The sacred cow that Job unintentionally created

"The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away" - one of the most sacred cows that has ever emerged from the institutional Christianity. When bad things happens to one's life, we are quick to point our fingers to God, based on these words by Job.

Where we miss the boat is the fact that Job was making this comment without realizing who really was the taker here. The book of Job Chapter 1 clearly shows us who the thief was. Job obviously could not read his book. He was living it.

"Ah, but God allowed it", says the follow-up response. 

I beg to differ. 

I do not have the slightest clue of why bad things happen to folks when it does not make any sense and my job here is not to speculate on that. But in Job's case, it was Job who allowed it. 

"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he". 

What happened to him was the fruit of what he dominantly meditated on. Listen to his words in Job 3:25, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me."

We do the same thing today. We are constantly surrounded by the negative news, and expect the sky to fall on our heads. And it does, when we give into that fear. 

Faith and fear comes through one channel - by hearing. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. And let's not forget that, the word of God is not just the written text. It is the person of Jesus!

Fear comes by hearing the news media incessantly or anything that does not line up the knowledge and the reality of who we are in Christ Jesus. I'm not suggesting that we should turn the TV off and go live in a cave. I may not be able to stop the birds from flying over my head, but I certainly have the freedom to not let it build a nest on my head; unless of course, I want to believe that God allowed the bird to build the nest on my head!

The issue here is not about a doctrinal debate. This is not another theological discussion. This affects real lives. I personally have heard about the story of a man, who was dying of cancer, proudly saying that the cancer was from God and that he would not mind if God afflicted him with more severe diseases. He did not have to believe that lie when the stripes that Jesus bore on his back took care of his disease.