Thursday, March 27, 2014

the incomplete view

I have started listening to the book of Job during my morning exercise time...the famous Old Testament story of a wealthy and good man whom God allows Satan to harm, almost like an experiment..or a disturbance to an experiment. We see the reaction of a good man when undeserved hardships come his way. It seems that Job wrestles with every important question as he tries to understand his difficulties and reconcile those with his faith in God. It occurred to me that another title for the book of Job might be, "The Incomplete View". Job can't understand why he is put through all the loss and suffering that he endures and his friends, who come to support him, try to explain Job's problem from their limited viewpoint. But neither Job nor his friends has the complete picture. As readers of the story we have more insight than they because it is revealed to us, up front, that God has permitted this to take place. One thing I find encouraging about Job is that, again and again, he comes back to his relationship with God...his knowledge of God...the reality of God as the plumb bob...the reliable standard...in his life. Even though he doesn't understand the "why" of what has happened to him he continues to direct his questions, his concerns and his frustrations upward to the God he knows. And, by chapter 19, we hear some beautiful insight: He says: "But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!"
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We, too, have an incomplete view while we are here, in this body, but have we reached the place where we also can say, "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives!" Our incomplete view, in the body, is completed by our faith in the One we meet here in the spirit and eventually will see face to face when the body no longer limits us.
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blessings,
Rob Smith

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