August 27--What Mends Me When Misunderstandings Keep Multiplying

Getting to the bottom of a misunderstanding is nearly impossible, but I'm learning I don't have to go there to find reconnection and healing.  Today's passages enlighten me:  Job 22-24, 2 Corinthians 1:15-24, Psalm 41, Proverbs 22:5-6.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

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August twenty seven What heals me when misunderstandings keep multiplying? I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. One morning my father threw his orange juice on my mother's face. One night I awoke to cries in the dark. One entire Saturday they fought in the kitchen breaking dishes amid thuds and moans. I spent the day alternating between huddling in my room and running to the kitchen door to listen, afraid to hear, afraid to leave them alone. Multiply these events by days, months, and years till they finally divorced after I was grown, and you've got the soundtrack I grew up with. Their divorce was the best day of my life. I stopped worrying they'd put each other six feet under. I've struggled with a profound fear of fighting as a result. I'm even allergic to a disagreement. I need peace and quiet like I need air and water. Maybe everybody does to some extent or another. But God refuses to let me pull up my drawbridge and hide. In fact, he forces me to deal with the difficulties that come up. Just this week I've had a serious falling out with close family members. These relationships aren't ones I can walk away from. I have to engage and do my part to mend them. Even when they're good ones, relationships require a lot of work and repair. Wouldn't you know? These passages in Job come along and bring healing, help and hope, and right when I need

Job 22-24

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them. The Old Testament chapters are Job twenty two to twenty four. Ever had a friend who claimed to know better than you do what's going on in your life? This is where Job found himself after his devastating losses. Eliphaz thought he knew the cause of Job's trouble, while Job confessed that he himself was bumbling in the dark over it. Why Eliphaz was ever called Job's friend is beyond me. According to him, Job was a first class moral failure. He had exploited the poor by failing to feed the hungry or to help widows and orphans while living like a king surrounded by his money. He tried to convince Job that God was a merciless accountant who tallied up his sins and had finally exacted payment. He also tried to take away belief in a god who cared intimately for him, saying, quote, Do you think it's because God cares about your purity that he's disciplining you? Hardly, end quote. And he mocked Job for the tidal wave that's crushed him, saying it was the result of his own bad choices, quote, how do you like living in the dark, sightless, up to your neck in flood waters? As if Job's not already suffering enough, here's more to swamp him. Further, Eliphaz imagined that Job was like the wicked who enjoy God's good gift of life while telling him to take a hike. Given all Job's dirty money, it was inevitable that he'd be exposed for who he really is, just as they are. Eliphaz's preoccupation with Job's wealth points to his own greed if you ask me. Enemies are famous for accusing others of what they're hiding. This outspoken enemy in friends' clothing finished his diatribe by counseling Job to let go of his rampant love of riches and make God his first love, quote, get rid of your greed, abandon your gold plated luxury, and look to God as your treasure, end quote. But isn't turning to God as our one and only and putting away our idols what the Bible teaches? It is. But for someone struggling to make sense of the deepest, darkest losses a person can experience, it's heartless. Besides, we've had a peek behind the scenes of what's going on with Job. He's not being judged for sin. He's being tested by God to see if he'll stay faithful no matter what happens to him. God himself said so. Where God is working, even angels fear to tread, someone has said. But Eliphaz wasn't afraid to go there. In fact, he was confident, he was certain. He didn't lift Job up in prayer, he didn't ask questions, and he certainly didn't listen to Job with compassion or pity him. Rather he preached against Job and tossed out platitudes. There's no arguing with someone like this. There's no convincing them. Their verdict is laid down with the whack of a gavel. You'll only validate what they've decided if you object and defend yourself. In their mind, it's case closed. Despite Eliphaz's conviction, Job maintained his innocence. He'd obeyed God's every word, yet he was being disciplined as if he were wicked. It wasn't fair, he claimed, and he was right. But being fair isn't the way God deals with us, and Job knew it. The wicked often get away with murder while the innocent suffer. Job admitted to not understanding God's ways, but he wouldn't let go of his hope in him, for quote, though he slay me, yet will I hope in him, end quote. No matter the hardship, where else could he go but to the one who made him? I'm still reeling over my recent assail by email. It's been heartbreaking that this trusted, most intimate friend has turned out to be an enemy in friend's clothing. It can't be coincidence. I've just begun reading Job, the book about unjust suffering. I just asked God the morning of this email to make his words more precious to me since I was bored with them again. Nothing like pain to pry open my heart, drive me to God's word, and make the balm hit the mark. Suddenly his words in Job have all but stood up and shouted for the comfort and support I hear when I read them. God is with me. He hasn't abandoned me just because my friend has. Of course, this doesn't mean I'm right or innocent, but his presence frees me, it keeps me from caring about proving my own righteousness. God is with me. I don't have to prove anything. Strangely, and unlike me, what I care more about is finding peace with this person and receiving supernatural strength to love her. I sorely and surely need it. I also have to ask for help to forgive her more times a day than I can keep up with. Forgiveness is hard work. It's so much easier to harden over when you feel misunderstood and judged. It's so much easier to hate and judge in return than to love, because you have to take every remembrance of their offense to God to deal with and as often as you think of it, and if you're as sinful as I am, it's downright exhausting. Here's a snippet of what it's been like. Her words hit me afresh when I opened my eyes this morning. They continued to pop up while I made coffee, fed the cats, made the bed, watered plants. It's been an all day need to forgive fest, where I keep seeing how ill equipped I am by how often I keep asking for God's help. When hard times came, the only place Job had to go was to God. He's the only place I know to go too. Update This post was originally published one year ago today. In the year since God has given me the grace to forgive my friend and let go of my desire to explain myself, which I never did.

2 Corinthians 1:15-24

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And why? Quote, because he made you and he likes what he made. He loves you and he enjoys what he loves. He saves you and he never gives up in discouragement as he works with you to restore you to wholeness in Christ. God's first and last word to you and me is always yes. Not yes at first, but now let's see how you shape up. Not yes until you mess up so much he's gotta let you go. Not yes until somebody better comes along. God's yes means he's with me for the long haul. It means he works in me to reveal who I really am. It means he's committed himself to sticking with me even into eternity because he's given his word to finish what he began in me. With God's yes to me in place, I find rest and relief from trying to earn it. I find freedom from having to win above others. I can repent and forgive. I can trust that God is working in me to bring about the life he knows I most want. I can believe that if I knew everything he knows, I'd even say bring it to what he is doing. When misunderstandings with others multiply, believing God's yes heals me

Psalm 41, Prayer, Proverbs 22:5-6

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from Psalm forty one. David is experiencing consequences for his sins and his enemies are gloating. They don't miss the chance to gossip about what's happening. Even David's closest friend, the one he shared bread with, has turned against him. He prays for grace to get back up so he can show them he's not down for good. He's certain that God is with him, holding him together and won't fail him because God is for him, and for this David praises. Problems arise, troubles come, some of it is done against us, some of it is our own doing. No matter who is responsible for the issue at hand, God is the answer to it. We don't solve our problems and then go to God about them. We go to him during them, even when we're to blame for them, being certain that God will still be God for us. This is what he promised in his love covenant to Abraham and his children, and that includes every last man, woman, and child who want to be part of it. When misunderstandings with others multiply, trusting that God is for me heals me. Prayer. God you mend and you keep mending me. You're mending me and my friend. Thank you for the forgiveness and love you keep giving. I couldn't do it, but you could, and you did. All praise. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 22, 5 to 6. The road evil people take is full of danger and detours. If you're wise, you'll stay off of it. Help your kids find the right path, and when they're old, they won't forget it. The passages in Job, Second Corinthians, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve to Bartleban, Robuck.