Fruitfulness in Dormant Times
It is surely one of the most amazing theological statements in all of Scripture. It is not amazing because of its content. It is a fairly standard benediction: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).”
Those words succinctly describe God’s place and ours in the scheme of things. It is His prerogative to give us what He sees fit and to take it away when He sees fit. While we might bristle at the thought that someone else – even God – has that kind of power over us, we would all have to acknowledge that as the King and Creator of the Universe, that right belongs exclusively to Him.
What is astonishing about that statement is who said it and under what circumstances he said it. These words came from the lips of Job on the worst day of his life.
It would be a vast understatement to say that Job “uttered” those words. The man most likely choked out those words between sobs; his voice was surely as broken as his heart was.
You remember the story.
He has just learned that he has lost all his assets to marauders; in one day he has gone from tycoon to pauper. But that wasn’t the worst of it. While he is still processing his sudden economic collapse, he hears that his ten adult children are all dead. They were gathered in one place when a storm caused the building they were in to collapse, killing all of them.
This was Job’s worst nightmare.
And still he manages to speak good theology.
How?
Could Job have manufactured that spiritually-attuned perspective in that moment? Of course not. The words that spilled out of his mouth in that awful moment were the fruit of the inner life that he had nurtured over many quiet years.
As much as he enjoyed his wealth, as much as he loved his children, he never lost sight of the fact that they were all the blessings of God. He knew that he didn’t own any of it, and he held those treasures in an open palm. When God chose to take them back, He didn’t have to pry Job’s fingers loose, because Job had already cultivated the mindset of a steward, not an owner.
We live in perilous times that no one could have foreseen. Almost everything we’ve taken for granted for most of our lives is now in peril: our physical and economic well-being, our emotional and psychological health, our social customs. While some have experienced Job-like catastrophe, for most of us the challenge has been the disruption of our normal patterns, the social isolation, and the real problem of too much time on our hands.
In other words, for most of us these are days when we can cultivate the quiet habits that can provide the poise we will need when the engine starts up again.
To put shoe leather on all this, let me make one concrete suggestion: If you haven’t established a time of the day that is dedicated to God’s Word and prayer, do that now, while you have the extra time.
If you’ve never spent time alone with God, don’t try to start with an hour. Start with fifteen minutes.
Read from the Scripture. Don’t try to read a whole chapter. Just read a paragraph, enough for you to give it some careful thought.
Reflect on what you’ve read. What idolatry has God’s Word exposed in your heart? What encouragement is there for you to trust Him? What did it say about the nature and purposes of your Father? What excellencies of His Person did you discover?
Then, how can you apply these things to your inward life, your patterns of speech, your relationships and behavior patterns? (Maybe journal about these things.)
Then talk to God about your heart, your burdens, your sin, your anxieties.
If you miss a day, don’t try to double-up.
And don’t beat yourself up.
This is not about checking a box. It’s about establishing a new trajectory for your life patterns. It’s about cultivating and nourishing your relationship with your heavenly Father, who loves you and loves to spend time with you.
Dramatic moments don’t shape us so much as they reveal what is already in us. Job’s dramatic moment revealed the fact that he regarded all of his blessings not as entitlements to be protected, but as gifts to be stewarded.
Let’s use the extra time on our hands these days to form the new habit of spending time with the King of the Universe. Our times are in His hands, and we will thrive in hearing His Word and speaking to Him of our worries and our sins.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor
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