April 12, 2024 • 55 mins
As the shadow of a solar eclipse crossed our skies, my own shadow seemed to stretch across time, connecting me to ancient civilizations and their fear-induced reverence for such celestial events. This episode is a tapestry interwoven with personal reflections on the recent eclipse, musings on how our ancestors interpreted the darkening of their deities, and an introspective dive into the Book of Job. Our conversation about this profound narrative reveals how the trials of a biblical figure can mirror our current struggles with faith and understanding in the face of suffering.
The Book of Job, often enigmatic and always compelling, serves as a backdrop for our episode's deeper inquiry into the human condition. We examine Job's friends' misinterpretations of his suffering, connecting it to our tendency to impose our own narratives on others' hardships. Through personal anecdotes, we illustrate the universal drive to do good amidst life's capriciousness, drawing parallels between ancient wisdom and the day-to-day efforts to maintain integrity. The discussion leads us to the spiritual and philosophical, where we consider the duality of creation embodied by figures like Leviathan, illustrating the omnipresent dance between nature's beauty and terror.
Closing this thought-provoking episode, we reflect on the essence of restoration and mercy as witnessed in Job's life. We explore the significance of adversity in shaping character, especially in roles like parenting and personal growth. The resilience that springs from trials and the mercy that follows can be transformative, providing powerful testimonies of faith that resonate across time. Join us as we connect cosmic occurrences and timeless biblical lessons to the tangible aspects of our modern lives, from unclogging sinks to tackling the challenges that keep us awake at night.
Email: findingfaith.losingsleep@gmail.com
Twitter: @FindingFaithPod
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's time to wake up and pray up here.
On the Finding Faith in LosingSleep podcast, I'm Wes Easley,
one of your hosts, and I'malways joined by the real star
of the show, pierre Wilson, andhis wife, michelle Wilson.
How are you all doing tonight?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I have no star I can tell you that.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Me either, but we're good Wes.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You mean no stars?
Come on man, you guys weresitting out there.
I saw pictures where you guyswere sitting out there under the
stars looking at the eclipsehappening there in your neck of
the woods.
That had to be pretty cool.
I didn't see anything down herein good old Alabama.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That was nice.
I was surprised.
I was kind of like going intoit.
It was like a meh type ofsituation.
If I'm being honest, I wasn'ttoo thrilled.
I wanted to see it some, butthe moment it covered fully the
totality, that was special.
Just how dark it got, but howbright it still was with the
(00:58):
darkness, how cold, like thetemperature dropped, it was
pretty surreal.
So that was cool.
What wasn't cool were all thepeople that that traveled to our
city.
Like on friday night, likepizza places stopped taking
orders at like eight o'clock,like they were just so packed
and hotels were expensive, likeyou were like in vegas or
something like that.
(01:18):
So I'm not I'm not wanting tobe in a tourist town.
I can tell you that much, justbased on what happened with the
eclipse.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And you know, it was the people.
People talk about these thingsand they try to lead people into
conspiracies and stuff likethat.
It all makes sense of whystates would call in the
National Guard or a state ofemergency before it all happens.
States would call in theNational Guard or a state of
emergency before it all happens.
(01:48):
They can judge these things byhow many hotel bookings they
have, you know, and how manyplanned people are coming into
the neighborhoods and the areas,and you're just going to need a
little bit more support duringthat time.
So it's you know.
The government does make sensesometimes in what they do.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Well, and I think we were a little busier because a
lot of areas that were in thepath of totality ended up having
a lot of cloud cover and we didnot.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So one of the things, though, that I thought about
during the eclipse is how, ifyou didn't, you know, I would
want to say that we are moreeducated than our ancestors.
Now that's that may not be true.
There's a lot of things tothink about, like the caveman
and all those kind of peoplebeing maybe a little bit more
(02:30):
intelligent than what we givethem credit for, and I just
can't imagine, though, what itwould be like way back when,
when maybe you didn't have thetechnology to know that the moon
and the sun and you didn't havea month's warning or something
like that, how they had it allon the news and everything, and
then, all of a sudden, one day,it just gets dark right there.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Could you imagine he's so scary?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
you would think it's over.
Probably you think this is itand well, I turned the prayer.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
If you were praying in person, like what's happening
right now, well, I'm prettysure I heard and I could be
wrong and I would have to lookit up but um, I think I heard on
k love that the word eclipsestems from the meaning.
The meaning of the word comesfrom the word of band, the greek
word maybe a bit of abandon iswhat it means.
(03:20):
So they probably felt like theywere abandoned in that moment,
like what the world is happening.
I also saw West that um, peoplewere um kind of drawing the
line between that and like thestone rolling away, like how
similar that would look.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I could see that becausethe the shape of everything
being circular and then justkind of going from dark to light
and all that stuff.
Could you imagine too if youcoupled the eclipse With like an
earthquake happening, like itdid in New Jersey, I think it
was and then all of a suddenthen there's an eclipse, like
(04:01):
the next day or however, itwasn't very long, I mean, your
whole world would be coming toan end, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
that's it that is for sure.
We talk about that like it'sthe.
How many people really kind oftake into account like the the
old olden days where, like noneof this technology and stuff
existed?
Like we even talk about likenot even knowing what you, you
look like yourself, you think,like without, like a mirror or
like a reflection on the water.
You have no idea what you evenwould look like.
(04:30):
So like probably no bodyshaming or anything on those
lines would call you ugly.
You wouldn't.
You wouldn't know, you wouldn'thave any idea if you were
attractive or not now I maybethe attention they got how you
doing.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I, I think, I wouldn't want to know, I
wouldn't want to know how Ilooked, and then that way I just
always walk around thinkingthat I was the cat's meow, I
think that's how you say it.
Speaking of old books, todaywe're going to talk about Job,
the book of Job, and the reasonwhy we're going to revisit it.
I know we talked about itbefore on some previous episodes
(05:04):
here and there, but I'm goingthrough this audible book, right
, the audible, audible, audibleBible how do you say that?
Year in a plan, plan in a year,year in a plan?
And I'm going through thatBible and it just sounded
different.
It hit different going throughsomebody reading it to me and me
listening to it with theearbuds on, and it just hit a
(05:27):
little bit different.
So I texted you, pierre, and Isaid, hey, let's cover the book
of Job and especially those lastchapters wherever God is
answering and responding to Job.
So Job is like the very firstbook we're going to say the
oldest book in the Bible.
That's what a lot of peoplealways say.
It's the oldest book in theBible.
It was written before, I guess,the documentation, the
(05:47):
manuscripts, it's the oldestrecorded book, all right, so
it's not before Genesis andparts of Genesis, but what I'm
working through is actually achronological view of the Bible,
and so let me tell you guysthis, this version I don't even
know what version it is.
I just I don't.
I'm not good with technologymyself, so I probably you could
have told me that there wasgoing to be an eclipse, and I
(06:09):
wouldn't even know it, eventhough I have all this
technology in front of me,because I just mash buttons, all
right.
And so I'm listening to thisaudio Bible, and I don't know
what version it is or anything,but it's just really cool.
And it puts the book of Jobright after the Tower of Babel
in the book of Genesis.
Ok, so that's where it slottedthe chronological part of Job.
(06:33):
And I got to thinking aboutthat, I got to wondering huh, so
yeah, it makes sense that Jobwasn't written before the
beginning of the world.
Ok, that makes sense, right.
Yes a little bit the beginningof the world.
Okay, that makes sense, right,and it probably makes sense that
Job was, after Adam and Eve,the first people that recorded
in the Bible.
Okay, that makes sense too.
And then through the family,through Noah and through the
(06:53):
destruction of the earth,through the flood, right, and
then it gets to the Tower ofBabel and then boom, that kind
of does make sense.
It makes a little bit of sensethat maybe Job got to what?
Where was he?
The land of us is, I think,where he was, because he was.
He was kind of scattered abroad, maybe.
Maybe not him personally, buthis family was scattered abroad
(07:14):
after the tower of babel it's.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's quite possible and I know we've talked about it
.
But I I just struggle with thewhole book and I won't go back
into all the details.
But you'll see kind of how wediscussed the end here, I
believe, is more of like thefinale of kind of what he went
through.
But it's just a struggle for meon kind of how this whole book
(07:40):
played out, how things playedout for Job.
You know highs, lows, high,kind of like that sandwich
technique where you had thebread and you had the stuff in
between.
Then you had some more bread atthe end.
But we'll dive into it and I'msure I'll share plenty of
thoughts on it.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Does he have a lot of thoughts, Michelle, on this?
Oh, he does, on this one, forsure this is probably one we've
talked about more than most forsure this stuff is the stuff
that keeps him up at nightthinking, huh, and until you act
like you're gonna say something, then all of a sudden he's
snoring.
I know how player plays thatgame.
Uh, yes, so.
(08:19):
So he's living in the land ofus and I, I I kind of had this
revelation as I was listening tothis.
Okay, and it may not beanything new and I may have
shared it with you before.
Can I back up a little bit?
Sure, can I tell you guys aboutwhenever I was a young, young
Christian, right, I mean, justout of the baptismal womb, you
(08:40):
could kind of say, okay, I don'tknow if it's ever been said
like that, but I did, I'll turnit back womb.
You could kind of say, okay, Idon't know if it's ever been
said like that, but I did.
And we used to have.
We had these scripture readingsat the beginning of church and
they asked me to read thescripture.
This guy said, hey, you canread the scripture.
Now you're a baptized believer,you can read scripture.
I said, okay, yeah, no problem,no problem, I'll be happy to do
(09:03):
it.
I'm always a guy who doesn'tunderstand the severity of the
situation, so I'll just dosomething right.
And he gave me this book of Jobto read in front of the thing.
That was just one chapter orjust like five verses or
something, whatever the chapterhe was preaching that day, and
so he just gave me this littlesnippet to read, right?
So I got up in front of thecongregation and.
I don't know diddly do aboutanything about the Bible
(09:25):
especially.
So I got up there and I got mybook turned open book of Job and
I get up there in front ofeverybody and I look out at the
crowd, just like you're supposedto.
I do a good job with that and Isaid today I'll be reading from
the book of Job.
That's where I walked into myChristian life.
I didn't know it.
(09:46):
Hey, it looks like Job, doesn'tit?
I mean, I didn't mispronounceit, no, it didn't even give me a
heads up.
I was wondering if that's kindof like an initiation into the
church is what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
There you go.
Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah, I mean, that's exactlyhow it looks, that's how most
would pronounce it if you hadn'theard it elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Very true.
So that's how the book kind ofkicks off, is you got Job being
here and he's a great man in theland of Uz and what I've what I
?
The way I pictured the book ofJob this time was it's kind of
like a play, michelle, whereit's this physical reality realm
(10:29):
and then a spiritual realm, butwith us being able to read the
entirety of Job instead of justseeing it kind of happen.
As it goes.
You get this physical element ofJob where at the beginning of
it it tells us he's living inthe book of Uz and he's got all
these kids, he's a reputable man, he's got all this money, he
seems to be a man of highprestige and honor here in the
(10:51):
city.
So we're looking at thatphysical thing, if you're
looking at Job from a placeperspective.
But then the scene changes andthen we get to see the spiritual
realm where things are going onthat we don't necessarily know
what's going on from ourphysical standpoints that we're
in right now, but there's aspiritual world, a spiritual
(11:13):
realm that we just can't evensee and there's stuff that's
going on there.
So I envisioned it like a playwhere I kept looking at this
physical realm, that Job and hisfriends and his family were in,
and then there was a spiritualrealm where we see God and Satan
, and then, at the end of thebook, we also see God again
replying.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
God, of course, is intermingling in between the
physical and the spiritual realm, and so is Satan, it seems like
, michelle, it does and it feelslike Pierre struggles with this
because he's like it's likeSatan was like, hey, you should
do this, and God's like, yeah,that's a good idea, I think I
will.
And like that just frustratesPierre to no end and I have to
(11:55):
say I understand it.
It is perplexing, for sure, andit's it's odd for us to see,
and I think it's hard for us towrap our brains around.
Um, I guess you just kind ofhave to go to the place where
God knows more than we do and heunderstands what that purpose
(12:15):
truly was.
And we may never know it untilwe can go ask him.
But yeah, it's, it's crazy forsure.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
But yeah, it's crazy for sure, pierre, when that
happens, when you see Job in hisphysical realm and he gets
attacked by Satan, right, and Imean everything just starts his
world starts collapsing on him.
It just starts collapsing in onhim a little bit and then it
says, pierre and I bring this upwith you because you and I have
been friends now for a longtime and we've been through some
(12:48):
things together, actually juston a personal level he gets
surrounded by his friends, bythree of his friends, and they
just sit in silence for likeseven days.
Now, you know, I wouldn't beable to do that for seven days,
pierre, but they just sit therein silence and then when Job
finally says something after—Iguess I got to back up a little
(13:08):
bit because his world, job'sworld, craters in on him.
God allows Satan—if you haven'tread this, you need to go back
and read.
Like, start the book of Job andjust start reading, and it'll
just trip you out.
And we have other episodestalking more about this later,
talking more about this inearlier past episodes.
Job just everything gets takenaway.
All his children get taken away, all his riches get taken away.
(13:31):
The only thing he's left withis his wife.
I mean, he lost like what,seven, nine children, something
like that I can't even rememberhow many it is, and just an
upright guy.
And I'm sure Job had to besitting there, pierre, like what
in the world happened to me?
What happened, what did I do?
And then his friends surroundhim and they just sit in silence
.
And then, when they broke theirsilence, job was just talking
(13:53):
about how he wished he was neverborn.
You know, we talk about Jobbeing a strong man and a
faithful man and those thingsare true, but at this point, the
very first things he says outof his mouth is that he wishes
he would have never have beenborn.
You know, he said if there werepeople who are good at cursing,
I wish they would just cursethe day I was born.
(14:13):
Is what he said, pierre, how doyou handle a situation like
that with somebody whose life isjust turning in on them?
You seem to be a lot better atbeing able to be silent and just
being with people than I am.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well, I think it's tough.
And again, this book is astruggle because you think about
the stature.
So think about where he was inlife.
Things were going really welland, from everything we're told,
he was doing things the rightway.
He was a righteous man.
(14:49):
So put yourself in his shoes.
Whether it's you Wes, whetherit's the listener listening, put
yourself in the shoes thatyou're living life right.
Quote unquote Things are goingwell for you.
You're trying to do God's workas well in the process, and then
(15:12):
it's all just taken away in aninstant.
Now what we see is basicallythe devil, satan, trying to
basically convince God thatJob's's gonna not be the guy he
is.
He's not gonna be thatrighteous man.
Once all his stuff's removedfrom him, once all his people
(15:35):
are taken away, all his things,his property, he's not gonna be
the man that you think he is.
And again, the struggle is that, like you said, god allows it,
for one allows Satan to kind oftake all these things from Job
and not touch him.
But just being in that situation, yeah, why would you want to
(15:59):
live?
It'd be really hard, right?
So, yeah, you want that to beremoved because you're doing I
know the Bible.
We don't know where the Biblewas at this point.
But if you're doing in today'sworld what the Bible says to do
you're living a good life,you're righteous, you're doing
everything you believe youshould be doing and you're a
(16:20):
godly man and everything getstaken away, it's hard to cope
with that, it's hard to adjustwith that.
So, yeah, you would definitelywant to be, I think, cursed in
that moment.
Everything got taken away fromyou.
So you kind of want to be takenaway from the situation
yourself.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well, I think that basically the whole gist of this
chapter Job in and of itself islike you know, it's confusing
to us, but we just have to trustGod, even when we don't
understand him and even whenhe's like thoroughly confusing
to us.
That's kind of the point isthat we don't understand it, but
(17:02):
we still have to trust.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, but it's hard, and then the silence.
Like I'm, sometimes there'sjust not words in situations
when you see loved ones, friends, going through a hardship,
there are situations wherenothing you're going to say in
that moment is going to takeaway the pain or going to make
(17:28):
that person feel better, butbeing there and just sitting
there so they can see thatyou're there.
If ever there's a time thatthey decide to talk about it,
you're, you're right there, butyou're not you're not forcing it
, you're not, you know, rushingthem into saying something they
(17:50):
may not want to say or sayingsomething wrong because they
feel pressure to say it.
You're just kind of sitting inin peace at, to some extent,
it's true, when there's there'sno words that are going to come
out of your mouth that are goingto make that situation better.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, that's true, that, no, that's right.
And obviously his friendsdidn't help the situation much
at all, as because whenever Jobwould get done going through you
know his, his, just, I wish Iwas never born his friends would
be like, well, yeah, becauseyou've obviously done something
wrong.
That's the only reason why allthis is happening to you,
(18:24):
because you are keeping somekind of sin secret between you
and God.
But here's where this spiritualand physical realm come into
play.
They're just looking at it froma—they're trying to make the
spiritual realm and the physicalrealm match.
But that's not at all what wasgoing on.
(18:45):
We know the story and we knowthat's not why Job was going
through what he was goingthrough.
We know that story, but we seeit in the physical realm as oh,
that makes a lot of sense.
And his friends saw it like oh,that makes a lot of sense.
He's done something wrong andso God is punishing him.
But God wasn't punishing Job.
He wasn't punishing him, he wasallowing it to happen.
(19:07):
But it wasn't a punishment forsomething that Job had done
wrong.
It was more of an encouragingthing for all of us that get to
read it afterwards and get tosee the play play out.
We get to see that somebody canbe strong through a lot of bad
things that happen to them intheir life and they aren't
(19:27):
necessarily being punished foranything.
Job wasn't punished, you know,but that's how I was friends
looked at it, so that's thatplay thing that I was talking
about.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Well, yeah, I mean, if anything, you're gonna try to
reason why something'shappening in this world.
That's just human nature.
You're going to be like, okay,well, maybe this took place or
maybe that happened.
If someone gets mad at you thathas no right or no reason to be
mad at you.
You're still going to bethinking what did I do to make
(19:59):
this person upset?
And you're going to startthinking back.
And it could be nothing at all,but that's still just going to
be thinking.
What did I do to make thisperson upset?
And you're going to startthinking back and it could be
nothing at all, but that's stilljust going to be the human
nature.
So if you see someone goingthrough a hardship, let's say a
homeless person on the street,we're going to assume that
something took place that putthem in that situation.
That's just human nature.
(20:20):
We don't know what that's goingto be.
We're going to make assumptions.
I know people make assumptionsthat they want money for drugs,
they want money for alcohol.
Those are all assumptions thatare made based off someone's
circumstances and the friendsquote unquote in this situation
were doing the same to Job thatclearly, given what your
lifestyle was and where you'reat now, you clearly had to do
(20:42):
something wrong from a sinstandpoint, upsetting God type
of situation.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Job says something interesting and all that where
he well, he says a lot ofinteresting things and so do his
friends, right, but Job says,you know, I'm just like a hired
hand, it's kind of what he says.
And he just says I'm doing, I'mjust supposed to do what I'm
supposed to do.
I got to do what's right andand um, some recovery process
(21:11):
classes that I taught that Iwent through myself.
You know, it's always you gotto do the next right thing, even
if you think you messed up,even if you think you've done
something wrong, or even ifsomebody has done something
wrong to you.
Ask yourself this questionwhat's the next right thing to
do?
And then do it.
And and you know, if all yourintentions are trying to do the
(21:34):
right things, you're going tostumble upon doing the right
things, even if you accidentallydo the wrong thing.
Sometimes you know you'reyou're going to stumble upon
doing the right things, even ifyou accidentally do the wrong
thing.
Sometimes, if you're practicingthe right things over and over
and over again, people are goingto know that you are practicing
those right things over andover and over again and that's
what you're going to be knownfor, even if there is a slip up
(21:55):
there.
Even if an intention of a rightthing turns out to be a wrong
thing to do, it's still tryingto do the right things and
you're just piling up the rightthings whenever you're trying to
do them.
That's.
That's what I think Job istrying to do while he's sitting
down here going.
I just wish I didn't have tomake this decision.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
You think about so think about it like from like a,
let's say, police officerstandpoint.
From a police officerstandpoint.
When you're driving out on theroad, are you following rules to
follow them, to do the nextright thing, or are you
following rules thinking that anofficer's around and you might
(22:37):
get in trouble for not stoppingat that stop sign or stopping at
that stoplight, or for speedingor not having your seatbelt on?
If you make it a habit of justdoing those right things, odds
are you're not going to getpulled over.
If you're doing it just to notget caught, odds are you're
going to eventually get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I'm not one to ask about rules for the police
officers and laws and stuff likethat.
I drive down the middle of theroad here.
I'm just going to be honestwith you.
I do, but I drive the breadtrucks a lot of times and so I
give myself a little bit ofclearance over there on the
right-hand side.
So I think of them more assuggestions and you know I'm
(23:22):
trying to abide by the rules,but I'm also going.
Well, they did that soeverybody could be safe, and a
bread truck riding real close tothat yellow line over there on
my right-hand side ain't verysafe.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's just what I'm thinking.
You just said you tried toabide by the rules, so just that
alone is going to put you inbetter situations than those
that don't and are just simplytrying not to get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, if I get pulled over for that, I'll let them
know that you told me I could.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
How about that?
So throughout all this, jobstarts questioning God and
really petitioning God in thebook of Job and he starts, you
know, just begging him.
Just tell me what's wrong, justtell me the answer, just do
whatever it is I have to do,just end my life or just do
something, god, you know, hejust kind of starts doing that.
And then we see in thatspiritual realm that God had
(24:12):
been hearing all of these thingsand then all of a sudden the
Lord starts challenging Job,kind of answering Job.
Now, keep in mind, during allthis, job is having some dreams
too.
It says where his world isgetting shaken and I wonder if
God wasn't communicating withJob throughout some of those
dreams where Job is justterrified and in a panic, or
(24:36):
maybe even we don't know, maybeSatan is doing something in
those dreams too, where Job'sjust waking up, just where he
doesn't know what's going on,and those dreams are very real
to him.
I'm not a big dreamer, I don'tdream really hard to where I can
remember them or anything.
I don't know if you guys havethose kind of dreams where
(24:56):
they're just real, real dreams.
I guess every once in a whilewhen I'm trying to fall asleep.
I'll be sitting there andyou'll be trying to fall asleep
and then all of a sudden you'refalling or something and then
just before you hit something,bam, your whole body just shakes
and you wake up.
It's like what in the worldjust happened.
It's like I'm glad I woke upbecause that was obviously going
(25:17):
to hurt.
But I don't have like dreamdreams like that.
I don't get into a real REMsleepy kind of thing.
I don't know.
What do you guys do?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
for sure is when I was in high school, I my room
was across from my parents' roomand I heard like a scream and I
woke up and I thought I woke upand walked across the hall and
both my parents were murdered.
And of course I screamed in mysleep, apparently and I thought
I woke up from the dream and mymom was and like I, my mom was
there and then all of a suddenshe wasn't and I got up and
(26:07):
walked and saw the same thingand I was like, oh my gosh, it's
real.
And then I actually woke up.
Like it was crazy.
It was like I woke up inside mydream and then it happened
again, like it was nuts, but Imean outside of that.
I've had some odd things happenin dreams, but that was back
when I slept a lot more hours.
Now I don't dream very often,so I don't.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I don't really have those type of memory dreams, but
I can tell when Michelle does.
I can tell when dream, whendream Pierre probably wasn't the
best character in those dreams.
When you wake up and you'regetting, like me, mugged and
you've been asleep for seven,eight hours, you know there's
possibly nothing that you couldhave done wrong and you're like,
(26:52):
oh, dream Pierre was at itagain.
That guy's a wild guy.
I tell you.
I cannot be held accountablefor the things that dream Pierre
does in Michelle's dreams.
I want that on record.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I haven't had that in a very long time, but he's not
wrong and it's very real.
So it made me very mad.
But my best friend does havethose dreams a lot and God very
clearly and I think I've saidthat before very clearly speaks
to her in her dreams and it's,it's just, it's cool, but it's
(27:26):
also a little scary sometimes,like cause it's usually not
great if she's dreamt aboutsomebody, and so if she tells me
she had a dream about me, I'mlike, uh, why, what's going on?
So but he, he does speak to herthat way.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I knew, pierre, I knew that Michelle would have
some kind of dream story.
I did, I just did, you know, uh, and I, I jumped to verse 40 or
chapter 40.
I jumped to chapter 40.
God has talked to Job for alittle while.
Job has made his petitions toGod and questioned God and all
his friends and all that stuff.
And then I love what God saysto Job in verse 6.
(28:06):
Then the Lord answered Job froma whirlwind.
Now I don't know what thatmeans.
I'm just going to be honestwith you.
I don't know what that means.
What's a whirlwind?
How's he answering him in awhirlwind?
It's the opposite of the stillsmall voice that was in a breeze
, that was answering one of theprophets, I believe.
And God said brace yourself,like a man, because I got some
(28:26):
questions for you and you got toanswer them.
That's just a strong statement,you know, could you imagine?
hearing that from God.
It's like oh no, not only do Ihave boils all over me, but I
think I just tinkled down my legtoo.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He's been questioning too, so Joe's been.
He's been kind of letting Godhave it.
He wants the answers.
Now you're about to get him,you're like, well, maybe I don't
want the answers anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
There's a, there's a lot of things in here, pierre,
that I could look at and I startquestioning.
You know, I could say in verse13 of that same chapter, job 40,
take a look at the behemothwhich I made, just as I made you
.
It eats grass like an ox, seesit powerful loins and its
muscles of its belly.
What is the behemoth?
You know, that's what I want toknow.
(29:13):
Is it the elephant?
Is it the rhinoceros?
I listened to that one a coupleof times and I'm like probably
a hippopotamus, that's what Iwas thinking, but it is called
something.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
It's its own creature that's no longer around.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, and it could be and it could be, but it's kind
of cool to look at.
And earlier I think it's inchapter—Joe Bench is the
Leviathan in there and it's like, okay, what's the Leviathan?
You kind of want to know whatit is an alligator or sea?
(29:48):
It's a sea monster, you know,hey, and this is, I looked it up
, it's the new livingtranslation, this is, and I'm
telling you, they start talkingabout a dragon.
They start talking about adragon in here is what it is,
because it sounds like aalligator that flies through the
air and has smoke and fire, youknow, and it so it sounds like
a dragon it's, it's quitepossible.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I mean I I know humans have evolved, but I I
can't see that some human justsimply made up the, the dragon,
that that comes from somewhereand it could be the bible well
and, and you know there's somany, there's so many drawings
of it I don't want to saypictures, but drawings of it in
(30:25):
just old things that I've seenever since I was a kid that
looked like they were really old.
Whenever I was a kid, justseeing pictures of them and it's
kind of like, oh, I always justI assumed that dragons were
dragons and I wasn't.
I never thought are theyfictitious or were they real?
I never thought that, becauseit looked like a dinosaur to me
(30:46):
and a dinosaur was always real,I was told.
So I just put it in the samecategory as a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, why not?
I mean, there's so many thingsthat are unknown and I think
that's kind of what God you knowgoes into with Job when he's
answering some of his questions.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I think so too.
Is that, hey, there's a lot ofthings, job, that you don't know
, but they are, and you can'ttell me that they're not because
you see the after effects oryou see the, I guess, the
evidence of them.
You know that a goat in themountains has babies because you
(31:31):
see the evidence of it, butyou've never seen one.
I have, dope, you've never seena little baby eagle?
I have.
Are they called eaglets?
I had no idea.
Little baby eagles they'recalled eaglets.
Yeah, they gotta be calledeaglets.
You've never.
You you've never seen them, joe, but I have.
(31:53):
But you see the evidence ofthem and and that that speaks to
their being a creator.
Right, because we don't get tosee the actual creation of some
things, but we see the evidenceof it, which makes us say, okay,
well, something had to alwaysbe right, something had to
always be, because there'salways been something Right yeah
(32:18):
it has to be the case.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
That's why, like I, I just can't get behind the whole
big boom stuff like it justdoesn't make sense.
Things are are too laid outperfectly for it to just be a a
series of coincidences.
That chemicals blendingtogether to all you know make
(32:41):
this perfect.
You know rotating Earth, thesun rising when it's supposed to
, the moon, the human body andhow it functions, all the other
animals and you know how theirbodily functions, the mind, the
heart, how everything kind ofgoes together.
Like how can you justspontaneously have a combustion
and all that just fall intoplace?
(33:02):
For me it doesn't add up.
I know everyone has their ownbeliefs.
Everyone has their faith insomething, whether it's faith in
nothing.
They have that faith there andthat's just not something I can
put my faith in as just a randomcombustion, knowing all the
things that I know right now.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Speaking of random combustion.
I was just looking at that, atthe Leviathan again and
everything there in chapter 41,I guess it is.
I want to emphasize Leviathan'slimbs, God says, and its
enormous strength and gracefulform.
Who can strip off its hide?
(33:46):
Who can penetrate its doublelayer of armor?
Who can pry open its jaws?
For its teeth are terrible.
The scale on its back are likerows of shields, tightly sealed
together.
They are so close together thatno air can get between them.
Each scale sticks tight to thenext.
The inner lock-in cannot bepenetrated.
When it sneezes, it flasheslight.
Its eyes are like the red ofthe dawn.
(34:07):
Lightning leaps from its mouth.
Flames of fire flash out.
Smoke streams from its nostrilslike steam from a pot.
Heated over burning bushesrushes Its breath would kindle.
Coals for flames shoot from itsmouth.
The tremendous strength inLeviathan's neck strikes terror
wherever it goes.
And that's gotta be a dragon.
Sounds like it to me.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It does.
It does sound like a dragon,leviathan the dragon.
Is that a book.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Could be.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
What do you think about Puff?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
the Magic Dragon.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
We got Leviathan the dragon Hell.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh yeah, let's do it.
Leviathan makes the water boilwith its commotion.
It stirs, the stirs, the depth,depths.
Like a pot of ointment.
The water glistens in its wake,making the sea look white.
Nothing on earth is as equal.
No other creature is sofearless.
Of all the creatures, it is theproudest, it is the king of the
beasts, that's.
(35:08):
That's that makes me stop andjust go.
What in the world is going on?
You know?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean that and the behemoth, so you might kind of
put them both together.
And there's some, there's somefear there with kind of the
descriptions, but even with thatthere's some.
It's kind of like there's somesome some majesty that takes
place and just the the power ofthese beasts that are are being
described.
So it's it's a good and bad,it's like a good and evil type
(35:39):
of thing.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
So throughout all that, god, essentially, I think
in the gist of it all, eventhough we don't understand
everything, you got to look atthe big picture of it.
If it's a play, you got to kindof look at the whole, the whole
thing and just let it besummarized for you a little bit
God, god does like rock, doesGod?
God God says to Job.
He says what's your name, job,or what's your name?
(36:04):
And Job's about to say his nameand God says it doesn't matter
what your name is, be quiet andknow your role right, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Know your role and shut your mouth right.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And then he tells Job's friends kind of the same
thing, except he tells hisfriends hey, you didn't speak of
me the same way Job did.
You spoke wrongly of me.
You need to go make a sacrificeto kind of get back right with
me.
I'm sure they ran to go do thesacrifice, by the way, because
they'd seen what Job was goingthrough.
They didn't want to go throughthe same thing.
But God is just letting Job know, his friends know what their
(36:44):
role is, and I think it's thesame role for us.
We're to be good stewards ofthe things that we have, whether
that's our health, whetherthat's riches, whether that's
whatever it is.
We need to be good stewards ofwhat we have time.
We need to be good stewardswith that as well, and we need
to make the most of it.
We don't know when we'll getafflicted with something that
(37:07):
isn't necessarily from God.
God may allow it, but it's forus to look like.
It's for us to make God looklike champion.
Okay, that's what I thinksuffering is for for us to make
God look like a champion andwhere to know our role and to go
through it.
If we're in an army, which, youknow, the Bible talks about a
(37:31):
Christian being in an army, asoldier, that we're to do
whatever we're commanded to do,and sometimes that's a tough
thing to do.
I know for me I've become abetter man since I've had
children right.
Since I've been a husband.
I've become a better handymanaround the house.
(37:53):
That's what kind of man I'vebecome, and I've had to do some
dirty dirty things.
The other day my daughter's sinkwas just clogged I guess it's
the girl's sink and I got the17-year-old, I got the
eight-year-old, the17-year-old's got makeup and
hair and junk in there, and thenthe eight-year-old comes
running in with a bunch of rocksand so she's cleaning off rocks
(38:15):
in the sink and there's justdirt and rocks in the sink and
finally the thing was backed up.
But before, before I had kids,I never had to unclog a sink and
and I never had to getunderneath there and undo the
little, the little um nuts andbolts from underneath there,
whatever it is, and and undo it,get the bucket and let the
(38:37):
water drip in there, and thenyou take it out.
And I called the teenager inthere because I want the
teenager to know how to do this,first of all because I
anticipate her having many aclogged sink in her life.
I'm sure you're right.
So I do it and she's ew, ew,you know, and this gray black
water is coming out, ew, ew.
(38:58):
I don't have to tell the8-year-old to come in there.
She's my little helper, soshe's always in wherever I am.
She's my little shadow andshe's, you know, ooh, cool.
You know she likes the dirt.
And I showed my daughter, my17-year-old I pull this big
thing of hair out from there.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Sure do, sure do.
But you know, as a good soldierin my house, that's my role,
that's what I got to do.
It's not fun, it's disgusting,I don't enjoy it, but it has to
be done, and so that's my role.
(39:37):
Sometimes I have to go throughthese things that I don't
necessarily want to do in aposition crawled under the sink
on my back that I don't want tobe in, but I got to do it.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Because that's what I'm supposed to do, and I think
that's true.
I mean, I've said over and overagain through you know, these
episodes and just in general,that you know the suffering the
suffering that we go throughdoes, at least for me.
It makes me more thankful thanI ever would have known how to
be in the good times without it,and oftentimes it draws me much
(40:12):
closer to God because I have torely on him, and so it's like
it's a teaching moment and in ablessing, in disguise, with a
lot of times.
Um, you know I, I just thinkthat we don't, we're not apt to
learn the lessons the way thatwe do If we don't go through the
(40:34):
suffering or the frustrationsor loss or whatever that we go
through.
Um, you know I, like I've saidbefore, I appreciate Pierre and
Olivia, and in entirelydifferent way than I ever would
have even fathomed how to dobefore my miscarriage or from
bad relationships or, you know,loss of loved ones, whatever it
might be.
So I think that you know it's,it's perspective in those things
(40:59):
and how you look at it and thenwhat you do with it.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That wasn't my fault.
The Sikh wasn't my fault, right?
No, I had to do it because thatwas my role, and that's just
what I have to do.
And I was paying the price,though, of what other people's I
was paying the consequences forother people's decisions.
I was changing the oil theother day, and I do this.
(41:24):
I don't know if anybody elsechanges.
Peter, do you change your oilof your cars?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I enjoy doing it.
I got a lot of cars andvehicles, bread trucks.
I got to do it when you changethe oil.
I got this big drain pan thing.
Well, I forgot to take the plugout of the middle of the drain
pan and I was changing the oilin my truck first, because I
hate doing that one.
It's just got all kinds ofthings that I got to get out of
the way.
It's just the hardest one tochange.
So I changed it in my truckfirst and the oil was still hot,
(41:56):
warm, hot.
It was hot on the warm side,but warm on the hot side, and so
the oil started accumulating inthe pan right and I said why is
it stopped up?
Oh, I forgot to take the drainplug out.
So I hurried up and took the.
I was like I got to stick myhand in there.
It's going to be kind of hot.
And I went ahead and did itanyway, otherwise I was going to
(42:18):
have oil all over the place.
So I put my hand in there and Itwisted it real quick and I got
it out and I started rubbing itoff.
But it was hot.
I was a little my hand burned,a little bit burned.
Yeah, yeah, that was my decision, right, that was my mistake.
I had to suffer my ownconsequences, but I had to do it
again.
You know, I had to do somethingat that time because that's
(42:39):
just what I had to do, but itwas by my own fault.
There are things that we'regoing to run into in life where
it's not our fault.
Sometimes it is our fault, butwhatever it is, we just have to
tackle it head on and we have toget through it, knowing that
God is on our side the entiretime, and if he is for us, then
who can be against us?
What are we going to face thatGod has not already known?
(43:01):
What was going to happen thatgod has not faced?
If we can entrust our livesinto our creator's hands, then
whatever comes our way, we canjust turn over into his hands
and let him help us with it.
That, no matter what it is.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
I think that's what joe kind of what he had to learn
.
I I don't like the way he hadto learn it personally uh,
that's just my opinion but Imean that's what he, that's what
he had to learn.
I don't like the way he had tolearn it personally, that's just
my opinion, but I mean that'swhat he ultimately had to walk
away with.
Because he's asking questions,he's calling God unjust and
God's basically saying you know,you're not in a position to
(43:35):
make that decision, that I'munjust, and ultimately tells Joe
we live in a non-perfect worldand that's kind of how, why
suffering takes place.
This is a fallen world, it'snon-perfect.
But if we truly believe he's aperfect God, then we have to
trust him and sometimes it'shard to trust without that
(43:59):
conversation.
So you know, job ultimately gothis answers from God and I feel
like it's difficult if youdon't feel like you're getting
those answers.
In the same situation, maybeyou're not at a boiling point
like Job was to where God maybeis hearing you, but I think
that's kind of the.
(44:20):
What brought Job out of it wasthe fact that he got his answers
clearly from God and was toldto just trust me.
And when you've lost everything.
You have nothing left whenyou've lost it all.
I mean, how hard is it to trustat that point when you have
(44:41):
nothing else to lose?
If you get the word from God totrust him, you have no other
point.
You have no other way to go atthat point.
So I think that's what tookplace with Job and again, I'm
not sure his choices were whatled him to his downfall, but he
got in that situation.
(45:01):
So he then had choices onwhether he was going to trust
God or not once he was in thatcircumstance.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Chapter 42, verse 7,.
After the Lord had finishedspeaking these things to Job, he
said to Elphaz the Temanite Iam angry with you and your two
friends, for you have not spokenaccurately about me, as my
servant Job has.
So take seven bulls and sevenrams and go to my servant Job
and offer a burnt offering foryourselves.
My servant Job will pray foryou and I will accept his prayer
on your behalf.
I will not treat you as youdeserve, for you have not spoken
(45:32):
accurately about me as myservant Job has.
So Eliphaz and Temanite andBildad the Shuite and Zophar the
Nephite did as the Lordcommanded them and the Lord
accepted Job's prayer.
When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes
.
In fact, the Lord gave himtwice as much as before.
I love how, even though—youthink Job was angry at God,
(46:02):
questioning God at the veryleast.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I think he could even say that Job also didn't speak
correctly.
Yeah, god just kind of showedhim mercy because of how he went
about things versus his friend.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
I agree.
When I heard God say that, Iwas like, really he didn't say
anything bad.
It sure sounded like he wassaying bad stuff.
That's what I was thinking, butmaybe it was the heart and
intentions of the heart too.
Maybe I don't know, I don'tknow what it was there that did
strike me as peculiar.
But I love how God even thoughhim and Job didn't seem to be
(46:40):
buddy buddies at the time, eventhough, like him and Job didn't
seem to be buddy buddies at thetime when God's saying gird
yourself up like a man, you know, I'm ready to ask you some
questions.
Then he just turns around,though, and he says you didn't
speak well of me, like myservant Job, did you know?
You go and make these offeringsand my servant Job will pray
for you, and I think that's cool.
(47:03):
Job never left God's side In hisheart of hearts.
I don't think that he leftGod's side.
Maybe in his mind he wasthinking out loud, and maybe he
was questioning things.
Maybe he wasn't doing it toeverybody in the entire world,
just these three friends, youknow, and his wife.
Maybe, too we won't even getgoing to his wife, because I
don't want you in trouble,pierre I mean I am curious why
(47:27):
she was the one that was left.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's like if satan like didn't touch her, like wait
a minute, was she?
She part of the problem.
But anyway.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Even paul had a thorn in his side.
Paul had a thorn in his sidetoo, pierre.
So I don't know, but I justlove how God looked at Job as
still being his servantthroughout all that and counted
him as the one who was going topray for his friends.
I think that that was reallycool, even though Job was
(47:57):
obviously struggling.
And then, michelle, as you know, job was restored and he
received twice as much as he hadbefore.
And what a great example it hadto be, not only to Job's
friends immediate friends therebut into all the land about him,
because this had—I don't thinkthis is a made-up story.
(48:19):
This is something I was thinkingabout too while I was listening
to it.
Is this just a made-up story?
Is Job just a made-up story?
But once again, as we talkedabout in prior episodes, we
learn names, first names, maybelast names, or at least their
kind of genealogy, or wherethey're from, where they lived.
We learn all these things.
(48:39):
There's specifics about this.
So I don't think this is amade-up story.
I think this is a specificstory and we actually get to see
what's going on.
If it's a play, we get to seewhat's going on behind the
scenes too, with that spiritualrealm of things and the physical
realm of things so we can havethings make more sense to us.
(49:00):
But Michelle, getting all thatstuff restored to twice the
amount, that had to be a greattestimony to all those people
around him.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Oh, I can't imagine that it wasn't.
I mean, if I'm witnessing thatand I see it, I'm going to be
like, okay, I see he wentthrough all of that, but boy is
he blessed and so he's doingsomething right and, like you
said, it's a great example yeah,we see it in life, yeah, we see
(49:27):
it in each other, like folksdown on their luck and hit rock
bottom.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And you come across them years later and you know,
gosh restored them and changedtheir lives.
So it's, it's good to see thosemoments.
Sometimes you don't, and that'sthe thing.
So sometimes there's not thatJob ending where someone is
(49:55):
restored and you start toquestion so why is that?
Why didn't they get potentiallyrestored on their own
circumstances?
But again, that's not for us toto be the judge of.
But, yeah, it's good to seethose those wins.
When people get knocked down,everything gets taken away from
them and they, they're, they'rebrought up again.
You know, I'm saying god, godpicks them up.
(50:15):
And and it was jeremy camp he'slost the artist, lost his wife
and you know the battle withcancer.
And I know he's remarried nowhas multiple kids really big
time Christian artist.
So things like that happen inreal life.
It's not just a job story.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Well, and I think sometimes we can perceive that
someone has is struggling andreally they're not like.
And what I mean by that is Ispent most of my life probably
thinking that, like my brother,who was disabled, was struggling
or or you know, had his ownissues, and that you know why.
(50:59):
Why did he have to be that way?
And I remember very vividly theday that I found out I was
pregnant for Olivia um saw alady at a doctor's appointment I
had to go to and she ended upbeing the first person I told
that I was pregnant and she hada son who was disabled, but he
was walking and talking and mybrother couldn't.
And I remember thinking, man,what I wouldn't give to have a
(51:21):
conversation with him.
And it was years later that youknow, as I'm kind of reading
through the Bible, I'm like, wow, Michelle, that's really
selfish of you.
Because my brother who passedaway last week was truly the
happiest person I have everknown and he is fully restored
now.
(51:41):
And I remember that when it hitme that I was selfish for
wanting to have like thatconversation with him, because
if he's happy and God made himthe way that he wanted him, if
he could know how hurtful andcruel this world could be, or
understand maybe hiscircumstances a little better.
(52:04):
Would he have been as happy ashe was?
And I don't think so.
So he was just such aninspiration.
He was the biggest smile,literally, you've ever seen.
And you know, smile throughyour suffering, smile through
your circumstances.
So I think that's a beautifulthing and hopefully that can be
(52:25):
an inspiration to others,because he truly was and is
still.
So, yeah, smile.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Smile, no matter what it.
There's that one of thosefantasy football ladies, pierre,
that does that weekly roundupkind of the NFL.
I think her, I think her andher brother.
Her brother might have cerebralpalsy or something and her dad
is like runs with him onmarathons and stuff like that.
(52:56):
I think that's.
I think that's the wholeconnection there with that as
well.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I mean, you just don't knowwhat kind of impact that.
I mean he clearly had an impacton people, and he did on me for
sure, and it was.
It was a beautiful thing to seeat his service and and to hear
all of the stories and thingsabout you know this, this boy,
this man who couldn't walk ortalk, had this profound impact
(53:21):
on people and it's, it'sbeautiful.
So I can only pray to have thatmuch impact.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
I think you're talking about less.
I think I met her at the one ofthe hall of fame games and I
can't bring her up because Idon't want Michelle to get mad.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Michelle, we are sorry for your loss.
I'm sure I speak on behalf ofall of the Finding Faith and
Losing Sleep squad that's outthere, I believe so we could say
that for sure, and we are.
All of us get touched bydifferent individuals at
different times in our life andthey all have their purposes,
and we are thankful that Job hadhis purpose in our life as well
to give us strength whenever weare weak, and we can see that
(54:00):
if we are good soldiers, we canmake it through and God will be
faithful to the end, no matterwhat.
Pierre, we failed to tellanybody how to find us.
We failed to encourage anybodyto leave any kind of ratings or
anything on the listeningplatform to help the show get
out there a little bit more, toencourage others.
Not for our sake at all, pierre, we haven't made a dime off
(54:20):
this show, right?
Speaker 2 (54:23):
If not, if, if not, that's been by by choice.
I still get like adopportunities like a couple
times a week, um but do theywant me to talk in any of them?
they, they do not, it's morewanting to play, you know,
snippets of their show on oursso they can kind of probably
increase their listenership.
But it's all right, we're notdoing that for that.
(54:46):
We're doing that just to kindof talk through life and talk
through the things that keep usup at night.
But if you do again have anycomments, suggestions, you can
reach out to us atfindingfaithlosingsleep at
gmailcom.
We're also over on the Twitterslash xmachine at Fighting Faith
Pod.
You can find us on any podcastplatform.
(55:07):
So feel free to leave us areview, leave us comments there.
We appreciate anything you wantus to touch on, anything you
want us to ask.
Definitely, shoot it our wayand we will engage.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
Yeah, and we say that about the podcast platforms
because you can share it withyour friends on whatever you'd
like to share it with, in hopesto encourage them as well.
Somehow, some way, if we'vedone that for you, we ask that
you do that for someone else.
It's time to wake up and pray up here.
On the Finding Faith in LosingSleep podcast, I'm Wes Easley,
one of your hosts, and I'malways joined by the real star
of the show, pierre Wilson, andhis wife, michelle Wilson.
How are you all doing tonight?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I have no star I can tell you that.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Me either, but we're good Wes.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You mean no stars?
Come on man, you guys weresitting out there.
I saw pictures where you guyswere sitting out there under the
stars looking at the eclipsehappening there in your neck of
the woods.
That had to be pretty cool.
I didn't see anything down herein good old Alabama.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That was nice.
I was surprised.
I was kind of like going intoit.
It was like a meh type ofsituation.
If I'm being honest, I wasn'ttoo thrilled.
I wanted to see it some, butthe moment it covered fully the
totality, that was special.
Just how dark it got, but howbright it still was with the
(00:58):
darkness, how cold, like thetemperature dropped, it was
pretty surreal.
So that was cool.
What wasn't cool were all thepeople that that traveled to our
city.
Like on friday night, likepizza places stopped taking
orders at like eight o'clock,like they were just so packed
and hotels were expensive, likeyou were like in vegas or
something like that.
(01:18):
So I'm not I'm not wanting tobe in a tourist town.
I can tell you that much, justbased on what happened with the
eclipse.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And you know, it was the people.
People talk about these thingsand they try to lead people into
conspiracies and stuff likethat.
It all makes sense of whystates would call in the
National Guard or a state ofemergency before it all happens.
States would call in theNational Guard or a state of
emergency before it all happens.
(01:48):
They can judge these things byhow many hotel bookings they
have, you know, and how manyplanned people are coming into
the neighborhoods and the areas,and you're just going to need a
little bit more support duringthat time.
So it's you know.
The government does make sensesometimes in what they do.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Well, and I think we were a little busier because a
lot of areas that were in thepath of totality ended up having
a lot of cloud cover and we didnot.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
So one of the things, though, that I thought about
during the eclipse is how, ifyou didn't, you know, I would
want to say that we are moreeducated than our ancestors.
Now that's that may not be true.
There's a lot of things tothink about, like the caveman
and all those kind of peoplebeing maybe a little bit more
(02:30):
intelligent than what we givethem credit for, and I just
can't imagine, though, what itwould be like way back when,
when maybe you didn't have thetechnology to know that the moon
and the sun and you didn't havea month's warning or something
like that, how they had it allon the news and everything, and
then, all of a sudden, one day,it just gets dark right there.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Could you imagine he's so scary?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
you would think it's over.
Probably you think this is itand well, I turned the prayer.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
If you were praying in person, like what's happening
right now, well, I'm prettysure I heard and I could be
wrong and I would have to lookit up but um, I think I heard on
k love that the word eclipsestems from the meaning.
The meaning of the word comesfrom the word of band, the greek
word maybe a bit of abandon iswhat it means.
(03:20):
So they probably felt like theywere abandoned in that moment,
like what the world is happening.
I also saw West that um, peoplewere um kind of drawing the
line between that and like thestone rolling away, like how
similar that would look.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I could see that becausethe the shape of everything
being circular and then justkind of going from dark to light
and all that stuff.
Could you imagine too if youcoupled the eclipse With like an
earthquake happening, like itdid in New Jersey, I think it
was and then all of a suddenthen there's an eclipse, like
(04:01):
the next day or however, itwasn't very long, I mean, your
whole world would be coming toan end, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
that's it that is for sure.
We talk about that like it'sthe.
How many people really kind oftake into account like the the
old olden days where, like noneof this technology and stuff
existed?
Like we even talk about likenot even knowing what you, you
look like yourself, you think,like without, like a mirror or
like a reflection on the water.
You have no idea what you evenwould look like.
(04:30):
So like probably no bodyshaming or anything on those
lines would call you ugly.
You wouldn't.
You wouldn't know, you wouldn'thave any idea if you were
attractive or not now I maybethe attention they got how you
doing.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I, I think, I wouldn't want to know, I
wouldn't want to know how Ilooked, and then that way I just
always walk around thinkingthat I was the cat's meow, I
think that's how you say it.
Speaking of old books, todaywe're going to talk about Job,
the book of Job, and the reasonwhy we're going to revisit it.
I know we talked about itbefore on some previous episodes
(05:04):
here and there, but I'm goingthrough this audible book, right
, the audible, audible, audibleBible how do you say that?
Year in a plan, plan in a year,year in a plan?
And I'm going through thatBible and it just sounded
different.
It hit different going throughsomebody reading it to me and me
listening to it with theearbuds on, and it just hit a
(05:27):
little bit different.
So I texted you, pierre, and Isaid, hey, let's cover the book
of Job and especially those lastchapters wherever God is
answering and responding to Job.
So Job is like the very firstbook we're going to say the
oldest book in the Bible.
That's what a lot of peoplealways say.
It's the oldest book in theBible.
It was written before, I guess,the documentation, the
(05:47):
manuscripts, it's the oldestrecorded book, all right, so
it's not before Genesis andparts of Genesis, but what I'm
working through is actually achronological view of the Bible,
and so let me tell you guysthis, this version I don't even
know what version it is.
I just I don't.
I'm not good with technologymyself, so I probably you could
have told me that there wasgoing to be an eclipse, and I
(06:09):
wouldn't even know it, eventhough I have all this
technology in front of me,because I just mash buttons, all
right.
And so I'm listening to thisaudio Bible, and I don't know
what version it is or anything,but it's just really cool.
And it puts the book of Jobright after the Tower of Babel
in the book of Genesis.
Ok, so that's where it slottedthe chronological part of Job.
(06:33):
And I got to thinking aboutthat, I got to wondering huh, so
yeah, it makes sense that Jobwasn't written before the
beginning of the world.
Ok, that makes sense, right.
Yes a little bit the beginningof the world.
Okay, that makes sense, right,and it probably makes sense that
Job was, after Adam and Eve,the first people that recorded
in the Bible.
Okay, that makes sense too.
And then through the family,through Noah and through the
(06:53):
destruction of the earth,through the flood, right, and
then it gets to the Tower ofBabel and then boom, that kind
of does make sense.
It makes a little bit of sensethat maybe Job got to what?
Where was he?
The land of us is, I think,where he was, because he was.
He was kind of scattered abroad, maybe.
Maybe not him personally, buthis family was scattered abroad
(07:14):
after the tower of babel it's.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's quite possible and I know we've talked about it
.
But I I just struggle with thewhole book and I won't go back
into all the details.
But you'll see kind of how wediscussed the end here, I
believe, is more of like thefinale of kind of what he went
through.
But it's just a struggle for meon kind of how this whole book
(07:40):
played out, how things playedout for Job.
You know highs, lows, high,kind of like that sandwich
technique where you had thebread and you had the stuff in
between.
Then you had some more bread atthe end.
But we'll dive into it and I'msure I'll share plenty of
thoughts on it.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Does he have a lot of thoughts, Michelle, on this?
Oh, he does, on this one, forsure this is probably one we've
talked about more than most forsure this stuff is the stuff
that keeps him up at nightthinking, huh, and until you act
like you're gonna say something, then all of a sudden he's
snoring.
I know how player plays thatgame.
Uh, yes, so.
(08:19):
So he's living in the land ofus and I, I I kind of had this
revelation as I was listening tothis.
Okay, and it may not beanything new and I may have
shared it with you before.
Can I back up a little bit?
Sure, can I tell you guys aboutwhenever I was a young, young
Christian, right, I mean, justout of the baptismal womb, you
(08:40):
could kind of say, okay, I don'tknow if it's ever been said
like that, but I did, I'll turnit back womb.
You could kind of say, okay, Idon't know if it's ever been
said like that, but I did.
And we used to have.
We had these scripture readingsat the beginning of church and
they asked me to read thescripture.
This guy said, hey, you canread the scripture.
Now you're a baptized believer,you can read scripture.
I said, okay, yeah, no problem,no problem, I'll be happy to do
(09:03):
it.
I'm always a guy who doesn'tunderstand the severity of the
situation, so I'll just dosomething right.
And he gave me this book of Jobto read in front of the thing.
That was just one chapter orjust like five verses or
something, whatever the chapterhe was preaching that day, and
so he just gave me this littlesnippet to read, right?
So I got up in front of thecongregation and.
I don't know diddly do aboutanything about the Bible
(09:25):
especially.
So I got up there and I got mybook turned open book of Job and
I get up there in front ofeverybody and I look out at the
crowd, just like you're supposedto.
I do a good job with that and Isaid today I'll be reading from
the book of Job.
That's where I walked into myChristian life.
I didn't know it.
(09:46):
Hey, it looks like Job, doesn'tit?
I mean, I didn't mispronounceit, no, it didn't even give me a
heads up.
I was wondering if that's kindof like an initiation into the
church is what it was.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
There you go.
Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah, I mean, that's exactlyhow it looks, that's how most
would pronounce it if you hadn'theard it elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Very true.
So that's how the book kind ofkicks off, is you got Job being
here and he's a great man in theland of Uz and what I've what I
?
The way I pictured the book ofJob this time was it's kind of
like a play, michelle, whereit's this physical reality realm
(10:29):
and then a spiritual realm, butwith us being able to read the
entirety of Job instead of justseeing it kind of happen.
As it goes.
You get this physical element ofJob where at the beginning of
it it tells us he's living inthe book of Uz and he's got all
these kids, he's a reputable man, he's got all this money, he
seems to be a man of highprestige and honor here in the
(10:51):
city.
So we're looking at thatphysical thing, if you're
looking at Job from a placeperspective.
But then the scene changes andthen we get to see the spiritual
realm where things are going onthat we don't necessarily know
what's going on from ourphysical standpoints that we're
in right now, but there's aspiritual world, a spiritual
(11:13):
realm that we just can't evensee and there's stuff that's
going on there.
So I envisioned it like a playwhere I kept looking at this
physical realm, that Job and hisfriends and his family were in,
and then there was a spiritualrealm where we see God and Satan
, and then, at the end of thebook, we also see God again
replying.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
God, of course, is intermingling in between the
physical and the spiritual realm, and so is Satan, it seems like
, michelle, it does and it feelslike Pierre struggles with this
because he's like it's likeSatan was like, hey, you should
do this, and God's like, yeah,that's a good idea, I think I
will.
And like that just frustratesPierre to no end and I have to
(11:55):
say I understand it.
It is perplexing, for sure, andit's it's odd for us to see,
and I think it's hard for us towrap our brains around.
Um, I guess you just kind ofhave to go to the place where
God knows more than we do and heunderstands what that purpose
(12:15):
truly was.
And we may never know it untilwe can go ask him.
But yeah, it's, it's crazy forsure.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
But yeah, it's crazy for sure, pierre, when that
happens, when you see Job in hisphysical realm and he gets
attacked by Satan, right, and Imean everything just starts his
world starts collapsing on him.
It just starts collapsing in onhim a little bit and then it
says, pierre and I bring this upwith you because you and I have
been friends now for a longtime and we've been through some
(12:48):
things together, actually juston a personal level he gets
surrounded by his friends, bythree of his friends, and they
just sit in silence for likeseven days.
Now, you know, I wouldn't beable to do that for seven days,
pierre, but they just sit therein silence and then when Job
finally says something after—Iguess I got to back up a little
(13:08):
bit because his world, job'sworld, craters in on him.
God allows Satan—if you haven'tread this, you need to go back
and read.
Like, start the book of Job andjust start reading, and it'll
just trip you out.
And we have other episodestalking more about this later,
talking more about this inearlier past episodes.
Job just everything gets takenaway.
All his children get taken away, all his riches get taken away.
(13:31):
The only thing he's left withis his wife.
I mean, he lost like what,seven, nine children, something
like that I can't even rememberhow many it is, and just an
upright guy.
And I'm sure Job had to besitting there, pierre, like what
in the world happened to me?
What happened, what did I do?
And then his friends surroundhim and they just sit in silence
.
And then, when they broke theirsilence, job was just talking
(13:53):
about how he wished he was neverborn.
You know, we talk about Jobbeing a strong man and a
faithful man and those thingsare true, but at this point, the
very first things he says outof his mouth is that he wishes
he would have never have beenborn.
You know, he said if there werepeople who are good at cursing,
I wish they would just cursethe day I was born.
(14:13):
Is what he said, pierre, how doyou handle a situation like
that with somebody whose life isjust turning in on them?
You seem to be a lot better atbeing able to be silent and just
being with people than I am.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Well, I think it's tough.
And again, this book is astruggle because you think about
the stature.
So think about where he was inlife.
Things were going really welland, from everything we're told,
he was doing things the rightway.
He was a righteous man.
(14:49):
So put yourself in his shoes.
Whether it's you Wes, whetherit's the listener listening, put
yourself in the shoes thatyou're living life right.
Quote unquote Things are goingwell for you.
You're trying to do God's workas well in the process, and then
(15:12):
it's all just taken away in aninstant.
Now what we see is basicallythe devil, satan, trying to
basically convince God thatJob's's gonna not be the guy he
is.
He's not gonna be thatrighteous man.
Once all his stuff's removedfrom him, once all his people
(15:35):
are taken away, all his things,his property, he's not gonna be
the man that you think he is.
And again, the struggle is that, like you said, god allows it,
for one allows Satan to kind oftake all these things from Job
and not touch him.
But just being in that situation, yeah, why would you want to
(15:59):
live?
It'd be really hard, right?
So, yeah, you want that to beremoved because you're doing I
know the Bible.
We don't know where the Biblewas at this point.
But if you're doing in today'sworld what the Bible says to do
you're living a good life,you're righteous, you're doing
everything you believe youshould be doing and you're a
(16:20):
godly man and everything getstaken away, it's hard to cope
with that, it's hard to adjustwith that.
So, yeah, you would definitelywant to be, I think, cursed in
that moment.
Everything got taken away fromyou.
So you kind of want to be takenaway from the situation
yourself.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well, I think that basically the whole gist of this
chapter Job in and of itself islike you know, it's confusing
to us, but we just have to trustGod, even when we don't
understand him and even whenhe's like thoroughly confusing
to us.
That's kind of the point isthat we don't understand it, but
(17:02):
we still have to trust.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, but it's hard, and then the silence.
Like I'm, sometimes there'sjust not words in situations
when you see loved ones, friends, going through a hardship,
there are situations wherenothing you're going to say in
that moment is going to takeaway the pain or going to make
(17:28):
that person feel better, butbeing there and just sitting
there so they can see thatyou're there.
If ever there's a time thatthey decide to talk about it,
you're, you're right there, butyou're not you're not forcing it
, you're not, you know, rushingthem into saying something they
(17:50):
may not want to say or sayingsomething wrong because they
feel pressure to say it.
You're just kind of sitting inin peace at, to some extent,
it's true, when there's there'sno words that are going to come
out of your mouth that are goingto make that situation better.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, that's true, that, no, that's right.
And obviously his friendsdidn't help the situation much
at all, as because whenever Jobwould get done going through you
know his, his, just, I wish Iwas never born his friends would
be like, well, yeah, becauseyou've obviously done something
wrong.
That's the only reason why allthis is happening to you,
(18:24):
because you are keeping somekind of sin secret between you
and God.
But here's where this spiritualand physical realm come into
play.
They're just looking at it froma—they're trying to make the
spiritual realm and the physicalrealm match.
But that's not at all what wasgoing on.
(18:45):
We know the story and we knowthat's not why Job was going
through what he was goingthrough.
We know that story, but we seeit in the physical realm as oh,
that makes a lot of sense.
And his friends saw it like oh,that makes a lot of sense.
He's done something wrong andso God is punishing him.
But God wasn't punishing Job.
He wasn't punishing him, he wasallowing it to happen.
(19:07):
But it wasn't a punishment forsomething that Job had done
wrong.
It was more of an encouragingthing for all of us that get to
read it afterwards and get tosee the play play out.
We get to see that somebody canbe strong through a lot of bad
things that happen to them intheir life and they aren't
(19:27):
necessarily being punished foranything.
Job wasn't punished, you know,but that's how I was friends
looked at it, so that's thatplay thing that I was talking
about.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Well, yeah, I mean, if anything, you're gonna try to
reason why something'shappening in this world.
That's just human nature.
You're going to be like, okay,well, maybe this took place or
maybe that happened.
If someone gets mad at you thathas no right or no reason to be
mad at you.
You're still going to bethinking what did I do to make
(19:59):
this person upset?
And you're going to startthinking back.
And it could be nothing at all,but that's still just going to
be thinking.
What did I do to make thisperson upset?
And you're going to startthinking back and it could be
nothing at all, but that's stilljust going to be the human
nature.
So if you see someone goingthrough a hardship, let's say a
homeless person on the street,we're going to assume that
something took place that putthem in that situation.
That's just human nature.
(20:20):
We don't know what that's goingto be.
We're going to make assumptions.
I know people make assumptionsthat they want money for drugs,
they want money for alcohol.
Those are all assumptions thatare made based off someone's
circumstances and the friendsquote unquote in this situation
were doing the same to Job thatclearly, given what your
lifestyle was and where you'reat now, you clearly had to do
(20:42):
something wrong from a sinstandpoint, upsetting God type
of situation.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Job says something interesting and all that where
he well, he says a lot ofinteresting things and so do his
friends, right, but Job says,you know, I'm just like a hired
hand, it's kind of what he says.
And he just says I'm doing, I'mjust supposed to do what I'm
supposed to do.
I got to do what's right andand um, some recovery process
(21:11):
classes that I taught that Iwent through myself.
You know, it's always you gotto do the next right thing, even
if you think you messed up,even if you think you've done
something wrong, or even ifsomebody has done something
wrong to you.
Ask yourself this questionwhat's the next right thing to
do?
And then do it.
And and you know, if all yourintentions are trying to do the
(21:34):
right things, you're going tostumble upon doing the right
things, even if you accidentallydo the wrong thing.
Sometimes you know you'reyou're going to stumble upon
doing the right things, even ifyou accidentally do the wrong
thing.
Sometimes, if you're practicingthe right things over and over
and over again, people are goingto know that you are practicing
those right things over andover and over again and that's
what you're going to be knownfor, even if there is a slip up
(21:55):
there.
Even if an intention of a rightthing turns out to be a wrong
thing to do, it's still tryingto do the right things and
you're just piling up the rightthings whenever you're trying to
do them.
That's.
That's what I think Job istrying to do while he's sitting
down here going.
I just wish I didn't have tomake this decision.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
You think about so think about it like from like a,
let's say, police officerstandpoint.
From a police officerstandpoint.
When you're driving out on theroad, are you following rules to
follow them, to do the nextright thing, or are you
following rules thinking that anofficer's around and you might
(22:37):
get in trouble for not stoppingat that stop sign or stopping at
that stoplight, or for speedingor not having your seatbelt on?
If you make it a habit of justdoing those right things, odds
are you're not going to getpulled over.
If you're doing it just to notget caught, odds are you're
going to eventually get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I'm not one to ask about rules for the police
officers and laws and stuff likethat.
I drive down the middle of theroad here.
I'm just going to be honestwith you.
I do, but I drive the breadtrucks a lot of times and so I
give myself a little bit ofclearance over there on the
right-hand side.
So I think of them more assuggestions and you know I'm
(23:22):
trying to abide by the rules,but I'm also going.
Well, they did that soeverybody could be safe, and a
bread truck riding real close tothat yellow line over there on
my right-hand side ain't verysafe.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's just what I'm thinking.
You just said you tried toabide by the rules, so just that
alone is going to put you inbetter situations than those
that don't and are just simplytrying not to get caught.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, if I get pulled over for that, I'll let them
know that you told me I could.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
How about that?
So throughout all this, jobstarts questioning God and
really petitioning God in thebook of Job and he starts, you
know, just begging him.
Just tell me what's wrong, justtell me the answer, just do
whatever it is I have to do,just end my life or just do
something, god, you know, hejust kind of starts doing that.
And then we see in thatspiritual realm that God had
(24:12):
been hearing all of these thingsand then all of a sudden the
Lord starts challenging Job,kind of answering Job.
Now, keep in mind, during allthis, job is having some dreams
too.
It says where his world isgetting shaken and I wonder if
God wasn't communicating withJob throughout some of those
dreams where Job is justterrified and in a panic, or
(24:36):
maybe even we don't know, maybeSatan is doing something in
those dreams too, where Job'sjust waking up, just where he
doesn't know what's going on,and those dreams are very real
to him.
I'm not a big dreamer, I don'tdream really hard to where I can
remember them or anything.
I don't know if you guys havethose kind of dreams where
(24:56):
they're just real, real dreams.
I guess every once in a whilewhen I'm trying to fall asleep.
I'll be sitting there andyou'll be trying to fall asleep
and then all of a sudden you'refalling or something and then
just before you hit something,bam, your whole body just shakes
and you wake up.
It's like what in the worldjust happened.
It's like I'm glad I woke upbecause that was obviously going
(25:17):
to hurt.
But I don't have like dreamdreams like that.
I don't get into a real REMsleepy kind of thing.
I don't know.
What do you guys do?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
for sure is when I was in high school, I my room
was across from my parents' roomand I heard like a scream and I
woke up and I thought I woke upand walked across the hall and
both my parents were murdered.
And of course I screamed in mysleep, apparently and I thought
I woke up from the dream and mymom was and like I, my mom was
there and then all of a suddenshe wasn't and I got up and
(26:07):
walked and saw the same thingand I was like, oh my gosh, it's
real.
And then I actually woke up.
Like it was crazy.
It was like I woke up inside mydream and then it happened
again, like it was nuts, but Imean outside of that.
I've had some odd things happenin dreams, but that was back
when I slept a lot more hours.
Now I don't dream very often,so I don't.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I don't really have those type of memory dreams, but
I can tell when Michelle does.
I can tell when dream, whendream Pierre probably wasn't the
best character in those dreams.
When you wake up and you'regetting, like me, mugged and
you've been asleep for seven,eight hours, you know there's
possibly nothing that you couldhave done wrong and you're like,
(26:52):
oh, dream Pierre was at itagain.
That guy's a wild guy.
I tell you.
I cannot be held accountablefor the things that dream Pierre
does in Michelle's dreams.
I want that on record.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I haven't had that in a very long time, but he's not
wrong and it's very real.
So it made me very mad.
But my best friend does havethose dreams a lot and God very
clearly and I think I've saidthat before very clearly speaks
to her in her dreams and it's,it's just, it's cool, but it's
(27:26):
also a little scary sometimes,like cause it's usually not
great if she's dreamt aboutsomebody, and so if she tells me
she had a dream about me, I'mlike, uh, why, what's going on?
So but he, he does speak to herthat way.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I knew, pierre, I knew that Michelle would have
some kind of dream story.
I did, I just did, you know, uh, and I, I jumped to verse 40 or
chapter 40.
I jumped to chapter 40.
God has talked to Job for alittle while.
Job has made his petitions toGod and questioned God and all
his friends and all that stuff.
And then I love what God saysto Job in verse 6.
(28:06):
Then the Lord answered Job froma whirlwind.
Now I don't know what thatmeans.
I'm just going to be honestwith you.
I don't know what that means.
What's a whirlwind?
How's he answering him in awhirlwind?
It's the opposite of the stillsmall voice that was in a breeze
, that was answering one of theprophets, I believe.
And God said brace yourself,like a man, because I got some
(28:26):
questions for you and you got toanswer them.
That's just a strong statement,you know, could you imagine?
hearing that from God.
It's like oh no, not only do Ihave boils all over me, but I
think I just tinkled down my legtoo.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He's been questioning too, so Joe's been.
He's been kind of letting Godhave it.
He wants the answers.
Now you're about to get him,you're like, well, maybe I don't
want the answers anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
There's a, there's a lot of things in here, pierre,
that I could look at and I startquestioning.
You know, I could say in verse13 of that same chapter, job 40,
take a look at the behemothwhich I made, just as I made you
.
It eats grass like an ox, seesit powerful loins and its
muscles of its belly.
What is the behemoth?
You know, that's what I want toknow.
(29:13):
Is it the elephant?
Is it the rhinoceros?
I listened to that one a coupleof times and I'm like probably
a hippopotamus, that's what Iwas thinking, but it is called
something.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
It's its own creature that's no longer around.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, and it could be and it could be, but it's kind
of cool to look at.
And earlier I think it's inchapter—Joe Bench is the
Leviathan in there and it's like, okay, what's the Leviathan?
You kind of want to know whatit is an alligator or sea?
(29:48):
It's a sea monster, you know,hey, and this is, I looked it up
, it's the new livingtranslation, this is, and I'm
telling you, they start talkingabout a dragon.
They start talking about adragon in here is what it is,
because it sounds like aalligator that flies through the
air and has smoke and fire, youknow, and it so it sounds like
a dragon it's, it's quitepossible.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I mean I I know humans have evolved, but I I
can't see that some human justsimply made up the, the dragon,
that that comes from somewhereand it could be the bible well
and, and you know there's somany, there's so many drawings
of it I don't want to saypictures, but drawings of it in
(30:25):
just old things that I've seenever since I was a kid that
looked like they were really old.
Whenever I was a kid, justseeing pictures of them and it's
kind of like, oh, I always justI assumed that dragons were
dragons and I wasn't.
I never thought are theyfictitious or were they real?
I never thought that, becauseit looked like a dinosaur to me
(30:46):
and a dinosaur was always real,I was told.
So I just put it in the samecategory as a dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, why not?
I mean, there's so many thingsthat are unknown and I think
that's kind of what God you knowgoes into with Job when he's
answering some of his questions.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I think so too.
Is that, hey, there's a lot ofthings, job, that you don't know
, but they are, and you can'ttell me that they're not because
you see the after effects oryou see the, I guess, the
evidence of them.
You know that a goat in themountains has babies because you
(31:31):
see the evidence of it, butyou've never seen one.
I have, dope, you've never seena little baby eagle?
I have.
Are they called eaglets?
I had no idea.
Little baby eagles they'recalled eaglets.
Yeah, they gotta be calledeaglets.
You've never.
You you've never seen them, joe, but I have.
(31:53):
But you see the evidence ofthem and and that that speaks to
their being a creator.
Right, because we don't get tosee the actual creation of some
things, but we see the evidenceof it, which makes us say, okay,
well, something had to alwaysbe right, something had to
always be, because there'salways been something Right yeah
(32:18):
it has to be the case.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
That's why, like I, I just can't get behind the whole
big boom stuff like it justdoesn't make sense.
Things are are too laid outperfectly for it to just be a a
series of coincidences.
That chemicals blendingtogether to all you know make
(32:41):
this perfect.
You know rotating Earth, thesun rising when it's supposed to
, the moon, the human body andhow it functions, all the other
animals and you know how theirbodily functions, the mind, the
heart, how everything kind ofgoes together.
Like how can you justspontaneously have a combustion
and all that just fall intoplace?
(33:02):
For me it doesn't add up.
I know everyone has their ownbeliefs.
Everyone has their faith insomething, whether it's faith in
nothing.
They have that faith there andthat's just not something I can
put my faith in as just a randomcombustion, knowing all the
things that I know right now.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Speaking of random combustion.
I was just looking at that, atthe Leviathan again and
everything there in chapter 41,I guess it is.
I want to emphasize Leviathan'slimbs, God says, and its
enormous strength and gracefulform.
Who can strip off its hide?
(33:46):
Who can penetrate its doublelayer of armor?
Who can pry open its jaws?
For its teeth are terrible.
The scale on its back are likerows of shields, tightly sealed
together.
They are so close together thatno air can get between them.
Each scale sticks tight to thenext.
The inner lock-in cannot bepenetrated.
When it sneezes, it flasheslight.
Its eyes are like the red ofthe dawn.
(34:07):
Lightning leaps from its mouth.
Flames of fire flash out.
Smoke streams from its nostrilslike steam from a pot.
Heated over burning bushesrushes Its breath would kindle.
Coals for flames shoot from itsmouth.
The tremendous strength inLeviathan's neck strikes terror
wherever it goes.
And that's gotta be a dragon.
Sounds like it to me.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It does.
It does sound like a dragon,leviathan the dragon.
Is that a book.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Could be.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
What do you think about Puff?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
the Magic Dragon.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
We got Leviathan the dragon Hell.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh yeah, let's do it.
Leviathan makes the water boilwith its commotion.
It stirs, the stirs, the depth,depths.
Like a pot of ointment.
The water glistens in its wake,making the sea look white.
Nothing on earth is as equal.
No other creature is sofearless.
Of all the creatures, it is theproudest, it is the king of the
beasts, that's.
(35:08):
That's that makes me stop andjust go.
What in the world is going on?
You know?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean that and the behemoth, so you might kind of
put them both together.
And there's some, there's somefear there with kind of the
descriptions, but even with thatthere's some.
It's kind of like there's somesome some majesty that takes
place and just the the power ofthese beasts that are are being
described.
So it's it's a good and bad,it's like a good and evil type
(35:39):
of thing.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
So throughout all that, god, essentially, I think
in the gist of it all, eventhough we don't understand
everything, you got to look atthe big picture of it.
If it's a play, you got to kindof look at the whole, the whole
thing and just let it besummarized for you a little bit
God, god does like rock, doesGod?
God God says to Job.
He says what's your name, job,or what's your name?
(36:04):
And Job's about to say his nameand God says it doesn't matter
what your name is, be quiet andknow your role right, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Know your role and shut your mouth right.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
And then he tells Job's friends kind of the same
thing, except he tells hisfriends hey, you didn't speak of
me the same way Job did.
You spoke wrongly of me.
You need to go make a sacrificeto kind of get back right with
me.
I'm sure they ran to go do thesacrifice, by the way, because
they'd seen what Job was goingthrough.
They didn't want to go throughthe same thing.
But God is just letting Job know, his friends know what their
(36:44):
role is, and I think it's thesame role for us.
We're to be good stewards ofthe things that we have, whether
that's our health, whetherthat's riches, whether that's
whatever it is.
We need to be good stewards ofwhat we have time.
We need to be good stewardswith that as well, and we need
to make the most of it.
We don't know when we'll getafflicted with something that
(37:07):
isn't necessarily from God.
God may allow it, but it's forus to look like.
It's for us to make God looklike champion.
Okay, that's what I thinksuffering is for for us to make
God look like a champion andwhere to know our role and to go
through it.
If we're in an army, which, youknow, the Bible talks about a
(37:31):
Christian being in an army, asoldier, that we're to do
whatever we're commanded to do,and sometimes that's a tough
thing to do.
I know for me I've become abetter man since I've had
children right.
Since I've been a husband.
I've become a better handymanaround the house.
(37:53):
That's what kind of man I'vebecome, and I've had to do some
dirty dirty things.
The other day my daughter's sinkwas just clogged I guess it's
the girl's sink and I got the17-year-old, I got the
eight-year-old, the17-year-old's got makeup and
hair and junk in there, and thenthe eight-year-old comes
running in with a bunch of rocksand so she's cleaning off rocks
(38:15):
in the sink and there's justdirt and rocks in the sink and
finally the thing was backed up.
But before, before I had kids,I never had to unclog a sink and
and I never had to getunderneath there and undo the
little, the little um nuts andbolts from underneath there,
whatever it is, and and undo it,get the bucket and let the
(38:37):
water drip in there, and thenyou take it out.
And I called the teenager inthere because I want the
teenager to know how to do this,first of all because I
anticipate her having many aclogged sink in her life.
I'm sure you're right.
So I do it and she's ew, ew,you know, and this gray black
water is coming out, ew, ew.
(38:58):
I don't have to tell the8-year-old to come in there.
She's my little helper, soshe's always in wherever I am.
She's my little shadow andshe's, you know, ooh, cool.
You know she likes the dirt.
And I showed my daughter, my17-year-old I pull this big
thing of hair out from there.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Sure do, sure do.
But you know, as a good soldierin my house, that's my role,
that's what I got to do.
It's not fun, it's disgusting,I don't enjoy it, but it has to
be done, and so that's my role.
(39:37):
Sometimes I have to go throughthese things that I don't
necessarily want to do in aposition crawled under the sink
on my back that I don't want tobe in, but I got to do it.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Because that's what I'm supposed to do, and I think
that's true.
I mean, I've said over and overagain through you know, these
episodes and just in general,that you know the suffering the
suffering that we go throughdoes, at least for me.
It makes me more thankful thanI ever would have known how to
be in the good times without it,and oftentimes it draws me much
(40:12):
closer to God because I have torely on him, and so it's like
it's a teaching moment and in ablessing, in disguise, with a
lot of times.
Um, you know I, I just thinkthat we don't, we're not apt to
learn the lessons the way thatwe do If we don't go through the
(40:34):
suffering or the frustrationsor loss or whatever that we go
through.
Um, you know I, like I've saidbefore, I appreciate Pierre and
Olivia, and in entirelydifferent way than I ever would
have even fathomed how to dobefore my miscarriage or from
bad relationships or, you know,loss of loved ones, whatever it
might be.
So I think that you know it's,it's perspective in those things
(40:59):
and how you look at it and thenwhat you do with it.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
That wasn't my fault.
The Sikh wasn't my fault, right?
No, I had to do it because thatwas my role, and that's just
what I have to do.
And I was paying the price,though, of what other people's I
was paying the consequences forother people's decisions.
I was changing the oil theother day, and I do this.
(41:24):
I don't know if anybody elsechanges.
Peter, do you change your oilof your cars?
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Nope.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I enjoy doing it.
I got a lot of cars andvehicles, bread trucks.
I got to do it when you changethe oil.
I got this big drain pan thing.
Well, I forgot to take the plugout of the middle of the drain
pan and I was changing the oilin my truck first, because I
hate doing that one.
It's just got all kinds ofthings that I got to get out of
the way.
It's just the hardest one tochange.
So I changed it in my truckfirst and the oil was still hot,
(41:56):
warm, hot.
It was hot on the warm side,but warm on the hot side, and so
the oil started accumulating inthe pan right and I said why is
it stopped up?
Oh, I forgot to take the drainplug out.
So I hurried up and took the.
I was like I got to stick myhand in there.
It's going to be kind of hot.
And I went ahead and did itanyway, otherwise I was going to
(42:18):
have oil all over the place.
So I put my hand in there and Itwisted it real quick and I got
it out and I started rubbing itoff.
But it was hot.
I was a little my hand burned,a little bit burned.
Yeah, yeah, that was my decision, right, that was my mistake.
I had to suffer my ownconsequences, but I had to do it
again.
You know, I had to do somethingat that time because that's
(42:39):
just what I had to do, but itwas by my own fault.
There are things that we'regoing to run into in life where
it's not our fault.
Sometimes it is our fault, butwhatever it is, we just have to
tackle it head on and we have toget through it, knowing that
God is on our side the entiretime, and if he is for us, then
who can be against us?
What are we going to face thatGod has not already known?
(43:01):
What was going to happen thatgod has not faced?
If we can entrust our livesinto our creator's hands, then
whatever comes our way, we canjust turn over into his hands
and let him help us with it.
That, no matter what it is.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
I think that's what joe kind of what he had to learn
.
I I don't like the way he hadto learn it personally uh,
that's just my opinion but Imean that's what he, that's what
he had to learn.
I don't like the way he had tolearn it personally, that's just
my opinion, but I mean that'swhat he ultimately had to walk
away with.
Because he's asking questions,he's calling God unjust and
God's basically saying you know,you're not in a position to
(43:35):
make that decision, that I'munjust, and ultimately tells Joe
we live in a non-perfect worldand that's kind of how, why
suffering takes place.
This is a fallen world, it'snon-perfect.
But if we truly believe he's aperfect God, then we have to
trust him and sometimes it'shard to trust without that
(43:59):
conversation.
So you know, job ultimately gothis answers from God and I feel
like it's difficult if youdon't feel like you're getting
those answers.
In the same situation, maybeyou're not at a boiling point
like Job was to where God maybeis hearing you, but I think
that's kind of the.
(44:20):
What brought Job out of it wasthe fact that he got his answers
clearly from God and was toldto just trust me.
And when you've lost everything.
You have nothing left whenyou've lost it all.
I mean, how hard is it to trustat that point when you have
(44:41):
nothing else to lose?
If you get the word from God totrust him, you have no other
point.
You have no other way to go atthat point.
So I think that's what tookplace with Job and again, I'm
not sure his choices were whatled him to his downfall, but he
got in that situation.
(45:01):
So he then had choices onwhether he was going to trust
God or not once he was in thatcircumstance.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Chapter 42, verse 7,.
After the Lord had finishedspeaking these things to Job, he
said to Elphaz the Temanite Iam angry with you and your two
friends, for you have not spokenaccurately about me, as my
servant Job has.
So take seven bulls and sevenrams and go to my servant Job
and offer a burnt offering foryourselves.
My servant Job will pray foryou and I will accept his prayer
on your behalf.
I will not treat you as youdeserve, for you have not spoken
(45:32):
accurately about me as myservant Job has.
So Eliphaz and Temanite andBildad the Shuite and Zophar the
Nephite did as the Lordcommanded them and the Lord
accepted Job's prayer.
When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes
.
In fact, the Lord gave himtwice as much as before.
I love how, even though—youthink Job was angry at God,
(46:02):
questioning God at the veryleast.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I think he could even say that Job also didn't speak
correctly.
Yeah, god just kind of showedhim mercy because of how he went
about things versus his friend.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
I agree.
When I heard God say that, Iwas like, really he didn't say
anything bad.
It sure sounded like he wassaying bad stuff.
That's what I was thinking, butmaybe it was the heart and
intentions of the heart too.
Maybe I don't know, I don'tknow what it was there that did
strike me as peculiar.
But I love how God even thoughhim and Job didn't seem to be
(46:40):
buddy buddies at the time, eventhough, like him and Job didn't
seem to be buddy buddies at thetime when God's saying gird
yourself up like a man, you know, I'm ready to ask you some
questions.
Then he just turns around,though, and he says you didn't
speak well of me, like myservant Job, did you know?
You go and make these offeringsand my servant Job will pray
for you, and I think that's cool.
(47:03):
Job never left God's side In hisheart of hearts.
I don't think that he leftGod's side.
Maybe in his mind he wasthinking out loud, and maybe he
was questioning things.
Maybe he wasn't doing it toeverybody in the entire world,
just these three friends, youknow, and his wife.
Maybe, too we won't even getgoing to his wife, because I
don't want you in trouble,pierre I mean I am curious why
(47:27):
she was the one that was left.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's like if satan like didn't touch her, like wait
a minute, was she?
She part of the problem.
But anyway.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Even paul had a thorn in his side.
Paul had a thorn in his sidetoo, pierre.
So I don't know, but I justlove how God looked at Job as
still being his servantthroughout all that and counted
him as the one who was going topray for his friends.
I think that that was reallycool, even though Job was
(47:57):
obviously struggling.
And then, michelle, as you know, job was restored and he
received twice as much as he hadbefore.
And what a great example it hadto be, not only to Job's
friends immediate friends therebut into all the land about him,
because this had—I don't thinkthis is a made-up story.
(48:19):
This is something I was thinkingabout too while I was listening
to it.
Is this just a made-up story?
Is Job just a made-up story?
But once again, as we talkedabout in prior episodes, we
learn names, first names, maybelast names, or at least their
kind of genealogy, or wherethey're from, where they lived.
We learn all these things.
(48:39):
There's specifics about this.
So I don't think this is amade-up story.
I think this is a specificstory and we actually get to see
what's going on.
If it's a play, we get to seewhat's going on behind the
scenes too, with that spiritualrealm of things and the physical
realm of things so we can havethings make more sense to us.
(49:00):
But Michelle, getting all thatstuff restored to twice the
amount, that had to be a greattestimony to all those people
around him.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Oh, I can't imagine that it wasn't.
I mean, if I'm witnessing thatand I see it, I'm going to be
like, okay, I see he wentthrough all of that, but boy is
he blessed and so he's doingsomething right and, like you
said, it's a great example yeah,we see it in life, yeah, we see
(49:27):
it in each other, like folksdown on their luck and hit rock
bottom.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And you come across them years later and you know,
gosh restored them and changedtheir lives.
So it's, it's good to see thosemoments.
Sometimes you don't, and that'sthe thing.
So sometimes there's not thatJob ending where someone is
(49:55):
restored and you start toquestion so why is that?
Why didn't they get potentiallyrestored on their own
circumstances?
But again, that's not for us toto be the judge of.
But, yeah, it's good to seethose those wins.
When people get knocked down,everything gets taken away from
them and they, they're, they'rebrought up again.
You know, I'm saying god, godpicks them up.
(50:15):
And and it was jeremy camp he'slost the artist, lost his wife
and you know the battle withcancer.
And I know he's remarried nowhas multiple kids really big
time Christian artist.
So things like that happen inreal life.
It's not just a job story.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Well, and I think sometimes we can perceive that
someone has is struggling andreally they're not like.
And what I mean by that is Ispent most of my life probably
thinking that, like my brother,who was disabled, was struggling
or or you know, had his ownissues, and that you know why.
(50:59):
Why did he have to be that way?
And I remember very vividly theday that I found out I was
pregnant for Olivia um saw alady at a doctor's appointment I
had to go to and she ended upbeing the first person I told
that I was pregnant and she hada son who was disabled, but he
was walking and talking and mybrother couldn't.
And I remember thinking, man,what I wouldn't give to have a
(51:21):
conversation with him.
And it was years later that youknow, as I'm kind of reading
through the Bible, I'm like, wow, Michelle, that's really
selfish of you.
Because my brother who passedaway last week was truly the
happiest person I have everknown and he is fully restored
now.
(51:41):
And I remember that when it hitme that I was selfish for
wanting to have like thatconversation with him, because
if he's happy and God made himthe way that he wanted him, if
he could know how hurtful andcruel this world could be, or
understand maybe hiscircumstances a little better.
(52:04):
Would he have been as happy ashe was?
And I don't think so.
So he was just such aninspiration.
He was the biggest smile,literally, you've ever seen.
And you know, smile throughyour suffering, smile through
your circumstances.
So I think that's a beautifulthing and hopefully that can be
(52:25):
an inspiration to others,because he truly was and is
still.
So, yeah, smile.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
Smile, no matter what it.
There's that one of thosefantasy football ladies, pierre,
that does that weekly roundupkind of the NFL.
I think her, I think her andher brother.
Her brother might have cerebralpalsy or something and her dad
is like runs with him onmarathons and stuff like that.
(52:56):
I think that's.
I think that's the wholeconnection there with that as
well.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, I think you're right.
I mean, you just don't knowwhat kind of impact that.
I mean he clearly had an impacton people, and he did on me for
sure, and it was.
It was a beautiful thing to seeat his service and and to hear
all of the stories and thingsabout you know this, this boy,
this man who couldn't walk ortalk, had this profound impact
(53:21):
on people and it's, it'sbeautiful.
So I can only pray to have thatmuch impact.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
I think you're talking about less.
I think I met her at the one ofthe hall of fame games and I
can't bring her up because Idon't want Michelle to get mad.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Michelle, we are sorry for your loss.
I'm sure I speak on behalf ofall of the Finding Faith and
Losing Sleep squad that's outthere, I believe so we could say
that for sure, and we are.
All of us get touched bydifferent individuals at
different times in our life andthey all have their purposes,
and we are thankful that Job hadhis purpose in our life as well
to give us strength whenever weare weak, and we can see that
(54:00):
if we are good soldiers, we canmake it through and God will be
faithful to the end, no matterwhat.
Pierre, we failed to tellanybody how to find us.
We failed to encourage anybodyto leave any kind of ratings or
anything on the listeningplatform to help the show get
out there a little bit more, toencourage others.
Not for our sake at all, pierre, we haven't made a dime off
(54:20):
this show, right?
Speaker 2 (54:23):
If not, if, if not, that's been by by choice.
I still get like adopportunities like a couple
times a week, um but do theywant me to talk in any of them?
they, they do not, it's morewanting to play, you know,
snippets of their show on oursso they can kind of probably
increase their listenership.
But it's all right, we're notdoing that for that.
(54:46):
We're doing that just to kindof talk through life and talk
through the things that keep usup at night.
But if you do again have anycomments, suggestions, you can
reach out to us atfindingfaithlosingsleep at
gmailcom.
We're also over on the Twitterslash xmachine at Fighting Faith
Pod.
You can find us on any podcastplatform.
(55:07):
So feel free to leave us areview, leave us comments there.
We appreciate anything you wantus to touch on, anything you
want us to ask.
Definitely, shoot it our wayand we will engage.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
Yeah, and we say that about the podcast platforms
because you can share it withyour friends on whatever you'd
like to share it with, in hopesto encourage them as well.
Somehow, some way, if we'vedone that for you, we ask that
you do that for someone else.
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