I’m clipping right along in my straight-through reading of the Bible this time around. January is not even over and I’m going to finish Job tonight. But let’s take a little detour here because something in my reading today really caught my eye.
Job is an interesting book with an interesting story, but what I think perhaps most incredible about it is that it is some of the most beautifully written prose, not just in the genre of religion or spirituality, but in all of history. It’s just gorgeous. Please just read it for the sake of its beauty sometime.
Now, let me show you what caught my eye today, and then I’ll tell you how it got me thinking. The reading might seem a bit long, but please bear with me (from the New International Version):
29 Job continued his discourse: 2 “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, 3 when his lamp shone on my head and by his light I walked through darkness! 4 Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house, 5 when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me, 6 when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil. 7 “When I went to the gate of the city and took my seat in the public square, 8 the young men saw me and stepped aside and the old men rose to their feet; 9 the chief men refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands; 10 the voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths. 11 Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, 12 because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them. 13 The one who was dying blessed me; I made the widow’s heart sing. 14 I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. 15 I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. 16 I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger. 17 I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth. 18 “I thought, ‘I will die in my own house, my days as numerous as the grains of sand. 19 My roots will reach to the water, and the dew will lie all night on my branches. 20 My glory will not fade; the bow will be ever new in my hand.’ 21 “People listened to me expectantly, waiting in silence for my counsel. 22 After I had spoken, they spoke no more; my words fell gently on their ears. 23 They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain. 24 When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it; the light of my face was precious to them. 25 I chose the way for them and sat as their chief; I dwelt as a king among his troops; I was like one who comforts mourners. 30 “But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. 2 Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them? 3 Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed the parched land in desolate wastelands at night. 4 In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom bush. 5 They were banished from human society, shouted at as if they were thieves. 6 They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground. 7 They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth. 8 A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land. 9 “And now those young men mock me in song; I have become a byword among them. 10 They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. 11 Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence. 12 On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me. 13 They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me. ‘No one can help him,’ they say. 14 They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in. 15 Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud. 16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. 17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. 18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment. 19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes. 20 “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me. 21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me. 22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm. 23 I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living. 24 “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. 25 Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor? 26 Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness. 27 The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me. 28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. 29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of owls. 30 My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever. 31 My lyre is tuned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of wailing.
Those are some beautifully written words. They capture Job’s desire and bewilderment. But they kind of tell me something else.
I’ve heard so much of Job and its meanings. People search for reasons. They want to know why God would be so capricious as to toy with the life of a man so devout. I’m not going to dig down into that mess right now, as fascinating as it can be. But I am going to look at what I’m seeing in Job’s own description of the heights and depths he experienced in the eyes of those around him. If you read chapter 29, you see the list. You see the respect he commanded as a “pillar of the community.” Job was “the man.”
And then you can see the depths to which he was plunged in chapter 30, and all this in the eyes of those who once held him in esteem.
And I don’t see a whole lot of difference in this than in the arguments you might find from most men today. Men who think the key to life and blessings is what they did – how great they looked in the eyes of those in the community around them.
Fortunately, Job (the man) has a whole lot more going for him that redeems him from this shallow view. I love his comment earlier in chapter 19, “25 I know that my redeemerlives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”
But even more, he absolutely buries himself in humility at the end in chapter 42: “3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
God rewards him, but we should know that in this worldly life it might not work out that way. We could be “checking all the right boxes” and still face difficulty and suffering. But contrary to what some believe (particularly those in the “prosperity” movement) worldly blessings are not a sign of a life in Christ. A life in Christ comes with one sure thing – the promise of eternity in heaven with him.
And with that in sight, we should be able to handle a life that has no other guarantees.