Stripped Away

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my answers to those questions. I think it would be fun to hear some of yours so if I randomly ask you what four people you would like to be on a deserted island with, just answer and then we could move on with our lives.

Anyway, this weekend wasn't just all fun and games. The theme of the week was "Stripped Away" and the main premise was "what happens when every thing's been stipped away?" We were in the book of Job which at first seemed really daunting. I mean, it's like 42 chapters long and it's basically monologue after monolgue. So needless to say, I was really curious as to how the large group services would go as well as the small group discussions.

The large group services were led by Keith Smith (music before hand by Addison Road which was awesome. I love "Hope Now"). Friday night was great. Keith spoke about how Job was a blameless and upright man. He was blessed, loved by God and loved his family. He had like thousands of sheep and oxen and a few hundred camels. He had seven sons and three daughters who seemed to get along well and had to have a bunch of friends. Job was doing pretty well. During all this time, God and Satan started to have a conversation and they began to discuss Job. Satan pretty much said "of course he loves you, he's got everything. What happens when it's all gone?" God then gives Satan permission to touch everything Job has, except his person. Well Satan just goes to town. In a matter of minutes he takes away all of Job's livestock and then he destroys all of Job's children.

After all of this destruction, the Bible says Job did a truly amazing thing. The Bible says that through all of this, Job did not sin. He went down on his knees and ripped his robe in two out of grief but did not sin. So Satan returns to God and says "well, of course he didn't sin. Imagine what he would do if I was allowed to touch him". So God gives Satan permission to touch Job. And Satan did. Satan puts sores all over Job's body. Sores so infected and so painful that Job went out to the city dump, basically, and took broken pieces of pottery and tried to scratch the sores off.

Keith ended there. He began to ask "when we are stripped of something, how do we react?" and "what's our response to God?". He then invited us to come forward and write on a strip of cloth something that we felt had been stripped from us. The night ended with Keith asking us to write down questions we would ask God if we had the chance. Questions that we struggle with and answers we would like to know.

It was a great first night. The discussion that followed at the house was pretty cool too. Each girl shared what they had written and that was awesome. It was neat to see that most of the time, we all react the same way. Wanting to know why, getting angry then sad then angry again.

By then it was midnight and time for lights out. The next day was sure to be busy. And it was...