Talk About Trouble: Chapters 12-14

You people really know everything, don’t you?
    And when you die, wisdom will die with you!
Well, I know a few things myself—
    and you’re no better than I am.
    Who doesn’t know these things you’ve been saying?
Yet my friends laugh at me,
    for I call on God and expect an answer.
I am a just and blameless man,
    yet they laugh at me. (Job 12:2-4)

Uh-oh. Job’s losing it, people. Cue meltdown in 5-4-3-2-

As for you, you smear me with lies.
As physicians, you are worthless quacks.
If only you could be silent!
That’s the wisest thing you could do. (Job 13:4-5)

“Oh, SHUT UP, you idiots!” – Job, to his friends, when they tried to “comfort and console” him.

A lot of chapters 12-14 is dedicated to Job elegantly insulting his friends. May no smack down be crude; this is high literature. He waxes poetically about how even the animals are smart enough to know Job is innocent, about how true wisdom comes from God, presumably unlike theirs, and makes sly underhanded insinuations like –

He leads counselors away, stripped of good judgment;
wise judges become fools. (Job 12:17)

But in the face of his friends’ failure to provide him with the wise counsel he has maybe always depended on from them, he comes to a moment of clarity: his friends, great as they are and useful as they want to be, cannot actually help him. <gasp!> They are just human, like him! “The blind leading the blind,” Jesus called it. They don’t understand what is going on in his life any better than he does. Worse, maybe. But definitely no better.

Look, I have seen all this with my own eyes
    and heard it with my own ears, and now I understand.
I know as much as you do.
    You are no better than I am.
As for me, I would speak directly to the Almighty.
    I want to argue my case with God himself. (Job 13:1-3)

From this sudden revelation of the limitations of his heroes and role models, then, arises a huge moment of character growth. As the framework and support system Job has always relied on collapses, he is forced to seek something new, something more dependable, in which to place his trust. He is left with only one viable source for answers. “That’s it,” he says. “I’m going to God.”

God might kill me, but I have no other hope.
I am going to argue my case with him. (Job 13:15)

The loss of everything else he could have relied on – his family, his wealth, his counselors’ wisdom, his own understanding, his own body – pushes him toward facing his biggest fear. Job is afraid of God. It says in Proverbs that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. He’s a wise man; he understands his size, power, and importance relative to God’s. He is a creature entirely within God’s power to utterly destroy, not just in body, but also in soul. What God has created, he also can uncreate. Job is, currently, deeply aware of how easily God can take away. But at this point – what has he got to lose?

So without further ado, in verse 20, Job ceases to address his friends, who it is clear can no longer help him, and addresses his questions straight to God.

O God, grant me these two things,
    and then I will be able to face you.
Remove your heavy hand from me,
    and don’t terrify me with your awesome presence.
Now summon me, and I will answer!
    Or let me speak to you, and you reply.
Tell me, what have I done wrong?
    Show me my rebellion and my sin.
Why do you turn away from me?
    Why do you treat me as your enemy? (Job 13:20-24)

Job then poetically argues that God really doesn’t need to interfere – human lives are short enough as-is. “Just give it a little while, God, and I’ll be out of your hair soon enough anyway! You can just leave me alone.” But as Job pours out his heart to God, his real desire begins to take shape a little differently. He starts out repeating that wish to die, but then –

I wish you would hide me in the grave
    and forget me there until your anger has passed.
    But mark your calendar to think of me again!
Can the dead live again?
    If so, this would give me hope through all my years of struggle,
    and I would eagerly await the release of death.
You would call and I would answer,
    and you would yearn for me, your handiwork.
For then you would guard my steps,
    instead of watching for my sins.
My sins would be sealed in a pouch,
    and you would cover my guilt. (Job 14:13-17)

Job’s thoughts turn away from what he thinks is the only realistic solution to his problems and toward what he really wants – something he thinks is a useless dream, something impossible. “You would yearn for me, your handiwork.” Job, like a child with his father, really just wants to be wanted by God. He wants God to like him! He’s spent so many years of his life trying to gain God’s approval. He wants, more than anything, a peaceful, loving relationship with his Creator. When he believed he did not get it, when the circumstances of his life convinced him that God hated him, that was what broke Job’s will to live.

Job was a man who sincerely sought God. Here, in this moment, when he has been stripped of all his accoutrements and we see just the man himself before God, his heart is laid bare. And what he says is, “You would call and I would answer.” He says, “My sins would be sealed in a pouch, and you would cover over my guilt.”

Again, Job calls out for a Savior he can’t see. Like the rest of us, his vision is short and limited to the moment he’s in, a moment of pain, suffering, and hopelessness.

But instead, as mountains fall and crumble
    and as rocks fall from a cliff,
as water wears away the stones
    and floods wash away the soil,
    so you destroy people’s hope. (Job 14:18-19)

But because we are reading this thousands of years later, we can see what he could not. Job could not yet see Jesus coming, but what he could see was a great big Jesus-shaped hole in the world. He, millennia before Jesus would come, before any of the psalmists and the prophets prophesied, before redemption was written into the story of the Exodus and the Kings – he looked at his world, at his life, at his limits, and he saw the need. “If that hole were filled,” he said to his Creator, “you would call me, and I would come.” Little did he know what we know. And yet, with only that little to go on, he offered to drop his own proverbial nets and follow.

One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him.

A little farther up the shore he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets. And he called them to come, too. They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind. (Matthew 4:18-22)

You would call and I would answer (Job 14:15a)

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 11

Shouldn’t someone answer this torrent of words?
    Is a person proved innocent just by a lot of talking?
Should I remain silent while you babble on?
    When you mock God, shouldn’t someone make you ashamed? (Job 11:2-3)

Listen! God is doubtless punishing you
    far less than you deserve! (Job 11:6b)

And in this way enters Zophar the Skeptic I mean Naamathite. Here are the current standings: Job claims he’s completely innocent. Eliphaz insists he messed up on the basis that no human can be perfect. Bildad is perfectly willing to blame Job’s obviously naughty dead children. And Zophar is – well – skeptical, to put it politely.

For he knows those who are false,
and he takes note of all their sins. (Job 11:11)

Color Zophar unconvinced. Eliphaz gently suggests accidental, ignorant sin, Bildad plays the blame game, and Zophar comes right out and says, “Job, man, give it up, we know you lyin’.” What, we ask, is his conclusive proof? Same as the other two. Input = output, therefore output = input. He’s not as generous as Eliphaz to think it’s an accident, not as loyal as Bildad to think it’s someone else’s fault. He mercilessly says, “This is your fault and you know it. Stop acting like this is an outrage.”

All right. Now. In Zophar’s defense, we humans do have a tendency to play dumb when we do something wrong. “I don’t know how the cookies vanished,” we say. “My dog ate my homework. Traffic was terrible. It wasn’t me! My brother did it.” Or, my three-year-old thieving self’s best try: “It just fell from the sky!” Yeah. Sure it did.

It made more sense to Zophar that Job would deviate from his character than that God would deviate from God’s. That’s honestly not bad reasoning. God is unchanging. You want us to believe now that he has done something totally unlike anything he’s ever done in the past so that we will believe you have not. <raised eyebrow> Yeah. Sure he did.

You want us to believe that he split open a sea and an entire nation walked through it on dry land.

You want us to believe a flour jar and an oil jar never ran dry while there was need.

You want us to believe a little boy came back from the dead.

You want us to believe the sun went backwards up the steps.

You want us to believe a pregnant teenage girl is a virgin.

You want us to believe the blind saw, the dead were raised, the lame leapt, and the storm was stilled.

You want us to believe in the resurrection.

Frankly, dear, faith requires us to believe some pretty wild things. And at the heart of them all is that God sometimes deviates from how he usually operates. That’s not to say he changes. It’s just to say sometimes more (or less) of him is revealed than we usually see, like with a rainbow. Did you know from an airplane a rainbow is a complete circle? Well. We usually only see an arch. Sometimes only a sliver. But that’s because our view is limited, not because the rainbow changes. When he has determined the time is right and the need is there, for his own purposes to be accomplished, God is fully capable of surprising us. How, then, are we supposed to know the difference between someone who is lying and someone who has seen God act out of the ordinary? These are muddy waters.

If only God would speak;
if only he would tell you what he thinks! (Job 11:5)

Ironically, Zophar wishes God would speak to Job what he thinks – but Zophar does not appear to have asked God first. If he would have only taken his own advice! Eesh, Zophar. Aren’t you an unflattering mirror. But the point! Back to the point. The point I’m trying to make is – if you’re not sure, ask.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. (James 1:5)

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Believe it or not, Zophar, God does speak. God does tell us what he thinks. I can usually tell when God is speaking to me because what he thinks is nothing like what I think. I often, like Zophar, expect I know what God is going to say to me. I often, like Zophar, am immensely, entirely, devastatingly wrong! But God’s knowledge is solid, and mine is only vapors. He holds onto tangible truths, rocks of fact and reason; I reach out my hands for truth, but find only clouds. I guess; he knows. So if I want to know, my best hope is to ask him.

If only God would speak indeed, Zophar. Hold on to your hat, Sir. His turn is coming. But first, you’ve got to deal with Job.

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 10

I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me—
tell me the charge you are bringing against me. (Job 10:2)

A brief context refresher: Job has confessed to his friends that he believes he would be better of dead. They are trying to talk him down from the ledge. Their arguments include assumption of guilt, belief in input = output, expectation that God believes as they do, and absolute faith that Job’s integrity will come to fruition in health, wealth, and wisdom. “Just go say sorry and ask God for your stuff back and he’ll give it to you because you’re a good guy” is basically what their arguments amount to.

Another brief context refresher: Job is not convinced by their nonsense. He knows their arguments unhinge on one key point – there is no guilt. <boom! crash clatter clatter> There is nothing to apologize for, and no one who can stand in his defense (yet). He ardently wishes for the Savior we take for granted every day.

Doesn’t matter what I do, Job says. He probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway.

And even if I summoned him and he responded,
I’m not sure he would listen to me. (Job 9:16)

This next chapter is Job suggesting what he would say to God if he could get God to listen. First, he wants to know what God’s got against him. This is considered, even in our modern court system, a fair and reasonable right. If the government takes any kind of action against you – arrests you, seizes your property, issues a fine, etc. – you have a right to know why. Job is feeling like someone who’s been beaten, arrested, imprisoned, and stripped of his assets without any communication of the charges brought against him. If I’ve done something wrong, he says, TELL ME WHAT!

But like a subject of a strong, oppressive government, he knows that if God has already decided the case against him, his own actions can have no effect on the outcome.

Although you know I am not guilty,
no one can rescue me from your hands. (Job 10:7)

So from this viewpoint – God as a government that does what he pleases regardless of his subjects – he wants to know what God stands to gain from this destruction.

What do you gain by oppressing me?
Why do you reject me, the work of your own hands,
while smiling on the schemes of the wicked? (Job 10:3)

From Job’s perspective, this destruction is absolutely pointless. He can see nothing God could possibly gain from this – the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it already, so it’s not like he was after Job’s stuff, and anyway, Job would have given him anything he’d asked for. If it had been one of Job’s shortcomings that brought this destruction, then why were the truly wicked – those not even trying to be good – not likewise destroyed? Why was Job, of all people, so singled out? And it’s not like Job belonged to some enemy king, and therefore could be destroyed on the principle of a greater war!

You formed me with your hands; you made me,
yet now you destroy me. (Job 10:8)

You worked hard to make me, God! Job says. I only exist because of and for you! Do you really want to throw away all that work so soon?? Did you really make me just so you could find all my faults and wreck me again?

As Job puzzles out what God’s possible motive could be, we get to another revelation of character. We uncover a piece of how Job sees God – in chapter 7, he calls God the “Watcher of all humanity” (vs 20), and then here in chapter 10 he accuses God of watching for the pleasure of criticizing, of finding fault.

Yet your real motive—
your true intent—
was to watch me, and if I sinned,
you would not forgive my guilt. (Job 10:13-14)

“You’ve just been waiting for me to screw up!” he accuses. Sometimes, when Job says stuff like this – even though he’s been dead for a few thousand years now – I still duck. I mean, he’s not the only person in history to think of God as this cosmic police force, constantly looking for someone breaking the rules so he can drag them off to be punished. A good majority of people who believe in God view him in this way, but I always thought it’s an entirely unfair portrayal of the loving father character of God (are the storm clouds gone? <phew>). God does punish, but not for the pleasure of punishment any more than a parent punishes their child for the fun of it. “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” human parents are famous for saying. God punishes not because he wants to, but because we need him to according to the rest of the Bible.

Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good. (Deuteronomy 8:5)

For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child. (Hebrews 12:6)

But here Job goes accuses God of punishing him for God’s pleasure, not for Job’s growth. I wonder so much how God can say, at the very end of it all, to Eliphaz:

I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7)

Umm. Hold up, Lord. Are we just – overlooking this moment? This isn’t accurate, right. You’re not just up there waiting for us to screw up so you can smite us, right. This isn’t paintball, right, you’re not just up there waiting for us to expose some vulnerable part of ourselves so you can redecorate us, right. Did I misunderstand the character of the Living God, or are we just ignoring this part? I need to know. I don’t want to believe I am nothing more than an animal hunted for sport.

Job, I think, is feeling the same. If this is true, if God has no interest in us other than in destroying us, then why –

Why, then, did you deliver me from my mother’s womb?
Why didn’t you let me die at birth? (Job 10:18)

Why bother going to all this trouble to make me, Job imagines asking God, just to wreck me now? Like those Asian monks who spend hundreds of hours making beautiful, ornate pictures out of sand, only to brush them away as soon as they are through, Job feels like God’s wasted a lot of time and effort if his ultimate goal was just destruction. “Could’ve just destroyed me at the beginning!” he says. “Would’ve been more efficient!”

Job is acknowledging to God, in a way that his friends aren’t and won’t, that God’s choices don’t make sense to him. “God’s choices always totally make sense to us,” his friends have been arguing. “Well, they absolutely don’t to me!” Job responds in this chapter.

In short, Job 10 is an eloquent oration of Job asking the age-old question, “God, why?” There are few of us who have never asked that question. There is something about that question, that doubt, that… insubordinate attitude that feels dangerous to us, that feels somehow like if we have to ask, we must be the problem. We must not be good Christians, good believers, good followers, good servants of the Most High God. We must not know God very well if we don’t understand his actions.

The irony here is that the people who believe they do understand God are the ones who are most ignorant of him. The ones who don’t ask why, but assume they know – are the ones who earn God’s ire and rebuke. Job, who fully admits he doesn’t get why God has allowed these bad things to happen, is the one God praises for seeing God rightly. “You’re starting to get it!” God says to Job. “I am incomprehensible to you, and that doesn’t make me bad.” Because in all this, Job still has not cowed to the pressure to curse God. He has cursed his own life, cursed the day of his birth, and wished fervently for his own death, but he has not wished God ill. He has only wished for his own relief, not for God’s harm. In all this questioning – Job still has not sinned.

So what does chapter 10 mean? It means it is not unholy to be unhappy. It is not unholy to ask why. It is not unholy to desire comfort or relief from suffering. It is not unholy to be confounded by God’s choices. But wishing God harm, cursing him to his face and wanting him to suffer for them – that is the line Job simply will not cross.

You can feel what you feel. It’s still what you do, not what you feel, that determines who you are. This chapter reveals that Job feels the absolute worst feelings humans can feel – abused, victimized, powerless, hopeless, in pain with no way of getting out of it – absolute and utter despair.

But he still refuses to be spiteful.

Talk About Trouble: Chapters 9

Yes, I know all this is true in principle.
    But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight?
If someone wanted to take God to court,^[a]
    would it be possible to answer him even once in a thousand times?
For God is so wise and so mighty.
    Who has ever challenged him successfully? (Job 9:2-4)

My first question, when I read Job’s response to Bildad, is how does this differ from what Eliphaz just said? Didn’t Eliphaz say he received this vision – “Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can a mortal be pure in his sight?” (Job 5:17) Isn’t that exactly what Job says too – how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight? How is this different?

This is one of those places where translation across language, time, and culture muddies the meaning, I think. Eliphaz’s main argument, if we look at the rest of the passage, was that everybody messes up and Job, too, must have sinned and either not know it or be lying about it. He is talking about measurement – no one can quite fill that scale of goodness required by God. If we read on into chapters 9 and 10, though, we see Job’s words in an entirely different context: a court room, and on one side is Job, on the other, God. Job’s friends have suggested he approach God and present his grievance because God will surely be reasonable and absolve him, so Job is envisioning himself taking God to trial.

If Job himself sinned accidentally, as Eliphaz suggests, God will forgive him, heal him, bind his wounds. If Job’s children had been at fault, as Bildad suggests, God will surely see Job’s innocence and make restitution – he will compensate Job for his loss by replacing what he previously had with something of even better quality. Both are based in the assumption that God’s justice looks just like and agrees with ours and therefore a fault lies somewhere within the humans involved.

But Job continues to argue that God knows there is no discernible human fault, and therefore there is no point in trying to change God’s mind. When he asks how he can be declared innocent – he’s asking how it would help if he were acquitted and exonerated by the same God who has already seen his innocence and allowed him to suffer all the same. God’s justice, he argues, must look different than ours.

If it’s a question of strength, he’s the strong one.
If it’s a matter of justice, who dares to summon him^[c] to court?
Though I am innocent, my own mouth would pronounce me guilty.
Though I am blameless, it^[d] would prove me wicked.

Job’s faith in God’s omnipotence and sovereignty has led him to determine there is absolutely no sense in contradicting God. Job feels very strongly in the injustice of what he’s suffering, but he knows that his God is the very standard of justice, the ruler by which all rightness is measured, so if he argues with God, he’ll always be wrong. Just because Job doesn’t like it and doesn’t agree with the standard due to the pain it has caused him doesn’t mean God is going to change to accommodate him – the universe does not bow Job’s preferences, desires, and whims, but God’s. No matter what I do, Job says, I’m wrong. I can’t win. There’s no point.

If I decided to forget my complaints,
    to put away my sad face and be cheerful,
I would still dread all the pain,
    for I know you will not find me innocent, O God.
Whatever happens, I will be found guilty.
    So what’s the use of trying? (Job 9:27-29)

Do you feel the lament in his words? How desperately Job wanted his friends to be right – how desperately he wanted his efforts to have meant something! He worked hard for what he had. And he had it. He had it! He had what he wanted, what he felt he deserved! And it was yanked from his blistering hands. Even if he listened to them now, he says, it would never be the same. He would always be waiting to lose it again the same way.

His friends just want him to cheer up, old chap! and be done with it, I think because it makes them uncomfortable to see him in pain, and despite the years that have passed between us, this human condition has not changed. Thou shalt not make others suffer just because thou art suffering. Don’t rain on our parade. How could you be so selfish to spoil our fun with your misery? How we fake a cheerful face even while our insides shudder! This, we are conditioned, is what others want from us. This, we are conditioned, is only common curtesy. In our modern world, we’ve taken it so far we’ve created something the world is now calling “toxic positivity,” the complete and utter denial and stuffing of pain of any kind in the name of “staying positive.” But Job fails to see how fake cheerfulness would fix his very real pain.

Even if I were to wash myself with soap
and clean my hands with lye,
you would plunge me into a muddy ditch,
and my own filthy clothing would hate me. (Job 9:30-31)

I think we can sum up Job’s argument in chapter 9 in this one word: powerless. He is trying to explain to his friends how very powerless he has recently discovered himself to be. They are doing their best to convince him he is not powerless, that he has his integrity and his reputation and that counts for something, but their arguments hold no sway over Job because he knows that his power is simply a far cry from enough. “It will never happen to you” is an empty consolation to the one who has already suffered the tragedy. “It will never happen again” is equally empty, a mirage that has already vanished.

And in this moment – “what’s the use of trying?” – it seems like the Accuser may just win the point after all. Remember, his hypothesis was that without the incentive, even Job would see no reason to be good. “He will surely curse you to your face,” he taunted God. You are nothing to him but a wallet.

Which brings us to another chance for our hero to fall. It’s a compelling one. Once again, he’s given a choice, and it looks like he’s leaning hard the wrong way. If there is no use in trying, if he gives up and finally curses God, the Accuser wins. On bated breath, all of heaven watches Job say –

God is not a mortal like me,
    so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
If only there were a mediator between us,
    someone who could bring us together.
The mediator could make God stop beating me,
    and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
Then I could speak to him without fear,
    but I cannot do that in my own strength. (Job 9:32-35)

“I wish there was a Jesus.”

I intended when I started this post to combine chapters 9 and 10. Job isn’t finished with his turn to talk. But looking at those words has brought me to a full stop: “I wish there was a Jesus.” Look at them again. If only. Again. Again. At the very moment Job’s “feet were slipping, and [he] was almost gone” as Asaph would say (Psalm 73:2), he cried out for a Savior. He cried out for exactly THE Savior – that God had already planned.

I knew this story was important.

A few extra footnotes in case you’re wondering how I got there…

A mediator:

But now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6)

To bring him together, or reconcile him, with God:

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

So that he would no longer live in terror of his punishment:

All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) (Ephesians 2:3-5)

And he could talk to God without fear:

So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 8

How long will you go on like this?
You sound like a blustering wind. – Bildad the Shuhite, Job 8:2

“You’re being ridiculous.” Has anyone ever said that to you when you were upset? Well, I’ve heard it, and I’ve said it. Pro tip: It. Does. Not. Help. Bildad is the first person in recorded history to find that out the hard way. Just to be sure, though, scientifically, I retest it from time to time. Current findings: no change.

Bildad reiterates Eliphaz’s assertion that God is just, and so good actions will receive good reward. He, unlike Eliphaz, sees that Job is innocent, so he passes the hot potato of blame into the laps of Job’s dead children. I’m sure that comforted their bereft, grieving father. Slow clap for this consoling strategy. Oh dear Bildad, if I were descended from any of these men, it would be you.

Does God twist justice?
Does the Almighty twist what is right?
Your children must have sinned against him,
so their punishment was well deserved. (Job 8:3-4, repeated with a cringe)

Again, he repeats that God will be kind and restore Job’s fortunes because Job really is a good guy. “It’ll be all right. It’ll all come back. God will just get you new children.” Also maybe not the most sensitive thing to say to a bereft parent. Seriously questioning whether or not Bildad has kids. Doesn’t sound like it.

But where Eliphaz’s argument was based on his own experience and revelation, Bildad founds his argument on someone else’s authority; he appeals to their ancestors. “This just doesn’t come from us,” he says. “Our parents said this is true.”

Just ask the previous generation.
    Pay attention to the experience of our ancestors.
For we were born but yesterday and know nothing.
    Our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow.
But those who came before us will teach you.
    They will teach you the wisdom of old. (Job 8:8-10)

Now – as a parent, I appreciate the vote of confidence in parental wisdom, I really do. I will say this on behalf of and in defense of parents everywhere: we truly love our children, and we truly want what’s best for them. We do our absolute best to teach our children what that is.

But… we’ve only lived so long, too. We’re subject to the same human limitations as our children. We, also, are still learning, and we, also, are capable of error. So while I appreciate Bildad’s confidence in his ancestors’ wisdom, and while I appreciate that older people do, in fact, have more experience than I do that’s worth hearing, I feel he maybe puts a little *too much* weight in their opinions. The question today is – will we believe God over our ancestors?

But look, God will not reject a person of integrity,
nor will he lend a hand to the wicked.
He will once again fill your mouth with laughter
and your lips with shouts of joy. (Job 8:20-21)

So say Bildad’s ancestors, who, if you remember, probably include Abraham and his sons. So say Eliphaz’s observations and experience. If everybody says so, then it must be true! Right? There has to be a logical explanation that fits into this worldview! Obviously Job has just not considered all the possible explanations – that his own suffering is nothing but a byproduct of someone else’s punishment. That’s all there is to it. What else could it be?

Now, before Job responds, I think it’s important to remember that the man was just told he was being ridiculous for grieving his naughty dead children. He might possibly be a little mad about it. Too soon to tell.

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 7

I said before that I’m no theologian; I’m just a word nerd with a keyboard, and I see the world through stories. I said before that in the story world, we say, “Plot reveals character.” I can’t sit here behind my safe little keyboard and judge the justice of Job’s situation or determine the value of his suffering. That’s God’s business, and I won’t attempt it. But this is a story, so what I will attempt to do is find the arc.

Stories and characters follow a pattern; they progress toward a goal, a growth, a change, an ending. We call this progression their arc. Though we often simplify it to say “plot reveals character,” I would also add, “plot refines character.” Something grows or changes or clarifies in the character along the way. No character should come out of the story the way they went in. In the story way, I see Job revealed, clarified, and refined through his suffering.

Consider where Job began: he was so afraid of offending God, so determined to never put a foot wrong and to do everything so perfectly right, he used to make extra offerings just in case his children sinned.

When these celebrations ended—sometimes after several days—Job would purify his children. He would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice. (Job 1:5)

Now I’m not here to tell you what he did was right or wrong. God already made that judgment – he said there was no one on earth as good as Job. He claimed Job as his own. Whether not it was necessary, whether not we too should adopt the practice – all of that is beside the point. The point is Job went from so scared to offend God in chapter one that he was making extra unnecessary sacrifices to wailing this in chapter 7:

Why won’t you leave me alone,
    at least long enough for me to swallow!
If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
    O watcher of all humanity?
Why make me your target?
    Am I a burden to you?^[b]
Why not just forgive my sin
    and take away my guilt?
For soon I will lie down in the dust and die.
    When you look for me, I will be gone. (Job 7:19-21)

It seems to me, story lover that I am, something has just been revealed in Job’s heart. It took breaking it open to find it, but I think it’s what I think it is: avoidance.

All my life, I, too, have been a careful rule-follower. Can’t say I was nearly as successful as Job, but I gave it my best. I thought I had clear motives: I wanted to be good, truly I did. It was not until years later that it occurred to me there might have been a little more to it. See, as long as I obeyed the rules, the teacher never talked to me. As long as I obeyed the rules, I never made the center of attention. As long as I obeyed the rules, the eyes of the crowd would fix firmly somewhere else. As a child who was painfully shy and scared of everything, invisibility was my armor, and the best way to be invisible was to play by the rules.

But God is not easily fooled. And his goal, believe it or not, is not to avoid relationship with us. It is not the rules he wants us to obey; it’s him. Personal obedience, rather than rule obedience, requires, in fact, relationship. When I carried my rule-following avoidance technique into my relationship with God, he put his foot down so hard on my invisible armor it cracked like an egg. I was a teenager when I prayed, “Lord, tell me what rules to follow and I will follow them!” and he said, so clearly, “No. Follow ME.”

So is it possible that Job, for all his goodness, for all his integrity, for all his righteousness – still fell short of God’s heart for humankind? Is it possible he wants us to be something more than merely righteous? Is it possible… he wants us to know him?

At least I can take comfort in this:
Despite the pain,
I have not denied the words of the Holy One. (Job 6:10)

Job was satisfied with his transactional relationship with God. This was strictly professional: a product or service was requested, a product or service was rendered, a payment was expected. No need to interact beyond the transaction. You asked me to do this, I did it, I get my reward. He’d done all the right things and gone on about his merry way, satisfied that God would accept his gifts and sacrifices, that God would be appeased. But was God satisfied with only that, and no more? Since when has the real God only asked to be appeased? Was that his goal in making mankind in his image? Do we only want our children to appease us, or do we hope to enjoy something more from them than that? Don’t we want to know and be known by our children? Doesn’t it bring us joy to know them, to guide them, to watch them grow into themselves? Does God maybe want the same?

God had given Job so many good things, and Job had been content. But I think God wanted Job to have more. I think God wanted Job to see there was more. I think God was getting Job pruned and ready to grow in ways Job never even imagined he could. Because God’s idea of good is bigger than our idea of good. Why wouldn’t God just leave Job alone like Job had asked?

Maybe because he still had more to give.

But patience. All we see in chapter 7 is the foreshadowing of growth to come, the beginning of a character arc with the stone pulled backward in the slingshot, ready to fly – the question: why won’t you just leave me alone?

Job’s friends, though, have not finished. Shh, it’s Bildad’s turn with the mic.

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 6

Don’t I have a right to complain?
Don’t wild donkeys bray when they find no grass,
and oxen bellow when they have no food? Job 6:5

FOUL. Job’s response to Eliphaz can be summed up in a little yellow flag thrown on the field, in a ref’s whistle blown, in a pause of game and leveling of the field.

First of all, Job says, I am MISERABLE. I am ALLOWED to say so!

If my misery could be weighed
    and my troubles be put on the scales,
they would outweigh all the sands of the sea.
    That is why I spoke impulsively.
For the Almighty has struck me down with his arrows.
    Their poison infects my spirit.
    God’s terrors are lined up against me. Job 6:2-4

Job defends his right to feel what he feels. Eliphaz has rebuked him for his response, but Job insists it’s a fair response, that any creature would make it, that he too is allowed his anguish when he has been so deprived of what he loves.

And then he goes scaring his buddies again –

Oh, that I might have my request,
that God would grant my desire.
I wish he would crush me.
I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me. (Job 6:8-9)

And then, he strikes.

One should be kind to a fainting friend,
but you accuse me without any fear of the Almighty. (Job 6:14)

Again, he’s right. Which one of them could tell him what his sin is? Which one of them has proof of his wrongdoing? The only “proof” they have that he’s done anything wrong is the circumstances they find him in, and as we have determined, converse fallacy says that’s not really enough evidence to convict a man. He challenges them to show him the evidence of what he’s done wrong because he knows they don’t have any!

Teach me, and I will keep quiet.
    Show me what I have done wrong.
Honest words can be painful,
    but what do your criticisms amount to?
Do you think your words are convincing
    when you disregard my cry of desperation? (Job 6:24-26)

Yet they’ve gone ahead and assumed his guilt without any real evidence, and Job knows they don’t even have miraculous insight from God on this matter because he knows he’s innocent, and God would defend him.

Look at me!
    Would I lie to your face?
Stop assuming my guilt,
    for I have done no wrong.
Do you think I am lying?
    Don’t I know the difference between right and wrong? (Job 6:28-30)

His friends are saying, “We know you’re guilty,” and Job is saying, “You absolutely don’t! How could you, since I’m completely innocent?! You’re not even paying attention!”

How quickly they have forgotten who Job is – wrongdoing would be completely out of character for Job, no one has come forward as a witness to accuse him of it, and they have no other indication, but they have an easier time believing he deserves his punishment than they do believing God would let him suffer for no reason. Why? Why do they ignore the body of evidence before them that counteracts their conclusion and cling to the one and only observation that supports it?

Because people believe what they want to believe.

IF Job is suffering AND Job has done nothing wrong… then what prevents them from suffering the same fate? What they are facing is the terrible realization of the limit of their control over their own lives. They always thought they could determine what happened to them, and in that thought, they felt safe. It was the same feeling I had when I believed my baby wasn’t growing because of something I had done – at least if the effect was caused by my actions, I could change my actions and change the effect. Now Job’s suffering contests that. Job’s suffering says no matter what you do, you might still lose everything. They are afraid to believe him.

You, too, have given no help.
You have seen my calamity, and you are afraid. (Job 6:21)

Job does not yet understand their fear. He wonders if they’re so cold-hearted, so grasping, so selfish that they are afraid he’s going to ask for their stuff:

But why? Have I ever asked you for a gift?
Have I begged for anything of yours for myself?
Have I asked you to rescue me from my enemies,
or to save me from ruthless people? (Job 6:22-23)

And maybe they are afraid he’s going to ask for help. That would be inconvenient and unpleasant to them, that is true. It is obvious their own material and familial wealth matters to them – a lot. These men have done everything they have done to preserve it. But I think there’s a fear that runs much deeper than that, a fear that makes them desperate to cling to a belief system that puts them profoundly in control of their own futures: a fear that God might not be who they think he is, that he might not value what they value, and if he is in absolute control, he might take it all away in a moment.

Like he did to Job.

Now the question is – how can any of us stand to believe in a God like that?

I hate my life and don’t want to go on living.
Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days. (Job 7:16)

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 3

What I always feared has happened to me.
What I dreaded has come true.
I have no peace, no quietness.
I have no rest; only trouble comes. (Job 3:25-26)

For a whole week, Job’s friends did really, really well. They tore their own clothes, threw dust on their heads, and sat with him in the dirt. For seven days and seven nights, they said nothing. They waited for him to speak before they opened their mouths; for a whole week, they did really, really well.

But when Job started talking, he didn’t say what they thought he would.

Here is what Job didn’t say: “I deserved this.” Here is what Job didn’t say: “My own actions caused my suffering.” Here is what Job didn’t say: “Things will get better when I do better.” Here is what Job didn’t say: “You’re safe from this fate if you do what you should.” Here is even what Job didn’t say: “God was wrong to do this to me.”

Here is what Job said: “I would be better off dead.”

And that scared them. Because what if it was true? It couldn’t be true; they could not let it be true. An urgency filled them to talk him out of believing it. Job was scaring them. I have felt that urgency. I have heard people I love say things that scared me the same. I feel, more painfully than I can say, how desperately they wanted him to think differently.

But Job had been searching for the source of his misery, searching for something to curse, and rather than wishing God harm, who he still believes has every right to do what he has done, he instead traces his misery back to its beginning: the day of his own birth. His own existence, he determines, is the problem.

And here we trip again, like his friends did.

I believe this is one of the big things that makes Job a scary book to read. His will to live is broken. People who are so miserable they want to die can be scary to us, can’t they? Especially if we love them, especially if their existence is one of the things that has made our own richer. If ever we have experienced this sentiment ourselves, that can be scary to us and scary to those who love us, too. A lot of people turn away from the book of Job here. We are too scared to know the ending, like Sam says to Frodo – “because how could the end be happy?” Job is everything we are afraid of; he is living all his worst fears (and ours!), and it has broken him.

Maybe that is why I so desperately cling to this book. Fear has overshadowed me for as long as I can remember; I was a fearful child, a fearful teen, and I am a fearful woman. Some days I feel I am not much more than my bundle of fears. More days than I care to admit, they wrap me up and suffocate me, and my faith has been one of desperation, one I cling to that alone can save me from the terrors my own mind can conjure. If you see me and think, “She doesn’t seem afraid to me,” know that is God’s victory alone in me.

Several years ago now, I encountered one of my own worst fears. Four and a half years before, I lived a trauma I did not even know to fear: my firstborn was born with an undetected heart defect and lived her first months in heart failure, unbeknownst to us. As she failed to grow and gain weight, everyone in my life looked in accusation at me; I was feeding her wrong, caring for her wrong, doing it all wrong. Here I had this fragile, tiny human under my protection and in my care – she depended on me wholly – and I was failing her. I thought I knew what to do, but clearly I didn’t. I did everything the doctors told me to, everything the consultants told me to, everything I could scour and find in books and on the internet – and nothing worked the way they said it would. The day we found out it was a heart defect and not my failings, I felt a rush of relief – followed by sheer and complete terror. If it wasn’t what I was doing wrong, then it wasn’t something I could fix, either. The months that followed, the anxiety, the terror, the open heart surgery on that tiny little heart were some of the worst of my life.

But the moment I am talking about came four and a half years later, when her sister was born with exactly the same defect – and the second time, I’d had over four years to dread it happening again every day. I don’t often relate to how Job handled his tragedies. But this part I feel straight through my bones and beyond:

What I always feared has happened to me.
What I dreaded has come true. (Job 3:25)

I had been lured to that moment by the belief that it wouldn’t happen again. Science said it was almost certainly not genetic; their cardiologist had never met a pair of siblings with the exact same defect in her 30 year career. Friends said see? it’ll be fine next time. People that I loved comforted me that the scary days were behind me; we were through it, and the future certainly would be brighter. My faith in a good God said my earnest prayers would be answered, that his perfect love casts out fear, that all I had to do was ask for good things, and God would give good things. Isn’t that what the book said?

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:7-11)

And then my life asked the question: what if?

Now, I’ve already told you, I’m no Job. Most of what I’ve suffered in my life has been well deserved. The testing I have endured is juvenile, politely put, compared to his, and I fully expect that’s a reflection of what God knows my faith to be. But there are times Job’s cries are relatable to all of us I think, and this is one of them. Maybe I haven’t cursed the day I was born. Maybe I haven’t come to the very end of all my will to live as he did, though I weary of the world enough to look forward to something better sometimes too. But Job 3:25 sure resounds in me.

What I always feared has happened to me.
What I dreaded has come true. (Job 3:25)

And this question Job asks is one that has been asked a billion and more times, before and since:

Why is life given to those with no future,
those God has surrounded with difficulties? (Job 3:23)

Or, the way we always say it – If God is good, why do bad things happen to good people? And further – Why live at all if that is so?

It is our habit to hush this question. It is our habit to skirt around it, to avoid it, to cast our eyes around wildly in terror making sure it was not overheard. But God did not hush it. He did not skirt around and avoid it. He is not afraid of it like we are. He dedicated an entire book of the Bible to this discussion. And then, at the end, he answered Job.

Before we get there, though, Job’s friends are going to meddle out of their depth. I told you I find them relatable!

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 2

What mesmerizes me about the book of Job is that it turns out human theology, human reasoning, human religion has stayed almost entirely the same in the thousands of years since this literary masterpiece was written. I could have written entire passages of this book myself, though not as eloquently, because I have felt them. I know exactly how these people feel. I have experiences, moments in my life, that I can attach these words to, and they FIT. Thousands of years of surface changes later – changes of technology, fashion, government, trends, languages, foods, and lifestyles – and the thoughts and feelings of humans remain unchanged. That’s why I am enamored by old literature. We are more alike with the people of the past than we will ever know.

I’m still not talking about Job. But his wife… well. She is definitely relatable.

Sometimes we forget that Job did not suffer all these tragedies alone. There’s another character in this story who just got caught in the crosshairs, unfortunate human collateral, and she serves as a contrast to show how most of us would have responded under similar circumstances. The “control” of the experiment, if you will: Job’s wife. At the beginning of chapter one, Job’s wife was a wealthy woman with ten healthy, happy children and the kindest, most generous husband in all the land. By the end of chapter one, she was destitute and bereft, and that wasn’t even enough for the Accuser. Job lost everything he had (except, notably, his wife, who seems to have been protected under the umbrella of “don’t harm him physically” – after all, “the two shall become one flesh”), and still, the Accuser claimed he only passed the first experiment because it wasn’t a good enough test.

Satan replied to the Lord, “Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life. But reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 2:4-5)

So Job is tested again in a way that challenges our understanding of fairness. Job would later describe his affliction in these unpleasantly descriptive terms:

My body is covered with maggots and scabs.
My skin breaks open, oozing with pus. (Job 7:5)

Lest we should think his illness a mild one – it wasn’t.

It is so easy to look at Job’s wife and judge her for what she says to him. This is literally her only moment that is preserved for all of history to judge – and it is her absolute lowest. It is so easy to forget that this woman is traumatized and grieving, in shock, and watching the best man she’s ever known suffer the agony of these horrific sores. His flesh is literally rotting. She loves him, I am convinced she must given who he is, and she is watching him live painfully and die slowly. What would I say to my own husband, who I love completely, in this moment? I would be desperate to stop his suffering, and I believe she is also a desperate woman. Desperate women are prone to saying wrong and foolish things, that’s true. I have been a desperate woman, too. And wow would I hate to be remembered as nothing but my lowest moment.

So remember that’s where she is when she says –

His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” (Job 2:8)

And so we arrive at the second pinch point of the story. Again, Job is faced with a choice, and in about 15 seconds, after he makes that choice, all of heaven is going to know who he is – for certain this time. That’s how long it takes to make a choice that makes or breaks us. I have always marveled at how long the consequences can last for a decision that takes so little time to make. These knee-jerk reaction choices we make come from within us and reveal us like nothing else does. I crumple when I think of some that I have made, and I know it’s only by the blood of Jesus this weak-hearted woman can be saved.

But Job says (and this is why I think Job’s wife was really all right most of the time – he talks to her like she’s briefly lost her mind, which indicates to me this was outside her ordinary behavior):

But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong. (Job 2:10)

All of this happens in only the first two of forty-two chapters. What does this tell us about the literary work we are about to read? This tells us that the circumstances of Job’s life right now are not the story. They are only the backstory, the catalyst, the setting; the real plot happens in the midst of them. The story is the reckoning that comes after. The story is how these men try to understand what has befallen him. The story is the hearts that are revealed – changed – grown.

Enter: the three antagonists – errr, friends. I mean friends.

When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. (Job 2:11)

I like to think they really had the best intentions. It says so right there – they came to comfort and console him! But wow, did that shot go wide. Made a few of those kind of shots myself, in fact.

But more about wide shots to come.

Talk About Trouble: Chapter 1

I have always been mesmerized by the book of Job. It was the first book of the Bible I ever started trying to read by myself, when I was about 8 and had just gotten my first ever little pink Precious Moments Bible. I picked it, I think, because the name was easy to read. Except I mispronounced it, like every child does the first time, and I’m sure when I told my mother what I was reading she found that endearing. I remember she said to me, “The book of Job can be kind of hard to understand.” Misunderstanding her, I said, “I understand it!” I thought she meant the words were hard to read. But of course, she was speaking theologically. And she was right!

I think that’s why Job has ever since been my favorite book of the Bible, although it’s not something I like to say. It sounds arrogant. It sounds like I’m saying I identify with the main character; that I, too, feel righteous and wronged. Quite the opposite, my dears, quite the opposite. I find Eliphaz the Temanite and Zophar the Naamathite far more relatable. I wish I was more like Job, but he’s absolutely baffling. I’ve returned to the book several times over the years, puzzling over the back-and-forth conversation, trying to understand what was so wrong about what Eliphaz and Zophar had to say. Why were they rebuked? I wondered. Weren’t they defending God’s justice as they had always known it? Aren’t their arguments echoed in other places – in the Psalms, in Kings and Chronicles, in Exodus, in the gospels and epistles? Doesn’t Job himself echo what they have to say? Where is the divergence of their beliefs and the truth?

Job is my favorite book because it is so nuanced, so unflattering to me, so difficult for me to wrap my head around. There is something here – it may not be something easy and it may not be something pleasant, but this little book is important, so I cherish it. In it, I find my errors. There is some mysterious truth in these pages I desperately want to understand. The heart of God is here, and I want it.

So yesterday I started reading Job again. I thought I’d just read a little, maybe a little more each day. No one else was home, a rare quiet moment for me, so I read it out loud. I feel like it hit differently that way. The emotion of the characters began to hum, to jump out of the pages. This is how the book was probably first recorded, orally, and how it is meant to be heard. It is one of those stories older than even the written word itself: some part of it dies on the page, I think, but speaking it revives it. The more I read, the more compelled I was to keep reading, to understand what on earth these people are saying. I read the whole book, 42 chapters. It upended my plans for the day, but I could not let it go. What did they say that God rebuked them? So many of their arguments are voices to my own beliefs, past and present. And God rebukes them:

After the Lord had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. So take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8)

His rebuke seems wholly unconnected to their arguments in my mind. Clearly my mind is wrong. I do not like to be wrong about God; it scares me. So I dig in harder, ask the God who is never wrong to open this mystery to me. Help me, Holy Spirit, to understand things you said to men so much wiser than me!

To understand the end, we go back to the beginning.

The book of Job begins by setting the scene for a complex set of poetical, philosophical soliloquys that compare and contrast the widely held theological beliefs of the time. It asks a “what if” question, the basis of all fine literature: what if Job does not get what he wants? Does his faith, does his righteousness dissipate if he does not get his reward for it? Will the good cease to be good if justice ceases to appear just?

I don’t know a lot about a lot of things in this world, but I know something about stories. I come at everything in this world from that angle because it’s the only one I’ve got: I’m not a theologian, I’m not a historian. I’m not a scientist, an engineer, or a mathematician. I’m a word nerd story lover with an obsessive streak and a keyboard. Sorry if you’re getting tired of it, but it’s what I’ve got. This is something storytellers say in the story-making world that I carry with me into Job: “Plot reveals character.” I’ve probably said it here before. We read, we listen, we absorb stories not because we really care about exactly what happens, but because we care about how the characters will respond to what happens. We care about what it reveals about who they are. The Bible is, in my eyes, the finest piece of literature in existence in this way; it lays out the pattern clearly to show us how God has written, not fiction, but all of nature and history to reveal character – his and ours. Like a pair of good glasses that bring the world back into focus, the Bible sharpens the edges of what has happened in our past to allow us to see our God and ourselves, maybe for the first time, clearly.

Then the Lord asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” (Job 1:8)

This is where Job begins: God and the Accuser are discussing who Job really is. God claims there is no one on earth as righteous as Job. The Accuser says, “You get out what you put in, God. He’s only good because you’ve given him good things.”

Satan replied to the Lord, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 1:9-11)

God, being the scientist that he is, allows this hypothesis to be tested. He knows what the result will be. But knowing that others will eventually reach the same upside-down conclusion, ready to demonstrate once and for all the error of the claim, he allows the scientific method to reveal it.

Here is the scientific question: is goodness a result of gratification only, or does it exist independently? Separated from its reward, will Job’s righteousness cease to exist? Why does he do what he does?

What – in short – is Job’s motivation?

The Accuser thinks it is health and wealth, external goodness that manifests by internal goodness – material possessions, comfort, success, honor, ease and plenty – if you would just give us all what we want, Lord, we all would be as good as Job. (Go on, tell me you’ve never heard that argument.) If, then, Job’s actions get him what he wants, only if they get him what he wants, he will continue doing them.

But God thinks there is something more. God thinks there is another reason Job does what he does. God thinks Job’s motivation is anchored in something firmer: conviction in God’s existence and consequent right to do as he chooses, and complete, pure, unshakeable trust in his Master God. Job, simply put, has real faith. Faith not in the circumstantial outcome, but in the character of God.

There is only one way to test this. They must separate the man from the reward. For the sake of clarification, for the sake of revelation, to silence the Accuser and all who would follow in his thinking, for the good of even us who would read it forever after, for a depth of just, perfect reasons beyond these, beyond what our human minds can even hold – God allows Job to be tested.

This is where we first trip.

Is this just? God allows Job to be tested. God allows Jesus to be killed. Who is this terrifying God, and what does it mean to serve him?

Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship.He said,

“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be naked when I leave.
The Lord gave me what I had,
and the Lord has taken it away.
Praise the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:20-21)

Don’t worry. This is the pinnacle of literature, the story we wait on baited breath to hear. All will be told in due time.

Tag: journals