 

To be self-deceived is to go astray and slowly drift from the truth…. It can happen to anybody. The first step is having expectations that go unmet. An expected answer to prayer goes unanswered. Somebody lashes out and there seems to be no protection from it. Some anticipated blessing does not come to pass….

Moses was downright confused. He was confident and convinced God had called him to free the Israelites from their cruel bondage in Egypt. But nothing was going right. And the people were upset with Moses for making things worse, not better.

Trusting God and not becoming discouraged when we don’t understand everything that’s happening can be a big challenge. We might wonder if we really have what it takes to do anything well. We may wonder if God is even listening, or if God is paying any attention, at all, to our terrible plight….

  • “Why, God, did you let my son or daughter die? How in the hell am I supposed to keep going!?” 
  • “Why, God, did you give me a gaslighting boss to deal with? I get tongue-tied around her. How is she ever going to listen to me?”
  • “Why won’t people get vaccinated for COVID-19? How am I supposed to talk to the anti-vaxers?”
  • “Why, God, is everything changing? How am I going to speak up?”

Questioning can help us make sense of our situations. However, questioning may also cause us to doubt that God is there and will act on our behalf. In such times, it might be tempting to blame God for a broken relationship, a terrible event, a dysfunctional family, or an adverse situation. 

Yet, God has chosen to give us birth through the word of truth (not a word of deception and lies) so that we might have new life with fresh eyes of faith to see our situations as God sees them (James 1:18).  That is what wisdom is – the ability to see all of life from God’s perspective. 

If any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to us (James 1:5).  This is a promise from a good God who knows how to give good gifts.

None of us are above falling into misinterpretations that lead to the self-deceptions of questioning God’s goodness and our own God-given personhood. We need to be vigilant in watching for the false stories we might tell ourselves such as: 

  • “This wouldn’t have happened, if I just would’ve been better.”
  • “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
  • “I’m just a big screw-up. I can’t do anything right.”
  • “God messed-up when he made me.” 
  • “I don’t know what to say. I’m not good with words.”

We are all to take charge of our lives through having a robust theology of God that discerns the Lord is always good, all the time, without exception; and that we are called by a good God to do good work.

The good news is that a good God has taken care of the sin issue once for all through the cross of Christ. The Lord has brought us the good gifts of forgiveness and grace. God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us and guide us into all truth so that we will have wisdom and humility to live the Christian life as it is meant to be lived. 

For the Christian, the key to it all is faith – genuine authentic faith that places head, heart, and hands completely in Jesus Christ so that we have right belief, right motives, and right actions all rightly working together in a full-orbed Christianity that glorifies the triune God, encourages Christ’s church, and blesses God’s big world. 

Don’t be your own worst enemy by sabotaging your thoughts with the double-mindedness of wondering about the true nature of God. 

Explore the depths of God in Christ and discover the goodness that can result even in life’s most difficult experiences.

Lord God almighty, Creator of heaven and earth:

When evil darkens our world, give us light.

When despair numbs our souls, give us hope.

When we stumble and fall, lift us up.

When doubts assail us, give us faith.

When nothing seems sure, give us trust.

When ideals fade, give us vision.

When we lose our way, be our guide!

That we may find serenity in Your presence, and purpose in doing Your will.

Through Jesus Christ, our Savior, Lord, Brother, and Friend. Amen.

Mark 12:18-27 – Go Ahead, Ask Jesus Anything

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are sorely mistaken!” (NIV)

Okay, let’s dive in with some observational lessons from today’s Gospel reading:

  • Don’t be a dip-wad and try to trip-up Jesus with philosophically ethereal questions.
  • If you want to be rebuked by Jesus for being ignorant, mistaken, and wrong, just try and control how a conversation with him ought to go.
  • Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus are all alive – Sadducees, not so much.
  • Jesus will take the time and attention to listen and give feedback – maybe the kind you weren’t looking for.
  • What we get hung up on, Jesus doesn’t – and what Jesus sticks on, we act like Teflon about.

Do you want to keep going….?

To deny resurrection is to deny Jesus. Christ died. He’s now alive. Hence, there is a resurrection. More than that, because Christ lives, others live. This is the Christian’s hope. 

I fully understand plenty of people don’t believe in resurrection. That’s fine. I would simply point such a person no further than their own mind and heart. “Search your feelings,” as the Jedi would say, “What do they tell you?”  The evidence you need, you already have.

And this was the penultimate lesson of Jesus to the inquisitive Sadducees. They already had the answer to their question for Jesus. It was right under their noses the entire time. They just didn’t see it.

You already have everything you need for life and godliness in this present evil age.

One of the great sages of the last century, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, wisely said:

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.  Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”

Resurrection has always been there because God has always been around – even when we don’t see, perceive, or acknowledge the divine.

It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to procrastinate the inevitable end of life scenario that awaits us all. Anytime is the right time to do a bit of personal funeral planning. Yet, if we mire it all with the esoteric hypothetical questions about what would happen in the most far-fetched of scenarios, methinks God is big and smart enough to see through our puny charade.

Better to ponder what is truly within your own soul, and how Jesus might already be present within and around all things, without us even knowing it. 

A good place to start in peering within is to give a straightforward honest reading of the New Testament Gospels and discover what resonates deeply with you about the person and work of Jesus.

Feel free to question him about anything you want; just brace yourself for what kind of answer you might receive.