"The Book of Job: Lessons from Dinosaurs and Dragons"

As many of you know, this past year I’ve been writing a book.  Whoo hoo!  Some have asked what it’s all about.  Here is a little preview.  I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Stay tuned; I will soon be adding chapter summaries and such.

“The Book of Job: Lessons from Dinosaurs and Dragons” is a balm for the pain and fear of overwhelming circumstances. It is not your typical grin-and-bear-it, endurance message from the Book of Job.  This book does not tell you to stop questioning because God’s in charge.  Instead, by focusing in on what and why God chooses the questions He asks from the whirlwind, the Book of Job brings hope and relationship with a God who cares.

After tragedy crashed into his life, Job is a desperately depressed and broken man, full of the pain and fear. The character of Job makes it easier to relate our own feelings of the way things should work, to the way they actually do.  He articulates perfectly our own questions of why God could let bad things happen to good people while the "wicked" dance on without a seeming care in the world.  Job is the best case scenario of a human's ability to follow the Law, and the worst case scenario of the troubles of man.  It is hard to imagine a better man who could have it worse.  This is why so many of us turn to Job in our time of troubles.

How many times have you read the Book of Job looking for a little comfort only to find more questions and confusion?  We hear about Job’s perseverance and God’s sovereignty, but there is usually little in the way of answers to “the problem of suffering.”  That is because we hurry through the questions God presents looking for a quick answer.  Instead, we should ask ourselves each question as if God is leading us to an answer.  

The Book of Job isn’t written so much to tell us about a great guy named Job; instead, like all other books in the Bible, the Book of Job is about the character of God and His relationship with people.  God in His goodness reveals the answer about who He is.

We don’t have to guess what God is telling us about Himself.  James 5:11 tells us what we should glean from God’s conversation with Job:  

We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.  [NASB]

God says that the thing He was incrementally revealing in Job is that His state of being is “extremely full of visceral affection” which produces “acts of kindness toward people who do not deserve it.”  “Lessons from Dinosaurs and Dragons” focuses on the character of God in a corrupt and broken creation.  It shows step by step how God revealed His compassionate and merciful character to a hurting and fearful man.  

Job persevered through all of his desperate questioning and overwhelming depression until he found God’s truth.  He didn’t quit searching when force-fed a half truth or a complete lie.  The truth about the character of God set his fearful heart free. Job said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”  [NIV]  He ended with a whole new outlook on God. 

This book encourages us all, like Job, to ask the deep, nagging questions that distance us from God.  God wants to reveal Himself and bring us into an abundant relationship with Him.