Episode #229 - Job

Faith that brings forth miracles is certainly a foundational faith but remaining faithful without seeing the miracle and even in the face of severe trials is the faith that builds the temple.

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Episode #229 – Job.  I am your host Damon Socha.  Lately, my mind has been upon Job.  I don’t know if it is because I have been very sick over the last few months and I can’t seem to find answers but his story has rung true more than once.  I think that most people know the story.  Lucifer comes to Jehovah and requests the ability to try Job.  While I am most certain that these types of conversations do not occur, it is helpful in a sense to understand Job’s station in life.  Job had been blessed with family, financial stability and what appeared at first to be genuine friends. His life was a testament to living the gospel.  

After Lucifer obtains permission to try Job, the Lord allows him to try Job in various stages.  The first was removal of his wealth and then his immediate family and children.  The sudden removal of such blessings was certainly a shock to Job and no doubt he questioned why.  No doubt he had grief and likely some depressing moments.  Yet his initial response was that God had given him everything he possessed and God could remove those blessings if he so chose.  “God giveth and God taketh away, blessed be the name of God.” Were his words.  I doubt most of us would have come to this conclusion.

His wife, who by the way suffered the same losses, struggled to understand it.  Her response was to curse God and die.  At least that is what we have recorded.  We don’t hear much of her after that moment.  I do wish we had more of her response.  I have always hoped that she like Sariah, Lehi’s wife, had one of those moments of despair that mothers have when their children appear to be taken from them and then responded as Sariah in the end becoming ever more converted to the Lord.  It is important to understand that this trial was not just Job’s.  

Now the majority of us even good members may not come to the same conclusion and conviction as Job.  There was no loss of faith in Jehovah for Job when the moment of trial came.  Sure there were questions as to why and everything else that comes with a difficult trial.  And perhaps Job had a few bad days before his faith returned and he stated that his faith in Jehovah had not changed.  But we see a determination that is only found within the very elect of God.  We are not told how Job came to this level of testimony and faith.  But I most certainly believe that he developed that faith by previous trial and testing.  It would be very rare for someone to have such faith without having passed through deep and abiding trials.

And so we next see Job pass through another perhaps more difficult trial.  With his health, determination and friends, he could rebuild his life.  The next trial appears to be of a far more difficult nature to Job and I would say to all of us.  The Lord then allowed Job to be put through a trial of health problems.  A variety of health issues plagued Job and this time we see a more subdued and defeated Job.  He laments being born into such trials and difficulties.  One particular scripture notes that he felt that not being born would have been better.  This trial of health sent Job to the very limits of his faith and conviction.  Interestingly enough, he did not curse God or charge Jehovah with negligence.  He simply could not understand why the Lord would allow him to pass through such difficulties when he was keeping the commandments as he should.  We see in his remarks a deep depression and even somewhat suicidal thoughts for a time.

His friends were of little help to Job and this no doubt added to his misery.  Seems his friends were more fair-weather than true and in the end decided that Job must have sinned greatly.  I understand the friends reaction to this strange trial of Job.  If Job had not sinned and the test was simply a test then they could in theory pass through the same misery.  I think that the mind plays a game of self-preservation when considering that trials of the same nature could pass upon me.  They could not imagine that the Lord would and could do the same to them.  It was beyond their comprehension and so the easiest explanation to satisfy their troubled minds was to assume that Job had sinned.  It is a natural reaction, a human one.  We want to see cause and effect.  We want to fully believe that if we follow a particular course of faith and action we will be blessed and not have to pass through difficult trials of faith.  We want to hear, see and feel that if I am faithful, the Lord will be also to me.  And yet we find that the gospel is not a pathway of ease and in fact for the most part, the true path is always difficult.

I have questioned why it must be so difficult.  Why must we face such deep and abiding problems that overwhelm us and cause us to doubt even the very existence of God?  I recently have had several opportunities to understand some of those reasons.  I have been very sick with both depression and chronic pain and fatigue brought about by autoimmune issues.  I have literally been going to work and then coming home and sleeping.  I sleep through the weekends until it is time to work again.  This has been going on for several months now and I admit that I have seen the extents of my faith many times.  I have struggle with the purposes of such difficult trials as I have faced.  Why does the Lord test us to the very limits of our faith?

In my experiences over the last several years, I have come to learn something about the unique place of faith and more especially where we have come to the extents and limits of that faith.  We see it in Job and in ourselves.  When Job experienced the initial trial and lost his possessions and family, we see him stand firm in his faith.  Job had developed great faith and we see it in his response to the initial trial.  He had not been pushed to his faith limits.  However, the next couple of trials where he became sick, weak and without compassionate friends, we see Job pushed to that sacred limit of his faith.

I say sacred purposely.  I have found over these last few years that the only way our faith can increase is when we come up against the boundaries of our personal faith.  When we enter the realm of questions and doubt, we come to a sacred space.  One in which we ask those deep questions of what we really believe.  If we never enter the point of questioning our beliefs or enter that sacred space of why, we will never increase our faith boundaries.  Faith must be tested beyond its capacity for it to grow.  We cannot be molded in the image of Christ until we become moldable and pliable.  That only occurs in that space just beyond our faith capacity.  It is there where humility causes our hearts to be pliable and flexible enough to change.  It is there where the Atonement of the Savior works most effectively.

We often look at faith from the perspective of sufficient faith to act or to cause miracles to occur.  Meaning we tend to measure our faith by miracles.  If we are seeing miracles then we have sufficient faith.  However, faith and the reward of miracles is just the foundation of faith.  It is the starting point upon which we build the temple of faith.  True and abiding faith does not need miracles.  In fact, the faith we are trying to develop is not faith to see miracles but to have a faith that does not shrink or fail when miracles do not come, when the Lord’s hand is not evident.  This is what we see with Job in his initial trial, a faith that did not need miracles, and, in fact, a faith that experienced a catastrophic loss and did not diminish or shrink.  We see Job passing through a terrible difficulty in his life remaining as faithful as he ever was.

But we also see Job when he is at that moment of faith development.  We see it in his words that he wished he had never been born.  Those words have rung true to me more than once and in fact many times over the last several years.  This is where doubt and questions of why turn into a deeper faith and trust in God.  This is where Job developed that exalted faith.  The faith that says come what may, I will be true to my God and his purposes.

It seems a pattern in the scriptures that each of us must pass through these faith building experiences.  Lehi and his family had their trials.  It doesn’t take eight years to travel through the deserts of the Saini Peninsula.  We see it with Abraham, Peter, Israel, Ruth, Ester and almost every person who seeks the Lord and to develop their trust and faith.  We must pass through difficult trials to obtain the exalted faith, the come what may faith.

I have also found over many years of working with mental and emotional illness, that the Lord uses these illnesses to deepen faith.  Now we don’t all respond as did Job.  In fact, I think that Job’s response is a learned response.  I think Job probably had many setbacks in his life to get to that point.  It takes time to learn abiding faith and it takes significant experience.  One short mental illness experience is not going to deepen our faith in any real measure.  Deep faith comes from prolonged trial and sequential, tightly woven difficulties.  What is also true is that our trials are likely to become more difficult and try our deepest held beliefs.  But why is the question.  Why must we have such a faith?

The exalted faith, the one that never deviates is one of our Father’s core principles.  He never deviates.  He never changes.  That is because nothing can waved his faith.  Come what may, our Father in Heaven is always the same.  He is simply teaching us to be like him.  And for weak mortals with celestial DNA, the experience is deeply troubling.  For those of us who deal with mental and emotional illness on a regular basis these trials of learning and deepening of faith can feel more like torture rather than a learning experience.  However, we must remember that faith in the end is an emotion that is educated by our core principles.  The Lord must change our core nature and for that to occur we must be brought to the point of pliability and that place where hearts can be changed.  While that place is sacred it is terribly troubling to the mortal and at times the spiritual mind.  But in the end, there exists no other way.

Even the Savior himself when brought to that difficult place in the Garden asked that question, “is there no other way.”  The silence from the Father was his answer.  And for us sometimes, many times it is the same.  There is no other way.  However, there is one saving grace in all of this turmoil we must face.  That is the Lord is always present and he guides us through the faith building.  I realize that we don’t often see him in the midst of the pain, suffering and questions.  But he is always there.  I know so because it is where the Atonement does its greatest work.  He is always there.

I realize that just knowing that the Lord is building our faith and changing our heart does not necessarily make the process easier.  In the midst of the storm, sometimes all we can do is hold on until it passes.  And it is rare that we see our change of heart when it happens.  Yet when we look back upon our lives in eternity, not only will we see these moments as critical to our exaltation, we will be eternally grateful that the Lord was willing to put us through them and to walk with us while we found our way.  May the Lord bless you to see his hand even in the darkest of moments.  Until next time.  Do your part so that the Lord can do his.