12. "Depression is a sin ... and Job was a dimwit."
(Most of this is from the post "So Job Was A Dimwit, Huh?".)
What would you call someone who lost everything - their belongings, their livelihood, their children, their health - and who, in their pain, pours out their heartbreak to God as honestly as they can, real and raw and unpolished and unedited?
What would you call them? What would you call Job of the Bible as he pours out his heartbreak to God, chapter after chapter?
My Calvinist pastor, in a recent post he wrote, criticized Job for daring to question the Almighty, for speaking so harshly honestly to God about his pain and suffering and the "unfairness" of life. He claimed Job was chastised by God, basically saying that Job got put in his place when God got all up in his face and blasted him for several chapters with the message of "Who do you think you are, Job!?!"
And just what did my pastor call Job, for daring to speak to God the way he did?
He called Job "dimwitted."
A dimwit!
Um, okay, sure, ... a "dimwit" is someone with limited intelligence. And we humans are certainly "dimwitted" compared to God. Our view of Him and understanding of Him is limited.
But from the sound of it, my pastor didn't mean "dimwit" as a matter-of-fact description of us compared to God. He seemed to mean it more as a condemnation against Job for daring to say the things he said, as if my pastor was trying to say "Who does Job think he is, talking to God so boldly and rudely!?! I would never talk to God like that! But he got what he deserved when God blasted him in the following chapters. How improper Job was! How unhumble! How wrong! What a dimwit!"
(And this pastor also read off a list of sins during a sermon once, and he included "depression" on that list. No clarifications, no exemptions, no help. Just basically "depression is a sin." That apparently really upset at least one woman who has struggled with it for a long time. And if I was there to hear that callous sermon, it would have bothered me too.)
Honestly, this criticism of Job bothered me. Because out of all the people on the earth at that time, Job was actually tops, in God's eyes.
"Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.'" (Job 1:8)
There was no one else on earth like Job. He was probably the most righteous man at the time, the most God-honoring. So much so that he stood out to God, that Satan asked to tempt him and to trip him up.
And my pastor had the nerve to call Job a dimwit!
[I have to stop calling him "my" pastor. I refuse to listen to him preach and haven't listened to him for a long time. In fact, I don't even really attend our church anymore because of this pastor's smug, dogmatic, Calvinist preaching. And this example of him calling Job a "dimwit" is just another example of where this man's heart and mind is, and why he bothers me so much.
The thing with Calvinists is that they elevate God's "sovereignty" so high, His glory so high, that they make Him almost inaccessible to humans, as if He couldn't dare to dirty Himself by getting too close to us. And they shrink His love for us by saying that God is only really concerned about His glory and worshipping Himself and loving Himself, and so we humans and our pain don't really matter to Him, especially since the Calvinist God deliberately preplanned and caused that pain, for his glory. And so how could we dare to pour out our pain to Calvi-god or think he actually cares.
It's no wonder a Calvinist pastor would mock and shame Job for being so real with God, so honest. (It's no surprise either that this pastor once admitted, from the pulpit shortly after becoming the pastor, that he has no patience. This immediately made me realize that he would not be a safe person to talk to about problems and heartaches. And this was even before I knew he was a Calvinist. But now, knowing he's a Calvinist with little patience who shames people who pour out their pain honestly because he thinks they're talking back to God ... well, now I'm glad I never went to that man for help. Ever!]
I can't imagine what would inspire a common, ordinary man of today - who has little problems compared to Job - to criticize the most righteous man at that time, especially given that he's never been in Job's shoes. It's so easy to judge and criticize how someone else struggles in their faith and how they relate to God in their pain when we ourselves never experienced what they have.
And this is why it kind of broke my heart, too. This pastor has revealed how he really sees those who struggle deeply with faith-shaking heartache, like Job did.
After the tragedies came, Job sat in silence for a while, stunned, listening to all the "good" advice and "godly" lectures from his "righteous" friends. But then he spoke up, and he began pouring out his heartache honestly - to his friends and to the Lord. He didn't hold back. He didn't polish up what he said. He didn't edit it, trying to fool God, making it sound like he was doing better than he was.
No! He poured it all out at the Lord's feet honestly. He opened his heart and bled his feelings all over the place. Vulnerably. He ripped off all the masks and stood before the Lord nakedly, even if it meant saying some unpleasant things. No pretense. No polish. No phoniness.
And my pastor called him a "dimwit" for doing so.
It wasn't too long ago that I decided it was time to be more like Job. I was going through a really hard emotional time, a test of my faith. And after years of trying so hard to be so "proper" in my attitude, so "polished" in my prayers, so careful about keeping the ugly thoughts and feelings to myself so that I didn't offend God, I decided it was time to just try being real instead. To be honest with Him. To lay it all on the table. To hold nothing back.
Doesn't He deserve that, after all? He is our Creator. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He knows how best to handle our concerns and pain. We aren't fooling Him anyway with our Pharisee-like efforts to polish ourselves up and look better than we are. In fact, all that does is create distance and walls between Him and us, blocking Him off from parts of our hearts, preventing us from fully embracing His comfort and love and healing.
But ... maybe I'm just too "dimwitted" to know any better!
(For more on Job, see "Is Depression a Sin?")
My pastor thinks Job was a dimwit for his honest cries. But do you know what I think?
I think Job did it right!
And I think God was pleased with Job, even as Job poured out the unpleasant things he said about God. Because I think God is all about honesty, about realness. Yes, He wants us to honor Him in our words and attitude. He wants our respect, and He wants us to humbly submit to Him. Those are great and proper things, when it all comes from a place of trust and love, our love for Him and His love for us.
But when we aren't at that point of genuine love and trust yet - when we are still at a point of being too hurt to trust, too angry or heartbroken to love others, too insecure or broken to accept love and forgiveness, or maybe we are simply going through an unexpected hardship that's crushing our heart and faith - then I think He just wants us to be honest and real with Him, no matter how ugly and broken we may be. That's the only way to get to the point of genuine love and trust, to make it through the hardship with our faith intact.
He doesn't want us to hide from Him in fear - fear that we might offend Him or repel Him or push Him away or the fear that He won't love us anymore if He sees "the real me." I think hiding from Him and "protecting" Him from our real feelings dishonors Him more than our honesty ever could. It shows that we don't trust Him, that we don't believe in His love and care, that we don't think He can handle it, that we don't feel He's worth getting close to, that we would rather protect ourselves than risk drawing near to Him.
And yet ... Jesus left heaven and put on human skin so that He could get dirty, so that He could feel our pain (not remove Himself from it), so that He could get close to us.
Calvinism reverses what Jesus has done. It puts Him back up on a "too high" pedestal. It puts a huge gap between us and Him. It reduces His love, His concern for us, and His desire to be near us, the know the "real us."
Jesus of the Bible meets us where we are, in our pain and heartbreak and messiness. He got dirty. He got bruised. He bled. He died a miserable, humiliating death. So that we could draw near to Him.
But Calvi-Jesus is too glorious and sovereign and high and mighty to get his clean, white, holy clothes dirty with our tears.
But ... I hate Calvinism. I believe it's a horrible theology.
And I think, from reading the Bible, especially stories like Job, that if we are full of pain and doubts and bad feelings and ugly thoughts, God wants us to tell Him. He wants us to let Him into our inner worlds, to open up to Him all the closed-off parts of our hearts, to trust Him with our deepest secrets and hurts. So that He can draw near to us and help heal the painful things, fix the broken things, and make something good out of the bad things.
I think He would rather see our "ugly real selves" than our "pretty polished masks." Everyone in the world gets to see our masks, but only a trusted few are worth showing our real selves to. And God wants to be our most trusted "friend." Because He loves us more than anyone else ever could. He wants us to throw ourselves on Him, all parts of ourselves, even all the ugly things we think and feel. Even about Him.
I think He would rather have us cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?!" when we hurt, when we feel He let us down ... than have us force a smile and say, "Whatever You want, God, is fine with me, as long as You get the glory" while our hearts are breaking.
Because that's the only way to a real relationship with Him. To letting down the walls we put up between us and Him. To opening up our hearts and lives fully to Him. To honoring Him as the Lord of our whole life.
King David didn't get to be "a man after God's own heart" by putting on a polished, shiny mask. He was a man after God's own heart because he poured his whole heart out to God passionately, honestly, even when it wasn't pretty.
See, the thing is ... I think God values our relationship with Him, that He really does want a real relationship with us. Because He loves us. Because we matter to Him. Because it touches His heart. Because God is a relational Being, not an emotionless, antisocial hermit.
But that's the thing about Calvinists though. They don't put any emphasis on a relationship with God, on how God loves us and wants to be near us. As I said, their highest, and just about only, emphasis is on God using us to get more glory for Himself. They think God created us simply so He could show off His glory and get even more glory. To them, we have no real value or purpose except for bringing God more glory. And so the idea that God might actually want to be near us just because He loves us and wants a relationship with us is foreign to them. Because it would put too much value on people. More value than they think we should have. More value than they think God attributes to us.
To them, God's glory is somehow lessened if He values us too much or loves us too much. (As if anything about us can somehow change how glorious God is!) And so Calvinists reduce humans to as low as they can reduce us, smooshing us into the ground, viewing us as virtually valueless and worthless worms, other than for the glory God gets through us.
It's sad.
(If someone doesn't want anything to do with God, it might not be because they don't like God or Jesus. It might be because they heard about God and Jesus from a Calvinist. And there's a big difference.)
I think Calvinism is extremely destructive to a genuine, loving, trusting relationship with God. Because who would want to trust or love or get close to a God who (according to Calvinism) causes people to sin and then punishes them for it? A God who causes people to be unbelievers so that He can send them to hell, supposedly for His glory somehow? A God who only really loves the elect and who only sent Jesus to die for the elect (Calvinist authors have outright said that God doesn't love everyone and that Jesus didn't die for everyone, but only for the elect)? A God who is only concerned with His glory and who doesn't really care about us other than for the glory He can squeeze from us?
This is why I think Calvinism hurts God's heart too. Because it contradicts God's own Word, about how He loves all men, wants all men to be saved, died for all men, and calls all men to believe in Him. It destroys God's loving, forgiving, just, righteous, gracious character. And because God Himself really does want a genuine relationship with us. He wants us to love Him and trust Him and lean on Him and let Him love us and care for us. Because we matter to Him, simply because we do. Because He wants to loves us.
I have been starving for some good old-fashioned "God loves you and you matter to Him" messages. Some "God wants to help you because He cares for you" sermons. But I don't get that from my church, so I have to look elsewhere (books from godly authors and Tony Evans' sermons online).
I think this criticism of Job is just another result of my pastor's Calvinism. Job dared to question God, to speak openly to God, even if it was "improper." And this, in the Calvinist's mind, is horribly unglorifying to God. And since God (according to the Calvinist) only cares about His glory and not about people or about His relationship with them, then a Calvinist must admonish someone who speaks to God the way Job did. In their minds, they are "defending" God and His glory (as if He needs us to defend Him).
"Job, you are such a dimwit! You are talking to God all wrong!"
(But if, as Calvinists believe, God causes us to do everything we do, then God caused Job to say those improper things. So then a Calvinist is only really defending God ... against God. So why speak up against any wrong thing that anyone does, if God is the cause of it all for His glory and we can't control how we act anyway? It doesn't make sense. Calvinism doesn't make sense.)
But ... as I said ... I think Job did it right.
And I think my pastor is missing the whole point of the book of Job. It's not just about God's glory and His magnificence, about Him emphasizing how He is the Creator of all and how He is so far above us humans, about Him showing off His glory. The point isn't that God chastised Job, that He got all up in Job's face and put him in his place.
The point is that ... God talked to Job!
All through the first half of the book of Job, Job's friends gave lectures about God and about how to be a good, godly person and about what Job must have been doing wrong to deserve what he got. They sounded like they understood God and His ways and what He wants, like they were speaking rightly about God and life. They thought their advice was good and godly, that they were righteously correcting Job for how wrongly he treated God and how wrongly he handled his pain. They did their best to defend God's glory from that dimwit Job.
And yet there was Job - the only one there who had lost everything but his wife and life, who lost his animals, his livelihood, his children, his health - shoving aside their nonsense, their "godly" admonishment, their super-spiritual lessons, pouring out before God all the ugly, improper, unacceptable thoughts and feelings he had. Unpolished. Unedited. Real. Raw.
And the friends were horrified. And my pastor was indignant. And I can just imagine them saying ...
"How dare Job talk to God like that! Who does Job think he is!?! We must defend God's glory and honor. We must protect His feelings and show how righteous we are compared to Job, how we - good, polished, proper God-followers - would never talk to God like that."
But while my pastor views God's response to Job as a blasting, as God condemning Job and putting him in his place, I view it as "God talked to Job."
Job had poured out his heart honestly to God. Job related to God personally. And so God poured out His heart back to Job, relating to him personally, chapter after chapter.
The friends, however, who thought they were so righteous and godly and God-defending, barely even got a glance from God. They had rambled on and on about God in their high and lofty and holier-than-thou ways, and they thought they were defending God's glory and honor, that they were speaking up for God, shaming Job for the things he said against God ...
... and yet God barely said a thing to them, other than "I am angry with you and your friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." (Job 42:7-8)
Job, the dimwit, had spoken rightly of God ... even though Job, the dimwit, poured out many ugly thoughts and feelings. But the friends - who were so "righteous" that they would never speak to God like that - spoke wrongly of God. And now they had to go to Job, the dimwit, for sacrifice and prayer so that God would have mercy on them.
Amazing! And very telling about what God values, what He desires.
He didn't want the "righteous" lectures of the holier-than-thou friends. He wanted the honest cries of Job's hurting heart.
Yes, Job said some harsh things to God. But Job poured his heart out to God honestly, not trying to hide things, not trying to trick God into thinking he was handling things better than he was. He broke down the barriers between him and God. He drew near to God and let God into his pain, instead of just pulling away in heartache and confusion. He got real with God, instead of putting on a "good Christian" mask.
He talked to God, even if it wasn't pretty. He talked to God, instead of just talking about God, like the friends did.
And so God talked to Job.
God drew near to Job.
God got real with Job.
(Counselors know that it's not the couples who fight that you need to worry about the most. It's the couples who have stopped fighting. Because at least the fighting couple cares enough to keep talking to each other. But when they have given up on each other, when they don't care anymore, they stop talking and stop fighting. Job and God "fought" with each other; but God would barely talk to the friends.)
My pastor's post made me feel badly not only for Job, but also for those who are hurting deeply, for the ones who need to pour their pain out to God but who will now feel ashamed if they try to relate to God so honestly and openly. Scolded. Like a bad Christian. Like a dimwit. What deeply hurting person is going to want to go to a pastor like this for help with their pain, when a pastor makes them feel like a dimwit for being so honest about their pain.
This pastor might think he's doing right, trying to defend God's glory, criticizing those who dare to be "improper" toward God, who are "too honest" with God about all the bad things they are thinking and feeling.
But to me, this pastor is no different than Job's friends. The friends who scolded Job, who "defended" God with all sorts of lofty, righteous-sounding lectures, who were more concerned with criticizing than having compassion ... but who ultimately barely even got a glance from God, other than the scolding God gave them.
I do not think God is simply all about using us to get more glory. I think God wants a real, honest relationship with us. I think God values the relationships He has with us because He loves us, because we matter to Him simply because He made us and loves us and wants a relationship with us. He is a relational being. And that's why I think Job did it right. Because he was real and honest in his relationship with God. He drew near to God, even when he was hurting. And so God drew near to him and eventually blessed him abundantly.
Not too shabby for a "dimwit."
