You think your job is difficult? Consider the prophet Jeremiah. He spent decades foretelling a disaster that God's people would suffer because of their stubborn disobedience. He received abuse, rejection, and ridicule because of his prophecies. Then, to add insult to injury, Jeremiah had to live through and witness the calamity he had been warning others about for so long.

Being a messenger of God can be a rocky road to travel. As Jeremiah discovered, truth sometimes hurts, and no one likes to hear painful truth. But Jeremiah also discovered something else: God's truth would not let his messenger keep silent. Jeremiah said, "His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jeremiah 20:9).

In this week's lesson, we'll learn how to face the challenge of speaking hard truth when people don't want to listen, and what it means to have "a fire in our bones" set ablaze by God's word.

What's the meaning of life anyway?

One way to think about Ecclesiastes is as the wisdom of Solomon in the rear view mirror, as he's looking back on his life. It’s sobering realism, indeed. The word “meaningless” is repeated often. Our lives are so much vapor that ultimately disappears. Our pleasures, our hard work, our knowledge, all of it will disappear - but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless.

There is a right and wrong way to approach our lives and the work that we do and the gifts we have. We are absolutely meant to enjoy the work of our hands, the joy of our families, and all the blessings of this earth. All of this is God’s grace - His free and undeserved gift of grace to us. But let’s not grasp what we have with clenched fists. As Josh said, “The better way to live and work is with one hand, one palm open!”

“Extinguish the fire to acquire. Embrace the grace of God!”

Everyone is familiar with the Proverbs. We all have our favorite proverbs that we quote easily. They’re even in greeting cards. But the book of Proverbs is not just a checklist of wise things to do (or not do).

Every parent has, or will, come to that time where their child comes of age, moves out, and starts their own life. This is when the parent pours out their hard-earned wisdom to try to make a positive difference in the child’s life. But Proverbs is more than that, because knowledge is more than reciting facts. The key is using that knowledge to exhibit prudent and moral behavior in what you do. J.E. Smith called Proverbs “God’s how-to-do-it manual”. Or as Josh said, it’s “...about how to live a Godly life with your heart, hands, and feet.” If we see living a Godly life as a skill to be learned - like many other skills we’ve learned and practiced and improved upon - then we know that we need to do it to the point that it becomes second nature.

Proverbs reminds us that all the wisdom we’ll ever need is in the Bible. Proverbs gives us two action items. One, trust God; and two, submit to Him. Give all of yourself to Him, completely. The beginning and the end of all knowledge and wisdom is in Him, if we’ll just heed His word.

Job speaks at length about how he’s lived a good life and wonders why he has been cursed. But then Elihu speaks up, essentially saying “Enough talking, Job. You need to listen now.” He reminds Job of God’s exalted power and majesty; he entreats him to stop and consider God's wonders. He tells Job that God is not silent just because you're not hearing him. God is listening through all your suffering, but His message isn’t always audible. And in your pride and arrogance, Job, you have the nerve to accuse God and to justify yourself.

Then in Job 38, the Lord speaks to Job, “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” Think of an angry parent, telling a headstrong child who just ran into the street to sit-down-and-shut-up; the reading of the riot act will commence.

But like that parent, all of God’s anger comes from love. He is not a computer that’s just running algorithms: if X happens, then Y is the result. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. He sees things in us that, perhaps, we refuse to see, things that need to change. Job’s pride needed to be excised. As Josh said, “The difference between surgery and stabbing isn’t the tool, but the intent.”

There is a purpose behind our pain. We need to have faith that God sees what we cannot. “Trusting God is the decision to let Him make the right incision.” When we’re in pain, God knows it. And He is taking care of it.

Have you ever seen a news story that left you thinking, “Why did this happen? How could God allow it?” We wonder how God even fits into a world with such evil and tragedies. Josh mentioned that the world’s big problems are seldom fixed by using simple common sense. In fact, the toughest problems require uncommon solutions that might include long, uncomfortable looks at morals and ethics.

As you read the story of Job, it’s hard to imagine all the levels of agony he suffered when he, in fact, had done nothing to deserve it. Then, when his friends talk to him, he has to suffer their criticism and accusations. But they, like all of us, could not see the bigger picture. They did not know that Job’s adversary (Satan) was piling on all his suffering with God’s okay.

They didn’t have the wisdom to understand what was happening. Job 28 talks about how difficult wisdom is to find and reminds us in verses 23-24, “God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.”

The bible gives us many examples of God’s “mysterious ways”, many stories that show us how God is always there working for us, even as we suffer. The answer to our suffering is bigger than what we can see. We must pause, have patience, and wait for the “why” to be revealed. As Josh told us, “Living with wisdom is trusting God to see what I cannot.”

If you’re a human being on this earth, you’ve probably had an enemy - someone who hurt you, someone you don’t want to forgive, maybe even a whole group of people. In the Book of Jonah, we learn that Jonah hated the wicked people of Nineveh and did not want them to be saved. So when God told him to deliver a warning message to them, he ignored it and went the other way. (Have you ever run away from what God wanted you to do?)

Ultimately, Jonah did deliver the message: ”Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” He hoped that this meant that Nineveh would be destroyed, but what God had in mind was for the Ninevites to be changed - and forgiven.

This made Jonah mad, and God questioned Jonah: is it right for you to be angry? Jonah didn’t care for these people, he didn’t tend to them. Why shouldn’t God be concerned?

How would you feel? Would it be OK with you for God to redeem/save/love someone you hated? Would you be able to remember all the things that He has already forgiven you for?

Josh asked us to think about our enemies, people we may have written off as unredeemable. Then consider: “If God would forgive even me, I cannot object when he also forgives my enemy.”

Whatever we have done - AND whatever our enemies have done - GOD LOVES US ALL and is ready to shower us with His mercy. Our God is gracious and compassionate always - REGARDLESS. Can we say the same?

In Michael Rankin’s lesson on Hosea, we find that Hosea learned some harsh lessons about love. Love is not always easy or beautiful; it can be challenging beyond anything we could imagine. Right from the start, in Hosea 1:2, God told Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman. Yes, God’s command was for Hosea to carry the burden of being devoted to one who would betray him. God was comparing the people of the land who were no longer faithful to the Lord to a loose woman.

Hosea's wife gave birth to three children, but only one was Hosea’s. God told him to name them Jezreel (to remember the massacre there), Lo-Ruhamah (meaning “not loved”), and Lo-Ammi (meaning “not my people”). Every time he saw his children, or called their names, he was reminded of his wife’s unfaithfulness.

And yet, God knew Hosea could handle it. As stated in 1 Corinthians 10:13 “...He will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear… he will also provide a way out…”

Hosea 3:1 reads, “The Lord said to me, “Go show your love to your wife again… Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods…” In spite of all the pain his wife caused him, Hosea was sure about restoring his marriage -- just as we can be sure that God will always lead us back to Him when we stray.

God’s love doesn’t give up. He may be hurt and rejected, but He still loves His people. We’re never too far away to return to Him.

Our challenge as Christians is to try to love others, even when they hurt and disappoint us. This may be the hardest lesson we ever learn. We may have to learn it more than once. Michael’s parting question to us was,

“If God loves like that, and Hosea learned to love like that, DO I LOVE LIKE THAT?”

Last week’s message was about hope, about growth from the ashes. Sunday’s message was about the next step, about comfort, such as the comfort a mother would give to her suffering child. We are God’s beloved lambs, and In Isaiah 40:11 we read, “He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart…”

Sometimes it seems like we have to suffer to appreciate the grace and comfort that comes after. But we know that God’s mercy is unwavering and pure. He will not say “I told you so” and then give you comfort. Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “...do not dwell on the past… I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” And in Isaiah 65:17-19, “I will create new heavens and a new earth...the sounds of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.”

When we are suffering, God turns to comfort us and give us good news. God’s promise, and God’s desire for us, is to shower us with the kind of merciful love that a devoted mother would give. His love is boundless! He only wants to open His arms to us so that we can live with Him forever.

So many of us are suffering; are we ready to surrender now to the comfort that only our loving Father can give?

In the book of Isaiah, the people had become those who “call evil good and good evil” and “acquit the guilty but deny justice to the innocent”. So Isaiah was tasked with speaking some difficult truths in Isaiah 6:13 -- that the land “will again be laid waste, but as the oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.” The holy seed would be their hope.

Sometimes we get stuck in our pain. When we can’t see beyond this current pain, when we can’t imagine happiness, that’s when we’re stuck looking in the rear view mirror. How often does the Bible tell us to fear not and wait for the Lord? As long as we draw breath, there is hope. Hope is the balm to help soothe our pain.

When we feel like we’re cut down to our stump, remember that the stump is what holds up the rest of the tree; it’s the foundation that feeds the branches and the leaves. All God needs is a stump to create a shoot of new growth, new life, new joys for us. He is the Master of creation, after all. He can bring life out of the ashes.

“When all I can see is doom and gloom, God makes a future where ashes can bloom.”

When things are going smoothly, it can be easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. That’s exactly what happened to the people of Israel (2 Kings 17) when they continued to worship false gods. Things were going so well for them that they could see no possible bad consequences. But as Josh said, “Nothing is so secure that God cannot destroy it.”

This is similar to the “Too big to fail” concept. They didn’t think that God would tear down all He had given to them, that He would see it through regardless of what they did. They were wrong - and He did tear it down. We have to know that anything we create that is NOT of God - and for God, and to glorify God - will eventually be destroyed.

Our path is to become the kind of people that God intends us to be, but our weak flesh resists it. We need to surrender when we fail God, to give ourselves completely to Jesus so he can lead us back to our loving Father. Therein lies our hope for salvation.

The full quote from Josh is “There is nothing so secure that God cannot destroy it. There is nothing so sinful that God cannot remove it.” Amen!