The Passion of Job: Why Job suffered and what we can learn from it

Chapter 4: Dealing with the loss of Awe

     I lost my awe of God. In part that is why I wrote this book. O, I would experience it from time to time, but I no longer seemed to be in constant awe of God. The problem was that I didn't lose it all at once. It wasn't so much that I suddenly became caught up in the world, which probably would have been easier to notice. My first clue, which I ignored, was that my worship became rote. I was going thought the motions when I worshipped. I wrote it off as "I can't sing so I will just endure the worship service." I always looked forward to the message, however. I was always excited to learn more about God. That was actually the worst part of losing my awe. As I look back, it seemed to slowly disappear as I learned more about God. The irony is of course that it should have increased. As I learned more, God did not become less mysterious but I became more comfortable with the mysteries. Slowly and very subtly, my sense of awe began to evaporate. If I had not decided to tackle the Book of Job, I don't think I would have even noticed that it was missing. Of course, my initial motive for studying Job had nothing to do with awe. It was only after several years of coming back again and again to the Book of Job that I begin to realize that it had an entirely different purpose for my life than I had expected. I believe that God was working in my life to draw me to Job to learn just what I ultimately learned, that I too need to rediscover my sense of wonder in God. My experience is not unique. Unfortunately it is very easy to visit a church today and almost immediately tell if it is a body that is full of awe or if it is a body that just goes through the motions. So, how do you discover that you have lost your sense of awe and how do you rediscover it? The four warning signs developed in chapter 3 are a start. If your life reflects any of those signs then you need to stop and evaluate the nature of your awe of God. If you discover that the warning signs are pointing to a significant lack of awe, the next question is how do you deal with the problem? How do you rediscover you sense of wonder in God? That is the issue that drives this entire book and the first step in this process is covered in this chapter.

Finding awe, rediscovering our sense of wonder in God, is difficult because it is hard to recognize that we ever lost it. In part that is because every believer whether they truly had a sense of awe or not would acknowledge that God is deserving of awe. The problem is not one of "does God deserve awe" rather it is "do we understand what awe is and can we recognize when it is missing?" It seems that intellectual awe, a simple acknowledgment that awe is necessary, is almost universal among believers but emotional awe, the true expression of wonder at God, is rare. Rediscovering awe requires that we transfer what we know to be true about God from our minds to our hearts. And this seems to be a difficult task. If it was easy, more believers would display awe in their lives. If it was easy, Job would not have had to go through all that he did just to develop his own sense of awe. If it was not important, God would not have provided the story of Job as a tool for us to learn about the need for awe.

In this chapter, we will take the first step down the path to rediscovering our sense of wonder. When you finally take that step it may seem like an obvious one, but sometimes the obvious is more difficult to accept precisely because it is obvious. To set the stage for this step, I believe it is helpful to consider how it was finally presented to Job. It is important to understand how both God and Job dealt with the loss of awe.

God did not go to Job and tell him directly that he needed to develop a sense of awe. It wouldn't have worked. Job most likely would have argued with God. I certainly would have denied any problem with my sense of awe if someone had approached me several years ago. Even if Job could have responded to such a direct request, he wouldn't have understood what God was really asking. He couldn't have said, "OK God, You're right so I will start to feel awe." It just doesn't work that way. To develop a sense of awe, first the lack of awe must be recognized then the barriers to awe have to be removed and finally a reason to be in awe of God must be established. So God had to first remove the barriers to awe that Job had developed all through his life. Then God had to start rebuilding Job's view of Him from the ground up. To "remodel" Job, God first had to tear down the old Job. In this chapter we are going to examine that demolition process and the pouring of the new foundation for Job's life of awe. The remaining chapters will cover the rest of the rebuilding of Job.