Volun-told - And Not Told
Act I
[Scene I: Night fades to dawn illuminating a great plain with crops, livestock, and a great house off to the side. Camera zooms in on a middle-aged man, Job (pronounced Jōb), standing before an open fire atop a pile of stones. Detect the aroma of well-done mutton caressing the air. Job looks toward the heavens with widespread arms.]
Job:
What a glorious new day. God, YOU are so good to me. YOU have given me a loving wife and 10 children on this glorious spread, what more could a man desire. Now God, I know my seven sons may offend you in a small way while they celebrate, so on their behalf, I offer this burnt offering. Please overlook their offenses. I have endeavored to raised them to fear YOU and to turn from evil. Even though they celebrate a lot, hopefully they have picked up on my ethics in managing this great wealth YOU have entrusted to me. Thank-you my Creator. I am your servant.
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[Scene II: A throne room with the magnificent Creator on the throne and angels chatting about events on earth.]
Creator (with booming voice):
Mr. Prosecutor, please approach the throne.
[Surprised, a stunningly glorious angel approaches the Creator.]
Creator:
Mr. Prosecutor, have you noticed My servant Job? He is the only one I know of on earth that is blameless and upright. He fears me and turns away from evil.
Prosecutor:
No kidding. You don’t let anything touch him. You have prospered him in everything he does. He has a beautiful family and every one of his business ventures have increased exponentially. Of course he is your golden child. But I wager that if you took away all that he has, he will curse you to your face. Then you will see how much he reveres you.
Creator:
You’re on. You have my permission to take everything from Job. Just don’t touch his body.
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[Scene III: Job is still standing before the fire with arms raised and head thrown back. After a few more moments of adoration, Job returns his gaze to his spread as party music drifts towards him.]
Job (sighing and shaking his head):
Where do they get the energy to party all night and into the morning?
[Three well-dressed managers are seen approaching Job, each from a different direction and distance. Job steps towards the first manager as he nears the fire. Anger and worry are etched on his face.]
Manager 1 (looking over his shoulder for pursuers):
Boss, I was overseeing our crews plowing the fields and suddenly, Sabeans attacked from over the hill and shot every worker and destroyed our tractors. I was far enough away to escape and to report to you.
[As manager 1 finish, manager 2 runs up with tie loosened and missing his jacket.]
Manager 2 (terrified and out of breath, exhales):
Boss, … I was evaluating the flock of sheep … as we start shearing next week…. Suddenly the sky became dark …and fire came from the dark clouds… and burned up all the sheep… and those tending them…. I just made it out of there.
[Job’s countenance sags in response. Manager 2 drops to his knees, panting, and looks to manager 1 for hope. Manager 3, still in his suit drives his classic corvette towards all three.]
Manager 3 (looking over his shoulder as if being followed):
Sir, I was about a mile from the motor pool when I saw squads of Chaldeans appear out of the west. They destroyed our vehicles and slaughtered all our mechanics. I was too late to help them, so I came to report to you.
[Job, with slumped shoulders and head lowered, hears one of the house servants running towards him.]
Servant (out of breath):
Sir, the house where your family was celebrating…. was destroyed by a massive wind…. I was outside and am the only survivor… Sir,… All your children are dead.
[After this news, Job staggers away from all four. After stumbling for a couple of minutes, Job grabs the collar of his Armani suit and tears it off, then drops to his knees. With tears cascading down his face, Job raises his head towards the heavens.]
Job, (in a strong trembling voice states):
I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!”
[Job collapses on the ground as the other four stand off to the side debating how to console this man of honor and dignity. Zoom out.]
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[Scene IV: Back in the throne room, the angels fall silent as the Prosecutor enters. Tracking the Prosecutor as he approaches the throne, all the angels watch.]
Creator:
Mr. Prosecutor, I haven’t seen you for a bit. Where have you been?
Prosecutor:
I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.
Creator:
Have you noticed my servant, Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.
Prosecutor:
Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!”
Creator:
Is that what you think will happen? All right, do with him as you please, but spare his life.
[Scene V: Several days have past and Job, grieving his losses, continues to thank his Creator. The Prosecutor, as a spirit ghost, strolls out of the morning mist behind Job, reaches out and touches him. That day, boils start growing all over his body, even on the calloused soles of his feet. As some start bursting that evening, Job moves to a sanitary pile of burnt wood ash and starts to release the pressure by scraping the boils with a ceramic knife. Job’s wife, his only remaining family approaches him.]
Wife (shaking head in disgust):
Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die!
Job (muttering as clearly as he can):
You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?
[Job says no more and returns to scraping his boils to release the painful infections. Wife stomps away.
Scene V ends. Act I ends.] (Job2:1-6 NLT)
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Talk about being set up! God ‘volun-told’* Job for a series of operations that would test a core reverence for Him amid adversity. Yet God never told Job that he was ‘volun-told’ for this smackdown. Read Job 1 & 2 in the Old Testament and tell me if I have misrepresented anything in this adapted script.**
Of significance is God’s role in this event. Our Creator brought Job to Satan’s attention. He set the first parameter - everything is available to Satan except Job’s health. Then God extended the boundary to include everything but his life. To me, this sounds cruelly unfair. Perhaps at this point, I would have asked Father to forget that He knew me.
BUT (Behold Ultimate Truth) this is the Sovereignty of ‘I AM’. Sovereignty means being in control from beginning to end. Our Creator orchestrated this suffering from the beginning. And then, to add insult to injury to this poor man who had just lost everything, what does ‘I AM’ do? “Hey, Satan, you notice Job?’ The poor man is ‘down on his luck’ and his Creator is setting him up for more!
Still doubting who was pulling the strings here? Look at Job 2:3 where God taunts the Prosecutor by saying, “And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.” Hold on, I thought it was Satan who harmed Job. Not true. ‘I AM’ is telling the Satan that “you urged me to harm him without cause.” ‘I AM’ claims responsibility for harming Job! If the Apostle Paul did not reinforce this in Romans 9, it could be considered just an error in the text, perhaps from re-telling as it passed through the centuries to reach us.
This account of Job being ‘volun-told’ illustrates that nothing happens to those who follow ‘I AM’ without HIS approval. Whatever happens, even sexual child abuse, our Father initiated it and carried it through without OUR permission. The sovereignty of our Creator clearly contradicts our expectation of what a good God does to and for those who follow Him – at least in our four-dimensional perception of reality. In Job, we learn of a fifth dimension, a spiritual dimension, that is apparently not constrained by our location and our time. 2 Peter 3:8 (NLT) states:
But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.
The next 36 chapters in Job recount further anguish as three friends arrive to console and offer their understanding of why God brought this onto Job. Not having overheard the throne room conversations, they all reasoned that Job’s suffering was punishment for something he had done. After dismissing their reasoning as unfounded and still wondering the purpose, Job is then confronted by “I AM” in chapter 38.
“Can you, Job, do what I, your Creator, can do and have done?”
Finally, 4 chapters later, Job concedes:
Then Job answered the LORD and said, “I know that You can do all things, and that no plan is impossible for You. ‘Who is this who conceals advice without knowledge?’ Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I do not know.
‘Please listen, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent, sitting on dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-6 NASB20)
This interaction between “I AM”, the accuser, and Job jolts the romantic concepts of how God interacts with man. If you are still not convinced that God actually orchestrated these hellish circumstances, consider a more recent man – Jesus. Prophets from centuries before Jesus was born spoke of specific events in the future Messiah’s life- and crucifixion. Jesus himself often spoke of the prophecies, both how he had fulfilled them in his life and would fulfill others in his death. Although problematic for our comprehension of our Creator in our space and time, His Sovereignty is a fact.
The Apostle Paul sums up this tension when he poses and answers the question that has perplexed man for ions.
“Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?”
(Romans 9:19 NLT)
Experience:
Personally, four decades ago I was asked if I wanted to know a lot about God or did I want to experientially know Father. Up to that point, I had a fair amount of head knowledge about God and had only recently started interacting with the Spirit. So, I decided to pursue experiencing Father.
Similar to getting to know a friend, I started spending more time with Father, particularly listening. But experiencing Him goes beyond good discussions. It is experiencing His power to enable me to obey him when He commands me to forgive another who has deeply hurt me or to love another who just grates against me. When I confess that I want to obey but that I need His help to do what feels impossible, He enables me to forgive or to love.
As a teenager, I would do yard-work for Grandma-mama who was a small woman old enough to be my great grandmother. She would hug me with her ear pressed to my sternum. One day she decided to prune a thick shrub with a pair of pruning shears, but she was not strong enough to leverage the full 30 inch handle, so she choked up on them, gripping the handles about 8” from the shears and putting the wood handles under her arms to get more strength. I saw her tackling this branch, snuck up behind her and applied a bit more force to the handles. Snip. She had cut through the 1-inch-thick branch. She was so excited that she could do it. As she turned, she saw me and accusatorially asked, “Did you help me?”
It seems like Father does the same for me when I take on a challenge that is more than I can handle, in obedience I grab the shears, choke up on them, and tackle the challenge as He has instructed. As I strain for, say, sexual purity, His power enables success. I have experienced inner healing with Father and forgiving what I could not forgive. I have made financial commitments in faith, actually expected that I could earn it working overtime – until there was no more overtime. Yet He made totally unexpected arrangements and I fulfilled my pledge. I remember He let me sweat for a few months and then, at the last minute He provided the funds.
Getting to experientially know Father requires taking risks and being obedient. It has required waiting on Him instead of rushing in to do it my way. Father has taken me through considerable inner healing and on international ministry adventures I never would have imagined. I have experienced how suffering can be part of Father’s wise discipline, training me to ‘strip off the old self with its evil practices,’ and to be ‘renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created it.’— (Colossians 3:9-10)
I understand little of why Father orchestrates suffering and loss in our lives. But my experiences with Him continue to increase my trust in the Sovereignty of “I AM”, that HE IS in control of the pain and hurt as well as the resolution. My experiences with Father allow me to confidently state:
that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished (Philippians 1:6 NLT)
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28 NLT)
How about you, my friend? Have you chosen to take risks on Father to foster a personal sonship? Without personally experiencing the Sovereign God at work in and around you, you may find yourself like the man who was able to grab hold of a limb as his car plummeted off a cliff. Hanging on the branch, he calls up, “Is anybody up there?” “Yes.” Replied God. Relieved the man shouted, “Who are you?“ “God” boomed the reply. Celebrating his good fortune, the man shouts, “What should I do?” God replied, “Let go.” The man considered that for a few moments and then shouted, “Is there anybody else up there?”
If you have not experienced Father in the small things in life, on what basis will you trust him in a crisis? Or will you default to depending on your own resources and abilities, including manipulating others to do your will? Personally, I still find myself naturally going this route, but more and more I am inviting Father to interfere with my challenges. Will you choose to move beyond reading and hearing about God to risk experiencing Him in the small things and crises that do not feel small?
*In the military, a warrior is sometimes volunteered by one above his rank without the opportunity to accept or decline the assignment. This is being ‘voluntold.’ This is one of those times when our Creator, who outranks us, ‘voluntold’ one of his followers. And in this case, never told Job of the wager between the Creator and the Satan, AKA the Prosecutor.
**Some Background: Job was possibly a contemporary of Abraham and Jacob (within a few hundred years). One of those who came to comfort Job was Eliphaz and may be the Eliphaz who established the Termanite tribe (not the termite tribe) and was the great, great grandson of Abraham. In is unclear whether this Eliphaz is the same as the one who visited Job. As none of the Law brought by Moses is mentioned, it is assumed that this event in Job’s life took place before Moses led the people out of Egypt. The author of Job’s biography is also unknown. What this book does reveal is some of the revelations about God that influenced His followers from Adam, Noah, and down. But that is all a sidenote.
