FOX HOLE PRAYERS (Job 34-35)

When times get bad, people cry out for help.
They cry for relief from being kicked around,
But never give God a thought when things go well,
when God puts spontaneous songs in their hearts. (Job 35:9-10)

Yup, Elihu continues making more sense than Job's other friends. Again, most of what he says resonates as true--just incomplete. His youth created a lack of perspective.

Take the verses above. People cry for help when things get bad. It's as true now as it was in Job's time. I've heard them called "foxhole prayers." (Forgive me my ignorance. Do soldiers still get in foxholes in battle?) Or when we're bargaining for escape from death. "Oh, God, I'll do anything you want, if only You . . ."

More likely than not, they neglect to fulfill their vow, until the next disaster.

I once read a two-book-in-one volume by Philip Yancey: Where is God when it Hurts? and Disappointment with God. Yancey's premise went something like this: God performed an experiment in giving His people everything they wanted or needed: on the journey to Canaan.

We all know the result: the people's faith didn't grow. It stagnated.

Our faith grows in the fire of trials, not in times of ease.

I won't go so far to say I don't think about God when things go well. But He does grab my attention when things go badly.

As far as the spontaneous songs in my heart, I'm always humming or singing. If I'm singing without thinking about it, I'm usually happy. When I'm unhappy, I sing hymns (or play piano, if I can get to one). They sooth my soul and refocus my mind on God. So music, for me, usually focuses my attention back on God.

I will admit that when things are going well, I'm not as inclined to change. Why should I stop doing something when God appears to be blessing me? I'm talking about my ministry, work, whatever God has put my hand to do. As long as God keeps the door open, stay put. When He shuts it, go on to the next things.

We won't know the door is shut without some pain.

Enjoy the times of spontaneous song--and reach for God when we are kicked around. Good advice.

I will close today with some oh-so-true words from Elihu:

If God is silent, what's that to you?
If he turns his face away, what can you do about it?
But whether silent or hidden, he's there, ruling. (Job 34:29-30

If God is silent, what’s that to you?
If he turns his face away, what can you do about it?
But whether silent or hidden, he’s there, ruling (Job 34:29-30)


Cindy, this one is for you. :)

DOES GOD ANSWER PRAYER? (Job 33)

God always answers, one way or another,
even when people don't recognize his presence. (Job 33:13-14)

Today young Elihu speaks up. He has waited for his elders to speak. When they failed to convince Job, he felt compelled to speak. (I love the way he explains himself: The Spirit of God made me what I am, the breath of God Almighty gave me life!)

All my life I've heard the maxim: God always answers prayer. Sometimes it's "yes," sometimes it's "no," sometimes it's "wait."

So far in these chapters, Elihu hasn't said anything that raises my hackles. Well, maybe at the end, but I'll get there.

God answers but we don't recognize his presence. Yup, that's me. Hmm, I have a hard time knowing what God's will is. I pray "what should I do?" but I don't get a clear cut answer. Maybe my spiritual hearing has improved as I've grown older. At some critical junctures in my past, I felt the most strongly that God led me to do something that ended in disaster. A tough place. Either I misunderstood God's will, or else He wanted me to go through that difficult period. Neither answer sat well with me.

Elihu gives examples of ways God speaks. These are as true today as they were back then.

In a dream, for instance, a vision at night.. .God opens their ears and impresses them with warnings. (Job 33:15-16)

I rarely remember my dreams. After Jolene died, I had several dreams about her. She was alive, at peace, in the dreams. I woke up gradually to her absence. But they comforted me.

The second way Elihu mentions, we discussed yesterday.

God might get their attention through pain. (Job 33:19)

God, couldn't you have taught these lessons some other way? But like Benjamin Franklin first said (found this yesterday when I was looking for quotes on wisdom): "There is no gain without pain."

Then Elihu pulls out what he considers his trump card:

You may fall on your knees and pray--to God's delight!

If only he did this, according to Elihu,You'll see God's smile and celebrate.

Hmm, I took Job's raging at heaven as a form of prayer. He wanted to talk with God. He wanted God to speak. And God was silent.

I agree, God speaks to us in ways we don't recognize.
I agree, God doesn't always give us what we want (and I'm glad).
Does Elihu think that using a prayer formula or a specific prayer posture would guarantee a better answer? Because it's true, Job isn't kneeling in reverence and penitence.

Elihu has wisdom, but he still doesn't have experience. Maybe God had always worked that way in his short life. And he didn't have the wisdom to recognize God works in different ways at different times.

Sometimes prayer is a battle. Battling with God. About ourselves. For others. I have heard of people awakened in the middle of the night to pray. That has happened to be very rarely--but it has happened occasionally.

If you ever wonder why God doesn't seem to be listening--take a second look at Job.

After I wrote this post last night, I felt compelled to mention a book I read years ago. Prolific author Cecil Murphey had a Job-like experience, not in suffering so much as experiencing God's silence. Seeking God's Hidden Face: When God Seems Absent. I don't recall the details, but the fact I remember the book suggests it made a powerful impact on me. If you are struggling with the issue of God's silence, check it out.

NEW DREAMS (Job 6)

Where's the strength to keep my hopes up?
What future do I have to keep me going?
Do you think I have nerves of steel?
Do you think I'm made of iron?
Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Why, I don't even have any boots!
(Ezra 6:8-13, MSG)

These days while going through Job may be difficult. I found a lot I could agree with in Eliphaz' first speech. How about "he gives firm footing to those sinking in grief?" When he said, "so the poor continue to hope," I felt like shouting amen! And I wondered briefly why God (and Job) got upset with his answer. A bit Romans 8:28-ish (I hate it when people quote that verse to me when I'm feeling down), but true, none the less.

But then Eliphaz listed all the good things happen to the righteous. They sounded like nothing bad ever happened to good people. Neither famine, war, gossip, loss of children--and on from there. He basically said, if Job was righteous, he wouldn't have suffered so severely. My heart screamed when I read, "You'll see your children grow up."

Job didn't like it either. His words that I quoted above put my feelings of deep sadness into words.

Before my daughter's death, the thing that saddened me the most was the removal of my son from my home when he was 15. When it became clear he would never again live with me, I felt such deep despair that I didn't know how I could survive it. Life didn't feel much worth living, but I knew I had an inner core of steel that kept me going. Of faith, of God, call it what you will. But I refused to give up on life. I lived in hope of the day that once I would have hope.

I bet we all have times in our lives when we ask, "what future do I have to keep me going?" I came name several such points in my life, which made me question the direction I had headed in. I had no future, at least not the future I had expected.

I lost the career I expected when I was kicked out of the master of music program at Southwestern Seminary. I went into Christian education instead, which was good. And God wasn't done with me and music, but in different ways.

I lost my dream of serving as an overseas missionary when my husband was kicked out of our last church. God instead has brought the world to me, and put in plenty of situations to share my faith.

I lost my dreams of parenting both my children to successful adulthood. With my son's arrest, I threw myself into writing. With Jolene's death, my writing career exploded.


I have questioned my ability to write with my continued health problems. So far, God keeps sending me the same vision: Yes, continue writing. But do it sensibly. Make smarter writing choices.

Each of those episodes sent into emotional whirlpools that dragged me under for awhile. Perhaps you're in a Job-like place right now, when you feel you have lost your hope for the future.

How about you? How have lost dreams led to a different future for you?

DEPTHS OF DEPRESSION (Job 3)

The worst of my fears has come true, what I've dreaded most has happened. My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever--death has invaded life. (Job 3:25-26)

This is another tough one, about the fact that believers may When I read Job's complaint in chapter 3, I recognized the depths of his despair. They echoed what I experienced after my daughter's suicide. He had lost all ten of his children, at once, in a vicious attack--one that God had permitted, although Job didn't know of the conversation between God and Satan.

(Hmm, that brings up a question: How did the writer of Job know the story? Interesting question, but I'm not going to address it here.)

As they say about paranoia--sometimes the things they fear actually do happen. For those of us with children blessed with
good health, the death of our children remains an intangible, unreasonable fear. For those children who have deathly illnesses, for those children with severe mental illness, like my Jolene, death is a very real fear. My very worst fear, as Job expressed it.

I talked with a mother just today, who said her 21-year-old daughter is a schizophrenic who refuses to get help. Her fear that she might someday get a phone call like the one I received over five years ago was palpable.

You may have a different worst fear. But if it has ever happened to you, you know how Job was feeling.

His peace was destroyed. No rest. In many ways I have healed from Jolene's death, perhaps in most ways. But I can also trace a line of physical weakness beginning with that event. One symptom is difficulty sleeping on many nights.

Job wished he had never been born. I know that feeling.

This journey through Job will not be so much about finding an answer to the question, why does a good God allow evil? but an exploration of how to survive. The things that well-meaning friends will say. A few amazing statements of Job's faith. God's answer when it at last comes.

It won't be easy.

But it is part of God's word. Not only that, it's part of our lives, at least for many of us.

I'm looking forward to new insights into surviving our worst fears.Perhaps for me, it will bring a deeper level of healing. I pray it is so for others of us who have been there, or who are ministering to those in the depths.

LIFE ON THE SEESAW (Genesis 46; Exodus 1)

Talk about setbacks. 

Jacob arrived in Egypt with twelve sons and their families, a total of seventy people; they brought with them all the accumulated wealth God had bestowed on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his sons. They were crazy rich. 

By the time they reached a Pharaoh "who knew not Joseph," the savior of Egypt, they had squandered it all. The descendants of those seventy people--600,000 strong--were poor. So poor in fact, that they were slaves. 

Questions stampede through my mind. Did poverty force them to sell themselves into slavery? Was it a political or military action? In that case, if they still had money, why hadn't they returned to Canaan? I can't help but think that they used it up along the way. 

A definite change from the Patriarchs. When God finally gave them the population explosion promised to Abraham, He slowed down on the abundance of wealth.

I know things often work like that in my life. If I sign a book contract, an unexpected expense arises. When my daughter died, my second book was published. (You may not know that the second book is almost more important than the first, proving an author isn't a one-book wonder.)  My mother died, and my grandson was born. 

God gives--and He takes away. Often at the same time. 

I used to wish I could experience a season of "giving" without worrying about the takeaway part. But I have decided that the trial makes the gift sweeter--and the gift definitely makes the trial easier to bear. 

With Job I will say, "He gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."