As we come to the end of Job, God speaks in chapters 38 – 41. I just noticed something in the opening:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said… (Job 38.1, NKJV)

It was a literal storm that Elihu was talking about in Job 37!

From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind, And cold from the scattering winds of the north. By the breath of God ice is given, And the broad waters are frozen. Also with moisture He saturates the thick clouds; He scatters His bright clouds. And they swirl about, being turned by His guidance, That they may do whatever He commands them On the face of the whole earth. He causes it to come, Whether for correction, Or for His land, Or for mercy. (Job 37.9 – 13, NKJV)

The remainder of chapter 38 is God asserting his control over the earth, the oceans, the stars – “I was there when they were created, I control these things, do you?”

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who shut in the sea with doors, When it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed My limit for it, And set bars and doors; When I said, ‘”This far you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!”(Job 38.4 – 11, NKJV)

It wouldn’t hurt to remind ourselves every now and then to consider our size and power relative to God!

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?…Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? (Isaiah 40.12, 15 – 18, ESV)

As we approach the end of the words of Job’s friends, we come to the inevitable conclusion: God is hard to figure out! Elihu, for example, gets it wrong about Job with his Santa Claus Theology:

Indeed He would have brought you out of dire distress, Into a broad place where there is no restraint; And what is set on your table would be full of richness. But you are filled with the judgment due the wicked; Judgment and justice take hold of you. Because there is wrath, beware lest He take you away with one blow; For a large ransom would not help you avoid it. (Job 36.16 – 18, NKJV)

Then Elihu turns right around and speaks truth about God’s power:

Remember to magnify His work, Of which men have sung. Everyone has seen it; Man looks on it from afar. “Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; Nor can the number of His years be discovered. For He draws up drops of water, Which distill as rain from the mist, Which the clouds drop down And pour abundantly on man. Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds, The thunder from His canopy? (Job 36.24 – 29, NKJV)

We can be thankful for “revelation knowledge.” God reveals himself not only through creation but also through his word:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork…The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple… (Psalm 19.1, 7, ESV)

And, finally, God has revealed himself through Jesus:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1.1 – 3, NKJV)

And the depth of human misunderstanding of God is demonstrated by Holy Week: they killed Jesus.

Even his disciples couldn’t understand Jesus:

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. (Mark 9.30 – 32, ESV)

I say again, God is hard to figure out!

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55.8, 9, ESV)

What do you do when you can’t work in your chosen field? We looked at one positive response to that situation yesterday. What if you’re a pastor?

I shared a story in my first book Join the Adventure! in which I suggested a simple action plan that I’ve blogged about before.

• Be there
• Pay attention
• Do what you can
• Tell the truth

My grandson told me once that he liked the action steps except the first one: “GrandBob, the first point is stupid! Everyone is where they are.” To which I responded, “No, sadly, they’re not.” Here’s what I wrote in Join the Adventure!

Some people often want to be somewhere else. I was talking with a young man who was on part-time staff at a church, and who held down a full-time job in the computer industry. He really wanted to be in “full-time ministry” completely oblivious to the fact that his “there” for at least 40 hours a week was at his job, around people who would never come to his church since most of them lived in another town 45 minutes away!

By contrast, I knew a pastor who was in his second or third year of no church job. In the meantime, to put bread on the table, he was working in a call center for a national insurance company. Guess who the de facto chaplain for the people in that call center was? To whom did they go for counsel or prayer? That pastor! A man who was “there,” where God had him at the time, not thinking of a church where he’d rather be. – Page 18, emphasis added

Jesus paid attention:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. (John 9.1, NIV)

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9.9, NIV)

I close with the well-known Halverson Benediction:

You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. God has a purpose in your being there. Christ lives in you and has something he wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ. – Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate

My friend Robyn Griffith is between jobs as a pharmaceutical R&D specialist. She posted a nice essay on LinkedIn in early April in which she bemoaned the lack of opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry but closed by saying she’s gone back to being a waitress, which she did in high school and college. I don’t think she needs the money. She writes:

So, I got tired of sitting in front of my computer all day long, applying to jobs with no luck, and began working in the same type of position where I very first started. The age of 15, I worked at McDonald’s (still have my first paystub). I really appreciated the flexibility in hours, as a cheerleader, figure skater, class representative and singer & piano player at church. I worked there until my senior year when I began to waitress, which I did all the way through college (loved Red Robin!).

I love her attitude:

The longer I am there, the more it brings me back to my happy and fulfilling “blue collar” days.

Working hard, wiping tables, greeting customers, smiling and helping these young new leaders understand what positive outcomes hard work brings. It brings me joy. I take pride to my daily shifts and I love seeing others smile and have a great time playing ‘Angry Birds’! I still really desire returning to my passion of bringing new treatment to patients and seeing the positive outcomes and solutions that it brings to millions of people. Until then, I will greet you with a smile and recommend my favorite TopGolf games to play!

This story reminds me of another, which I’ll share tomorrow.

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky… (Philippians 2.14, 15, NIV)

We have a valuable lesson from The Masters Golf Tournament, which finished at Augusta National back on Palm Sunday. I know this is ten days after the fact, but I couldn’t publish this during Holy Week.

Even if you’re not a golf fan, this year’s Masters gave us a valuable lesson.

The tournament was way more exciting than it needed to be. Rory McIlroy was leading by four strokes when he blew up on the par-5 13th hole. Just plain hit a bad third shot pitching to the green and landed in the water. Double bogey. Bogey on the next hole, and he was suddenly tied with Justin Rose who had jumped to a big lead the first day, then had a really bad third day. But he came back and was the only player to challenge McIlroy.

But Rory came back too after the 13th. He missed a makeable eagle putt on the 15th, settling for a birdie, and made a birdie on the 17th to go up one. All he needed was a par on the 18th. Rose was already finished, having made a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th. Rory missed a 5-foot par putt, and they went to extra holes.

They both had good approach shots, but Rory’s was much closer. He made the birdie putt to win, giving him a career grand slam. I didn’t know there were so few of those: Sarazen, Hogan, Nicklaus, Player, Woods. That’s all. Now McIlroy. It took Rory 11 years (11 tries at Augusta) to finish his.

Back to the April 13 fourth day of the Masters. Both Rose and McIlroy showed remarkable persistence, but McIlroy prevailed.

Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal wrote about all the bad shots and missed putts, but then he observed:

In the end, it’s all footnotes, because the 35-year-old Northern Irelander shook off his extended bad luck at Augusta National and prevailed. In the fading light on the 18th green, McIlory hit a clutch playoff birdie putt against runner-up Justin Rose to capture the only major title that had eluded him, making him one of six modern players to win all four of golf’s major tournaments. 

It was a reminder that great sporting accomplishments don’t require unbroken greatness. McIlroy didn’t win Sunday by going out and stomping the field. He didn’t play close to his best golf. On CBS ,Jim Nantz called it a “masterpiece,” but it was a messy mod-art canvas at best. 

It was perseverance, not perfection.  – Rory McIlroy’s Messy Masterpiece at Augusta, Jason Gay, Wall Street Journal, published April 15, 2025.

Perseverance, not perfection. Did you just relapse into a sin you thought you’d left behind? Did you lose your temper…again? Remember the lesson from Rory McIlroy’s Masters: it’s perseverance, not perfection.

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” And, “But my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. (Hebrews 10.36 – 39, NIV)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. (1 John 1.9, 10, NIV)

With Holy Week fresh on our minds, it’s instructive to look at the juxtaposition of Elihu’s observations in Job 34 and Jesus’ words in Mark 8. First, Elihu’s Santa Claus Theology:

Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: Far be it from God to do wickedness, And from the Almighty to commit iniquity. For He repays man according to his work, And makes man to find a reward according to his way.” (Job 34.10, 11, NKJV)

Job is suffering. Every man is repaid according to his work. Therefore, Job is wrong when he says he is righteous.

But look what happened to Jesus!

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me…”  (Mark 8.31 – 34, ESV)

Jesus took up his cross of suffering literally. We are told to take up our crosses, perhaps metaphorically. But there might be real suffering. Jesus was precisely NOT repaid according to his work. To think otherwise is to set our minds on “the things of man.”

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2.21 – 24, ESV)

I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on the passing of Pope Francis, today, Easter Monday, 7:35a, local time in Rome. It can be said that, like Queen Elizabeth, he worked until he died. Good for him. On Easter Sunday he gave the  “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the “City [of Rome] and to the World” while an aide read his address. He later greeted cheering crowds in St. Peter’s Square from the popemobile.

He was 88, assuming the office of Pope at age 76. It’s hard to imagine. I’m 78, and it’s been years since I wanted to lead anything. I don’t mind working, but being in charge of an organization as large as the Roman Catholic Church at that age boggles the mind.

Because of who he was as a man and a Jesuit priest, he was often at odds with tradition and with the keepers of that tradition. Here are a few snippets from Pope Francis: Why He Leads the Way He Leads by Chris Lowney. The book was written (and I read it) not long after he took office.

[He was trained by] the Jesuits, a religious order that forms leaders not by management courses but in a month-long silent retreat, by sending trainees off on an arduous pilgrimage, and by preparing recruits to counsel adults by having them teach young children.

He challenged “lukewarm Christians” and “couch potato” Christians to engage much more energetically in spreading the Church’s message, not to “take refuge . . . in a cozy life,” but to get beyond our “comfort zones” and live with greater “apostolic fervor.”

He challenged his Church to be more forthrightly “poor, and for the poor.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, reacting to the pope’s challenges, told an interviewer, “I find myself examining my own conscience . . . on style, on simplicity, on lots of things.”

“Your proper place is the frontier,” the cultural frontier, where they were “not to build walls but bridges” to those who did not share Catholic beliefs or culture. He told a group of devout Catholics that we should not “lock ourselves up in our parish, among our friends . . . with people who think as we do” but instead “The Church must step outside herself. To go where? To the outskirts of existence, whatever they may be.” 

All the more stunning, then, that Pope Francis dispatched with tradition nearly a half-dozen times in his papacy’s first two hours: eschewing the red papal cape (the mozzetta); keeping his own simple pectoral cross instead of choosing from the more precious ones offered him; greeting the faithful in St. Peter’s Square with an informal “good evening” instead of more formal language; asking the crowd’s prayer for blessing before bestowing his own; and, at the end of it all, leaving the papal limo empty to join his fellow cardinals on the bus.

L’Osservatore Romano, the staid newspaper of record for Vatican watchers, called the performance “unprecedented and shocking.” Except it wasn’t a performance at all. We were not watching someone trying to act like a pope. We were watching a person unafraid to be who he was: Jorge Mario Bergoglio, called to serve as pope, not someone donning a costume to play a new role. In fact, if anything discomfited him at all, it seemed to be only the costuming, apparently a bit too regal to hang comfortably on his shoulders.

With Holy Week fresh on our minds, I’ll close the excerpts from Chris Lowney’s book with how Pope Francis handled Maundy Thursday:

Jesus bathed filthy, dust-covered feet that might have been flecked with traces of human or animal waste. That’s what Jesus did.

This iconic moment is commemorated in Christian churches on Holy Thursday, with selected parishioners standing in for the disciples and the parish priest for Jesus. The ritual typically unfolds like in the movies—that is, with no verisimilitude whatsoever. My brother was invited to have his foot washed when he was about ten years old, but my reverent Irish mother did the real washing, scrubbing away two or three epidermal layers, and, for good measure, dumping so much baby powder into my brother’s shoe that a fragrant mushroom cloud wafted over the altar when he yanked off the shoe.

The ritual is no less stylized when the pope enacts it at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, with select bishops or seminarians representing the apostles; I doubt any of them ever risked the career-ending gambit of presenting smelly feet to the pope.

But in 2013, Pope Francis recovered some of the shock value of Jesus’ original gesture. He forsook St. John Lateran’s gleaming marble floors for the drab stone flooring of the Casal del Marmo juvenile detention center, and he kissed the feet not of carefully chosen clerics and other Catholic worthies but of male and female juvenile delinquents who had been judged unworthy of walking the streets without close supervision.

There’s no shortage of news stories on the Pope’s passing and on his papacy. Some positive. Some negative. You can research and read those for yourself. I’ll just leave you with what Loyola Press shared this morning. A quote from Pope Francis himself:

Dear friends, if we walk in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine Jesus offers us, we have joy in our hearts, and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy. Christians are joyful; they are never gloomy. God is at our side…Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us. —Excerpted from Embracing the Way of Jesus by Pope Francis

Joyful Pope Francis…

The Apostle Paul shared this joy:

And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. (Philippians 1.25, NKJV)

The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. (Luke 23.55 – 24.6, ESV)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead… (1 Corinthians 15.3, 4…20, ESV)

A friend, strong Christian, whom I love and respect, wrote this a couple of weeks ago:

Celebrating our Lenten journey to the empty cross and tomb of our Risen Lord and Savior! 

I appreciate his faith and enthusiasm, but I think he’s rushing things. We probably ought to give a bit more thought to a cross and tomb that were NOT empty. Jesus hung on the cross for hours and died. The tomb was occupied. “He descended into hell. The third day he rose…”

But this isn’t the third day, it’s the second day. How were the disciples feeling? Afraid?

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. (John 16.31, ESV, emphasis mine)

Despondent?

They said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. (Luke 24.19 – 21, ESV, emphasis mine)

Sit with it a little while today.

PS An article in Christianity Today, Before Christ Rose, He Was Dead, reminds us of this truth while analyzing its theological and liturgical aspects. Here’s a sample from the introduction to the article:

The question of God’s presence in mortality is central to a significant, but seldom recognized, day in the church’s yearly calendar. Holy Saturday is that odd day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday during which Jesus Christ—life himself!—lay dead in a tomb…The church has had little difficulty fixing its attention on the dying of Christ, and even less difficulty on the rising of Christ, but the being dead of Christ has found relatively little expression in its theology and liturgy. Holy Saturday, however, has an integrity of its own. If the church can attune its ear to its frequency, so easily drowned out by the dominant tones of Good Friday and Easter, it may be able to hear a profound word about human living and dying between the Cross and the Resurrection.

I can’t do better than a B.C. comic by Johnny Hart, which I can’t reproduce here.

• Cave man #1: I hate the term “Good Friday.”
• Cave man #2: Why?
• Cave man #1: My Lord was hanged on a tree that day.
• Cave man #2: If YOU were going to be hanged on that day, and he volunteered to take your place, how would you feel?
• Cave man #1: Good
• Cave man #2: Have a nice day.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2.24, ESV)

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8, ESV)