March 3, 2002
Job 3:1-16
Crawling Out of the Loss Hole
Hear Job’s lament? The opening words of today’s scripture passage tell us that Job was deep in the hole of loss. It says, “After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day he was born.” Job is in this hole because of that little two word clause at the start of verse 1, “After this.” Let’s look at what “After this” describes. Turn back to chapter 1 verse 13.
13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the older brother’s house, 14 a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing (500 yoke) and the donkeys (500 ) were grazing nearby, 15 and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” 16 While he as still speaking another messenger came to him and said, “The fire from God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep (7,000) and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” 17 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “ The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on the camels (3,000) and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one that has escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was still speaking, yet another messenger cam and said, “ Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19 when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”
Wow!! Talk about loss! He loses his wealth. Remember from last week, his holdings made Job “the greatest man among all the people of the East.” He falls into the loss hole. Next, He losses his family, seven sons and three daughters, all gone, (snap fingers) just like that. The loss hole is dug a little deeper. Chapter 2 tells us that next Job is faced with painful sores from the “soles of his feet to the top of his head.” With a piece of broken pottery “he scrapes himself while sitting amongst the ashes.” The ashes of wealth…GONE. The ashes of health…GONE. The ashes of family…GONE. Is it any wonder that Job now finds himself so down, so disheartened, so defeated, and filled with so much loss that he cries out and curses the day he was born. Job isn’t sinning here folks, we also read in this passage that “In all this Job did not sin in what he said. ” Look you need to know: 1.) It is not sinful to hurt, 2.) It is not sinful to suffer and 3.) It is not sinful to be so distraught over present happenings and so emptied of hope that you wish you had never been born. It isn’t a sin to be in the hole of loss, but I do believe it IS a sin not to crawl out of it or maybe a better way to say that is to “claw” out of it. How do you do that?
Well folks it is as simple and as difficult as the following. There are a few things you need to understand if you are to crawl out of the Loss hole.
First, you are not alone. You might wall yourself off, you might shut everyone out, you may curse the day you were born, you may have done your best to alienate yourself from everyone and everything but regardless of how deep your hole or how wide the rim…you can never be alone. What you face has been faced by countless others and will be faced by another multitude tomorrow. In the blackness you have pulled over yourself…you are not alone.
In the first few years of our marriage Gayle and I traveled with a group of Rush county residents to a little town in the hills of western West Virginia named Grundy. Grundy West Virginia is a town that is twelve miles long and one street wide with one row of houses or businesses on each side of the road. That means that Grundy Virginia lies in the narrow valleys of some pretty steep hills. This are is known for three things, coal mining, poverty and abandoned kids. We used to go to an orphanage named the Grundy Mountain Mission School. We were a part of a large caravan of trucks filled with food, clothing, shoes and hope. We brought plumbers to fix toilets. We brought dentists to work on teeth. We brought optometrists to work on eyes and glasses. We brought young married couples like Gayle and I to hold hands, wipe noses and rock babies. The kids at Grundy Mountain Mission School looked forward to Thanksgiving week-end all year. They didn’t wait for turkey and dressing or a couple of days off school. They waited for a bunch of people from the far away flat land of Indiana to pull them out of their holes of desperation, even if it were for just a few days a year. On my second trip there I got the chance to go to a deep shaft coal mine. One of the graduates of the mission school owned a coal mine and he was going to show us what most of the people of Grundy did for a living. We descended a hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth. When we got to the bottom, we road a little narrow vehicle to the face of the coal seam. The way was lit with single naked light bulbs about every ten feet or so. When we arrived at the face there was a bank of flood lights set up to work the seam of coal. We had also been given little miners caps with lights on the front. The owner told us to turn our head lamps off. He wanted us to experience total and I mean TOTAL darkness. I had been standing next to the four-year-old daughter of a friend. When the lights were turned out, the young girl, in a voice filled with as much fear as I have ever heard…where are you, don’t leave me. I touched her and she screamed. She did not calm down until the lights were back on and she could actually see that I was still only inches from her. She had never been alone at all…she just couldn’t see anyone else around her. If she had just reached out she would have realized that no one had moved, she was just as safe as before…she was not alone.
Dear friends when the lights go out and you are in the darkness of your loss…Remember, you are not alone.
Secondly, from the story of Job we realize that the loss wasn’t about Job. The loss Job experienced was actually about something else all together. Job’s loss was actually about God. Job’s losses were about the pride that God had in Job and the disgust for which Satan had for God. Satan didn’t care the least about Job or his stuff or his family. All Satan was interested in was trying to hurt God. God had supreme confidence in Job, Satan had supreme contempt for God. Dear friends, Job’s loss was not about Job and your loss is not about you.
When someone comes to see me for the fiftieth time to talk to me about all the hurt caused by mean parents, after all the best listening and counseling skills I can muster, I have to eventually lean forward, take a hand in my own and say, “You know, it wasn’t about you. They were too hurt themselves and you just got in the way.”
Those horrible nights that I get stuck in that committee meeting that has just took a turn into conflict (thankfully we haven’t had one here yet and I pray we never do), it is usually because some hurt soul is working out anger or personal agenda. That is when I realize that the issue on the table is not driving the debate any longer. If I have the courage, the best thing to do is simply say, “Why don’t we get together tomorrow and talk about what is really bothering you? This issue is not about you or what you’re feeling.”
Even when I am sitting with someone dying or grieving it is useful to remind them tenderly this most personal of events is not really about them. It is about God that created them, sustained life every day we are graced with life. And, it is about God who is taking or has taken someone home. Remember, Job’s loss was not about Job and yours is probably not about you.
Finally, God doesn’t always reveal his plans but he always reveals himself. It is impossible to see footprints before they are set. That would be like knowing the plans of God. But God has provided a revelation about himself and if we drink in that revelation we do then indeed have a road map that helps us to chart a course through the storm, a way from the loss hole, a way when there seems no way. Dr. Steven Brown the president of the “Key Life Radio Network” tells a story bout his dog Quincy who had experienced a painful surgery after being struck by a car. Dr. Brown says refused to get more than a few inches away from his master during the difficult healing time. He says that Quincy would, with great pain, rise when he rose, limp at his side where ever he went in his home and refused to sleep any where but at the side of Dr. Brown’s bed and Dr. Brown had to rest his hand on his side for Quincy to calm down enough to sleep through the pain. Dr Brown writes, “Quincy did not understand what was going on but he knew he wanted to be close to the master and feel his touch.” Dearly beloved, it is instinctive that while we do not understand what the plans of God are, we know that the only thing that will bring peace is to be close to the master and feel his touch.”
Those are the things that you must know in order to “Crawl out of the Loss Hole” and there are a few things one must do to make that happen. The first thing we must do is simply “Hold On”. We must make a commitment to simply persevere. Paul says it like this to the Galatians in Chapter 6 verse 9, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up.” While we may not know the plans of God, it is also sure and true that the reality of His plans are always better than the picture we have designed. Hold on, at the proper time you shall reap a harvest of blessing.
Secondly, Get busy living. In the movie “Shawshank Redemption” the character Andy is an inmate that has been sentenced to prison and is there in spite of the fact that he is innocent. The other inmates know and believe him to be innocent. They are very surprised by his ability to live daily with hope in spite of the loss of his freedom. He is asked how he is able to withstand this injustice with such positiveness. Andy replies, “ I believe that you have to do one of two things, you have to get busy living or you have to get busy dying.” In reality, you are always busy doing one or the other. In the hole you are busy dying. Crawling out of the hole you are busy living.
Third, Get dirty. I read an interesting report recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (JAMA) This report was highlighted just this week on the NBC evening news. The report stated that in the last twenty years that our culture has seen a huge increase in the incidence and the initial age of onset of Asthma. The study that was highlighted in this JAMA report states that the apparent cause of the rise in Asthma cases among our young is because our environments are too clean and we are not getting sick enough. Apparently, our immune system to develop fully and protect us against such chronic diseases such as asthma must work over and over again to fight and become victorious over many childhood diseases and illnesses. Very few children in developing countries develop asthma because of their continuing exposure to many illnesses that do not threaten but strengthen life. I believe we have gotten so incapable of dealing with loss because we do everything we can to insulate ourselves from loss. We don’t build our capacity to endure loss.
I want to warn you about an event that will occur in the not too distant future that might cause some of you to wonder if I care for my parents very much. I and my parents are well aware that someday they are going to die. They have prepared for the day, a will has been drawn, burial plots have been chosen an executor has been named. I have even discussed with them what the funeral will look like and sound like. I will speak, my sister will sing and I haven’t a clue what my brother will do. But, I do know that I will not fall apart. It will not be because I do not love them nor will it be because I will not miss them. I will not fall apart because I have had to say good-bye to many father figures in my life. Yes , I know I have only one dad but I have had many who loved e like a son and many I have loved like a father. I am not jaded by death but I know there is peace on the other side of sorrow, there is hope beyond the grave. Death has dirtied me many times and the dirt doesn’t destroy you.
I reality, I have learned that what I receive from the lives that I have loved much is greater than the sorrow of the loss I have experienced. In loving much you lose less. Get dirty.
Finally, to “Crawl out of the Loss Hole” you must develop the character to do so. Oswald Chambers was born in 1874 and died at the age of forty-three of a ruptured appendix in 1917. He is thought by many to be one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our time. In his classic devotional work, “My Utmost for His Highest” Chambers relates how important it is to know the difference between disposition and character. Most people it seems never work from any other place than disposition. I often hear things like, “This is just the way I have always been and this is the way I will always be.” Or, “This is just the way I am, take it or leave it.” The sad thing about people who always say things like this is not that we have to take it or leave it but rather that they settle for disposition and never build character. I believe it is the natural human disposition to crawl into the loss hole and stay there when we experience great loss. But, friends we don’t have to take it or leave it. Oswald Chambers said, “Disposition is what you are born with, Character is what you make of your disposition.”
If it is your disposition to look at the negative, build a character that at least looks at the positive. If it is your character to curse the darkness, build a character that lights a candle. If it is your disposition to imagine that the world is out to get you, build a character that changes that world and gets it on your side. If it is your character to languish in the loss hole, build the character that climbs out. Disposition is what you have, character is where you go with it. You can focus on the disposition of your position, that means you can focus upon your loss or you can focus upon what you have gained from what you have had. There are only two possible categories: loss or gain.
On April 15, 1912, the great ship Titanic sank. It was a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were on board, millionaires/ poor, celebrities/ no-bodies, high society/ low society, bankers, shoe salesmen, men, women, boys and girls. But a few short hours later the White Star Line classified all passengers under two categories LOST and SAVED. Which of two categories will you place yourself? In the “Loss Hole” or “Crawling Out?”
