Well, welcome folks to another podcast of Struggling Well. And as we get started with this podcast, you really I would you guys would probably enjoy more of the outtakes that happen with Tim Briggs and Suzi and me. cuz they're priceless and Briggs will probably sell them to you for a certain amount of money and enjoy them. No,
it has been one of those mornings where Jimmy and Tim have been unplugged. I mean, they have been wild and crazy and I've been the stabilizing influence. So, I hope we can get through this morning.
I hope so, too. And since you have been the stabilizing influence, we're going to start with you.
Okay. All right. You know, the title of our podcast is struggling well. And I talk about this often, how sometimes I wish that we had never come up with that. Well, Jimmy came up with that phrase years ago, but sometimes I wish that it was called prosperity gospel or how to make life just perfect. And, of course that would be false and it would be, we would be speaking from a place that isn't biblical. But sometimes, I don't know about you, but I would love to see less struggle and more just I don't know even know what normal life is.
You know,
it just seems like in the last nine months there's been a lot of
hard places and I'm sure many of you can identify with that where I had a friend once who said she felt like their family was under a cloud and it you see you know that little caricature where the person's walking and the cloud is over their head kind of raining on them. And so I've heard that from several friends. But what we want to talk about right now is something that hit me the other day is I was in a place of I don't think I was quite to this degree, but I definitely was struggling and not so well. And I started thinking about Job's wife and read the one verse about her the or the one mention of her in Job. And I started thinking what is the deal? What was the deal with 's wife. I know for one that she didn't have the gift of encouragement. That's for sure. and she was very similar to the friends that come in later in this story. she was wanting an answer or a solution to the misery that had befallen her family. But when I looked at it, I thought, well, what can I learn from it? There's just this one short passage with her in it and nothing. is in scripture that hasn't been inspired and in there for a reason and even though it's just a short portion, what can I learn from it? But what came up for me, and Jimmy, you can help me with this, too, is why was her response so important to the book of Job? Because it could have been left out completely, but it wasn't. Do you have any thoughts?
Yeah. No, I would just say this. You were correct. I mean, is it's the only verse in the entire 42 chapters where she's mentioned And she is probably as famous for that one statement as Job is in general.
Yeah.
And or maybe I should say infamous because she gets a hard wrap. I if I'm Job, I'm thinking everything else has gone wrong in my life. At least I have the comfort of my wife with me and she's in this struggle with me. And yet he found out at least emotionally he was all alone.
He cuz he's still searching for God. And what's going on and why this has happened. So, I don't think he felt the presence of God, at least at that point in the story. his friends, like you said, hadn't arrived. They were going to disappoint him greatly, too. But at that moment, emotionally, he's abandoned
and his answer to her, and then I'm going to go back a little bit, we'll go back a little bit to some of the questions that came up in my mind was, but he answers her and u basically rebukes her and he says in Job 2, you're talking like a foolish woman.
Yeah.
And then he asks this question, and this it's easy to read this, and I know that you all if you've if you're in a period of suffering or a struggle, here's the question. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? That's Job 2:10, the second portion of it. and later on, God says at the end of Job, in all this, Job did not sin in what he said,
right? So that's an interesting response, a godly answer to the pain he was facing. But if we go back in Job, we know that Job wrestled too. His wife that one section is really a tough one on her. But here's a couple of questions that I wonder about. is it in scripture? Because it means for us, that passage is there to reveal to us that our initial response to hardship is often to curse. God and we want to die. I think that's not far from what happens. Was her emotional lashing of Job also a reminder of how devastation and grief impacts a marriage? Because you've got two people going through the same thing. Remember, she lost all of her children and possessions and wealth and now her husband is ill. And so her response is to me a very gra fic illustration of what happens when a husband and a wife go through difficult times is that they react differently to the grief that's on them.
Yeah. And I mean she we many times are hard on her because of the fact that she is abandoning at least emotionally Job. but her response also I think reflects the potential response that any of us could have to those kinds of circumstances. We could turn our face away from God and just lash out. Job doesn't do that. Now, he's going to continue to pursue his questioning of God as to why all this is going on. but I think she is representative of I don't I'm going to use the word typical, but I don't know that's really the right word. It certainly is a often times used response from people when things get hard.
I definitely think So I mean just in a short amount of time just to recap he Job faces all this suffering loss of children loss of wealth it's looks like in a single day then struck with painful soores all over his body and his wife she adds to his pain by saying are you still maintaining your integrity curse God and die because in her mind God is the problem.
Yeah and it goes on said I know the friends will come to this conclusion, Job, just admit what you've been doing that's so bad that causes this. So, is when she says, you know, don't hold on to your integrity, is there something that she's aware or thinks that is there that Job's done that if he just would admit to it then this would lighten the load? I don't know.
So, so are you thinking that her viewpoint was the same as the friends?
No, I don't think it was the same as the friends. I think she's at a place of like you said all the things that happened. It's told from the perspective of Job and this happened to Job who was described by God as blameless, upright, fearing God and shunning evil. but all these things happened to her too.
Yeah.
Like you said and I think there is there's the confusion that she had to be going through. So in a the life of an individual We don't live in isolation from each other. So in our case, what happens to you happens to me or vice versa. We struggle with the same things. I think it's curious, like you said, Suzi, that of all 42 chapters in Job, this is the only verse she appears in. if we were putting it in the modern day lingo, it's a cameo appearance.
Yeah.
Why?
Yeah. I think that there's something there for us to learn and to see about I don't know the marriage relationship and just how hard it is. I mean I would say let's bring it home. Let's bring it to us in the last week. we've gotten I know you all are going to say these people are the suffering poster children, but we have some more family news that's hard to take and, what I do is in my heart I don't go curse God and die. I get icy. And when I say that I mean I get icy with God. I probably get icy with you a little bit too. I don't know about that. Do I? Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, just a little bit.
And my reaction I think is like my mind and my heart cannot comprehend that another and often times it's another thing that is out of my control is happening. that hurts my heart, scares me, gives me, makes me feel anxious. And so what I do, and I don't know what the rest of y'all do, but what I do is I just get icy with God. So that means I pull back. I find it difficult to pray. I find it difficult to read his word because I don't know why because I don't know why really. but it's like I have to process this information. that's way too big for me to process. And instead of praying like you know Job says to her, you know, you're foolish. Shall we not accept good from God and also bad? but I don't know about you, babe, but I think accepting hard stuff is not like a walk in the park.
No, it's not. And I think that Job, the book often gets characterized as the sufferings of Job, and he certainly does suffer.
I don't think that's the overarching theme of the book. I think the overarching theme of the book is Job's faith and how his faith perseveres and how it develops and in the midst of those things, it really is about his faith. And at the end of the book, I think it like you said it earlier, God said, "In all this, Job did not sin."
Right.
so my question, I'll throw it back to you. when you get that feeling of iciness
towards God,
what brings you out of that? What alleviates that? What pulls you out of that place? Because you don't stay in that place. I know you can get there. And for me, it's I can just shut down. maybe that's the same thing. What pulls us out of those situations?
Oh, I think when I hear the truth, and often times it's not because I've I'm reading it, but God in his incredible way of pursuing us lands some truth on me whether I hear it from another person, whether I see it, read it, what not necessarily in scripture, but truth, biblical truth, and I hear it and I think, well, let me back up because when I get icy like that, then I think, well, God has got to be furious with me because I'm not being faithful to him right now. And yet what I have found is that he is constantly wooing me back to him. Wooing me back to the truth of trust me, I will provide. don't be anxious. I love you. Hold on to me and my love for you will never change. I'm not going anywhere. Trust me for the big picture. And when that happens, and it happened this weekend for me, was I felt God just speaking in that gentle whisper and it cracked through my guard over my heart.
And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but did some of that come as we went to a worship service at church?
Yeah. I mean, you know, when you're in worship, it's hard. I mean, I tried to be Stonewall Jackson at the worship service because I was I just was in my icy place and often times I use my hands to express myself like I might raise a hand or cradle my hands in front of me, whatever. But I wanted my hands in my pocket because I was like, I'm not gonna worship. I'm not gonna I'm not happy with you, God. And yet from music to hearing the word of God is it just it I've got the Holy Spirit in me. So the Holy Spirit, you know, kind of cracked through. Must have had a little jackhammer in there because I could feel the difference. And I'm not talking about feelings. There was a transformational mo moment. for me as I let myself go into him.
Yeah. And that's the beauty to me of the community of the church that God uses that sometimes to break through in our individual lives, but often times it's in that community. So with wherever you're at this week, if it is that place of feeling iciness or maybe to the extreme that Job's wife felt, we would encourage you not to try to go it alone, but to be involved with the community. And when we come back next week, we're going to talk more about how God uses difficult times to draw us deeper in our faith walk with him. Have a great week.