Pulverized

“Your hands shaped me and made me. 

Remember that you molded me like clay. 

Will you now turn me to dust again?” 

Job 10:8-9 

Job was an intriguing guy. The Bible says there was no one on earth like Job. He was blameless and upright—a man who feared God and shunned evil. He ranked up there with the likes of Billy Graham.

One day God agreed to let Satan torment Job. This is where the story gets a little sticky. I mean, what is up with God to allow Satan to harass a man who has done nothing but honor God with his whole life?

The incongruence of the story used to bug me to no end. Job’s life began spiraling downward as he lost more and more of himself to end-to-end tragedy. Soon there was nothing left to him but to sit on a dirt mound scraping the boils from his body with a shard of broken pottery. And this was a man who was considered among the best on earth.

At the height of the onslaught upon his life, fearing he would deny God, Job asked God to take his life:

“Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant what I hope for, that God would be willing to crush me, to let loose his hand and cut off my life! Then I would still have this consolation—my joy in unrelenting pain—that I had not denied the words of the Holy One". 

Job 6:8-10 

When he realized that death would not be an option, Job began a discourse with friends and God. All he wanted was to get to the bottom of his ordeal—to get some wisdom and insight on his misfortune.

The story of Job has become one of my favorites over the last six years. In the past, I had always judged him wrongly. As a child, I was under the impression that his woes were the consequences of his pride. I could not have been more misled.

There is not a single instance in the account of his dilemma where Job acknowledges that he did anything wrong. Not because he was in denial, but because he was innocent. His proclamation of blamelessness did not slow his “friends” though, from attempting to attribute Job’s pain to his shortages. What are friends for if not to correct your bad behavior?

The story gets even more intriguing as Job deflects every accusation leveled at him by his friends. He is charged with wrongdoings up one side and down the other, but never gives an inch to his accusers.

Toward the end Job admits to only one thing—that he is merely dust in the larger scheme of things. And here in lies the message of Job—we are all merely “dust”. But wait! Being dust is a good thing.

A piece of pottery that has developed a crack is good for very little. In fact, it has become useless to perform the tasks for which it was created. An honest potter would never try to repair the cracks by filling them, for that would be a disreputable thing to do. Filling the cracks would not remedy the problem—only disguise it.

The only way the broken pottery has a chance to be used again in the future would be to pulverize the vessel. The process means that the clay pot would need to be turned back into a fine dust so that water could once again be added to create clay ready to be molded and shaped by the potter’s hands. But this humbling process is no walk in the park. It is intended to expose and do away with the "cracks" that make us insincere. And that can hurt like....

God Isn't Fair

These days I cannot have what I really want. My needs, though whittled down to some basic necessities of existence in L.A., are agonizingly out of my reach. This failure collides head-on with the human desire for comfort I have had my entire life. Never have my goals in life seemed so distant as they do now. They exist as vapor in an arid land.

The tension between what I want and what I cannot have has not eased in over 50 years. When I scrutinize the intense feelings associated with lack I see that they are the evidence of a long, hard search for me. Herein lies the conflict of my will versus God’s will—or what I believe is “fair” versus what God sees as “good”.

It's taken me a long time to realize that God does not work on the level of “fairness versus unfairness”. He is more concerned with what is “good”. The trouble I have with his approach is that “good” does not always appear “fair” from every angle, especially from my own. In fact, if we are honest, we have all had doubts concerning God's fairness at certain points.

A question of “fairness” can be immensely difficult to resolve since it is only by my willingness and acceptance that it can be laid to rest. My flesh, though, has a difficult time laying any perceived personal injustice to rest. Therefore, it is always better that I approach a difficult situation in life on the basis of whether or not it holds the potential for good. For instance, I realize now that much good can come from these years in the tent, even though their fairness will forever remain up for grabs.