I've got a Job for you

Sometimes in the car I listen to "smart stuff", you know, NPR, public radio, jazz, stuff like that. A closet habit I indulge in only when I'm alone.

Tonight, I turned on KUER, the radio station for the University of Utah, and it was an interview of an author who wrote a book about the biblical Job. Now, in all fairness, I didn't catch the whole interview, or even hear who wrote it or what the book was called, but it was obvious that the interviewer was atheistic, while the author was not, though he was very professional and patient with the interviewer, who apparently was trying their best to be profressional. (mispelled on poipose).

One comment kinda got me agitated. It was from the interviewer who commented how the book of Job in the Bible doesn't really make a lot of sense taken in the context of the biblical story, how if you just wait long enough ("the patience of Job" as expressed by James), things get better, while the rest of the biblical story shows that things really, very often, just DON'T get better. Job endured the trials, and got all his riches, wealth, and family back. The author kindly agreed that it doesn't fit very well with all the other biblical stories and continued that thought that the story really doesn't make sense, but it is so comforting to so many people that it will be a story that lives on (the interviewer added, "In our scientific world, perhaps Job's story will live longer than the god the book describes.")

"Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it?"

Sadly, it seems they both missed the boat on the story of Job. Yes, Job was a tremendous example of Faith in God and His Wisdom. Yes, Job was patient, and even from the author's view, proactive in getting through the trial and getting all of his riches and wealth back. Yes, Job's friends and wife were kinda clueless about some things, and Job's confidence in his own righteousness, helped him survive and endure the trial.

Those are all great and wonderful, but I couldn't help but shout at them (in my head. I don't shout to strangers who can't hear me, unless they cut me off or are driving stupidly: another closet habit I indulge in by myself, at times) the point of the Job's trial wasn't just to test him (although it certainly was at that), nor are any of our trials.

A friend once asked, late at night, while contemplating and discussing the universe and the gospel, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" He asked in the context of his younger brother dying in a car accident. My first thought then, and my response to him in that moment, probably deserved a punch to the face, but  I stand by it. "They don't," I said. "Just good things we can't understand yet."

From the ashes of disaster grow the Roses of Success!

God already knows what decisions we'll make, because he knows us. I know if my kids are gonna choose ice cream over oatmeal for breakfast because I know them, not that I've fore-ordained them to any such decision, or am forcing them through an eternally coercive fate, but because I know their tendencies, their thoughts, and pasts, and their interests (actually, my kids would probably choose the oatmeal, especially if it had brown sugar and milk and berries). He's planned accordingly and we will end up where we want to go because of what we ourselves, individually, want.

It's not a tough choice, really

He doesn't NEED to test us for his sake. He tests us for two reasons.

1. So we can see for ourselves what WE really want.
2. Because the test will make us more like Him if we let it.

When we get to the judgement bar of God as resurrected children of a Heavenly Father, we will discuss with him, with our Savior, and with ourselves, what is best for our eternal fate. And we will know for certain where we should go. We will remember everything we've done and if our choices have been consistently selfish, we will wish the rocks could hide us in shame. If our choices have been full of effort and attempts at being "good" (for lack of a better word), we will be able to look the Savior in the face and ask for forgiveness. And he will grant it. This forgiveness will wash us clean and purify us and we will then be able to look our Father in the face and claim that we are ready to return home with him, and He has promised to allow it.

The second item I mentioned reminds me of a time when Jeremiah was commanded to go watch a potter shape his clay and God used it as a metaphor for his children. God wants more than anything to train us, teach us, and prepare us to become Godlike and perfect as he is. It is his work and glory, his focus, his passion. If we don't cooperate, he will keep trying anyway (and as long as we're alive we have a chance, and even after this life, we MAY get some more chances). If the clay isn't forming what it should, the Potter of Potters will lump us back into clay and start again.

I couldn't help but think that Job's trials weren't JUST to test his faith, but that in the trial, something awakened in him, deeper than the anger, grief, depression, despair, and pain he felt. Something Godlike awoke in him that wasn't already there. Even as upright and "perfect" as he'd been before, there was room to grow, and it grew. The fruits of it were evident in his later life as he didn't give up and gained all he'd had AND MORE!! But his spiritual strength he gained by such incredible resistance was commended by the Savior and his Apostles.

If Life hasn't been hard to you in a way that's unique to you, you're doing it wrong. And you're failing because of it. My two bits. There is Joy to be found, but only through struggle, pain, and heartache. He has promised us there will be rest from all of this after this life is over, if we have chosen it. But for now, we must keep exercising our faith, the way a salmon exercises by swimming upstream, or the way a CrossFit fanatic exercises, or the way God chooses our exercises for us.