The Saturday Stoke #29
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Welcome to this week’s Saturday Stoke, a short inspirational podcast designed to encourage and challenge you on the path ahead—it’s a place where, if I’m doing my job right, I’m spurring us all on toward love and good deeds.
It’s a podcast that tastes like avocado toast, and feels like spring rain on your cold face. If you're new to the Stoke, welcome! Feel free to poke around my blog The Edges Collective Dot Com.
If you find some inspiration, sign up for my newsletter called Further Up. You’ll get updates when the next episode of The Stoke drops and exclusive articles and community discussions. This week’s stoke looks at a topic that we all wish we had a bit more of: silence. Let’s get to it.
What is going on in this world of ours? How do we look at the suffering, uneasiness, confusion, and fear as it relates to life on planet earth right now? Does God care about us? We all have questions and those questions are valid. Today, in an effort to encourage and inspire us, I want to spend a few moments digging into the mysterious uselessness of the ostrich. I’m confident we’ll uncover a few nuggets of God’s glory.
In Job 39 God responds to Job's impassioned inquiries regarding his suffering. Interestingly we don't find God shoving Job further into the ashes after Job spends much of the book screaming out to him, demanding God answer his questions, and cursing the day he was born. We don't find a cosmic, "How dare ye!" from God. Rather, we find a God who willingly condescends to a crushed and confused man. That God, then, expounds upon himself.
In verses 13-18 God describes the ostrich. She flaps her wings joyfully, but doesn't seem to realize how puny they are in relation to, say, the stork’s. So, she's a bit silly. She's also not very smart. She lays her eggs in the sand where any wild animal can trample them. She's not a good mother either; she treats her young harshly as if she's forgotten that they are hers. All that work to bring her young into the world and she could care less.
Why did God create this foolish and ridiculous bird?
Through all her silliness and apparent idiocy, she does still shine. The writer of Job says, "When she spreads her feathers to run she laughs at horse and rider." One envisions this idiot bird cackling with glee along the desert plain—like an overgrown Roadrunner—passing horse and rider in an effortless gate. Beep-beep!
Taken in this light, is our God the God of the ridiculous?
If we follow the dust trail of the ostrich we find in this quirky Old Testament passage a sideways view of God. He gives us the ostrich for no other purpose than to marvel at her groundspeed.
This passage also lists the eagle and hawk, bloodthirsty displays of avian glory living to themselves, for themselves and God. What can you do about the eagle? You spot one and, in youthful exuberance, can do nothing really but grab your binoculars and marvel. A few months ago I took a guided hike in the mountains of Virginia. As the van approached the trailhead, the naturalist tour guide said, “Well, if we’re lucky, we’ll see the eagle that likes to fish down here at the river.”
The words had barely left his mouth when we all saw the eagle swoop down along the water, skim it, and rocket up and out of the forest into the open air. Such a magnificent bird. But very pointless in our overly pragmatic world where everything it seems needs to have a use.
It's the same with the leviathan and the behemoth; one symbolizing chaos the other ferocity. What can we do with them? Nothing. So, what is God telling us about these ridiculous and glory-laden creatures?
Perhaps he is saying, “I am the God of the ridiculous. I am the God of chaos. I am the God of awe. I am the God of the bloodthirsty. I am the God of ferocity.” And all these things seem so strange to us. But maybe that’s the point. Perhaps God intends for us to rest in his mystery.
Mystery can be exhilarating. It can also be dark and frightening. We love mystery because it draws us in towards the light of resolution—that moment of epiphany when we say, "I finally understand." But with God it's always a "further up and further in" kind of pulling. The more we discover, the more he unravels; and the more he unravels, the more mystery we must live with.
But God's mystery draws us towards him. We all of us respond differently to this drawing of mystery. Either we will deride God because of his mystery or we will praise him, clinging to the unknown. We do have a choice. He, in his infinite wisdom, gives us that.
I think we choose praise when we learn to live in contentment. Living content, however, does not mean that we live emotionless. We can, like Job, rip our clothes and heave ash upon our heads and wail when we encounter affliction—all while praying, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away." I believe we can be content in the midst of suffering when we live captivated by the mystery of God. And yes, this is easier said than done.
But think about it. Life looks different from the vantage point of mystery. An ostrich runs, an eagle soars and the hawk hunts in view but out of reach. No point, just glory. Our suffering, too, seems pointless. It stamps around like the ostrich, dumb and idiotic but also ready to spread its feathers and run—a combination of the pointless and the glorious.
And here is where we choose. We choose either to pray, "Lord save me from this!" Or we pray, "Lord, save me through it." Don’t miss the distinction.
Think back to Gethsemane. In the garden Jesus asked for the cup to be passed from him. Jesus—the perfect human, prayed to be spared from the suffering before him. And yet, he ultimately drank deep the cup of the cross. And there, on the other side of the gory wood, the brilliance of his salvation shone for each of us. His glory came through the cross.
“But Tim,” you say, “Whenever I read the story of Job, I see a man who is completely broken—who is miserable and depressed and questioning. And in his questioning God responds with, ‘I’m sorry, did you make all of this? Are you awesome like me? No? Okay, then. Shut it.”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “But this dialogue between God and Job looks more like a trial at court. Job seeks vindication and demands God give it to him. When God answers Job with, "Brace yourself like a man" he is not browbeating Job. Rather, he encourages Job to ready himself with all the human might he can muster so he can somehow comprehend how wide and how deep, how magnificent and unearthly God really is.”
But I get it. I too interpreted this section as God saying: "Okay little man, now that you're done with your quibbling inquiry and your pleading for vindication, I will tell you how great I am and you will take it like a man."
But this is not God's posture at all. It's as if Job has hurled every rock of pain and sorrow and confusion upon God. And God responds with compassion: "Ok, my beloved child, let me help you understand ... brace yourself and see if you can't use all your human faculties to comprehend what I'm about to tell you. I think you'll find comfort."
I believe God expects us to flail and wail and throw glass at the sky and demand to know what in the world is going on. I believe that when we struggle with fear and anxiety and panic, like much of the world right now, God offers us grace, but he also gives us his glory. Grace and glory are real, but they're umbrellas covering us as hell falls, not grappling hooks pulling us out of pain. He is there for us during the hurt, during the confusion, during our weakest most vulnerable times. And he’s big enough to take on our doubt and fear and even anger.
I remember some years ago a few friends visited me at college. During the visit Erica received a phone call. She stood motionless, ended the call and began to cry. One of her friends, a recent high school graduate, ran through his second story window to his death on the street below.
Several months later I sensed Erica was struggling with the suicide of her friend. I grabbed a paper bag, filled it with oranges and took her up to "the rock"—a camping spot a bunch of us used to frequent on a ridge along the Horseshoe Trail near the Pennsylvania State Game Lands. The actual rock is a massive boulder about the size of an old VW Vanagon. Once at the rock, I handed the bag to Erica and told her to throw every orange at it screaming her emotions to God.
Erica followed the directions and emptied the bag on the rock; pulp and peels smashed all over the boulder and ground. I didn't promise her any kind of outcome—only the tangible act of releasing her anger, confusion, frustration and pain. That much she accomplished. Erica flung herself at God that night at the rock, and lived to tell about it.
When we fling ourselves into God we fall into him and it feels like dying. But when we land, it is not hell we are in, but Him. We must remember not only what God says to Job, but what he doesn't say. And here true comfort lies.
He does not tell Job that he's going to get zapped because of what he says in chapter seven: “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” No, God allows this.
Why? Because he’s big enough to take accusations we hurl at him. He’s big enough to hear us curse the day we were born—as Job did. He’s big enough to listen as we wallow in despair. He’s big enough to condescend to us and to blow us away with the depth of his being in a transcendent effort to comfort us.
And, indeed, that’s what Job finds. Comfort.
"My ears had heard of you," said Job after God finished his big "I'm awesome" speech, "but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself, and [find comfort] in dust and ashes."
Be encouraged today, y’all. God is big enough for your doubt, fear, and pain. If we can somehow gather our courage and live in his mystery and glory, we will find the strength of Jesus in Gethsemane.
Stay stoked my friends.
