Whirlwind of Trust

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind,
     "Gird up your loins like a man..."—Job 40.6-7a

Nearly two and one-half years have passed since my whirlwind.  A relationship that I thought had a future ran off without any explanation; understanding wouldn't come for another year or so.  Immediately after that, I found out that I had failed a final exam, which failed me in that class, which failed me right out of college.

Yeah, I had hit one hell of a whirlwind.

The rest of that story takes a while to tell, and maybe I will later.  It actually runs right up to the beginning of this blog.  For now, know that for a little over a month (could it have been 40 days?) I was listless, without a clue what future lay before me.  I felt like reading Job would help; I'm not sure why.

But I did read it, and, when I did, that line quoted at the top (also from Job 38.1) hooked me.  I couldn't get away from it.  "Whirlwind... That sounds exactly like what I've fallen into.  And God answered Job from it."

God often is depicted as something powerful, out of (human) control, or all-consuming whenever God shows up in the world (called "theophany").  Like in Jeremiah 23.19, or when God tells Moses that he cannot look on God's face without it destroying him, or the pillar of fire that led Israel from Egypt; Hebrews even chimes in with, "It is a fearful, terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

And so, God is in this whirlwind.  But, Job isn't destroyed.  God in fact replies to Job; God is moved to respond to his human servant's cry.  Granted, neither of God's replies (1 in 38-39, 2 in 40-41) seem to answer Job's questions or accusations.  I claim, however, that they give Job an encouragement to trust in God.

If you read Job's speeches throughout the book, you will see an interesting movement.  At first he responds to his suffering with "But the LORD gives and the LORD takes away; blessed be the LORD."  But then we get to 27.5: "Til I die I will not put away my integrity from me!" And then 31.6: "Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!"... As if Job knows himself to be righteous, and God can't figure it out.

Job continually spirals around the drain of his own self-absorption, even to the point of annihilation when he curses the very day he was born (3.1).

Here's an interesting question:  Did Job—does anybody—even have the ability to get out of that spiral once such great grief has grasped us?

The cultures surrounding Israel in the Ancient Near East wrote stories about a suffering man being met by his god as well, so what light can they shed on the context of the biblical Job?  Kirta from Ugarit is one, and A Dialogue Between a Man and his God from Babylon is another.  Interestingly, in both of these, when the god arrives his first action is to meet the needs of the suffering one:  The god in the Babylonian story brings the Man food and clothes and healing ointment, and the Ugaritic god El offers Kirta power or wealth (although Kirta really wants a family; this makes it seem like the god El is clueless about what's going on).  The 2nd story made me think of Ron Burgandy in Anchorman saying, "If I were to give you money out of my wallet, would that help ease the pain?"

It's funny, then, for us Christians to look at our God and say, "He is so much more merciful and loving than these other gods" when God doesn't give Job anything when he arrives.  He in effect tells Job, "Put your big boy pants on."

However, I argue that this was a much more beautiful solution than either of the aforementioned parallels could comprehend.  In God's responses, we see God take very seriously Job's accusations.  God doesn't directly answer Job's questions, but God DOES use much of the language Job himself uses throughout in a direct response to the movement of Job's heart and mind.

As I said earlier, Job moves ever inward into himself and his grief.  God reverses that movement by responding to Job with the panorama of Creation:  The images of God stretching out the heavens, holding back the waters, creating pair after pair of animals all parade before Job.  .  God's response was meant to first re-orient Job's very faith in God, in God's providence, in God's power, to let God back into the central place of Job's worldview... not to scare Job speechless as it so often is claimed.

Now look at God's second response to Job—40.15: "Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you."  God is pointing to an animal and telling Job that God made it just as He made Job—this creature is going to be an example of how Job can relate to God.

Behemoth is powerful:  Interesting that its power is derived from its loins (v.16), the same loins God told Job to "gird up" (v.7).  Behemoth is peaceful, an herbivore.  Behemoth is provided food by the mountain, and given shade by the marsh.

And, "even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened; it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth." (Job 40.23)

God exemplifies this creature, a creature just as Job is a creature, as one who is given what it needs and that responds with confidence and not fear even when the River, the Chaos (because waters and rivers commonly referred to the Chaos which God ordered at Creation—look for the word "waters" in Genesis 1.2), rushes against it.

The Babylonian A Dialogue Between a Man and his God supports this, too, curiously enough.  It also uses that ever-so-interesting-yet-confounding phrase, "Gird up your loins."  In line 48 of that poem, it says, "Gird you loins, do not be dispirited."  It's not a phrase of calling one out—it's a phrase meant to encourage.  It's God grabbing Job by the shoulders, shaking him, and telling him to snap out of his self-absorption because that only leads to nothingness.  God wants to replace that nothingness with God-centered, Other-centered, Creation-centered life, and Job can trust in God's power to sustain that life.

And that, my friends, is exactly the place in which I landed when hit with my whirlwind.  It was the strangest thing, but I never panicked after the first couple of days.  I just knew I'd keep walking, I'd keep breathing, and that God would sustain me as long as I did.

And although I healed, I did so with scars.  And I still deal with relationship issues.  But I did get to finish my degree, and now I'm in grad school.  I have been given a story to tell, as Job continues to tell his.  Not to say mine is anything on par with his, but it is my story, and God is still running the show.

So I'll leave you with one biblical parallel, one that many know but did not know that it related to Job in the least.  I'll let you work out some connections, and I hope they encourage you as they have me.

May we be strong enough to trust God in the midst of Chaos, even strong enough to call God out, in whatever way need be, so that God might respond to us and pull us out of the ever-pulling vortex of our own self-absorption.  May we, when faced with tempests that seem like they'll consume us, look for the word God has for us within it.  Grace & Peace.

Isaiah 40.24-31

²⁴“Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

                  ²⁵To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high and see:  Who created these?  He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

                  ²⁷Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

²⁸Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

                  ²⁹He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

³⁰Even youth will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

                  ³¹but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.