Well...God showed up, (pt 1)

One of my favorite movies ever is Forrest Gump. If you have never seen it I suddenly feel very old and my illustration for this entire article is now meaningless. If that's the case, just play along. If you have seen the movie, you will remember Gary Sinese's character, Lieutenant Dan. (I'm going somewhere with this, just hang on). Lieutenant Dan is originally Forrest Gump's commanding officer in Vietnam. Forrest eventually saves Lieutenant Dan from dying in battle. Lieutenant Dan would have preferred to die in battle because that's what the men in his family had always done and the battle wounds he suffered caused him to lose his legs. Lieutenant Dan, (you always have to say the full name, "Lieutenant Dan", in case you're wondering), becomes bitter and angry because he's now a cripple. He's angry at Forrest. He's angry at life and he's angry at God. Forrest, on the other hand, maintains his childlike faith in God.

Ultimately Forrest becomes a shrimp boat captain and Lieutenant Dan becomes his first mate. He and Forrest are having quite a hard time catching shrimp because neither of them really know what they're doing. There's a scene where in his frustration with life, God, and shrimp that Lieutenant Dan looks at Forrest and says, "So where's this God of yours?" It is at that exact moment, as Forrest says so eloquently, "that God showed up." There is a tremendous hurricane that hits their boat while they're out at sea and Lieutenant Dan takes to screaming at God throughout the whole thing. For the rest of the story you have to watch the movie. But I will tell you that Lieutenant Dan gets new legs and gets over his anger issues...and they catch a lot of shrimp.

I've been waiting to use the "God showed up" quote ever since I started this series on Job. It perfectly captures what happens here in chapters 38-41. Job has been wanting to have a word with the Almighty ever since about chapter four. Now God is going to show up and speak his peace to Job. Surprisingly enough, Job is going to get a little more than he bargained for.

As this is the climax of the entire book I am going to take my time to go through what happens and make sure we understand what God says and what it all means. This may take a couple of articles to complete. I'm okay with that because I want to handle these chapters with all the wisdom and grace I can muster, (which isn't much if you're a Journalism major). Let me also say that I am tentative to engage such an amazing passage of Scripture for several reasons. For one thing, it's an awesome passage of the Bible. It is probably the longest speech God ever gives to a human being in the entire Bible. In it God reveals himself in a dynamic way that is seldom seen. I am nervous about being unable to do justice to God's words. Secondly, and perhaps more personally, I understand we have reached the end of the book where we will get the answers, in a sense, to Job's questions about good, evil, suffering, and God's purposes in this world. In other words, we're getting down to the heart of the matter. I realize these are sensitive issues for folks, including me. I/we may not like the answers God provides. My goal here is to be faithful what God has said, but also sensitive to the realities of the questions we all struggle with. It's kind of a big deal. But as Forrest Gump didn't fail to go back in the jungle to save his buddies, so I will endeavor to dig into these chapters without fear, (segue!)

First, let's recap the parties involved and their philosophical understanding of this situation:
Job: Job asked where was God in my suffering? Why did God allow this in my life? I was faithful to God, fearing him and turning from evil. Why then did he bring such evil into my life that I didn't deserve? Why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people? Why?!

Not even ice cream could cheer up Lieutenant Dan...or Job.

Job's Conclusion: I have not failed to honor and fear God. There is no reason to justify my suffering, therefore God has been unjust in his dealings with me and has messed up in my life. I want God to show up so I can argue my case with him and find some justification for what has happened to me.

Job's Three Friends: The believed only the wicked experience suffering; good people do not suffer calamity. God sends suffering and destruction on a person's life to punish them for their sins. Therefore Job must have committed some evil act that God is now punishing through this suffering. However, if you repent of your evil, God will then bless you abundantly. In the eyes of Job's friends, suffering was a cause and effect relationship with God due to a person's evil. If people are good, they are blessed. If people do bad things, God punishes them. Bad things don't happen to good people and vice versa.

Elihu: He stated that suffering is not necessarily a cause and effect due to sin. He stated God is always fair, but he is mysterious. Just as we cannot understand how God uses the storms to both nurture a land and punish the wicked, so we cannot understand all of God's ways. Ultimately, God's purposes in suffering are educational. He seeking to teach, humble, correct, and yes, even judge a person through suffering. Our job as humans is to submit to what he sends our way and learn from it.

Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu have said all they are going to say about that. Now God is going to show up and have quite a bit to say about that, (movie quote). See you next time.