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Into the
Fire by
Jeffrey S. Savage
Reviewed
by Jennie Hansen
"There was a
man in the valley of microchips and disks, whose name was Joe; and
that man, like most of us, was trying to do what was right." So
begins Jeffrey S. Savages's contemporary, allegorical Book of Job,
Into the Fire.
Job is one of
the most disturbing books of the Old Testament, one that few people
claim as their "favorite." Even so, more of us probably identify
with Job more than with any other Old Testament prophet, especially
during difficult times. Is there a person who hasn't asked, "Why
me?" when he or she has been trying their best to do what is right
and have suffered physical or emotional disasters they didn't deserve?
Though we accept the concept that our mortal life is a time of testing,
a time when we are caught in a tug-of-war between Satan and God
to prove ourselves worthy of the great blessings God promises the
faithful, the Book of Job begins with a bargain being struck between
God and the devil that sets many people's teeth on edge. A casual
reading of the scriptural account also raises hackles at the suggestion
that Job's lost family members were simply replaced by a new family.
A careful reading of this story points out a deeper, far more sensitive
tale. It is these deeper values Jeffrey Savage's Joe/Job brings
to the reader's attention.
Joe is a hard
working, intelligent man who founded a major computer company, reaping
fantastic monetary rewards as the company expanded, then went public.
He and his wife and three children live in a dream home, drive luxury
cars, have good friends in their ward, and are respected leaders
in their community. When the bottom begins to drop out of the dot
com world, Joe raises the money through loans and by mortgaging
their home to keep his company alive and the value of its stock
from driving the company to bankruptcy. He has the business savvy
to ride out the storm, but disaster strikes on every side. An accusation
is made that he infringed on a copyright and as his integrity is
questioned by the people in his company, he discovers that since
the company is now in the public domain and has a board of directors,
that board can fire him, which they do.
Unjustly accused
of wrong-doing, out of work, and facing the very real prospect that
the scandal will devalue the company's stock and send its price
to the bottom of the basement which would result in the loss of
his house, Joe makes a trip to see his accountant to try to save
his home. His effort turns into a nightmare as he learns his accountant,
who has long been his friend and belongs to his priesthood quorum,
washes his hands of him, saying he can't afford to risk losing his
other customers by continuing to represent Joe. His wife slides
into a deep depression she'd only recently begun to emerge from
following cancer treatment; his son, Richie, becomes involved with
sub-culture friends and their lifestyle, his older daughter decides
she no longer wants anything to do with the Church, and only his
six-year-old Downs Syndrome daughter, Angela, continues on her innocent
course. Only she seems to be protected from the machinations of
the Tempter.
In a desperate
move to at least save his family, he drives them to an isolated
mountain cabin his father left to him, but which hasn't been occupied
for ten years or more. His daughter's attempt to leave the isolated
place results in the car keys being lost in the lake. Here Joe begins
to learn the lessons of Job. The Lord controls the laws of nature-and
He rules in terrible majesty. When all those temporal belongings
such as houses and money are gone, when Joe's good name is taken
and his friends turn their backs and doubt his integrity; when even
his family considers him a fool to continue to trust in God, there
is still more suffering heaped on Joe. A rash turns out to be a
tick bite and he suffers the blinding headaches, mental confusion,
back ache and assorted other pains of Lymes disease; his wife retreats
so far into dense depression he fears for her sanity, and his two
older children become strangers. His faith in God and his intense
love for his family are all he has left.
Between his
illness and his intense quest for an answer to his prayers, Joe
experiences a series of strange experiences that hover in that area
between spiritual manifestation and feverish hallucination. Brother
Savage leaves the reader to differentiate between the two to his
own satisfaction.
While Job lost
his family through a terrible accident, Joe sees his family slipping
away both spiritually and physically a little bit at a time. He
exerts every drop of his strength both physically and spiritually
to save them and learns that his former wealth was a blessing from
God, but his greatest blessing, his family are what he values most.
He does a great deal of soul searching, asking whether the calamities
that have befallen him are his fault. He questions his own failings
rather than blame God for all that has gone wrong. He learns the
ultimate lesson of Job, that though Satan may try him and his own
prayers may beseech God's blessings and seem to fall on deaf ears,
true faith acknowledges God's will in all things.
Satan entices
Joe with a return to his former comfortable level of living, but
Joe recognizes the lie behind the promise. Only God's promises can
be trusted.
Into
the Fire is an incredible book. The writing of it left
the author both emotionally and physically drained. It does the
same for the reader. Brother Savage is a gifted writer who knows
the art of building tension. His own strong testimony that has been
tried through his own bouts with the Refiner's Fire, shines through.
His male characters are particularly well-developed, as is that
of the young handicapped daughter, but the other female characters
are a little thin. Neither the wife, Heather, nor the eighteen-year-old
daughter, Debbie, come through as clearly as they might have. Granted
the story is Joe's, and to be true to the biblical account it was
necessary to take Heather as much out of the picture as was Job's
wife, still I would have liked to know her and Debbie as well as
I came to know and care about Richie and Angela.
Reading Into
the Fire sent me back to the Old Testament more than once
to check it against the original. The modern account Brother Savage
offers matches the original far more closely than might be expected.
The modern events vary from those of the biblical account, of course,
in all the ways today is different from Old Testament times, but
the trials and the lessons learned are the same and highly accurate.
It also provides some insights I had previously missed in the account
of a man who lost everything but his faith, but through that faith
and commitment to God, gained an even greater fortune that had nothing
to do with the number of sheep and camels he could number among
his possessions.
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