Will Good Come

I think it started when I read my own sentiments in someone else’s words in someone else’s book. I didn’t like them. At all. In fact, they were decidedly uncomfortable, and in fact depressing. I finished the book and said to myself, ’If that’s how it is, why not just blow my brains out now, and be done with it?’

It was, in many ways, an excellent book about desire. Desire is something the Lord has been dealing with me a lot over the past few years, so I was in complete accord with the author when he stated that the world has taken one extreme—doing whatever insanity is required to fulfill their desires—and that the church has taken the other extreme, of killing desire and labeling that soul—suicide as "sanctification." The result is a lot of robots and, for the most part, zero passion or life. The church "loves with the love of the Lord," and does their duty, and fulfills all the laws, but the heart? Oh, well, don’t you know, that is deceitful and exceedingly wicked. Never mind that the new covenant involves a new heart on which God’s laws are written.

So, as I said, it was in many ways an excellent book. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure he wrote it from somewhere about three-quarters of the way through the book of Job—or perhaps I should say, three-quarters of the way through the experience of Job. And I don’t mind telling you, that’s a fairly dangerous place from which to write a book. The author had, you see, met a "soul-mate," in a sense; a man who shared his vision. Perhaps (to justify the tone of what he wrote) he banked on this man’s shared strength to see the vision come to pass. The friend died, which was devastating enough, but in even more devastating circumstances, and the author’s grief was profound. I say he wrote from three-quarters through Job because although he speaks of being healed of the grief of his friend’s death, he never mentions hope for the dream they’d shared.

At one point, he mentions that he and his wife had looked at each other and said, "There is nothing left but heaven." They were probably in their forties. I don’t really care what you are doing: if you’re in your forties and have the attitude of, "There is nothing left but heaven," you’re in a bad way!

But although I would not have used those exact words, much of the time that has been my attitude toward life. No good will come. It will be all disappointment. If God does bring good, it will be too late for me to enjoy it. But we’re speaking from the grave, from Job’s bed of sackcloth and ashes. We have forgotten that here, in this life, Job was repaid double for all that he had lost. We’ve forgotten, apparently, that to the righteous, long life is a blessing to enjoy.

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