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Reading the Bible regularly can be a challenge, and our goal is to help you not only get into God's word regularly, but also help you understand and apply what you're reading! Join The Journey is a Bible study podcast built to follow our daily reading plan available for free at jointhejourney.com. New episodes will be available Monday through Friday. We hope you can join us!
All right. Now, if we're honest, reading the Bible consistently can be a challenge, but it's never too late to start. And we're in this together. This is the Join the Journey podcast.
Thanks for joining. Uh, my name is Wes Butler. Once again, I am the Director of Care Ministries here at Watermark, and we are really continuing and ending this care Ministry takeover of the Join the Journey podcast today.
Today, I am joined in the studio by my dear friend Melissa Miller.
What's up friends?
We're so thankful that, uh, Melissa's here today. We are looking at really the climax of this really tough book, but a, a beautiful climax as we come to the end. So job 38 through 42 is what we're looking at. Anytime I think about reading through the book of Job, I feel like I spent 37 chapters just begging God to interrupt, you know?
Right, right. And uh, and so there's a relief. You know, today as we finally get to these speeches that God gives in response to Job and to job's friends, and there's so much for us to glean from that. We don't have time today to get everything right. But Melissa, I know you've prepared and just wanna share some of how this passage has informed, uh, really your journey over these last several years of you just walking with the Lord and walking through seasons of.
Job, black suffering as many of our guests and all of our guests through this takeover have shared about their own story. So I'm just gonna let you take it away and share what the Lord's laid on your heart.
Awesome. Well, thank you, Wes. I feel so privileged to get to be here with you guys. God has used the Book of Job throughout my life, throughout my story to.
Encourage me about his love for me. Mm-hmm. So, I'm real excited to get to talk about this today. I do believe that these chapters need a little bit of redemption.
Hmm.
I think sometimes when we, we read this or when we talk about it, people can think, Ooh, job's in trouble. Mm-hmm. God's God's taken him to the shed, you know?
Yep. Yep.
And. I don't think that that's the truth. Yeah. I have a different perspective, so I'm excited to share that with you guys today. But before we do that, I would love to share a little bit about my story that I think will help highlight why I think this is such a beautiful ending to this story that God very sovereignly divinely, um, knew we needed to read.
And so when I was 19 years old, I got pregnant. And had an abortion. It was a very devastating decision. I did know that Jesus was my savior at that point, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. Mm. And so my, my guilt and shame was immediate after making that choice. It was very devastating to me that I, I realized too late the devastation that came from taking the life of another human.
Hmm.
And so that started years of anxiety and. Depression that kind of culminated. A couple of years later in a very sensational way, Jesus got my attention again at 22 and called me back to himself in a way where I surrendered completely and started walking with him and was like, okay, I am done with myself.
I am riddled with shame and guilt over this decision to have an abortion and all of these other decisions in my life, and so I'm gonna give you. My whole life. So that started a journey where I went through a post-abortion bible study. Um, at the time it was called pace. It's very similar to the ministry.
We have called Worth More. But fast forward, when I was 26, my father died unexpectedly. I was walking with Jesus. I was involved in ministry. I was leading a Bible study. I was doing all these things and had started to grow in my knowledge of who God was. And the very first scripture that came to my mind was from Job 1315, where he says, even though he slay me.
Yet Will, I hope in him? Mm-hmm. That was the first thing, and I, that's real important for what I'm about to talk to you guys about. Yeah. Okay. I want you to remember that I had a starting knowledge. That hope came from something outside of myself, something outside of this world. Hope in the midst of my suffering came from the God who created everything I see.
So that was when I was 26. Fast forward 10 more years. I'm 36. I find out I have the beginning stages of cervical cancer and I had to have a hysterectomy. I was single. I had not had children. I loved kids. Mm-hmm. I was very angry and I remember that day so clearly getting in my car, driving down 6 35, screaming at the Lord in anger going, God, I don't understand.
This is not fair. I am now losing the opportunity to have kids. And I could have had my own child when I was 19, and you could have stopped me and you didn't. And you allowed me the freedom to choose. Why didn't you stop me? Mm-hmm. And in the midst of that moment, I sensed the Lord, say, Melissa, am I good?
When you suffer, am I good? When you can't have what you want, what you think is good? And to be honest, I'm a little bit of a feisty pants. I was like, I don't know. I'll get back to you.
Yeah. Yeah.
I, and I mean, that's just honest. Honest, yeah. Honest. I just was like, I dunno if I can say that right now. And so for the next several weeks I really wrestled with the Lord about if he was good or not.
And I kept looking back throughout my life and seeing all the places where he intervened. Where he called me to himself, where he brought job 1315 to mind when my father died, when he called me to a place of salvation, I would not have chosen that. Mm-hmm. And I, I finally came to the place of, yes, he is good because he has always been with me.
And he has given me the choice to love him. That's what love does.
Mm-hmm.
Love gives agency.
Yeah.
And when we talk about the problem of good and evil, when we're suffering, I think there's two questions people are asking. Is there a God who's powerful enough to stop this? Number one? Number two. Why isn't he stopping evil?
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think in my story, what I can illustrate is love gives us agency.
Mm-hmm.
So if he had forced me to love him, if he had forced me to do the right thing, when I faced the choice to have that abortion, that's not loving. That's controlling. Yep. But he didn't do that. He gave me agency. With the ability to choose good.
We also have the ability to choose evil. So we are living in this cosmic story of God illustrating how he is love, right? But in our humanity. We struggle with wanting to control what that looks like.
Mm-hmm.
Before we understand why it was okay. First of all, for Job to have that moment of I need to hear from you, you need to know and be reminded where job's starting from in his own faith.
Mm-hmm.
So in Job 19. We see, well, first, as I've already referenced, job 13, even though he slay me right yet will I hope in him. So Job illustrates. I know where hope is found. I'm okay. This is terrible. What in the world just happened in my life, but okay. Uh, there's hope somewhere. Number two, job 1925. I know.
It wasn't a, Ooh, man, I sure hope I have a redeemer out there. Right. It was, I know my redeemer lives redeemer. That word is somebody who's gonna come in and avenge or make things right. Right? Like he knows there's somebody out there who knows his suffering and is going to make it right. Okay. Yeah, so that's the starting place.
After that, that's when he goes into the, Hey, I want an audience. So he starts there, he has his complaints. Then God responds, and this is what I referenced earlier where I'm like, eh, God gets a little bit of a bad rap. Everybody's saying God has taken Job and you know, going Sit down, son. You can certainly read it that way.
You can also read it as God saying, Hey, I wanna answer your first question. Am I powerful enough? Hmm. To deal with evil? Yeah. Let's talk about that. Yeah. And he goes through literally things I never even think about. I mean, even rereading the passage again, right? Yeah. I was just like, oh, wow. I've never, I don't, I don't think about that either.
Yes.
About who created the frost, you know, he sees
the storehouses of snow in the clouds.
Yes. And so I needed that reminder.
Yeah.
Because it just reminds me, hey, all of this stuff that I see. It didn't come from my control,
right?
It came from a creator, right? And so I think God is doing something here where he is answering.
What he knows is humanity's question. Now if you go back to the very beginning of job, there's a side conversation happening, right?
Yeah.
That that
job is not privy to, and it
didn't have anything to do with job, frankly. Right. This was about God and Satan. Why would God have done that? He wanted us. I.
Future generations to be able to understand aspects of his character. Yeah. That he knew we would have questions about when we were in the midst of the disorientation that comes when we suffer. That's beautiful.
Yeah.
I don't take that as God taking job to task.
Right.
I, I take that as God helping me. No.
Oh yeah. I'm powerful enough for everything you're facing. Yeah.
And he really even goes into is, is he powerful enough to restrain evil, right? 'cause that whole chapter about behemoth and Leviathan and what in the world is that, and there's a lot of scholars who say, Hey, those were actually kind of the, the myths of the ancient people that were these characters who really just embodied.
Pure evil. It was kind of Satan incarnate as the human imagination had dreamt him up as this like dragon or this giant dinosaur looking, you know, creatures like Godzilla is walking in here and God is like, Hey, don't you realize I, I've got those guys on a leash. And it's not like a, not, not like me trying to hold back a rottweiler.
It's like right. Me trying to hold back like a, a, you know, teacup poodle, you know, it's just like that. That's it. That, that's who I've got. Hmm. And yet it's the most. Crazy strong evil force that you could even fathom and God's going, Hey, I, I, I've got that. And so have you suffered? Of course you've suffered, but do you see how much I've restrained?
Mm-hmm. And holding you back and God is I think, gently reminding him, well, hey, don't you think I had some control over the fact that, and so similar to your story, don't you think that I was there when I called you? Don't you think that I was there when I healed you? Don't you think that I was there when I provided and protected for you?
Mel, take us to Job 42. Just to kind of wrap us up here, because, you know, job finally hears this beautiful speech from the Almighty God of the universe. Right? And his response is one that should just really stop us in our tracks.
Yes. This is, to me, one of the, the most beautiful moments in the Book of Job because it highlights what I think is.
An appropriate right response when we actually come into the realization of who God actually is. Mm-hmm. I work at the Eden Project and one of the things we talk about all the time is God is way better than we think he is. Mm-hmm. And this is the moment where Job figured that out.
Yeah.
And so he says in Job 42, 5.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent and dust in ashes. Job sees clearly for the first time. It's like oh 3D. This is who you are, and that's what I think is so fantastic about this last chapter of job number one. You see God allowing room for relationship when he allows job to come to him with all of his, Hey, I need an audience.
Business responds with. Hey bud. Let me just give you a reminder, 'cause I think you've lost focus on who I am and through that reminder, you see Job actually go, oh, I am seeing God actual for the first time. Mm-hmm. Wow. And then lastly, God, not only. Leaves room for relationship. He affirms relationship. He goes into, starting in verses seven, he goes after the community group who had been terrible and was like, you're in trouble.
But he says, my servant job has said, what is right about me? My servant. My servant, my servant four times. He is reiterating to the community group that's in trouble. Hey. This guy, he's been saying what's right. Right. You need to pay attention. And
not only that, but also joyfully claiming him.
Yes.
Right? Yes.
It's not, it's not a guy who's like, I can't believe you said all that. I'm, I'm gonna pretend like I don't know you. Instead, he's going, no, I'm gonna point out the fact that this is my servant. This is my friend job. And so even that, it's just this drawing in, and then of course this book ends in this beautiful restoration.
Mm-hmm. You know, of kind of all the things and you see this restoration of job and we might be tempted to go, okay, well. I just know too many stories that don't end like that. Right? Like is God still there? And what we have to remind ourselves of as we read the Book of Job always is that the classic mistake that we make is in assuming that this life is all that there is.
Mm-hmm. That's, that was job's friends, they didn't have a category mm-hmm. For this future restoration job did in those moments where he was like, Hey, I know my redeemer lives. Hmm. He didn't necessarily know that his redeemer was going to do what? The author of Job tells us he does for job here on Earth, right?
But he had confidence that, that God, that Redeemer was going to make all things new. And so that's the hope that all of us have as we get to the end of Job, is that we understand that there is a savior king, a redeemer who will come and he will return and he will restore all things. And he will wipe away every tear from every eye.
He will take care of every evil plot he will destroy Satan, the evil Leviathan. Permanently and forever, and he will make all things new again and he will restore us to Eden and to all that we were intended for. Uh, Mel mentioned, uh, worth more is our ministry for those who have suffered, ladies specifically, who have suffered through the choices of abortion and the impact of that in their lives.
Set. Ministry meets on Monday nights, starting up again in the fall. We'll link in the show notes to, uh, that ministry. And if that's a part of your story, gosh, we would love the opportunity for our team to minister to you in the midst of that, for you to experience the healing that Melissa talked about that she was able to experience through that Bible study years and years ago.
Melissa, will you just pray for us and pray and then we will close out our time.
Father, I am a little awestruck just getting to sit here and talk about the love you. Go to such great links to share with us, to show us, to demonstrate to us that you have for us Father, it is, it is an incredible privilege that you desire relationship with the very creatures you created, that you desire relationship with those that have the choice and the ability to not choose you.
And yet you still pursue us. You through the most unbelievable demonstration we could ever imagine, showed us the depth of your love for us. You tell us in in two Corinthians that for our sake, you made him who knew no sin, so that to be sin so that in him we might become. Your righteousness. And so Father I, um, I don't have enough gratitude to express for that, that you would send your own son to suffer.
But it encourages me and I pray that it will encourage all that are listening in their own suffering, that you get us, you understand. Because you've walked through it and you've made provision for it. And so Father, I do pray for everyone out there that's listening, that they would understand the depth of your love for them, for their story, that they would, even if they feel you are slaying them in this moment, yet, will they hope in you.
Father, help them see that hope is found in you alone. Lord, we love you. We thank you that we can love you because you first loved us. We ask this in your name. By the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.
Amen. Melissa, thank you so much and thank you all listeners for joining us today. As always, we are so glad that we are all on this journey reading the Bible together.
The Join the Journey podcast is produced by Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. But did you know Join the Journey isn't just a podcast, it's also a Bible reading plan with daily DeVos and much more. Check it out by visiting Join the journey.com.