Thoughts on a stripped-down landscape.
As Alison and I traverse a Virginia back road in the early morning, I voice my wonder at the views of quaint farmhouses framed by snowy, rolling hills. She knows well what comes next. I’m pleased to see a broadened shoulder of the road by a small lake, so I pull over and get out. It’s cold, with ice underfoot so that I can’t quite trust my shoes to keep me upright.
But the landscape is stunning: stark and austere, a bare-bones beauty.
I’ve been doing the same in Pennsylvania recently, though, surprisingly, without as much snow. Subtraction – both seasonal and personal – has been my constant muse lately. One major reason is that I have begun a slow, detailed study of the book of Job. Nothing puts loss in the spotlight like that challenging book.
To simplify the opening “courtroom of heaven” scene, the question raised is whether a devout follower of God is motivated by true love for the Lord, or by a love for his gifts.
The only way to know for sure is to strip the gifts away.
Job passes this brutal test, initially responding:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21
What an impressive statement of faith. I wonder if I could say the same. I am struggling with accepting just the natural depletion that comes with my time of life – the winding down of a career, the paring down of possessions, the accepting of limitations.
Winter is a visual reminder of what it means to have life reduced. I pulled over earlier this week to see this huge pile of picnic tables for the powerful image it presents of former, fuller days. Job has somehow learned how to look past the loss to the One who provided that fullness.
We are sojourners here. Job poignantly states that. As we pass through, we leave as empty as we arrived. The universality of that truth can help us weather a time of subtraction. But loss is not the end. Winter reminds us that subtraction is just a season. The eternal spring awaits: fuller, brighter, clearer than anything we experienced here.
After all, Jesus underwent reduction for us. As Philippians 2 tells us, he did not grasp onto the fullness of his place in heaven, but “made himself nothing” to return eventually with a host of siblings.
Not to contradict Job, but because of Jesus, we don’t enter the next world naked and destitute. We come clothed in his righteousness and sharing the riches of his inheritance.
All the more reason to bless the name of the Lord.
Even when the gifts are stripped away.
Father, teach us to let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. For your kingdom is forever.
Reader: Have you experienced this paring down? How do you rejoice during it?
Email me at: bvanpatter@ailbe.org. Is there someone you think would like this post? Please use the buttons above to share it. And if you haven’t subscribed and would like to, here’s the link.
