Category: Job 42

The Other Shoe

Job 42, Psalms, Scripture

Some seasons of life throw a lot at you. You wonder what else could go wrong. “Waiting for the other shoe to drop” started as an expression referring to the experience of living in thin-walled and crowded boarding houses of New York City and Chicago in the early 20th century. Tenants could easily hear one shoe and then another drop in the upstairs apartment when a neighbor got home from work and headed to bed. Late at night, noisy, and predictable, we all are more aware of the dropping sound of the shoes of life. The first shoe doesn’t seem so bad, but anticipating the second one is distracting. The expression has come to mean the expectation of an inevitable negative event and the stress that goes with it.

When the other shoes keep dropping, you wonder if there will ever be an end to this pattern. You ask repeated questions like the Psalmists did – “How long?” (Ps. 6:3; 13:1;90:13; 94:3,…)

Right now, my shoes of life include a friend whose spouse is in the last days of a two year battle with cancer and the familiar, but incredibly difficult hospice predictions as the end draws near. My shoes include a loved one with unresolved serious health issues. My shoes include a close friend that received a pacemaker just in time. My shoes include managing healthcare for a 90-something parent. My shoes include a new friend recently diagnosed with liver cancer. The list goes on, but there will always be a second shoe in these pairings, and I can’t help but think I’m not ready for whatever it is. And, waiting is just very hard. Life is inevitably hard. Where can I stuff my stress? “How long?” is the million dollar question.

I’ve asked God many questions, while still placing my hope in Him. Psalm 13:1-6 (ESV) provides a better “other shoe” perspective without minimizing the hard stuff or abandoning trust in God: “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed over him,’ lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

Job was right in that terrible place of facing more suffering than seemed bearable, yet had to completely surrender to the sovereignty of God without yet knowing about the hope of the Gospel. In the New Testament we are blessed to receive unimaginable comfort in the sovereignty of God, because we now have a Risen Savior Who came down and experienced comprehensive darkness and every kind of suffering. Jesus is the reason we can trust in God’s steadfast love and salvation. He is the reason we can sing. He is the reason we can hope. He is the reason we can experience His ultimate bounty.

When the other shoe drops, which it will, I will keep my heart fixed on Christ. Hebrews 4:15-16 (ESV) says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Even without the New Testament Gospel news being unfolded yet, Job personally experienced God’s presence and answers to his “how long” kinds of questions. Job 42:1-5 (NIV) is one of my favorite testimonies: “Then Job replied to the Lord: ‘I know that You can do all things; no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. You [God] asked, “Who is this that obscures My plans without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You [God] said, “Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.” My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You.’ “

I may ask lots of questions of God, I may not feel ready for any shoes to drop, and I will surely not escape suffering on planet earth, but my Anchor is solidly Jesus in the inevitable storms of life. As one sufferer put it, cancer is just a little “c” and Christ is definitely a big “C.” Keeping that perspective makes the “other shoes” quietly land in the sturdy arms of Jesus rather than on the thinner-than-paper floor.

Fallow Ground

Infertility, Job 42, Scripture

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Photo Credit: Kim Clayton Lance

After Job’s ordeal (Job 42:2-3), he says, “I know that You (God) can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted. [God] You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures My counsel without knowledge?’ [Job says] Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”

I have felt a burden in recent years for women suffering infertility. Recently, I’m asking God what He wants me to do, if anything to provide support to some of these women nearby. I agree with author/ministry leader Susan Radulovacki that “they are trapped in a story they cannot escape, separated by silence, vulnerable to any suggestion that sounds promising, and often believe they are cursed.”

Susan has written an amazing book entitled Pregnant with Hope: Good News for Infertile Couples. I was deeply drawn into this book, not because of any fertility issues that I’ve faced, but because I was so convicted by the spiritual truths that laced every page regarding desperate and painful journeys of life. Every journey contains sustained intensity, but the infertility journey is probably a 10 on the rating scale.

What grabbed my heart was the idea of infertility being like “fallow ground,” defined as “cultivated land allowed to lie idle during the growing season.” I realize that God is the Allower of “fallow ground” in life’s journey. But, I sure don’t like idling. Like Job’s heart- wrenching journey, intense journeys are sometimes required for us to learn that God can be trusted and that His plans are perfect. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ” This is one of my favorite scriptures. But in the matter of infertility, it poses a big problem. Yes, God knows the plans; but I don’t. “Fallow ground” isn’t for sissies against the backdrop of biological clocks. Remember Sarah’s and Abraham’s journey.

With a slightly different twist, Radulovacki goes on to compare infertility to “tilling” of land, she defines this as “preparation with the intent to wait for the ideal time.” Can God be trusted this much? For the ideal time? This reminds me of God’s perfect timing and provision in my life, that I can only see in hindsight, although I see that it was always there. All the things that might have gone devastatingly south if God had fit His plans to my own. His rescues have been endless in my life. When He has pulled back the veil to remind me of these provisions, I can always see the timely preparation that was necessarily going on. God was at work all along.

The end game really is God’s perfect plan, because we will find in the intensity that He can be trusted. Although infertility is an experience of multiplied losses, intense grief, a sense of helplessness, thoughtless questions and advice from friends, and possibly emotional separation from a spouse, we all will eventually answer the very same questions as the infertile couple seeking God in the intensity. Is God really faithful? Should I have faith or hold onto my illusion of control? Should I admit personal weakness or lean on the power of God? Will I choose peace over fear?

Granted, it’s an excruciating leap to trust God as He is writing a much different story for us than we would ever imagine and that His story is far better than ours. In our desperation, we can see God often invites us to active waiting, actively pursuing the seeing of things the way Jesus sees, actively pursuing the choosing of things as Jesus would choose.

Thankfully we have God’s Word, His love letter to us. In it He says, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). We are not consumed. A promise.

What an encouragement to know that, in God’s Word, infertility is continually shown to be a precursor to astonishing miracles. Sarah, Hannah, and the list goes on. The unthinkable death of Jesus Christ on the cross was likewise the precursor to His resurrection and our eternal salvation and deliverance from the power of sin. The unthinkable was necessary. The unthinkable was fore-ordained. The plan was the perfect plan of our trustworthy God. And, the astonishing occurred.

At the end of Susan’s book, without fail, all the couples who had authentically shared their infertility stories, chased after God to know Him better and search for answers. Like Job, they had to arrive at the realization that, no matter what the outcome, God is still the Almighty God. He promises to move toward us when we move toward Him (James 4:8). God will use our circumstances, no matter how dire, to prepare us for the gift He is planning to give us. Maybe it doesn’t end with a biological child. But, it is the plan that glorifies Him most when we draw near to Him in the intensity of despair.

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Again and again, I have had to remind myself that all things includes very good things and very bad things. The good God works is my eternal good. If I believe that, then the journey of fallow ground or tilling, though possibly turbulent and not dream-come-true, ends with God’s perfect plan, and not mine. Then God Himself becomes the center of my story, where He truly belongs, and He becomes my actual dream-come-true.