Thanksgiving in an Ash Heap
I’ve taken a couple of days off for the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ve enjoyed time with our granddaughter. Oh, and it was great to see her parents too. :)
We spent this year’s Thanksgiving in our condo in High Point, North Carolina. We kept the fire burning all day (had to open the windows), watched football, fried a turkey, and ate and ate and ate. Ugh. Gotta hit the gym later today.
Sherri and I have so many things to be thankful for this holiday season. Our marriage of thirty-nine years, our three incredible children, our church, our friends from around the world. Oh, and did I mention our granddaughter? :)
I sincerely wish that your Thanksgiving holiday was spent with those you love, and I hope that, like myself, you have many things for which you are thankful. But I want to take this weekend (and I usually don’t post on Saturday and Sunday) to share with you the story of a different kind of thanksgiving - thanksgiving in an ash heap.
It’s the story of a man who literally sat in an ash heap, scrapping pus-filled boils that covered his body, grieving the tragic deaths of his children, rejecting the advice of his wife to “curse God and die” (a candidate for marital counseling if I’ve ever known one), and subjected to the advice of his three fair weather, fundamentalist friends, who had all the answers to his problems, which, of course, were ultimately all his fault according to their theology of a sinner in the hands of an angry God.
I’m talking, of course, about Job. Chosen by God because of his godly integrity. Chosen to serve as a witness of the cosmic battle between good and evil, Satan and God. And chosen to open our eyes to the inevitable sufferings and victory of the righteous, who, in spite of their questions, pain, and doubts, are able to say, as Job said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”1
Is the story of Job fictional, or was there really a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job? I tend to lean toward a real-life Job, but the truth is it doesn’t really matter. Job is, to some degree, the story of all who are willing to lose their lives to find them, to suffer for the sake of righteousness and the glory of God, even when they don’t understand.2
In light of all this, let me ask you a question - Are you spending this Thanksgiving in the ash heap? Have you lost your health, wealth, and/or loved ones? Are you surrounded by well-meaning but misguided fundamentalists whose God stands on the clouds casting lightening bolts of guilt, shame, and impending punishment on those struggling with their faith?
If I’m describing you or someone you know and care for, I’d like to share with you why you can thank God even in the ash heap. And just to be clear, let me say that thanking God does not mean you can’t question him, doubt him, or struggle with the question that Job and all of us face in our pain -Why me?
There are at least four reasons you can thank God in the ash heap. And I want to warn you in advance the first two won’t exactly make you want to sing and shout.
Anyway, here we go.
Reason #1 why you should thank God in your ash heap is - are you sitting down? - because it is God’s will.
I’ve taught quite a bit about the will of God over the years. And I can tell you that the Bible teaches that God’s will is “good, acceptable, and perfect (complete).”3 And it is. Ultimately.
But the problem is that we have a tendency to understand God’s will from our limited and personal perspective. But the fact is, we must learn to see God’s will from a much larger view.
At the risk of sounding like Bildad, Elihu, Eliphaz, or any number of Christian killjoys, I need to tell you something that you’re not going to like. But just to be fair, I don’t like it either. I don’t like it because, like you, I have this terrible tendency to believe (at least, at times) that the universe revolves around me.
News flash - It does not!
I love Don Henley’s song entitled, “Nobody Else in the World But You.” Living in a room full of mirrors, reflecting our splendid isolation, we are all guilty of seeing the world from our limited perspectives.
But the truth is the universe doesn’t revolve around you or me.
Who does it revolve around, Dan? Uh, God!?! Duh.
Now, before you x-out of this post, and write me off as one of those callous fundamentalists I write about, give me just a little more of your time. Because you see, the flip side of recognizing that the universe does not revolve around me is the incredibly wonderful and life-changing truth that God wants to teach us to see beyond ourselves. God wants us to see that he is calling us to join him in something greater than ourselves.
GOD IS CALLING YOU AND ME TO JOIN HIM IN SOMETHING GREATER THAN OURSELVES!!!!!!
The message of Jesus is summed up completely in the first words he spoke as he began his ministry: Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.4
And I know I say this often, but I cannot say it enough, the word repent is not some religious, walk-the-aisle, join the church, get saved kind of word. The Greek word literally means to change your perspective, change how you see things. We might say, change your worldview.
For the Jews who heard it, it meant something that we desperately need to hear in twenty-first-century America, where we are battling against the sin of Christian nationalism. The Jews expected their messiah to say, “The kingdom of Israel is at hand.” But Jesus said, “Nope, I’m not that kind of messiah. Get over your isolated, arrogant nationalist religion. I’m not here to make the kingdom of Israel great again; I’m here to usher in a kingdom, not of this world. I’m here to establish the kingdom of God.”
You and I need to tear down our glass houses. It’s time to shatter our mirrors of isolation, to stop seeing a universe that revolves around us, and to recognize that God is at the center. And God, in his grace, is calling you and me to join him in something immensely bigger than ourselves. God is calling us to join him in his kingdom-building work.
There is no president, no prime ministry, no petty demigod whose responsibility and work even compares with the least of those in God’s eternal kingdom. And God is calling you and me to recognize this life-changing truth.
Think about it. If you know the story of Job, you know that Job lived his entire life never knowing that his suffering was because Satan mocked God, saying that the only reason Job or anybody worshiped him was because of all the blessings he showered upon his people.
And, by the way, that is proof enough that God does indeed shower you and me with blessings untold.
Job was a cosmic test case. A universal challenge to the worthiness of God to be worshiped by his people.
And Job is an example and encouragement to you and me when we encounter life’s ash heaps. We may not begin to understand why we go through some of the things we do in life. But as men and women committed to and believing in a universe with a purpose and a good God with a great plan, we can trust that, like Job, after we emerge from the ash heap, we will be like gold refined in the fire*
And that brings me to the second reason we thank God in the ash heaps of life. I’ll share that reason with you tomorrow.
In Christ,
Dan
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You can listen to my weekly messages at Embrace Church, High Point.
Job 13:15.
Matthew 10:39.
Romans 12:2.
Mark 1:15.