110 (The Wager)

One of my favorite teach­ers always gave my friend and I spe­cial tasks to do. They often involved leav­ing the class­room, and we usu­ally received them because we were the first to com­plete the assign­ment, project, or task. I remem­ber one ran­dom day car­ry­ing a TV set out to his car. He even gave us his keys, which in grade 6 was a huge thing. We always knew that when we returned we’d each get a Jolly Rancher. It wasn’t like he had us trained, but we knew the reward was coming.

If he would’ve held back the Jolly Rancher one day, we prob­a­bly would have been frus­trated. While we may not have said any­thing to him directly, we would have grum­bled about it when he was out of earshot. Some­one out­side this sim­ple lit­tle sys­tem could watch, observe, and walk in with a wager. “You’ve got great stu­dents,” he’d say. “Have you seen Paul?” The teacher would respond. “He does his work quickly, then helps me out after.” “Well, no kid­ding. You always give him a Jolly Rancher. I don’t know any kid who wouldn’t.”

In that moment, the teacher’s entire sys­tem is shot down. It’s the dif­fer­ence between those who fol­low because of reward, and those who fol­low because they actu­ally like the teacher.

Satan put God in this dilemma at the begin­ning of Job. “He only loves you because you bless him,” Satan sneers. To say ‘yes’ admits to a poorly-designed sys­tem. To say ‘no’ requires proof. God says “No,” then decides to back it up. And thus fol­lows the book of Job. It’s a chal­lenge to the com­mon belief that obe­di­ence equals bless­ing. Many peo­ple believe that today.

At the end, in some of the most beau­ti­ful and harsh poetry ever, God puts Job in his place. “Who are you to judge what I do? I can do what I want to do!” He says, sweep­ing his hand over all of cre­ation. Obe­di­ence equals bless­ing! With one story, God dis­patches the notion that fol­low­ing Him means always being blessed. It could end there.

But it doesn’t.

God restores Job, giv­ing him more than he had before. Some would think this end­ing points to the fact that obe­di­ence = bless­ing, but that’s what God just railed against. No, it’s because God = good.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul