Lectio Divina – Job, Part Three

Scripture

21 For you have now become nothing;
you see my calamity and are afraid.
22 Have I said, ‘Make me a gift’?
Or, ‘From your wealth offer a bribe for me’?
23 Or, ‘Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’?
Or, ‘Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless’?

24 “Teach me, and I will be silent;
make me understand how I have gone astray (ESV).

Observation

Job here seems to be challenging his friends who have come to sympathize with him. He says, “For you have become nothing; you see my calamity and are afraid.”

Is Job calling out his friends and asking them to be brave alongside, or for for him? Job then asks a series of questions regarding delivery from evil.

In verse 24, Job calls out to God, and he seems to be asking for vindication. “Teach me, and I will be silent, make me understand how I have gone astray.”

Application

Job’s words here remind me to be brave in the face of tough times. We are not to shrink back in the face of opposition, rather we are to allow ourselves to be taught. One other note, I think it is interesting that Job calls on God to show him where he has gone astray. Perhaps this also should be part of our response to difficulties.

Lectio Divina – Job, Part Two

Scripture

Job 3:1

“After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.”

(ESV)

Observation

Right on the heels of Job’s, “…blessed be the name of the Lord” in chapter 1, Satan again comes before the Lord and declares that the only reason Job has maintained his integrity is because the Lord has not allowed Satan to attack his physical body. God then agreed to allow Satan to inflict Job, only withholding Satan’s right to kill him. According to Job 2:7 “…Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” And according to Job 2:12 When his friends “saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.”

After this come the words of 3:1 and then a chapter full of his words cursing his birth.

Application

Here is a man from whom everything has been taken. And here he is cursing the day he was born. And God allowed it! Satan came before God and, in effect, challenged him to a dual. God presented one of his saints, allowing Satan to anything short of taking his life. Job honestly struggled with God’s goodness in the face of his circumstances.

I am honestly not sure how to apply this book at this point. For now, I will take Job’s honest statement of his feeling to heart. God is capable, and willing to hear difficult words that come from an honest soul.

Prayer

Lord, there are many times in life where we don’t understand the injustices of life. We don’t understand why things happen the way they do. At this point, I am holding on to Job’s honesty as an example for me. I commit to giving you my whole heart, frustrations and all when I pray. Amen.

Lectio Divina – Job, Part One

Scripture: Job 1:8 & 21

8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”

21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

(ESV)

Observation

Job is an interesting book in many ways. It is an interesting study in the interplay of good and evil. It will be good for me to consider the book in light of current circumstances, and in light of the loss of my father over the summer.

Job was a righteous man, with great wealth and children who apparently weren’t so righteous.

One day, “the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.” The Lord asks him where he has come from, and after Satan answers, he asks him to consider his servant Job, whom he knows to be righteous. Satan accepts God’s challenge and causes calamity to befall Job’s household. Everything that would seem to be important to Job from an earthly standpoint is taken from him.

In verse 21, Job responds to the calamities with faith: All that has been given to him is of the Lord anyway. “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Application

There are a lot of ways to apply these verses. First, I see the Lord suggesting Job to Satan. There are a lot of theological questions that one could get into here, but that would take a lot longer that I want to take just now. For my purposes in this post, I am going to concentrate on the righteousness of Job. The Lord obviously had confidence in the righteousness of Job. I suppose this confidence had  been built over a long period of time. Job had demonstrated his willingness to walk in obedience to his God.

In verse 21, I see Job choosing to trust God in even the most difficult of circumstances. Job’s faith in the goodness of God was rooted in his not finding his worth in his worldly possessions, and in his understanding that all gifts come from God anyway, and so if possessions are taken away, God does not change, nor should our view of him change.

Prayer

Lord, I do not understand Job, or the verses I have recorded. I do not understand God giving Job’s circumstances over someone whom he knew would bring destruction into his life. I do have some sense of Job’s response to the turmoil in his life. He held loosely to his possessions, and to his family (not sure how to thing about this point). His response at this point points toward a deep commitment to the goodness of God that supercedes the circumstances of his life. Job held onto past experiences of God’s goodness to give him faith for future grace. Job’s faith transcended his circumstances.

Lord, in the the midst of my time of loss, please remind me often of your goodness and help me to stay rooted in the believe that you want the best for me, no matter my current circumstances, and help me to believe always in your goodness.

Amen

Transforming Spirituality – Part Two

Think back to the various ways that spirituality was defined in the previous post. The question that I personally ask when I think about spirituality is, “What difference does it make?” I am not much interested in pursuing a spirituality that does not make a difference in my life. Much of what passes as spirituality in America makes no real difference either in the life of the individual or in society. I will argue in this second post that we need to pursue a transforming spirituality.
The sort of change that I hope spirituality will encourage is second order change that includes a complex transformation that happens in the core of our being. Many will settle for first order change, which is primarily behavioral. This comes from page 18 of

Transforming Spirituality: Integrating Theology and Psychology ISBN: 080102823X ISBN-13: 9780801028236

It may be helpful to unpack this idea a bit. In my most recent ministry, I worked with chronic addicts. Their addictions led to some extremely negative behaviors that needed to be addressed. And we addressed the behavior in a variety of ways.
This addressing of behavior is asking the students to make first order change. We want them to correct bad behavior. The problem is that if change is only behavioral, they may revert back to negative behavior when the pressure is on.

And so, we seek second order change. Second order change is asking people to enter into a process that can lead them to a 180º turn in their lives. In Romans 12:2 Paul writes that we are to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. Paul suggests that what we are after is change into another form.

What we are after in spiritual transformation is not unlike the metamorphosis that happens when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

Transforming Spirituality – Part One

On May 7, 2008, I had the distinct privilege of presenting a training session on the topic of Transforming Spirituality. I thought I would take several posts to present the contents of this training. The training was presented in three sessions during one afternoon in a context where the focus of ministry is in assisting people with chronic addictions to find recovery and wholeness in their lives through the work of Christ on their behalf.

We live in a culture that sees “spirituality” as a great thing. It is in vogue to have a sense of spirituality in our lives. We all know about celebrity spirituality: Madonna and Cabala, John Travolta and Tom Cruise espouse Scientology, Richard Gere is a follower of the Dalai Lama’s brand of Buddhism, Oprah Winfrey has chosen a new age Jesus to believe in, and of course recent presidential candidates have espoused Mormonism and various forms of Christian belief.
“What is spirituality?” In reality, the answers to this question are about as numerous as those who provide an answer. One author came up with over 100 definitions that existed in various other writings. Spirituality is notoriously difficult to define. Lucy Bergman asks, “Who has not heard the term ’spirituality’ used recently, in contexts where its exact meaning is left deliberately open-ended, hard to pin down, and obscure?” She goes on to write, “Yet, wherever it is used, eyes light up, people respond with positive remarks about its importance, and we all feel better. Spirituality is in; it is acceptable to be spiritual. But what difference does it make? This is the real test.
I am not much interested in pursuing a spirituality that does not make a difference in my life. Much of what passes as spirituality in America makes no real difference either in the life of the individual or in society. I want to argue in the remaining part of this first part that we need to pursue a transforming spirituality.