Give Them Everything! That'll Kill Their Faith!

I have some brilliant friends, I really do. One of them made an insightful observation a couple of days ago. In our faith tradition we have an ancient story about a man named Job. (His name is pronounced "jobe" not "job." He actually lost his job, along with everything else in his life!) We don't know much about Job's historic setting, but we do know that he's presented as a man of abundance who lost everyone and everything close to him. In a sort of a cosmic wager, Satan (the enemy of our God) bets God that Job will lose his faith and curse his God if life turns that bad for him. It's quite a story, really, and I commend it to you.

Anyway, my friend and several of our other friends were talking about how much we have in middle class America - comfort, ease of travel, absence of military conflict, high technology, unlimited entertainment, etc. We noted that this seems to be going alongside commitment to the one called Jesus that can run very shallow, very ego-centric ("What have you done for me lately, Jesus?"), and very easily distracted. Too many of us complain about what isn't just right in our worlds, and are more prone to fuss over what we think we lack than rejoice over what we have. My friend said, "It almost seems like this...Satan bet God he could weaken Job's faith by taking everything away from him. Satan seems to have bet God that he could weaken our faith by giving us everything!"

Brilliant observation! In our comfortable world, many organized churches and denominations are on the decline. In some of the most poverty-stricken and war-torn areas of the world people can't organize churches fast enough to accommodate the new followers who are coming to Jesus. Something to think about. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.