I don’t typically feel like I have a favorite book of the Bible, but Job has a special place in my heart. Disclaimer: there is a key part of the story to which I cannot relate; it’s when Job is so convinced of his own innocence that he wants to state his case directly before God. Job had great confidence that God would find no guilt in him; I do not share that confidence and even if I did, I would not want to plead my case face-to-face with God.

 

To be fair, it’s not all that difficult to understand why Job was so adamant about his innocence. God practically bragged about him to Satan when He said, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8). Can you imagine God saying that about you? I cannot.

 

When Satan comes to accuse Job before God, he insists that Job only serves God because God protects him. Therefore, Satan asks God’s permission to test Job’s faith and loyalty. And God grants His permission, within certain boundaries. After losing his family, wealth, and health, Job wants to know why the righteous suffer. He gets some answers from friends (who are not helpful), and then Job questions God Himself and learns valuable lessons about just how powerful and all-knowing God is. This leads Job to recognize, even more, his need to trust completely in God.

 

After seeing and hearing directly from God, Job replies this way:

 

² I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ³ You asked, “Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. ⁴ You said, “Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.” ⁵ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. ⁶ Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. – Job 42:2-6

 

While Job was a very righteous man compared to other people, he acknowledged that he had neither God’s power nor His wisdom. You might say that Job realized his place in the world as a mortal human being. He came to understand (as we all need to figure out) that he was not the center of the universe.

 

Someone has said that “Five seconds of honey on the tongue will show you more sweetness than ten hours of lectures about the sweetness of honey.” And we read in Psalm 34:8, “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” Until God gives you a taste of His goodness, all the theology in the world will not give you the knowledge that changes your heart and saves your soul.

 

When God came to Job and spoke, taking the initiative to make Himself known, Job tasted the goodness of God. And his eyes were opened. Job gained a new sense of God’s reality. It was more than intellectual or speculative knowledge. It was the understanding of the heart. He had tasted, and then he saw. And the result was a broken and changed man.

 

Life has broken me to pieces, but I want to change and grow like Job did. I want to stop asking questions that won’t be answered while I live on this earth. As a finite human being, I’ll never understand why the righteous suffer, let alone the unrighteous (like me). But I believe with all my heart that God is good, and that’s enough for me.

 

Troy Burns

When I was 19, I spent several weeks in Georgia, where most of the people around me spoke with an accent and said words like Y’all on a regular basis. After talking and listening and observing these wonderful people for some time, a funny thing happened: I began to talk like them. Once, when a new friend was introduced to me, I said, “Where y’all from?” I sounded ridiculous, I’m sure, as a person from the Pacific Northwest with no southern accent, but one thing was clear: I had spent time with people who talked differently than I did.

 

I also read about a professional baseball player who was the kind of athlete that other players just wanted to be around. He was the ace of his pitching staff and was consistently one of the top players in the entire league. He was incredibly talented, of course, but he also worked extremely hard, day in and day out. He continually prepared both his body and his mind so that he could perform at the highest possible level. Other players on the team loved to spend time with him. Being near him and observing how he trained was immensely valuable to his teammates. Many of those players said that being near him, watching him, and copying him made them better athletes.

 

In both of these situations, people were impacted immensely by those with whom they spent time. We see something like this in the Bible, in Acts chapter 4, verse 13, where we read the following: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

 

It was no compliment to say that Peter and John were unschooled, ordinary men. The Jewish leaders were taken aback by the courage of these two men, but they were not impressed with their backgrounds. What they did recognize was that the men had been with Jesus. Peter and John did not have the education, credentials, or religious pedigree that would have impressed those leaders. But they did have a courage that came from spending time with Jesus. Their behavior was not really from themselves, but resulted directly from being with Jesus.

 

You and I do not have the benefit of spending time with Jesus for three years of our physical lives on this earth (as the disciples did), but we can be shaped and changed by the Word that God has given us, to teach us how to live as Jesus did. When we allow the Bible to transform us, our lives carry the aroma of heaven. This means, among other things, that our lives are marked by a genuine love for God and for people, a true willingness to forgive others, and many other qualities such as joy, peace, humility, honesty, approachability, kindness under pressure, and truth-telling when it would be easier to lie.

 

May we be the people about whom others say, “Whenever he or she entered the room, I felt a little closer to heaven.” Let us be the ones who draw others closer to God whether we are talking or listening, laughing or crying, standing or sitting, following or leading.

 

We know that we’ve truly been with Jesus when we want what He wants and we put God’s will ahead of our own. This means that we’re all about discovering His will, rather than trying to impose our will on Him. We cannot rationalize and try to make God’s will match up with what we’ve already decided we want.

 

It reminds me of the old sailor who was repeatedly lost at sea, so his friends gave him a compass and urged him to use it. The next time he went out in his boat, he followed their advice and took the compass with him. But as usual, he became hopelessly confused and was unable to find land. Finally, he was rescued by his friends. Disgusted and impatient with him, they asked, “Why didn’t you use that compass we gave you? You could have saved us a lot of trouble!” The sailor responded, “I didn’t dare to! I wanted to go north, but as hard as I tried to make the needle aim in that direction, it just kept on pointing southeast.” That old sailor was so certain he knew which way was north that he stubbornly tried to force his own personal persuasion on his compass. Unable to do so, he tossed it aside as worthless and failed to benefit from the guidance it offered.

 

Isn’t this how we often treat God’s will, or our efforts in trying to know it? We want to make it match what we have already decided we want. But when we’ve been with Jesus, we seek first what God wants and then we obey Him and put His will into practice, no matter how difficult or inconvenient it may be. And people notice. We draw others closer to God in everything we do and say. We walk into a room and people feel a little closer to heaven.

 

Troy Burns

We can never know about the days to come / But we think about them anyway / And I wonder if I’m really with you now / Or just chasin’ after some finer day – “Anticipation” by Carly Simon

 

I wrote in a previous blog that I need to live in the present moment, one day at a time. I even shared how I feel worried, or at least unprepared, for whatever the future holds. And while it’s true that I should not worry about tomorrow, what happens if I’m excited for it? Can I live in the future just a little, if it gives me some hope and makes me eager for what’s to come? Here’s my near future: in just a few days, Lord willing, I’ll be at my home away from home: the ocean and the beach that lies along its edge.

 

My youngest daughter is so excited for our upcoming vacation that she presented me with a complete “play-by-play” analysis of everything she wants to do on our trip, an analysis that took every second of a 30-minute car ride. If it’s possible, her words made me even more eager for the trip than she is. We’re heading to the coast, as I mentioned, and it’s my ideal home, or happy place; it’s the part of this planet that I’m even tempted to call “heaven on earth.”

 

But that last phrase led me to think about our eternal future and the real heaven waiting for those who have responded to God’s offer of salvation. While it seems easier to anticipate “heaven on earth” than “a new heaven and a new earth,” there’s actually no comparison between the two. Heaven is a real place, where God lives, that’s been designed for us. Jesus said, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2). He also shared this invitation with us: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

 

Revelation chapter 21 tells us, among other things that heaven is where God will live with us in the place where He makes everything new. While He does life with us, He will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. This new heaven and new earth might well be called our forever home away from home. While I strive to live in the present, I can’t help but long for a future that’s not only better than my favorite place in this world, but actually far more incredible than anything I can even begin to imagine.“

 

What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

 

Troy Burns

Many years ago, I heard Jerry Seinfeld talk about studies showing that people’s number one fear is public speaking, and number two is death. Death is number two. He then said that to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. Well, that described me until my junior year of high school, preferring the casket to the stage, but then I made one wild decision and found myself in the middle of a frightening group activity.

 

It was some version of the memory game, “I’m Going on a Trip,” where you formed a circle and the first participant said those words (I’m Going on a Trip), followed by an item of her choosing that began with the letter “A.” The next player came up with something he would bring that began with the letter “B,” but first he had to repeat the letter “A” item. This continued through nearly the entire alphabet, with the final participant attempting to name well over 20 items from memory, before adding an item of her own.

 

What I remember, more than the game itself, was the fact that I had never been so terrified in my life, simply because I had to speak in front of a group of people who were all staring at me. That sounds impossible now, since I went on to pursue a degree in Education, which as you might know, involves a great deal of speaking in front of groups of people. I then worked as a substitute teacher, coached student-athletes for over 10 years, and served in youth ministry for more than 13 years. Then I took on my current role in which I’ve presented messages to groups nearly every Sunday morning for the past five years. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve delivered over 1,000 public speaking presentations, led numerous small group discussions, and spoken frequently to hundreds of team members in various sports.

 

I mention all of this not to brag, but to point out the result of one scary decision. None of what I shared would ever have happened unless I survived the “Going on a Trip” game, a game I would have never played unless I did the most frightening thing first, which was to sign up for the introductory-level Drama class in my high school. The aforementioned game was the first activity on the first day. Of course, the class went on to require many on-stage performances (including, yes, public speaking), and also led to auditions and roles in our school plays that were performed before audiences with hundreds of people.

 

At the time I signed up for Drama as a 16-year old, I had absolutely no idea why I would do such a thing. Looking back more than 30 years later, I understand completely. God was at work and I just didn’t know it. My entire adult life has centered around things that would not have happened, had I not stepped out of my comfort zone and signed up for that acting class as a teenager.

 

If you’re reading this, I wonder about you and your life. Have you made a scary decision that ended up taking you in a whole new, exciting direction? Or did you walk away from the choice because it was just too uncomfortable? I’ve gone both ways, myself. But in any case, maybe another opportunity is just around the corner. Are you somehow drawn to an activity that shakes you to your core, but you believe you should try it anyway? Go for it! God may very well be up to something with you, and it’s always worth following wherever He leads you.

 

Troy Burns

Emily in Our Town, by Thornton Wilder

 

I’m not sure how much time I spend living where I am, or stated more awkwardly, when I am. It seems I mostly live in my yesterdays and tomorrows, instead of my todays. I feel overwhelmed by past mistakes and failures; I feel worried, or at least unprepared, for whatever the future holds. I replay past conversations over and over, while rehearsing potential ones that may or may not happen. I live anywhere and everywhere but in the moment. I completely understand the words of Mark Batterson when he writes, “We’re paralyzed by things we cannot change—the past. We’re crippled by things we cannot control—the future.

 

My tendency to live primarily in the past and the future is not surprising to me; I do it almost all the time. What is surprising is that until recently when someone reminded me, I had forgotten that living in the moment and making each day count is actually something that God tells us to do:

 

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

 

Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11).

 

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34).

 

We know from the creation account in Genesis that God has divided time into days. A little later, when He miraculously provided manna to feed His people, He included an expiration date of one day. When He taught us about anger, He gave us the deadline of sundown. When He told us to take up our crosses, He said to do it daily. When He told us to rejoice and be glad, He said to do it today.

 

And those are just a few examples of what God says about living in the present moment, one day at a time. What God has not told me to do is to live in the past or in the future; in fact, He’s told me quite the opposite. He said that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation and the old has passed away. He told us to forget what lies behind and that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us. And as we already saw, He said not to worry about tomorrow.

 

I need to listen to God and follow what the words of Sir William Osler, the Father of Modern Medicine, advise us to do: “Let go of dead yesterdays and unborn tomorrows.” Can I really do that? Can I live each day like it’s the first day and the last day of my life? Not right now. That’s been my answer, all too often. But maybe I can change that, right now. This is the day that the Lord has made. I’m here…

 

Troy Burns

I really enjoy running, as long as I’m upright, which until recently was always the case, except for a couple of treacherous trail runs and maybe a winter run or two when the streets were icy and this Troy went a-tumbling. But never had I fallen down on a perfectly dry and smooth road, not until this past Saturday, that is.

 

Smart people double-knot their shoelaces when running, to prevent them from coming untied and potentially causing them to trip and fall. Attempting to be one of those smart people, I did just that on Saturday, but, ironically, the loops of the laces were still very long and I ended up tripping on them and falling, not once, but twice, early in my seven-mile run. (Interesting side note: After the fact, my wife explained to me how she always thought my shoelaces were too long. That was a great point, if not shared soon enough to keep me on my feet.)

 

It’s a terrible, almost frightening feeling to fall and know that you can’t prevent yourself from hitting the ground. Thankfully, I was not seriously injured. I scraped my knee and would have ripped up the palm of my hand, had my glove not taken on said ripping. The worst of it was the extreme muscle soreness that resulted from catching myself when I landed on the street. It’s been several days since I fell, and it would still be difficult to manage even one pushup. This whole experience reminds me of the first couple of verses in Hebrews chapter 12:

 

 

What happened when I stepped on one of my own shoelaces? I fell down and hurt myself. What happens when I “step on” the sin in my life that I allow to remain and trip me up? I fall down and hurt myself spiritually. In those verses, the “sin that so easily entangles” carries the idea of a loosely fitting garment by which a runner becomes entangled and tripped up. Of course, in my case, it was a shoelace, but the idea is the same. In fact, a more paraphrased version of the Hebrews verse reads, “the sin that so easily trips us up.”

 

As you might imagine, I’m now being much more careful about tying my laces in a way that keeps them well above the ground and prevents me from tripping on them. However, I need to be even more careful when it comes to “the sin that so easily entangles,” because tripping and falling on my walk with Jesus has far worse consequences than even the most intense physical wounds caused by falling down on a run. I’m back on my feet and God willing, I’ll stay there.

 

Troy Burns

Almost every night during the summers of my early high school years, we played “Hide-And-Seek” with some neighborhood friends. There were no perfect hiding spots, so truth be told, I made it to “Home Base” not by stealth, but by simply outrunning the person who was “It.” Then I got older and was dragged into adulthood, kicking and screaming.

 

One of the many reasons I loved my previous role of Youth Minister was that I never really grew up completely. It was actually an important part of my job to play games with the students who were much younger than me (in years, if not in maturity). During our “Overnighter” events, for example, one of our most popular games was called “Seekers,” a version of “Capture the Flag” played in utter darkness. Each team owned and tried to protect a floor of our church building while working to capture the other team’s flag. The main “hiding” part of the game was in the effort to sneak close enough to the flag to grab it and run back to home base without being tagged. Our congregation was kind and generous enough to pay me for such efforts. Having fun was in my job description.

 

But hiding in real life is no fun at all, nothing like it was with my childhood friends or my youth group students. I practically enjoyed being afraid when the worst possible outcome was the tap of a finger, signifying I had been caught and had to go to “prison.” As an adult in the real world, the fears can overwhelm me. The outcomes can be horrific, at least as I perceive the possibilities and allow myself to be gripped with anxiety. And being trapped in the prison of fear leads me to hide in a different, less fun, and much less healthy way.

 

But there is one hiding place, one secret place that’s worth finding and spending time in, away from the cares of this life and the worries of the world. It’s a place marked by intimacy and fellowship with God, where fears are overcome and hearts are encouraged. A place where peace, comfort, and rest are found. A place where safety and security are discovered, not through the absence of danger, but in the presence of Jesus, regardless of the danger. I have the perfect hiding spot…

 

And surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:7 (NIV)

 

My God, in Him I will trust.” Psalm 91:1-2 (NKJV)

 

Troy Burns

In a post attributed to youth pastor and father Alex Cravens, some thoughts were shared that helped me, as a dad, in my struggle with the current state of life in America. I mean this especially in relation to all of the virus-related challenges and restrictions we’ve faced over the past 10 months or so. Honestly, the most difficult part (by far) has been the negative impact of the pandemic on my children. They, like countless others, have lost too many important things and my heart has broken for them over and over again. Graduating from college and getting married (my son) and graduating from high school and middle school (my two daughters) were events that looked much different—not in a good way—than they should have, simply because they happened in the year 2020. And those momentous life events are just a few examples of the losses that overwhelmed me with sadness for my kids. It even reached the point, at least in my darker moments, where I actually felt guilty for bringing them into this world with all of its pain and troubles and disappointments.

 

And then I read the aforementioned words from that other dad, Mr. Cravens. I felt a little irritated at first because, frankly, I don’t always want to look at the bright side and remain optimistic when life hurts my kids. I’d rather be bitter and wallow in the misery of feeling terrible for my favorite young people on the planet. But the author’s words grabbed me, nonetheless, and reminded me that there is, in fact, a better way to look at things, as much as I hate to admit it. Grr… He wrote, “Don’t feel sorry for or fear for your kids because the world they are going to grow up in is not what it used to be. God created them and called them for the exact moment in time that they’re in. Their life wasn’t a coincidence or an accident.”

 

The post goes on to encourage us as parents to empower our kids to know they can change the world, which inspires them to live hopefully instead of fearfully. We’re also challenged not to let our fear steal the greatness that God has placed in our children.

 

As has often been the case, God used my kids (and another parent) to teach me a valuable lesson. I’ll save the details for another time, but I even believe that God worked through my future children to reach me and my wife before they were born. Right now, God is teaching me it’s no accident that my kids are where they are, because He has uniquely prepared them to accomplish goals only they can achieve. He has indeed placed greatness in them and they are equipped to handle the present challenges in ways I can scarcely imagine. God has my kids in this time and place for a reason, and I can’t wait to see what it is.

 

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14).

 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

 

Troy Burns

It’s my birthday today; I only mention that because I really want a lot of people to call me, and to text me, and perhaps even to send a little gift my way. I’m joking, of course (well, mostly)! The real reason I bring up this day is that Christmas is around the corner (it’s December, after all), so my thoughts are shifting toward the fact that I entered this world at a specific time, in a specific place. At 2:43 a.m., on December 1, in the Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis, WA, I made my physical entry onto this planet.

 

Why do Christmas and December influence my thoughts like this? Because God Himself also entered this world at a specific time, in a specific place, but with a much greater purpose than anything I could accomplish. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:1, 14a).

 

God became flesh; He lived a perfect life; He suffered all of the trials and temptations that all people face; He died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins; and He rose from the dead to make possible our salvation and the hope of eternity in heaven. One specific benefit to our day-to-day lives is that God Himself experienced every type of trial and temptation we might face. No matter what we’ve gone through—or are going through—Jesus has “been there and done that.”

 

Our wonderful elder, Bud, was kind enough to jump in and preach for me this past Sunday, due to a virus exposure in my family. One story I was planning to share lines up with our discussion here. Just about five weeks after our first child, our son, Nolan, was born, he became very ill and lethargic and developed a high fever, so my wife, Kelly called me at work to tell me she was taking him in to see the doctor. About 45 minutes later, she called me again and said I needed to come to the doctor’s office right away, and that they were extremely concerned about his symptoms. A few minutes after I arrived, the doctor informed us that our little guy needed to go to the hospital, and that the safest way to get him there was by ambulance, since he already had a few tubes and wires connected to him, and they needed to closely monitor him while he was being transported. Kelly rode in the ambulance with him and I followed them in our car. Kelly would talk for years about the sad, scared, defeated look I had on my face, which was flushed of any color, as I drove behind them to get to the hospital. They admitted Nolan to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and he had even more tubes and wires connected to him. That was surreal and shocking and frightening to see my first and only son, just a five-week-old baby, lying in a hospital bed, attached to all of that medical equipment, with doctors and nurses checking on him and poking and prodding on a regular basis. For two to three days, the doctors could not figure out what was going on, and they could not tell us if he was going to get better or not.

 

Needless to say, that was an incredibly difficult experience to go through and we were beside ourselves with worry. I’m not sure I’ve ever prayed as intensely as I did during those 48-72 hours. He survived and recovered; they never did quite figure it out other than to give their best guess that some type of virus hit him really hard. Here’s why I share all of that: As time went on, I actually went back to the Pediatric ICU and also to the Neonatal ICU (for very sick and premature newborn infants), but in those cases I went to visit someone else whose children had been admitted there. It was quite an experience trying to help and comfort others who were going through what I had gone through myself. The nurses and other staff members in those units were the closest thing to angels that I’ve seen in my life, and as one person said it, that’s the part of the hospital where God hangs out.

 

My own suffering allowed me to speak with credibility to other people in pain because I had been in their shoes. I had “been there and done that.” I had walked the road they were now having to walk. When I would talk, other broken people would listen because what I said, and what I did, carried weight, not because I’m anything special, but because I had been through the same type of experience they were now dealing with.

 

When it comes to Jesus, He can do this very thing for us in any and every situation we might face in this life. Once again, He’s “been there and done that.” For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin (Hebrews 4:15).

 

Troy Burns

It’s easy to live with the mindset that I’d better obey God, or else. I don’t want to go to hell, so I need to do what God says is right, and avoid what He says is wrong. This works for a while, until my desire to live my own way overwhelms my efforts to go along with God’s instructions. At some point, I’m not as motivated by fear or the negative outcomes of living life my way. But what if there’s a different mindset that allows me to rise above all of that? What if there are positive consequences of my obedience, as though God might actually want the best for me? What if there’s an incredible reward for seeking and following my Creator?

 

During my early grade school years, my mother would not allow me to ride my bike in the street. I really wanted to ride in the street, what with its smooth surface and open space to ride fast and far, but I (almost) always stayed out of the street because mom said, “No.” Riding in the street would have given me incredible, though temporary, pleasure. It would also have put me in danger and caused my mom to take away my bike for a very, very long time. It came down to my way or mom’s way, what I wanted versus what she wanted. I avoided the street because I feared the negative consequences, but more important than the fear that motivated me less and less, I trusted that my mom loved me, and cared about me, and wanted what was best for me.

 

As an adult and a dad who’s raised his own kids, I see more clearly the importance of kids listening to their parents. As a child of God, I’m learning everyday about the immense value of listening to my Father in Heaven. God tells me to do something (or not to do something), and I often want to disobey, but I (almost) always follow God because He has told me what to do (or not to do). Taking my own path would provide me with incredible, though temporary, pleasure. It would also put my soul in danger and cause me to experience some very negative results. It comes down to my way or God’s way, what I want versus what He wants. I strive to listen to God because I fear the negative consequences, but more important than the fear that motivates me less and less, I trust that God loves me, and cares about me, and wants what’s best for me.

 

Having a genuine faith in God is to believe Him in every area of my life. While I still fail more often than I’d like to admit, I do my best to obey because I trust Him, even though I might not completely understand what He’s doing in my life. On a deeper level, I have a genuine faith because that’s the only way I can please Him, and because He rewards me when I trust Him and seek Him.

 

– Hebrews 11:1, 6 (NASB)

 

Troy Burns