I have to confess that when I come to the Book of Job, I hesitate because it is somewhat boring.
But it demonstrates- at least, to me- why so many people have a problem with God.
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To review, Job was a righteous man who had everything: devoted children, a loving wife, cattle, herds, and wealth. He was also respected and admired by all.
One day God asked Satan if he noticed how righteous Job was, and Satan said that it didn’t matter because if someone has everything, of course they will be grateful and worshipful. Satan said take all that away, and even Job would curse God for all the tsouris (troubles) he had in his life.
God took that challenge, betting on Job’s righteousness, and eventually Satan destroyed everything Job had- children were killed, cattle and sheep stolen, and even his health was taken away. Job’s wife turned against him, people ignored and ridiculed him, and even his best friends told him to repent because they know God is punishing him for all the sins he must have committed, saying they know that this is what God does.
Job kept his humility, and despite his claims of never having ever done anything wrong, his friends kept accusing him of being a sinner. At the end, God had enough of both Job and his friends telling each other all about why God does what God does, as if they were drinking buddies with the Almighty.
God set them all straight, speaking to them from out of a whirlwind.
Now, I started off saying that this story teaches why so many people have a problem with God, and this is why I say that:
We want God to do what we want him to do,
and can’t stand the idea that he doesn’t have to.
That’s right.
Why do you think there are so many different Christian religions? According to Google, there are some 64,000 different Christians religions in the world! How can there be so many different ways to follow the one, same God?
The answer is simple: people don’t want God to be who he is, they want him to be who they think he should be, so when one religion doesn’t fit your bill, you start another one.
Every single Christian religion is man-made. That’s the truth- not one of them was created by God, and that’s because God has no religion. God gave Moses instructions for how we are to worship him and how we are to treat each other. He gave them to his nation of priests (that’s us Jews- check it out in Exodus 19:6, so that we could learn them and then teach them to the rest of the world.
But the world didn’t want it, so after Yeshua (Jesus) went back to his father, people ignored the fact that he taught from the Torah, and misused Shaul’s (Paul) letters to form their own religion, which by the end of the First Century was totally different from the way Yeshua lived and worshiped.
But I digress, so let me get back on topic…
The story of Job is so frustrating because despite the fact that Job was exactly and completely what God wants us all to be, i.e., humble, righteous, and caring for others, all those terrible things happened to him while God just sat by and let it all happen!
So why would God ever allow this to happen to anyone so righteous? How could a loving God let the Enemy do so many mean and hurtful things to one who was so worshipful?
That’s the issue, isn’t it? How can anyone understand such a dichotomy? The answer I have to that question is this:
God doesn’t have to do anything we think he should.
God is in charge, and whether or not we understand his reasoning, he does what he wants to do. Hey, look, it’s his game, it’s his arena, and they are his rules. If you don’t want to play by them, then what you do is create your own god with your own rules, and that is called “religion”.
The lesson from Job isn’t as much for us as it was for Satan, which was that the truly righteous will not be turned from God simply because things go bad for them. Yeshua also taught this lesson with his parable about the man who sowed seeds, and some never rooted, some rooted weakly and were easily killed off, but the ones who landed on good soil and rooted deeply yielded a tremendous crop.
Job was one of those seeds that was rooted deeply, and I believe Satan learned that he is wasting his time because he will win only those who really aren’t worth having because their loyalty is weak and easily turned.
In the end, God gave back twice what Job had lost, so no matter how bad things are now, remain faithful and persevere and you will be rewarded.
To conclude, here is a truth which the sooner you accept, the less frustrated you will be:
God doesn’t have to explain anything.
Thank you for being here, and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!