The carcasses of kangaroos line the Fossickers Way, wombats along Thunderbolts, even emus on the Carnarvon.

The town’s church bells ring and the papers give notice of the passing of another someone we were associated with. 

Farmers on the long yard are a tell-tale sign that keeping stock alive is a serious challenge.

Complaints about a lack of doctors and distance from hospitals remind us of sickness and the fragility of life. 

I pray for rain regularly as does the Church, Sunday after Sunday.

I’ll stop and say hi to the long yarders and let them know that we care and offer some encouragement to not give up.

I want what they want and that’s survival and for them to succeed.

However, I do wonder sometimes if drought is a helpful reminder of our ultimate lack of control and issues of mortality.

I often wonder if God has written into his creation a capacity for it to force us to consider ultimate realities that have no answers but the answers God offers. 

Job was a man in the Bible who lost everything: stock, children, and his health.

He was raided by stock rustlers, attacked by marauders, devastated by fires, an ill wind decimated his family and Satan attacked his very flesh.

Job wasn’t a bad man. In fact the Bible says he was a blameless and upright man who feared God and shunned evil.

What most impresses me about him is his capacity to trust God in all circumstances.

He responds to calamity with words like, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised”.

He dared to call his wife foolish, which I wouldn’t generally recommend, when she told him to curse God and die, and he said something I believe every Australian needs to hear “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble.” 

Job is so unlike so many of us.

There are none of the adult tantrums displayed when things don’t go our way.

He is not one who denies the existence of God in the good times and then blames God when things go bad.

If you don’t believe in God then you can’t blame God for your problems but nor can you ask Him for help.

Of course if you believe in God, trust in God, you don’t blame Him either.

You may, like Job, want to curse the day you were born but Job never cursed God because from where else would his help come from. 

The story of Job is really an exploration into suffering and God’s permission for it, comfort in it and ultimate redemption from it.

It speaks of spiritual realities that we have little understanding of but that we are invited to investigate.

It invites us to listen to unhelpful advisers who want to speak into our troubles.

It has us listening to truthful words not always helpfully delivered.

It has us listening to Job who challenges God while never losing faith in God.

It has us listening to God who is bigger than our worst circumstances.

He is greater than our most serious opposition, understanding of our suffering and who sets the limits to them all.

It has us listening to the God who wastes nothing not even the worst things in Job’s life, educating and refining the man with a view to establishing him stronger and greater than ever.

In times of drought we need the God of Job and the faith of Job in Him.

The most spectacular thing about Job’s God is that in the New Testament God becomes the sufferer.

Jesus Christ enters the driest place, stripped of everything, put to death on a cross to end the dry and sinful life with the promise of forgiveness and a better hope than death.