[Today’s run: Watson Road. Saturday: 5k, Sunday: 2 miles]
One sermon that I’ve never heard preached is about Job’s camels.
There is a whole book in the Bible about Job. Job was a righteous man of ancient times. God allowed Satan to test Job by afflicting him with all sorts of difficulties. Satan wanted Job to turn against God because of his difficulties. Job was restless but held on.
Job’s afflictions included the loss of his servants, livestock and children.
Ok, so the interesting part: God allows Satan to test Job. But his servants, children and livestock are all collateral damage. The kids are enjoying a party when a “wind” comes and flattens the house, killing them all. The servants are doing their jobs, like good servants should, when bandits of various types appear and wreak mayhem, destroying or stealing all of Job’s livestock.
Next time you are set upon by bandits or your house comes down in a windstorm, that may be God’s allowing Satan to afflict you. Or it could be God’s allowing Satan to afflict your insurance agent or the guy who holds your mortgage.
I’ve always had this impression from the stories in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament: God cares about us deeply and individually. But people dying really isn’t that big of a deal to Him.
I don’t mean to belittle God’s position or claim that He isn’t Good. On the contrary, I’m confident He is able to orchestrate the whole thing so that the fatherless children of Job’s chief camel-herder (if there was such a guy) somehow survived without their father. At the minimum we can say that there are a lot of complex ripples from the nasty stuff that Satan is allowed to do.