Under the Heavenly Microscope

CREDIT: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M

When you look at earth from Mars, this is what you see.  And from heaven, I doubt any human eye could see the earth.  Yet Job was under a microscope, visible to everyone in heaven.  The story of Job troubles me because in the book of Job God seems to be mean.  From heaven's perspective Job is a quark on a speck, yet God says to Satan, hey, did you notice my servant Job and how good he is?  Satan responds with something like, well of course he's good because you [God] give him special protection, and thus begins the saga.

The story is strange and hideous.  My friend Kevin and I used to run the hose until the water collected along the side of my house.   Daddy Long Legs and other insects would scurry up the wall to flee the flood.  Often times we would trap the bugs in a jar, or else pull off the legs of the spiders one by one.  It seems to me like God and Satan were doing this with Job---flooding him out, making him scurry, finally making him suffer in some cosmic game of Red Rover.

It scares me to think of being watched in that way.  God allows Satan to systematically destroy Job's life on the speck all to prove a point.  Satan takes everything eventually, except Job's life itself.  Job is obviously miserable, yet in his misery he never blames God or curses God.  Note that this was exactly what God expected of Job.  Job's righteousness was the very thing that caused his destruction.  God had faith in Job.  God knew Job wouldn't waiver.  Who knew that God could have faith in anyone?

In the end of the book of Job, God finally speaks, but he doesn't really answer the question at hand except to remind Job that he is God, and Job is not, leaving me with more questions as to why God allows catastrophes and suffering.  The apparent answer is 'because he can'.  Mom used to talk in much the same way.

Me:     Mom, I wanna get some ice cream from the ice cream man.
Mom:  No.
Me:     Why not?
Mom:  Because I said so.

That answer never really explained the no, nor did it satisfy me in any way.  But it was the answer.

When Bekah was a little girl, still in the high chair we had a little book called "High Chair Devotions".  One of the memory verses in that little book was, "You are the God who sees me." To me that is the great lesson in the book of Job.  God sees me.  He knows.  He watches and he rescues, which is a comforting thought unless I happen to be doing bad things.  Then maybe it's not so comforting to have God watching.  God is not unconcerned and blind to my suffering  He's not in heaven far away doing God things.  He sees me...even though I'm just a tiny speck on a speck.

I often wonder why it is that I suffer.  I wonder why my Mom suffers?  I wonder why those I love suffer.  I wonder why God lets a murderer walk into a Kindergarten classroom and murder.  I have often prayed for healing, sometimes for myself, sometimes for others, yet I rarely see it.  I am left with no satisfying answer except to understand that God sees it all and that he isn't unaware.  I wonder if God has faith in me.  Then I think of Job.  In the end he died a rich man, a man restored.  So somewhere inside me a hope rises up that someday everything will be restored.  Cancer, cerebral palsy, mental illness, blindness, deafness won't rule any more...because God said so.