“I long for the years gone by
    when God took care of me,
when he lit up the way before me
    and I walked safely through the darkness.
When I was in my prime,
    God’s friendship was felt in my home.
The Almighty was still with me,
    and my children were around me.”

(Job 29:2-5, NLT)

Each heart knows its own bitterness,
    and no one else can fully share its joy.

(Proverbs 14:10, NLT)

It is hard for me not to get stuck in my own grief in these first verses. I want so badly to reach right through the ages and take Job’s hand. I know what you mean, I want to say to him. I may not be as righteous as you were, and my losses might look smaller, but I know what you mean.

Isn’t it a relief to find these words in the Bible? Think about this book. The Bible was written over thousands of years long before technology made writing cheap. It was written long before the general populous was literate. Every word in this book cost more than we can comprehend – in resources, in time, in education, in preservation, in lives lost to its defense. They did not have resources to spare on empty words. These words mattered that much to the people who meticulously, lovingly, arduously preserved them. These are the words, above all others, that they wanted every human to have the chance to hear.

And here, in the middle of them, is a man openly expressing his raw, bleeding sorrow. His vulnerability and gutting honesty meant that much to people, and that much to the God who inspired the preservation of every holy word. I miss him, Job cries. I miss God! I miss what my life was like with him around. Those words are holy when we cry them, too.

Job goes on to describe and clarify what his life was like before this tragedy occurred; he was respected, he was generous, he was loving, he was kind. Every word directly contradicts an accusation his friends unfairly laid at his feet.

I helped those without hope, and they blessed me.
    And I caused the widows’ hearts to sing for joy.

(Job 29:13)

When they were discouraged, I smiled at them.
    My look of approval was precious to them.

(Job 29:24)

The highest officials of the city stood quietly,
    holding their tongues in respect.

(Job 29:10)

If Job 29 comes to its own poetic peak, it is this verse right here:

“I thought, ‘Surely I will die surrounded by my family
    after a long, good life.'”

(Job 29:18)

Job is suffering, along with all else, the loss of his expectation. He thought he knew how his life would turn out. So many of us can relate; we anticipate a certain future, plan for it, work towards it – and yet there are no guarantees we will ever see it. How many of us expect to die of old age, surrounded by family, in peace! Though we know many meet a different end, we continue to expect the ideal.

When Job did not see his hope come to fruition, he concluded the same thing so many of us conclude in that place: God must have abandoned me. We sometimes feel like there is so little to go on to know how God feels about us, so little feedback to use to understand what he wants from us. So we read into our circumstances what we think God must mean. To Job, it was clear: God had left him. How could any of this have happened if God had not rejected and abandoned him?

This is Job’s greatest grief: after all the good he has done, God has still abandoned him. It was his greatest fear all along, wasn’t it? Didn’t he offer extra “just-in-case” sacrifices because he did not want God to leave him? And here he is, after all of it, after all the wonderful things he did just to please God, abandoned.

Or is he?

When my daughter was little, she had a tendency to jump to conclusions. If she could not find something immediately, it was lost forever. If someone else got a cupcake before her, she was not going to get one. I used to tell her, “Lovey, never rush into despair.”

I would not say Job rushed into despair like she so often did. I might sooner say he was rushed by despair! But I would suggest he did jump to one incorrect conclusion. He believed because of all he had lost that God must be among that number. Rejected. Abandoned. He believed he had been left alone.

How many of us have assumed the same?

But just because God may be quiet in grief, it does not mean he is not there.

Those are words worth whatever it takes to preserve them.

This book is about hope.

to be continued…