When cellphones first hit the common man’s market in the late 90’s and early 20’s, one of their dreadful snags was device lock up. But it happened quite often. Early models had neither vibrate nor silent modes. In hushed environments, you just turned it off or it’d turn you into an embarrassing spectacle.
Then came the moment to turn it back on. Surprise, surprise!
ENTER PIN! You hit a bunch of keys and a rude message flared back at you. WRONG PIN ENTERED. TWO CHANCES LEFT! Without thinking, you continued hitting the keys and didn’t realize you’d exhausted your “chances”. Your locked up gadget now demanded a different set of codes. YOU MUST ENTER PUK1 and PUK2 to continue! Such fitting code name indeed—PUK—sure made you wanna throw up!
Those magical codes were the preserve of your wireless service provider. Only their “technicians” could sort you out, but now you needed an unlocked device to call customer care. Sadly, it was night and the only other fellow as fortunate to own one of those walkie-talkies was a workmate who lived on the other side of town. Even if you could somehow make the call, the technical guys had tough questions for you, just to make sure you weren’t trying to unlock a stolen gadget. A no-yield-mode had a domino effect; it could waste much of your time seeking elusive relief.
One of those experiences was enough to jolt your sensibilities to the resolute nature of dead ends. Now if a no-yield-mode on an electronic device could be so frustrating, consider satanic sabotage to your progress!
A Leaf From Good Old Job
Job is an Old Testament record of how a righteous man navigates through gruesome tales of personal tragedy. You can divide it into three parts: Job’s life before, during and after his debacle. Or you can catalogue it further as follows:
- Job’s Happy Estate!
- Job Under the Bus!
- Job in the News!
- Job After Acquittal!
Each of these points represent different facets of life. We all experience them in our own unique ways. One season we are everyone’s center of admiration. Next season we are virtually unknown. Sometimes careers afford us affluence and prominence, only to lose it and be thrust into secluded caves of resentment and grief. At times good fortune, good company and good food surround us, but before we know it, we are fighting on life-support surrounded by strange odors and ghostly aides. None of us chooses how, or when we enter a no-yield-mode. But we can choose our poise through life’s erratic chapters.
Exposing What’s Inside
Life experiences have a way of exposing who we are at our core. Good and bad times reveal different things about us. Only by relating with folks at different times do you really get to know them. When friendship costs something, look around and see who stands with you. As he groaned beside a despairing wife, Job probably didn’t ask to see his photo albums. Having entered a no-yield-situation, he was cut off from love and compassion. A barricade separates people on either side of it, and there’s not a greater obstacle in life than a reasonable excuse. Job’s friends wouldn’t so much as afford him the empathy they owed him.
Contrary to popular belief, experiences are not the most important aspects of life. Take-home lessons are valuable, but even they aren’t the most important. Highly critical people are usually the most ignorant. For instance, it’s easy to condemn leaders for their mistakes after we’ve disobeyed God’s instruction to pray for those in authority. Who knows, but that our prayers should have averted the mistakes we complain about!
Inevitably, life experiences produce diverse outcomes including failures, victories, testimonies and gut-wrenching storylines. Like scaffolding at a construction site, lessons and storylines serve temporal purposes. We should be careful to not mistakenly carry away gripping storylines and miss the point.
Think of it this way; Job is your team’s representative at a championship. Contest judges vet minute details of every player. If a contestant cusses under their breath, it’s published on scoreboards that spectators can see. If a competitor cheats, it registers up there. If a contender plays rough or unfair, it lights up on the scoreboard in huge red X’s. When a player returns kindness for unfair treatment, the neon lights green. Before long, you realize this is a contest of virtues rather than sporting prowess. Sport is only being used as a medium to bring out hidden qualities of individuals. Now help Job secure victory for your team!
God’s Testimony, Before and After…
Before Job’s ordeal began, we read God’s testimony about him: –
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them… 8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1:6,8 ~NKJV)
Praise God, His testimony of Job is validated in the end. But that testimony applies to you and me. Every proud father thinks and speaks highly of His children. God doesn’t tear us down nor concur with Satan’s accusations against us. God believes in His children; it’s He that gives us power to overcome. Now if that’s the heavenly Father’s attitude toward us, it should be our attitude toward our fellow Christians.
God is not seeking flawless mortals to exemplify His holiness. Human vulnerability should elicit sympathy for those under satan’s attacks. By soothing the wounds of our hurting friends, we nurture them back to strength and give them hope for tomorrow. If we let it, the book of Job will inspire mercy, a much-needed ministry in the church today.