Overthinking is one of the worst stress inducers in our lives. We all know the overthinker –the one who, no matter what the situation is, will make mountains out of molehills and declare tragedy the moment something doesn’t go as planned. Or that person who, when contemplating a change or an event, will worry about every detail so much that he or she derives no enjoyment whatsoever from the event itself.
There are “go-with-the-flow” people. And the upright and the uptight. They overthink everything. And the more they play out every scenario from a to z, the more they stress out to the nth degree about everything.
One of the most common symptoms of an overthinker is an over-talker. Over-talkers are different from over-sharers. Over-talkers don’t share too much. They just talk too much. They are so stressed, worried, and consumed with overthinking, that they can’t turn off the talking. Often, that makes them literally talk over people --so much that no one else can get a word in. You start a statement, and they interrupt and hijack your remarks to spin out another scenario they’ve been thinking about.
But as annoying as that can be, there’s another reason why the world’s control-freaks and overthinkers are not the people you want around. Especially during an emergency. Why?
They can’t deal. They can’t roll with the punches. What happens when a real tragedy occurs? They freeze. Deer in headlights. Shut down. Instead of finding ways to thrive on chaos and bring order out of disruption, overthinkers can feel so out of control, so useless, disoriented, and defeated, they can do little more than wail, whine, and proclaim woe.
Meanwhile, the “go-with-the-flow” crowd is still going forward like the energizer bunny. Boom ta ta, boom ta ta, boom ta ta, boom!
I won’t ask you to admit which one you are today! But you know who you are. [You can do the fingers to the eyes and to them as a gesture.]
When we look at our scripture for today, we encounter “Just” Job and his over-thinking friends.
In the vignette, Satan (the adversary) wagers with God that the only reason Job is faithful to God is because he is doing well in life. In other words, Satan challenges whether Job truly has faith in God as a humble receiver of all of God’s gifts or whether he’s only faithful because he’s wealthy and well, because he feels justly rewarded. Satan purports that there is no way really to know if Job’s faith is truly sincere since he has never had any challenges. It’s easy to have faith when everything goes our way. It’s not so easy when it doesn’t. Perhaps Job attributes his wealth, his fortune, and his abundance to his own righteousness. Perhaps hidden beneath that goody-two-shoes countenance is an overthinking mind that believes that his works and good deeds will yield due reward, or that he is owed these just desserts by God because he is an upstanding citizen.
Is Job an “I deserve the best cause I am the best” believer? Or is he a humble and grateful servant?
God decides to take the wager.
Soon, Job’s perfect life turns into a downright ****storm. Let’s call it a “perfect storm.” Everything that can possibly go wrong happens. And soon Job’s well-regulated, thought-out, Pharisaic-like life becomes a whirlwind of devastation.
To Job’s credit, at first, he tries to hang in there. But eventually, with help from his friends, Job comes to the frustrating conclusion that God has not been fair to him. Job is, after all, completely righteous. He does everything he should. He has obeyed God’s rules. He has kept God’s commandments. He has done all the right things. Job can find no reason why he should have to suffer anything. In Job’s mind, he is, as Mary Poppins might say, “practically perfect in every way.”
Job is an overthinker. He has spent his life overthinking every move he makes, so that he can live perfectly according to what he expects God will want. And he spends the entire time during this quite long dramatic play overthinking why this “injustice” has happened to him. We don’t see him going with it. We don’t see him trying to adjust. We don’t see him praying that this cup be taken from him. We see him simply exasperated, confused, and finally defeated and wallowing in self-righteousness about his unfair condition.
Reminds us a little of a parable Jesus told about Vineyard workers doesn’t it, when those who came last were paid the same as those who were first? Or the brothers of the Prodigal son, who were angry that their n’ere-do-well brother was receiving a party in his honor after he had squandered his father’s fortune. Or perhaps it reminds us of Jonah, who angrily pouted under a broom tree, because he wanted God to be “just” on Jonah’s own terms and destroy the Ninevites that he hated instead of God granting them mercy.
The story of Job is a recurring theme in scripture. We humans are over-thinkers. The problem with overthinkers is just that –too much thinking and not enough faith. For the more time we spend thinking, the less likely we are to recognize God as the one who grants us our gifts and our blessings. We are too consumed with how to achieve them ourselves! Thinking, projecting, strategizing, reasoning, living by rules and regulations may feel more secure, but that kind of belief system leaves no room for God and God’s grace in it! It’s all about us.
Those who have faith must lay thinking aside and rely on the heart. We must trust in a God bigger and stronger and wiser than ourselves to gift us with the abundance we dream of. We must let go of the desire to control our own destiny and achieve our own outcomes. We must rely on the providence of God.
Faith leaves no room for overthinkers. And yet, most of us overthink at one time or another.
Humans are compulsive overthinkers. Over-achievers. Over-controllers. We are definitely over-impressed with ourselves and our own righteousness. And when we pray, we are typically over-talkers. We aren’t really listening to God or asking for God’s will or favor. Most often, we are laying out our lives, and then expectantly instructing God in prayer how to make our plans work to our favor. When God doesn’t respond in the way we think God should –look out! Are we mad. God isn’t fair! God dissed me! God doesn’t listen! How could God do this to me? How could God not care about what I want?!
The story of Job reminds us that the only way God can get our attention when we’re in our little whirlwind of “me” and our youniverse of expectations is to quell our squall with a powerful voice that can’t be ignored.
Sometimes we have to be reminded, we can’t over-talk God.
So in the story of Job, God arrives on the scene in God’s bigger-than-life voice that booms out shattering Job’s mind-storm. God’s very presence is an unexpected powerful tsunami that can’t be controlled. The voice of the Creator reverberates Job’s skull and rocks Job’s world.
As Job stood up to challenge the Great Creator, one has to wonder if that mighty appearance might have already set Job in his place. Kind of like, “oh man, what was I thinking?!” But you know, Job is so sure of himself and his righteousness, he just keeps right on going. One track mind that guy. And he marches right up to God, right and demands his due. Then comes the showdown.
The story of is a great Pentecost story, because what Job experiences, just as Jonah and Jacob had before them, is the indescribability, the unfathomability of God, a God thousands of times more powerful than any mind-storm Job can fathom.
Whereas Jacob literally struggles with God and his own inner demons, and where Jonah keeps trying to run away, in the story of Job, Job tries to “take God to task” about his unfair treatment. He quite literally tries to take God to court! And sure, that’s what you would do wouldn’t you, if your belief system were based in legalisms?
It’s the great reveal! Job is unveiled for the “Pharisee” he is! And he’s quickly put in his place by God who we see as not just powerful but gentle and merciful to boot.
God does not operate by plans, legalities, agendas, or our sense of justice. Thank goodness. God is a God of unpredictable and unfathomable love. God is a God of out-of-this-world mercy. God does not operate by our sense of fairness and proportion.
God operates out of an unexpected, unpredictable, overflowing dynamic of mercy, love, and extreme patience. That kind of God doesn’t strike Job down for his impertinence. God simply puts Job in his place.
Can you hear Jesus say to Peter…”Get behind me Satan!”? That’s a little what we have here in Job. God basically says, “I’ll be asking the questions in this little rigged up court you have here, and you’ll be the one who answers to me!”
God establishes God’s self as way beyond anything Job can muster. But most of all, God establishes “God as merciful and generous” as holding a lot more weight than “Job as righteous.”
After God proceeds to challenge Job’s assumptions and agendas, his “my works will earn me favor” attitude, Job at last replies in humility and an attitude of gratitude with true faith –something to the effect of: “My Lord, and my God!”
God reminds Job that everything he has is a gift, not because it is deserved or earned and definitely not because it’s overthought, but simply because God is loving. And God is merciful. If God weren’t, and we all got what we truly deserved, I would hate to see that one-act play!
No, God is loving and merciful and forgiving, as angry as that makes us sometimes. And the moment Job realizes his mistake, God grants him three times what he had before. For God is an abundant giver, overflowing with mercy and grace. The question is, can we be good receivers.
So, the next time you start playing mind-games that question God’s role in your well-being and your life, think again. Or better yet, stop thinking! Start trusting. For there is nothing at all you can do to earn God’s favor. Nothing you can do to control the grace that comes your way.
Only have faith in the extravagance of God’s abundant love and mercy. For God’s grace is a gift for free. Through Jesus, we are offered that gift in a free pass, for all of eternity.
We all have mind-storms once in a while. But remember: God’s love and mercy can overcome any storm, even a perfect storm. And God’s unexpected forgiveness and grace can turn any storm-tossed life into a rainbow of beauty, truth, and goodness. You can’t plan it, achieve it, order it, make it happen. Just repent, relax, and trust the giver.
Today, put your impulse to “fix” your life aside. Trust the Spirit. When you do, your life with be filled with all good things.
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
The Book of Job: God’s Voice Speaks with Job (Chapters 38-42)
Minor Text
God Creates (Genesis 1)
The Word of God Appears to Abram (Genesis 15:1; Genesis 12:7; Genesis 18)
The Word of the Lord Appears to Elijah (1 Kings 19)
The Word of the Lord Calls Samuel (1 Samuel 3)
Psalm 33: Creator God
Psalm 119: The Word of the Lord is Eternal
Psalm 147: The Lord Has Revealed His Word
The Birth of Wisdom (Proverbs 8:22-36)
Creator God (Isaiah 40) and the Word of the Lord (Isaiah 55)
Jeremiah Encounters the “Word of the Lord” (Jeremiah 1)
John the Apostle Explains Jesus’ Identity (John 1)
Paul Explains the Identity of God and Jesus to Greeks in Thessalonica (Acts 17:16-34)
The Victory of the “Word of God” (Revelation 19)
Image Exegesis: The Tempest
The imagery/metaphors of storm, squall, chaos, mess, tempest are all words that frighten us. We are human beings who love control and order, form and safety.
But God’s creativity emerges from the “chaos” and stirrings of everything beyond our understanding. God’s love comes from a place we cannot begin to fathom.
What emerges from God’s creative womb (though it may feel like uncomfortable for us to be in that state of disorder) is beauty, good, and true.
Sometimes, we need to allow disorder and messiness in our lives, in order to allow God to re-form us as the Grand Divine Potter of our lives, to fire us up into beings of breath and passion for God’s love and mercy.
The metaphors in Job describe the kinds of things going on in the character’s mind and emotions, as is typical in the Hebrew scriptures. As powerful as these forces are, they are no match for God, whose voice is more powerful still. And who can still any of our storms with one Word and presence.
The voice, wind, breath of God combines with beautiful imagery of creation and the deep to illustrate the Creator God and the power of re-making and gifting that dominates in Job.