Do ya'll ever have one of those days, or in this case weeks.. where your head just spins seemingly nonstop, and that one collected moment you rely on to carry you through just isn't available? Instead, it's a barrage of phone calls, time-sensitive demands and meetings. It's after-work obligations, appointments, errands and bedtimes that come all too soon, even though they're not until midnight. It's dinner that you don't eat until almost 10pm because that's barely an hour after you get to your house since you left it that morning.
That's been this week for me. Much of that has been fruitful, productive and positive activity, but it still begs more of me sometimes than I feel like I'm physically and emotionally capable of delivering. My patience has been tested in new and unpredictable ways this week, so [as always,] the timing for this recap and study couldn't have been more perfectly aligned for me.
Chris opened the study with a pretty broken-in question:
Chris opened the study with a pretty broken-in question:
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| graphic cred: crosstownalliance.com |
I'll preface this by saying that although my week's been a harum-scarum, please don't think that I believe there's any weight of comparison between that and Job's life. My problems at the moment are all first-world issues, and don't include any feelings that an hour's time alone in a hammock couldn't appease.
Job, on the other hand..
[If you haven't read Job, I recommend it. Caveat to that though, is my additional recommendation not to read it first, if it's the first and only thing in the Bible that you'll be reading. I mean, you can, but although it's got a happy ending, it's not the most encouraging thing for the first few chapters. You've been cautioned.]
Want the Cori Cliff Notes? Okay:
Job's got the life: he's wealthy from a worldly and materialistic standpoint. He has a wife, grown children, grandchildren and servants. He has herds of animals and massive plots of acreage. He's known by everyone in a time & world where social media [or cameras, phones & cars in general] do not exist. [GASP]. He's a sturdy, healthy man who also happens to be God-fearing and humble. Satan comes along one day and challenges the resolve of Job's faith against the onset of destruction and personal loss, and God allows all but his own personal death to come to him for the sake of proving a point to Satan that a man after God's own heart cannot be deterred. Job's herds are killed, his entire family (sans wife) is crushed in an accident, his physical body is stricken with open boils and sores and to top it off, his wife and friends encourage him to rebuke the name of the creator of all that is.
That.. is a bad week.
Like I said, probably not the first book I would've wanted to read when I started on my journey to understand the Bible.
So throughout all. of. this, we have Job dropping to his knees and raising his eyes to the Heavens and thanking God for the blessings he has otherwise received, and acknowledging that if God has given, it is that same intrinsic and divine right for Him to take away.
He. Praises. God.
In a time like that.
And here I am, conditionally promising my best behavior at work, mentally, to a God who moved planets and breathed stars to life, if He'll just keep that dozen or so of the most pesty associates and clients at bay for however many hours I want to focus on whatever else.
For all it looks like, Job is an upstanding citizen, father, husband, community role model, boss and entrepreneur. He loses everything. He's stripped down to nearly dust, but at the end of the story [fast forward], is replenished and rewarded with seven more children, full herds, servants, land and everything nearly tenfold what had been lost before. He grows old, dies with a full and wise heart and is remembered and cherished by his family and friends.
But he was a GOOD PERSON before that, though.. so why'd all this happen in the first place?
What a PERFECT question for a time like this. With less than a full week having passed since the madness in Orlando, I'm sure now is an appropriate a time as there ever was to be asking,
WHY DO BAD THINGS
HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?!
HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?!
Christina Grimmie. Forty-nine people in a nightclub. A little boy on the bank of a pond.
And this is just ORLANDO!
And this is just ORLANDO!
Lives lost, families torn apart, communities shaken to the core.
I want to know why BAD THINGS happen to GOOD PEOPLE.
Her name is Krista, and while she might not remember, she said something to me in 1999 when we lost a classmate to a shooting incident in my small hometown. Krista was [& still is] my youth pastor's wife, and when that happened, stepped in to help council those of us in our youth group who'd been affected. I asked her the same question then, through 15-year-old eyes that didn't understand half of what they do now about the world or life in general: Krista, WHY do bad things happen to good people?!
And she answered, "I don't know."
Now, before I share what she said in addition to that, let me say this: that was 17 years ago and I still remember it as clearly as if I'd just heard it: "I don't know." What had I been expecting to hear, that I was so surprised by that? Some eloquent, lofty explanation full of churchy verbiage and verses from Isaiah and Proverbs? I was 15. Who knows, maybe I wasn't aware then that there isn't an answer to that that qualifies as absolute, or perfect. No one answer will satisfy that question in every one of its countless available contexts. But in that moment, it was exactly what I needed to hear. That I was not the only who didn't have all the answers.
As I said, there was more to it, but by priming whatever came next with the understanding that it was her personal opinion on why, based on a much more mature understanding of life and life as a Christ-follower. She played for me Refiner's Fire, and her belief that refinement is a process that does not come easy. Years later, I would connect this with another counselor's comparison to the process of exacting brilliant diamonds: by applying pressure.
At nearly 32, I look back at those two conversations, and all those looped up in between, coupled with the life experiences I've had since then, and believe whole-heartedly in 2 things:
1. I will never know the "right" answers to some of the questions I have, namely that one.
and
2. I am perfectly content in not knowing. I am here now, and I'm who I am now, because of several separate and ongoing refining processes. Growth is not happening if I'm not being challenged, in some form. Some challenges apply more pressure than others, and they end up hurting.. sometimes a lot. But I'm not dead [yet, & sometimes miraculously so, but I digress]... and given that one simple, indisputable fact, I think God's been a little more than good to me.
2. I am perfectly content in not knowing. I am here now, and I'm who I am now, because of several separate and ongoing refining processes. Growth is not happening if I'm not being challenged, in some form. Some challenges apply more pressure than others, and they end up hurting.. sometimes a lot. But I'm not dead [yet, & sometimes miraculously so, but I digress]... and given that one simple, indisputable fact, I think God's been a little more than good to me.
********************
Now, I'm not blind to what a lot of people might think about my diatribe about faith and God and the whole Christian thing, especially in the light of what's been happening in Orlando. I just said that I don't have all the answers, but I do believe something [& I'm not alone]. The one, true God that I love, honor and strive to follow, does NOT capitalize on hate. He doesn't encourage humans to kill other humans. He doesn't give any of us permission to damage the soul of another human for the benefit of proving a point. He demands that we love, unconditionally, wholly and like that of a child - blind to prejudice of any format. THAT.. is God. He forgives, but does not forget, and we are accountable to Him. "Good deeds" don't get us to Heaven; our hearts do, and I for one refuse to step up on the day I leave Earth with a heart that's harbored years of hate, judgment, self-righteousness or spite. I'm a work in progress. We all are.
And in that way, I've prayed for and mourned from miles away here in Ohio for those in Orlando. For those in California, and for the rest of our world, where humans are hurting other humans, and creating new generations of humans who will never learn not to hurt other humans. It's dizzying.
BUT.. Why do bad things happen to good people?!
Ya'll... I don't know. BUT, I have seen from this great distance [imagine how this looks up close, how fantastic and intense it must be!] how global communities are banding together, not just residents in Orlando. Humans, around the world are seeing this and reacting in the only one true way that will ever, ever, ever stop the cycle of destroying each other: by LOVING EACH OTHER. Families supporting broken mothers, fathers, siblings whose loved ones never came home from that club. Businesses providing resources for their community. Strangers reaching out to strangers to offer words of encouragement. Athletes, musicians, celebrities, charity organizations everywhere campaigning for more love, and less hate. The internet, in all its glorious relevance these days, teeming with videos, campaigns, messages promoting open hearts and awareness.
The small voice in the back of my mind thinks that maybe, just maybe, in spite of this enormous, unspeakably unnecessary and devastating chain of events, this surge of new activity pointing us back in the direction of loving one another for who and where we each are, and appreciating what that really means... maybe that wouldn't be happening at this magnitude, without something a such a punctuated prompt. Fifty-one(+++) reasons inspiring us to end hate and seek love. It's a risk to say that, I know; the mother whose son or daughter was gunned down, terrified and desperate in those last moments, likely won't agree. The parents who lost their little boy during what was supposed to be a joy-filled family vacation. The brother who tackled a gunman after watching his baby sister gunned down as she signed autographs. Maybe they won't agree. At least not right now, and maybe never.. and that's okay, but I do believe that ashes pave the way to new growth. I believe loss can ruin us, or it can fuel us.
And I believe in [the power of] prayer.
And healing.
And community, fellowship.
And community, fellowship.
And forgiveness.
And action.
And action.
And I believe in the process of refinement.
********************
I left small group feeling really weird, but in a good way. I felt really convicted [aka guilty], for starters, to get over myself and this seemingly "bad day" that I'd had. After studying Job and dissecting the hell that he had to endure in order to be refined, my week looks much more mundane. I'll take a feeling of foolishness any day if I can also find that type of perspective.
On, and this was the sky tonight:
Hey, God. Thank you.♥
I hope ya'll have a beautiful evening. I don't know if anyone out there needed a pep talk as much as I did today, but if you did [or still do], I'm that random stranger on the internet here to tell you that you're much more than you think, and you're not giving yourself enough credit. Now, if you're feeling pretty good with where you are, go find one of those people who felt like I did all day today, and share some of that love with them. Chances are, you'll both benefit from it.
Let's all be good people. To ourselves and to each other.
And let's maybe teach the little- and big! - ones around us, to be good, too.
Life's a little nicer when we are. ♥
And let's maybe teach the little- and big! - ones around us, to be good, too.
Life's a little nicer when we are. ♥
xo | cmd
