Hitting Rock Bottom

Have you ever felt so far away from God that you just had no idea how to turn everything around?  

I was asked not too long ago to do a short lesson on what it means to hit rock bottom and what to do when we find ourselves there.

When we think about biblical examples of those who have suffered and seem to hit rock bottom, we don’t have to think very hard to come up with them.

I think of Moses - who ran away from his home in Egypt, from everything he’d ever known...relinquished his place in Pharaoh's house.  Surely, that felt like rock bottom.

Or Miriam who keeps millions of Israelites waiting for her to recover from her leprosy after she has undermined the authority of Moses over her own jealousy.  Everyone knows what happened; it’s a public punishment that keeps the camp from moving.  That must have felt like rock bottom.

I think of Peter...can you even imagine how bitterly he wept when Jesus caught his eye outside of the courts after Jesus’s arrest in the garden?  He was so certain he was ready to die for Jesus who he knows is the Christ, and yet, he vehemently denies Him.  That must have felt like rock bottom.

Or what of Paul who realizes Jesus is the Christ while he’s on his way to round up Christians - this man who held the coats of those who stoned Stephen and later calls himself the greatest of sinners.  Those first days in Damascus must have felt like rock bottom.

Or what of Job?  I don’t think most of us can even imagine the loss that Job suffered: all of his belongings, all of his wealth, his position, and all of his children. And then his friends come, and they aren’t any help!  Even his wife tells him he’d be better off dead.  That had to feel like rock bottom.

We could keep looking at the men and women we meet in the Bible - David, Jonah, Naomi, Hosea…there’s a pattern.

It seems to me that, in some ways, rock bottom is what we must hit in order to understand who we are in the presence of God.  I don’t mean rock bottom as the world sees it.  Losing all of his material possessions wasn’t rock bottom for Job.  Rock bottom was when God spoke to him, and Job’s realization was his own vileness.  He says that he “abhors” himself and that he is vile. We have to be poor in spirit - spiritually bankrupt.  We don’t have any spiritual currency without God, and unless we know that, then we haven’t hit rock bottom - we aren’t there, and we don’t understand who we are in relation to the Almighty.

If we look specifically at Job, we see Job cry out to God. He feels abandoned and unseen by His creator.  In legal language, Job declares that he wants an audience with God that God should tell him why...why all of this suffering...why God has left him...why He oppresses him.

These are common questions that we are familiar with - If there’s a God why does He allow suffering?  Why does He allow oppression? Why does God allow bad things to happen to the good and the innocent?  We should understand Job’s questions.

In chapters 38 through 41, in some of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible, God peppers Job with 77 questions that aren’t meant to be answered by Job, by the way; God answers them.  He questions Job to remind Job who He is as the Creator of the universe and that Job is in no position to question God.

Job thought he would meet God on equal footing.  It isn’t long before Job understands that he understands nothing.

God reminds Job that not only can Job not care for or subdue God’s creation, but Job can’t even comprehend it.  The engineer and builder of all things, the One who brings order from chaos reminds Job who is in charge.  There is no equal footing between man and God.

He brings Job to rock bottom by reminding him that he knows nothing of God.  

In chapter 40, God concludes by saying, “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?  He who rebukes God, let him answer it!”

And Job’s response is “Behold, I am vile.  What shall I answer you?  I lay my hand over my mouth.  Once I have spoken, but I will not answer.  Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”

Job’s response to God is really the only response to God.  He covers his mouth and has nothing to say.  This is the rock bottom we have to hit.

Another interesting point is that God never issues Job an apology or an explanation for his suffering.  Job’s earthly problems aren’t even addressed by God.  His earthly problems aren’t the point!

Job’s attitude is the problem, and God has to bring Job to rock bottom so that he can bounce back!

Job finally answers God at the beginning of chapter 42.  After all of his suffering and all of his questions, Job acknowledges that God can do all things and that he, Job, has “uttered what [he] did not understand.”  Job concludes by saying that he had heard of God before, but now he sees, and therefore, he rejects himself and “repents in dust and ashes.”

This is who we are.  Spiritually, there’s not a person on the planet who isn’t already at rock bottom!  They just don’t know it.  

When we question God or think we know how things should happen, we utter what we do not understand...things too wonderful for us.  

The British philosopher, John Locke, said that knowing and understanding were two different kinds of knowledge.  It’s like fire - we know what it is, but if we are burned by it, we understand it in a completely different way.

Job says that he has seen God - he understands.  The assumptions he has made about God were based on a false understanding of God’s nature, and instead of accusing God of injustice, he now submits to His supreme power over the universe and accepts the will of the Almighty.

If we understand who God is and who we are, then we realize we are already at rock bottom; that’s where God finds us.

Thankfully, that isn’t where He leaves us.  It isn’t where He left Moses.  He uses Moses in a way that I’m sure Moses never could have imagined; in fact, even when God told him the plan, Moses says, “You’ve got the wrong fellow!”

It isn’t where He left Miriam. She continued with the Israelites and is called a prophetess.

It isn’t where He left Peter.  Peter who would be the one to preach the first sermon and would bring the first Gentiles into the kingdom.  Peter who Jesus tells that he will be led where he doesn’t want to go foretelling how Peter would die for his conviction.

It isn’t where He left Paul.  Paul doesn’t look back on the things that he did and use them as an excuse to stop moving forward.

It isn’t where He leaves Job either.  God restores Job spiritually first and physically later.  

And it isn’t where He leaves us...if we don’t want to be there.  For every person at rock bottom, God has a rope ready to drop down so that we can climb out of the pit.  He has denied us nothing, not even His son who was offered up so that I could get myself out of the pit if I choose to do so.

He won’t tie the rope around our waists and airlift us.  We have to want to come out of the pit!  Satan has made the pit look alluring, but it is a pit nonetheless.  

It’s dark, and it’s full of things that are rotting...there’s only death in the pit.  That’s rock bottom.  It’s Satan’s territory.  It’s full of human depravity and darkness, and the world is happy in it.  

There’s nothing down there, so for me, I’m climbing.  I’m drawing nearer to God, pulling on that rope.  And if I pull, so does He.  Even though I’m worthless...even though He has a universe to tend to.  He sees me, too, and He hears me when I call out.  He won’t leave me at rock bottom as long as I know who He is and where I’m headed.