Daily Lesson for September 13, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 30 verses 16 through 23:

Job said:

16 “If I have withheld anything that the poor desired,

   or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, 

17 or have eaten my morsel alone,

   and the orphan has not eaten from it— 

18 for from my youth I reared the orphan like a father,

   and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow — 

19 if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing,

   or a poor person without covering,

20 whose loins have not blessed me,

   and who was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; 

21 if I have raised my hand against the orphan,

   because I saw I had supporters at the gate; 

22 then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder,

   and let my arm be broken from its socket. 

23 For I was in terror of calamity from God,

   and I could not have faced his majesty.”

The book of Job begins with a prologue in which the Satan questions whether the righteous and blessed Job would be so righteous if he were not so blessed. Thus the hedge of protection is removed from Job’s life and the suffering begins. 

It raises an interesting point. Are we moral simply because of our desire for reward? 

Conversely, here near the end of the book, Job admits outright that his charity was linked to a fear of God. 

Fear? Ought that to be the motivating factor for behaving decently?  I mean, aren’t we against using fear to manipulate? Isn’t that one of the primary things that separates my moderate church from more fundamental ones — fear versus love?

Well, can I answer by saying that perhaps it’s more complicated than that simple love versus fear dichotomy suggests. The dichotomy sounds good; but I don’t think it’s altogether true. 

It wasn’t for me. For me, quite honestly, even after rejecting all the hell, fire, and brimstone of southern (Baptist) religiosity, it was still very much fear that compelled me to surrender my life to ministry. I surrendered out of fear — not fear of hell or damnation — but fear of standing before the LORD with shame of knowing I had not lived my life as called. 

John Donne, another very reluctant cleric, once wrote: “The love of God begins in fear; and the fear of God ends in love. For God is love.”

God is love; and God’s perfect love casts out all our fear. Yet the fear itself is not altogether an enemy, just as youth is not an enemy of adulthood, nor the beginning the enemy of the end. For in the end, all is grace. 

And thus the truth of those wonderful and heartfelt words we all know to sing and to believe:

“Twas grace that taught mine heart to fear

And grace my fears relieved.”