Living Unnaturally

Job's response to his troubles makes for an interesting backlash against modern trends in thinking, both in secular and in Christian circles. The "reality TV" movement born on the back of the emergence of Generation X placed a heavy emphasis on being who you are and living "naturally". Contemporary Christian thinking has followed this trend and modern Christian musicians have written a plethora of songs about how messed up they are and how low they're feeling. And in all of this I can witness with the desire to be real and the comfort of operating with what comes intuitively and naturally to you. Truth is, the more we walk that path, the more languid, introspective and stagnant we become. It becomes interesting then to hear Job speaking after all his losses and say: though He slay me, yet will I praise Him. Now this is not a natural response. Why then does this please God? Because we have to face up to the fact that our natural state is of the flesh and is sinful. The command to actively "rejoice always" in Philippians 4 is a step out of the natural and a deliberate choice to reach up in the kind of faith without which we cannot please God. Yes, we can be "natural", but when we realise what "natural" actually is, who would want it?