It is 6 a.m.
I did not write yesterday. Not a single line in my journal. The page stayed blank. The silence was not empty. It was full of the heavy, humming weight of a lesson being absorbed not by the mind, but by the marrow in the bones and the flesh of the heart.
I spent the time in the book of Job.
A little over a year ago, when I first read that story, my reaction was pure, cold dread. I called it the “Job Experience.” My prayer back then was simple and desperate: God, please. Do not choose me for that. Do not make me Your nail.
The thought of a blameless man being handed over to loss, to pain, to the unraveling of his entire world, was a horror I could not fathom. I don’t know the exact “when”, but I suspect, I haven’t been “blameless” since I was maybe two or three years old and even that’s not a certainty. If God would do that to Job, a man He Himself called “blameless and upright” (Job 1:8 ESV), what might He do to someone like me? I saw it as pure, unmitigated wrath. A divine hammer lesson, and I was terrified of being the nail.
That fear was real. It kept me up at night. It drove me to my knees in a prayer not of communion, but of bargaining. Show me what to do. Let me obey. Just… don’t give me the Job Experience.
My perspective has changed. It has been sanded down by the grit of the last year and polished in the fire of this present season. I no longer see it as a horror story. I see it now as a surgery manual.
A quick, raw moment from this morning. Just now, I helped my mom out of bed. She needed to use the commode. It was right beside her. With a force of will that surprised me, she pushed my hand away. “No. The bathroom.” It was an ordeal. It took effort. It required my full support. But she insisted on the longer, harder path. In that moment, her stubbornness was not a burden. It was a sign. Attitude equals progress. The fight in her is returning. That is a mercy.
It is also a mirror.
Back to the furnace. Back to Job.
I misunderstood the story. I focused on the hammer and the nail. I missed the Surgeon and the table.
God did not give Job to Satan because He was angry with Job. He gave him because He had confidence in Job. “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job 1:8 ESV). It was a statement of trust. The enemy believed Job’s faith was a product of his comfort, his blessings, his “hedge” of protection. God knew it was rooted in something unshakeable. The trial was not a punishment. It was the ultimate validation of a faith that was real. It was the process that would prove that faith, not just to the heavenly audience, but to Job himself.
This is the shift. The “Job Experience” is not about what God does to you. It is about what He does in you.
It is transformation. It is the meticulous, painful, loving work of a Surgeon who sees the cancer of self-reliance, the calcified pride, the tumors of idolatry that we have learned to live with. He does not hate the patient. He loves him enough to operate.
I think of an old show, “The Six Million Dollar Man.” A man, shattered and broken, is rebuilt. He is given new strength, new capabilities he never had before. But first, he had to endure the accident. Then the surgery. Then the brutal, grueling therapy. The process “sucked,” as we say. But the outcome was a man remade for a purpose he could not have previously fulfilled.
God’s surgery does not give me bionic limbs. It gives me a bionic heart. A heart that beats in time with His. A spirit that can withstand pressures that would have shattered the old man. He is not building a superhuman for show. He is fortifying a son for war. He is creating a vessel that can carry His glory without cracking under the weight.
This is the purification through the fiery furnace I keep mentioning. It is not random suffering. It is targeted, precise, and purposeful. “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:19 ESV). The love is in the reproof. The care is in the discipline.
I used to pray, “Don’t give me the Job Experience.”
Now, my prayer is different. “Do whatever it takes.”
Do whatever it takes to burn out of me everything that is not of You. Do whatever it takes to sever my dependence on anything but Your presence. Do whatever it takes to make me a fit vessel, a true reflection, a reliable son. If that means loss, let it be loss of what was holding me back. If that means fire, let it be a fire that purifies, not destroys.
The storm will come. The rain will fall. The earth will shake. The old me would have been swept away. The man being built on this table, in this furnace, through this “Job Experience,” will stand. Not because of my strength, but because the foundation being laid is the only one that cannot be shaken. It is Christ in me.
I look at my mother’s frail insistence on walking to the bathroom. It is hard. It is progress. It is a picture.
The Surgeon is not careless with His knife. He is not wasteful with His fire. He pays this much attention, this agonizing, detailed, moment-by-moment attention, because He is making something. He is not just repairing. He is rebuilding from the foundation up.
A year ago, I saw the story of Job and trembled at what God might take from me.
Today, I read it and am in awe of what He is determined to build in me.
The fear remains, but it has changed flavor. It is no longer the fear of the victim. It is the sober respect of the patient who trusts the Surgeon, even as the anesthesia wears off and the cutting begins. I know the outcome is life. A life I could not imagine from this side of the table.
So I lay here. On the table. In the furnace. In the wild, lashing storm.
And I say, “Do whatever it takes.”
The finished work He has in mind is worth every moment of the process.
That is all, and thank you for reading.
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Shashue Monrauch
This past year or so has helped me to see God's surgical scalpel as well. A lot is rough and challenging. I'm not the greatest patient a lot, but once He strengthens me through it, the value of it all shines through and my obedience becomes clearer.
Hope your mom continues to be strengthened by His Mighty Hand!
THIS, "Do whatever it takes to burn out of me everything that is not of You. Do whatever it takes to sever my dependence on anything but Your presence. Do whatever it takes to make me a fit vessel, a true reflection, a reliable son. If that means loss, let it be loss of what was holding me back. If that means fire, let it be a fire that purifies, not destroys."
This is what makes God smile and call you a son.
I wrote a long reply and erased it because English words either weaken the impact of this prayer, or cause everyone to do an about-face. I will save these words for a restack and leave any in-depth and powerful comments to a personal message.