Reflective Practice – Maria Robinson

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson

Dear friends,

It’s been a sad week since i last wrote to you. We mourned for the sudden demise of Ms Grace Karen Manuputty. We witnessed the tragic loss of lives by the eruption in Mt Merapi. And on a personal front, my home church mission Pastor is retiring after more than 50 years of faithful service and going back to USA.

i found it hard to accept, let alone understand how all these things could be reasonable, and permitted by a loving, gracious God. When i looked at the immense sorrow of Handy and ibu Ann Manuputty, when i saw the images of ash-covered young children and nursing mothers, when i look at the wrinkles of a long, hard life of my pastor, i ask, “WHY?”

Why should we suffer? Why does God allow innocent people to go through tough times? Why, especially on good people, and those who call Him “Abba Father?”…. Why, is it worth it at the end of long, arduous, and faithful service? And all you get is a slow fade into “retirement”?

The world is also in a sad state. A cursory look at the newspaper headlines today reveals much about the tragic state of affairs in this world. Countless disasters, calamities and misfortunes abound each day around the world. From immense countries rattling their political saber to infinitesimal nations scrambling for existence, from dignity costing two cents and depravity making millions, we scratch our head and try to make sense out of a senseless world. A sympathetic response is usually what we give when bad things happen, and an indignant cry when bad things happen to good people. But when tragedy befalls on us, we try to make sense of this, and ask ourselves why: Why is this happening? Why now? Why me?

i hardly slept for a week. i spent the quiet moments in the wee hours of the morning trying to come to terms with my own spirituality, faith in God and my calling as a pastor and missionary. Many would say that proper understanding of suffering is critical for success in our lives. Often, our “spirituality” dictates how we deal with situations that are uncontrollable and delimitating. The more “spiritual” and “in-tune” we are of God, the more we are able to handle suffering. But is this true? For some who have gone through intense suffering, common sense tells us that this is not congruent. Hence, a proper response is needed in this maddening world. A response drawn not from ourselves, which the world tries to impress upon us (such as pop psychology), but a response drawn from God.

It is with this that i find myself returning to the book of Job. i have read this portion of the Bible many times, and i found it offers rich insight into suffering, and a comfort for my present predicament.

Book of Job

The Book of Job is a complex wisdom writing that uses a blend of prose and poetry in dramatic form to explore the perennial problem of innocent suffering and God’s justice. The principal figure of the book is Job, a pious God-fearer afflicted with disease and stripped of all his goods. Throughout the drama, Job asserts his innocence of wrong, thereby rejecting the traditional view that suffering is the result of sin. The humble and patient Job who bears his sufferings as proofs of piety, however, becomes the raging and insistent Job pressing relentlessly for divine vindication in the dialogue that forms the main part of the book (chaps. 3 – 31). The argument is pursued through three cycles of speeches in which Job’s three friends – Eliphaz, Bilbad, and Zophar – chide the hero and he, in answering them, challenges God. Job’s final self defense and call upon the deity is answered by God’s speech from a whirlwind in which Job is invited to trust in the divine omniscience and power.

This direct experience of the mysteries of God leaves Job at peace with himself. Although no final solution to the problem is offered, the author clearly rejects traditional explanations of suffering. It is a debatable point whether he offers a positive answer to questions about suffering and divine justice.

Job is under trial. But it also shows the blessedness of the truly pious, even amid sore afflictions, and thus ministers comfort and hope to tired believers of every age. It ministered to me.

Suffering and Spirituality

We often dichotomize suffering and spirituality, making both separate entities. Suffering is something that we go through. It is personal, private, and distinct. On the other hand, spirituality, in the context of suffering, is how we respond. It is our “re-action” based on the level of maturity and insight into God’s perspective – His Word.

But this division is unnecessary and self-limiting. It is perhaps our human inability to go beyond comprehension and thus ending up in a divorce from what God had originally not meant it to be. To say that suffering is personal and private is denying God’s sovereignty. We are created creatures, not the Creator. We struggle and make sense, but we err. Like what Solomon said, everything seems meaningless and vain, chasing after the wind.

This is where i tried to identify with Job (notice the word ‘tried’). When we cease “doing”, like Job, we start “being”. On meeting with God, Job crumbles. In the middle of the storm he caught a glimpse of the awesome creative majesty, power, and control of God. He is reminded that God is the God of the storm, the God of the edges, the God of the place where Job doesn’t want to be. God knows all about being on the rubbish heap outside a city wall. “You are Lord in this place,” Job admits to God that he had said some pretty stupid things and that he was in out of his depth. Now he has met with God, now that he knows he can trust him, he repents. He kneels down. He ceases doing, seeking, and in his utter state of reprobation, he begins to know, to understand finitely his own being, and God’s omniscience.

As he fell to his knees, he said these words in a song (Job 42:1-6):

1 Then Job replied to the LORD:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

Somehow his earlier quest to know and make sense of what went wrong don’t seem so important. Somehow his protests seem so futile and childish. When he stops shouting long enough to listen to God, he becomes silent before his majesty. He encounters God and his faith which seemed so weak and frail and at the point of breaking is strengthened and enriched. At the end of the story his health and wealth and reputation and family are greater than before. But in a strange way, that doesn’t seem so important anymore. (It is important, but not so important.)

Job never knows the reason for his suffering. Job never knows that for the past 40 chapters Satan has been using the weather, and natural disaster, and sickness, and his enemies, and his wife, and his friends to wear him down. But Job has learned that the only answer he will ever have to his suffering is that God is worthy of his trust, that God is able to do the planning and worrying and creating, and that God is able to work all things together for God for those who love him.

Like Job, our response does indeed reveal much about ourselves and our relationship with God. Likewise for anyone facing difficulties, depression and danger. In our vain struggle with God and our flesh, we may never know or fully comprehend why bad things happen, especially when the victim is ourselves. But we do well, if we come to terms with our own spiritual bankruptcy and cease doing. Then we embark on the road to recovery by being and depending.

Suffering is the fertile soil into which God transplants every growing Christian (cp. 1 Pet 5:10).

Suffering is the motivation to take our eyes off temporal things so that we can see eternal realities (Phil. 3:8). Suffering is the pain that is required in order for true healing to take place (1 Pet 4:1). Suffering is the confirmation that we have been chosen for special leadership with Christ in His Kingdom (II Tim. 2:12).

i was deeply touched by Mr Anba’s email to some of us. i would like to quote from him: “Elephants mourn their death but after the mourning period they play in the mud and water. Why? Time carries on and they have to take care of the young. Like how we have to too.”

Do i have answers to the “why?” questions above…. No…..

But God has taught me through it all that it is not important to ask “why?” but ask “what?” What is God teaching me? What is the purpose of life? What can i do (rather than to wallow in self-pity).

Suffer on!

Have a quiet, reflective week ahead.

Because He lives,

desmond

PS: There will be no prayer pointers this week. As the Lord impresses upon your heart to pray, just pray and ask boldly….

Epilogue

And after a little bit of reflection Job knows that when God asked him, “Job, do you really trust me in the place where you don’t want to be?”

Job eventually says: “Yes.”