For Those who Come to Serve

Our Duty: Week 2

New here? Welcome! Week 1’s study can be found here.

Read Sirach 2:1-6

It can be tempting to believe that when we move with assuredness towards the calling of Christ that the journey will become easier.

Has this ever happened to you? You stayed at a job or in a marriage or kept enrolling in school despite the difficulties of it, not because you wanted to, but because the Lord made it clear you were to remain? Or, have you taken a giant risk and left a safe job, walked away from a fun relationship, or moved to a new city or started school even though it did not objectively make sense to?

In that season, after you took the leap of faith, to stay or to leave, did things get better? Or did they get harder?

In my experience, the times that I have been on a narrow path, obedient to the things God is asking of me, life has only gotten harder. My car needs thousands of dollars of repairs suddenly, or some free time I had disappears or I get a critical email at work from a student.

I was in this kind of frustrated season last week and I turned to Job, the absolute best book of the Bible for these seasons of suffering amid righteousness. The protagonist, Job, is a righteous man tormented by the Enemy in hopes that he will renounce God. Amid his suffering, Job has every kind of human reaction. He is depressed, angry, faithful, trusting, hopeful, afraid, despairing.

In our passage for this week, Sirach borrows a common biblical motif of gold that is tested and refined in fire. Job uses this language in chapter 23:

If I go forward, (God) is not there;

or backward, I cannot perceive him;

on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;

I turn to the right but I cannot see him.

But he knows that way that I take;

When he has tested me, I shall come out like gold.

Job 23:8-10 NRSV

The prophecies collected in the second half of Zechariah also use this language when describing the people who will live amid an apocalypse:

In the whole land, says the Lord,

Two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one-third shall be left alive.

And I will put this third into the fire,

Refine them as one refines silver,

And test them as gold is tested.

They will call on my name, and I will answer them.

I will say, “They are my people”;

And they will say, “The Lord is our God.”

Zechariah 12:8-9 NRSV

If we want to be a person who the Creator of the Heavens looks at and says “That is my child,” then we have to learn to cultivate an appreciation for suffering rather than a grievance. If we want to be reminded when we cannot feel God that God is still with us, then we have to accept that it is more than enough to simply accept that God knows where we are.

I was sitting in a hotel room with a few agnostic friends back in November when we got on the topic of religion. One of them said, “Sometimes I wish I had faith so that my life would be easier. Religion seems to give a lot of people hope.” I think this sums up faith well. Suffering is a ubiquitous human experience. Agnostics suffer, Christians suffer, Muslims suffer. The difference between faith-filled suffering and faithless-suffering, is that we can suffer and hope simultaneously. In the midst of trial, we can hold fast to the knowledge that we are being refined into something better. We are dying that we live again and live abundantly:  

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith – being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

1 Peter 1:6-9 NRSV

Finally, Ben Sira (likely) rewrites Proverbs 3:5-6 in an interesting way in verse 6. The original Proverbs emphasizes that if we trust God, God will make our paths straight. In Sirach, the emphasis is that working to make your own paths straight is a form of trusting God. When we come to serve the Lord, we need to get our lives in order. We need to be obedient to the Word of God. In doing so, God will continue to make our paths straight and direct us. Our relationship with God is relational and circular. We move and God responds. God moves, and we respond.

Stay strong in what God has called you to, friends. Even when you cannot see God, God knows exactly where you are and walks beside you, calling you into greater intimacy.  

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Activities to Expand your Experience:

• Pray Patient Trust and reflect on its words. What line sticks out to you? What lingers? What discomforts you? Talk to God about what feelings arise and ask God to cultivate a patient trust in you.
• Reread our supplemental scriptures for this week (Job 23, Zechariah 12, 1 Peter). Which one sticks out to you most? On your own, read through the entire chapter. Pay attention to what verse or passage sticks out to you. Write down what you observe about that scripture. Then, write down one way you can apply that scripture to your life. Finally, write one message to God, inspired by what you’ve read and thought about.   
• Reflect on a difficult season in your life, paying close attention to who you were before that season, and who you are now. What changes, good and bad, do you notice? What might God be preparing you for? Spend some time thanking God for where you’ve been and where you are. Dream with God about your hopes for the future.

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Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Bryce Van Vleet is the #1 selling author of Tired Pages and Before We All Die Let’s Have One Last Chat by the Fireside. He also hosts the podcast Death in Dakota and sells poetry art here. You can support him by clicking through blog posts or donating (scroll to the bottom of the page).

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