within the first two chapters of Job, we're introduced to pretty much the wealthiest man in the east, pretty much the Bill Gates of their time. and God trusts Job, so that when Satan pretty much says he rules the world, God decides to test Job's faith, i guess because He has a lot of confidence in Job. so, in about a ten minute period or so (about five "immediately after's"), four or five different slaves show up saying that everything he owns has perished by works of God (things like earthquakes and fire falling from the sky) - killing not only all of his workers, but all of his livestock, and all of his children, and the Bible makes a point of saying Job was the wealthiest man in the East, so this is kind of a big deal. then Satan gives him boils throughout his entire body, and yet Job refuses to curse God. when his three best friends go to visit him, Job is so grieved that no one speaks for an entire week and then Job goes on to say that he wishes he had never been born (though i don't think he turns from God).
and i think it's clear that Job must have had a pretty truth-based faith. you would expect most people in his position to be jerks, but it says that Job stood blameless and upright before God. and you have to expect that when God started testing Job's faith like He did, Job probably wasn't feeling God very much. it probably wasn't very much of a spiritual high for him, it wasn't like ecstacy or anything. it was just...nearly everything he had gone.
and if i could get to this point... that must really be love. Job must have really loved God. mike said one time that in worship, one of three things will happen - we will touch the heart of God, God will touch our hearts, or both of us will touch the heart of the other. and God wasn't really touching Job's heart in the way that Job would have liked, but i think Job was touching God's heart and that God must have been smiling or crying or both when Job's wife told him to give up his integrity and curse God and Job refused to give up his integrity and that if we were going to accept God's gifts and blessings, why should we not accept adversity?
so we're talking about falling in love, and this isn't supposed to be super spiritual or anything like that. it's not like "what we have to do to be in love with God," because you can't really write a tutorial to fall in love. and it's more than just God, it's nearly any real romantic relationship.
in luke 14, it talks about starting what you finish - knowing what it takes to lay the foundation and build the building and then doing it. it's like knowing what it takes to run a race, knowing the costs that it will take to finish building the entire house, because you can't just stop short and move into a broken house, something without a roof or something important like that. some of my friends just move in to broken houses. they enroll in hard classes and see how long they can stay in them, not really intending on finishing the class...just wondering how long they can stay in them. so that when things get tough - adversity - people just drop out. because the truth is...being a Christian hurts. you try to invest a life you don't have into God...you try to go against everything everyone seems to be telling you. you have to look like an idiot sometimes, you have to look like you hate your family just so that you can follow God, and He cuts off everything that's not of Him because He realizes that as long as there are areas where He's not in control, these areas can't grow, and so they are really just bringing us down.
what are you going to do? are you going to run this race? because you obviously don't have to. you can enroll in the class and get out when it starts to be overwhelming. you don't even have to enroll in the class. because this is like AP IB super college Life, and none of us have seen anything like it before. you're not going to find Sparknotes on any of this, no cheat sheets. but instead of Life, it seems like Faith or Love would be more appropriate. and truth be told, things aren't about faith or even about love, and you can't really even teach either. you can't teach how to have faith in someone, how to love someone. it's not exactly textbook material.
it's not a class at all. it's a relationship. it's God.
what would you do for a relationship? what would you do for someone you love? you know you'd give it all. you know you'd spend a week thinking about the smallest things, the smallest embrace. you'd wait a week just to try to catch a glimpse of that someone, the things that break their heart would truly break your heart, seeing them come to life would bring you to life just as easily. you'd wait a summer just to see something you'd never seen before. and the adversity wouldn't matter. you would hardly see it. you might hardly care. you would just try to get back to that point of peace or intimacy. and you would dare to do the impossible. what would it take to get to them? what would it take for you to be together? you would do whatever it takes.
the thing about this is...we gotta be ready. when you want to run the race of your life, you start training. you start running at least months in advance so that by the time the race comes, you can run hard and fast. in the same way, if you're in a relationship and someone leaves for a period of time, you would spend that time trying to fill voids. you would get ready for them, so that when they came back, you could fill their needs, sorta. you could make things easier, you could impress or please them. this is really what all the hype is. trying to get to where God wants us to be.
and there's a law that is meant to bring us into the direction of the relationship, but the relationship isn't about the law, and the fulfilling of the law isn't exactly necessary for the wellbeing of the relationship (the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. but after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor - galatians 3:24-25). i think it really boils down to this - how much are you willing to give to God? would you give Him your relationships? your money? your dreams? because if we are trying to get to be the people that God wants us to be, then we have to be willing to give it all away. we have to be willing to be humble and to be humbled, which means that things are going to hurt. we're going to have to be disciplined, to be chastened. we're going to have to make sacrifices and fail miserably sometimes and let go of the things we want the most...all for the sake of a relationship.
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