Best of 2023 #8: Busy Livin’

I’m on vacation for three weeks. While I’m gone, please enjoy the top 15 posts from 2023 based on total number of page views and podcast plays. Cheers!

“…where then is my hope—
who can see any hope for me?“
Job 17:15 (NIV)

There is a classic scene in The Shawshank Redemption in which Andy and Red are sitting in the prison yard discussing hope of life on the outside. Andy shares his dreams of getting out, moving to Mexico, and living a quiet life on the coast. Red, who has no hope of getting out of prison, fears he wouldn’t know how to live on the “outside” and he chastises Andy for his pipe dream of life in Mexico. Andy then shares with Red the simple truth he has embraced: “You either get busy living, or you get busy dying.”

Along my life journey, I’ve known multiple individuals who have been given a terminal diagnosis. A business colleague of mine was diagnosed with cancer and was dead in 10 weeks. When my father was diagnosed with Myeloma, his doctor gave him the statistical probability he’d be dead, if I remember correctly, about four or five years ago. Not only is he still around, but on top of the Myeloma he survived a potentially fatal infection a few years ago. His stained-glass won a third-place ribbon at the Iowa State Fair this week, and he’s currently working on crafting a prayer bench for a friend (Way to go, Dad!).

I once had a friend who told me that he had an agreement with his physician that if he was ever diagnosed with cancer, the doctor was forbidden from sharing it with him. He told me that, as a pastor, he’d seen too many of his parishioners die from the diagnosis. Once the doctor told them they had cancer, they “got busy dying.” While I disagree with my friend’s solution to live in ignorance, I’ve never forgotten the lesson that led to his decision.

As I meditated on today’s chapter, I observed that Job appears to be “busy dying.” Given the tragic circumstances he’s experienced, it’s easy to understand why. He can’t see beyond his troubles. In Job’s mind, the agony has been so great that the anticipation of death feels like a relief. Job’s only hope, he states, is the grave. Like Red in The Shawshank Redemption, Job can’t imagine life outside the prison of his suffering, beyond the barbed wire of his pain.

One of the things that Jesus perpetually taught His disciples was to think outside the prison of our momentary circumstances, and to see beyond our finite earthly existence:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21 (NIV)

This is not to say, as the saying goes, that I “become so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.” Rather, a Kingdom world-view changes the way I see my earthly troubles. Paul’s earthly, real-life circumstances included, but were not limited to, the following experiences he shared with Jesus’ disciples in Corinth:

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
2 Corinthians 11:23-27 (NIV)

Despite this, Paul wrote in the same letter:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)

So in the quiet this morning, I once again feel for Job and his sufferings. I don’t blame him for his very human reaction to unbelievable tragic circumstances. His anger and his sense of hopelessness are natural human emotions that he has to work through. He can’t see beyond the grave. As a disciple of Jesus, however, I am called to look beyond the grave. That’s what Jesus’ resurrection was about and it set up a spiritual paradox through which I, as a follower of Jesus, should view my circumstances. Though my earthly circumstances are terminal, because the reality is that every human being’s existence on this earth is terminal, I can still, in the midst of them, “get busy living” because this world is not my home.

As the song goes, this wayfaring stranger is headed home, over Jordan. There is no sickness, no toil, or danger in that bright land to which I go.