From the Presence of the Lord

Have you contemplated the passage of scripture in Job 1:6-12? This doesn't fit with the typical understanding most of us have from children's Sunday School classes. Satan in heaven at the regular gathering of angels? Satan in dialogue with God? God asking Satan what he thinks of some guy here on earth who is trying his hardest to do what is right? What's going on here?

"From the Presence of the Lord" considers the sovereignty of God and His protection. This is foundational in our understanding of a "dialectical" God. He is the God of paradox. He holds in His hands what appear to us to be contradicting values. This is a message of accepting the inscrutability and incomprehensibility of God as Sovereign. 

First things first...We tend to define God according to our very personal needs. We need God to be distinctly separate from evil and completely opposed to any evil happening under His watch! We need that  because we don't want any evil to happen. We know from childhood that God is good - Satan is bad. We need to be able to keep the categories consistent; nothing bad comes from God and nothing good is going to come from Satan. Oh if it could only be that simple. The problem is - the polarization of good/evil, God/Satan just isn't consistent with the larger body of scripture...sometimes bad things come from the presence of God and sometimes good things come from the hand of Satan.

Does evil sometimes come to us directly from the presence of God? Can evil be a testing or is it always a tempting? If God doesn't tempt us with evil, and we are to pray, "...deliver us from evil," how can we ever think God would use evil or even allow evil?

Let's contemplate a few passages of scripture:

    Judges 9:22-57; I Samuel 16:14-23; I Samuel 18:10; I Samuel 19:9; and, I Kings 22:19-28. These are incredible and gripping passages! 

These aren't the only pertinent passages, but are enough to cause us to look at the role an "injurious" (modern translation of the Hebrew word used for "evil") spirit might play in the affairs of a Christian.

So where does this leave us? I believe it leaves us needing a very basic belief that we can trust our final outcome with God. I believe it affirms the scriptures admonishing us to "commit our way to the Lord" and "walk by faith and not by understanding."

An elderly lady, Marie Dixon, used to say repeatedly, "I don't understand everything I know!" I know this - I can trust God! I don't understand why good and Godly people seem to suffer without cause/provocation, but I do know that God understands everything!

You, too, can trust Him. Even though it seems all hell has broken loose against you, God is still on His throne and Satan is not beyond God's realm. God is still the Sovereign!