Wednesday, July 5, 2023

“You throw me into the whirlwind and destroy me in the storm.” (Job 30:22, New Living Translation)
“Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind…” (Job 38:1, NLT)

                Do you ever feel like you are caught in a whirlwind, life buzzing chaotically, frantically around you faster than you can keep up?

                This week, I watched a video of a Little League baseball game being played somewhere in the USA.  The kids were about 7 or 8 years old. From behind, it showed the catcher in his position behind home plate, getting ready to receive the ball. All of a sudden, a small whirlwind, kicking up the sand, spun around the catcher, just him.  There he was, caught all by himself in the middle of this personal, miniature whirlwind of wind and sand. He stood there until the umpire had the presence of mind to go and pull him out. The boy was not ever really in danger, but it must have been scary, a least a little.

                Metaphorical whirlwinds come in many forms. Busy family schedules.  Work stress. Money problems. Debt loads. Health issues. There may be days when some feel that they don’t know if they are coming or going or have already been there and are back again. The world spins and we get caught up in its vortex of demands, pressures, stresses and an unrelentless pace to life. Even in my retirement, I get caught up in the things that should be done around the house, but physically find arthritically difficult to keep up with anymore.

                Job cries out in the whirlwind of suffering and complaint which he is experiencing. Who could blame him? Loss of family. Loss of property. An attack on his personal health. Satan has put a heavy load on Job when he challenged God, “But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He’d curse you right to your face, that’s what.” (Job 1: 111, The Message Bible) Job got his own, terrible life’s twister as a result. And although Job didn’t get to cursing God, exactly, he, certainly, in no uncertain terms, blamed God for creating this whirlwind and accused God of being very hard hearted and callous.

    I shout for help, God, and get nothing, no answer!
    I stand to face you in protest, and you give me a blank stare!
    You’ve turned into my tormenter—
    you slap me around, knock me about.
    You raised me up so I was riding high
    and then dropped me, and I crashed.
    I know you’re determined to kill me,
    to put me six feet under. (Job 30: 20 -23, TMB)

                But eventually God speaks out of the whirlwind, ironically – a physical storm that comes upon Job but one which carries God’s Voice to him. Job doesn’t ever get a perfect answer as to why good people suffer. But he begins to understand that God has not totally abandoned him or forgotten him. God speaks out of the whirlwind, reminding Job that God’s creative ability to shape the world has no equal. In effect, God sees the little sparrow fall, it meets his tender view and so God recognizes, hears and responds to Job out of his anguished storm.

                Perhaps, we are reminded of the Gospel story when the disciples are caught out on the Sea of Galilee during a storm. “A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, ‘Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?’” (Mark 4: 35 -38, TMB) Like Job, the disciples can’t quite figure out the apparent indifference of a sleeping Jesus. But then Jesus awakes; “he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, ‘Quiet! Settle down!’ The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: ‘Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?’” (Mark 4: 39 -40, TMB)

                Quiet! Settle down. Presumably, he was speaking to the windy storm, but perhaps he was also speaking to his disciples. In the full brunt of our storms, we need to keep the faith, hold firm, trust God, and with Jesus’ help, see our storms through.

                I appreciate how the Message Bible has it: the wind ran out of breath. Jesus Christ stills our fears and worries, calms our anxieties, and pulls us out and through our whirlwinds.

                “He quieted the wind down to a whisper, put a muzzle on all the big waves.” (Psalm 107: 29. TMB)

 

Dale