“Is not your reverence
your confidence? And the integrity of your ways your hope? “Job 4:6
I gave up making resolutions many
years ago. All too often resolutions are
made out of guilt, shame, those terrible whispers; “I should do…”; “I shouldn’t
do…” “I need to…” And when the emotional fuel we’ve pumped into
our intentions turns into boredom, lethargy, disappointment, frustration and
more guilt, we give up on half-made promises.
However, many years ago, I began
asking the Lord Jesus what character
trait or what changes He wanted to work into
or out of my life. I was
beginning to understand that if it was God breathed, and God-powered, the
changes would come—if I remained close to the Father and co-operated with Him.
When I first read these verses today,
my initial response to Eliphaz the Temanite’s question to Job was “Yes,
practicing reverence will create confidence and we can have hope if we live a
life of integrity.” The equal thought to
that is; “If I keep all the rules, then everything will always be okay.” Is it
possible that is the kind of mind-frame of which making resolutions—at New Year’s
or other times—comes?
Perhaps fear plays a role in making
resolutions. In the first chapters of
the book of Job, we see a man who fears God and regularly makes sacrifices to
God in the hope that pain and destruction will not touch him. So we say things to ourselves like: “I should lose weight and exercise so that I
won’t develop diabetes; won’t have a heart attack; will be healthy in my old
age.” Okay—confession—that’s what I
say. I fear the consequences of bad
choices. After all the messengers broke
the news that his riches and his family were gone, Job’s reply is “That which I
feared has come upon me.”
Yet, by the end of the book of Job, he
learns that fearing God does not protect us from suffering; neither does living
the kind of life of “following the rules.”
This is what Job says to God:
“I know that You can do all things, and that
no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted. [You said to me] “Who is this that darkens
and obscures counsel [by words] without knowledge? Therefore {I now see} I have [rashly] uttered
what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not
know. [I had virtually said to You what You
have said to me;]Hear I beseech You and I will speak; I will demand of You, and
You declare to me, I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, but now
my [spiritual] eye sees You. Therefore I
loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:2-6
As a teenager, and even in my early 20’s
I could never make sense of the book of Job.
But by the time I’d hit my 30’s and had my first back surgery, I
understood that suffering makes us look beyond our limited abilities to live a
valuable and worthwhile life. Pain will
either make us turn away from God = “If God is good and loving, why does he
allow suffering?”; or turn us to God “Jesus, You suffered on the cross, You are
suffering with me now. I need You.”
Growing up in a Christian home made it
possible for me to “hear of God with my ear.”
But suffering brought me to the end of myself, the end of thinking that
I could be a “Good Girl” in my own strength.
When Job had everything stripped away,
and realized that God was all he had, he also understood that God was all he
needed. Job had a revelation of God in
His sovereignty. When I got a small
glimpse of the sovereignty of God, it was only the beginning of understanding
that being a Christian is not me trying to live a righteous life by doing good
things. Making resolutions and trying to
impress God by changing myself just doesn’t work. Rather, my confidence and trust has to rest
in God’s imparting His righteousness to me because of Jesus Christ’s finished
work of the cross. Like Job, I could say
“Now my spiritual eyes are opened—and seeing Your sovereignty lets me see how
trust worthy You are.”
By placing my confidence in God’s love
and sovereignty, I am led into a life of reverence. Resting in God’s salvation, in and through
Jesus Christ creates hope, and brings about integrity in my walk with God, the
Church, and the world.
Here’s to a New Year with no
resolutions!
Serving Jesus, Author of our faith,
Lady Helene
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