Following Job

I tried to read Job. It broke my heart from the beginning, as God began to test his loyalty, and to boot, his so-called friends who seem to know it all, tear him apart and comment on their idea of what God was trying to say. No one sympathized. The three buddies were too busy giving their opinions and solutions to the moment. Yet, Job hung in there and never gave up on God’s love for him and he became a major Prophet to help all of us. 

Job, from the Land of Uz, was up to the moment blameless and upright. He feared but loved God and shunned evil. He was blessed with seven sons and three daughters - a total of ten. He also had 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen (takes two to hold the yoke, so that would be 1000 oxen), 500 donkeys, many servants. He was considered the greatest man among all people of the East. Oddly, it seems to me, he also had brothers and sisters separated from him, but only one sister had been invited to eat and drink with Job. But early every day, Job would his people purified as he sacrificed a burnt offering for each human in his care, to make sure none had sinned or cursed God in their hearts.

We think as we move into Job’s story, how can the all-powerful, all loving God allow evil, which is in His power to control — since He is God — and to allow it to exist, especially to abuse good people? But then, none of us are perfect and all of us have within, hidden or not, a drop of evil or sin or disgust and we throw out a curse or have impatience with others or don’t agree with what those around us believe or do, and somewhere within, there goggles up a curse, an evil thought, a God please damn this person, kind of thing. 

Enter Satan into Job’s picture. The word Satan means accuser or adversary, and it seems like there was some sort of reunion of bosses in heaven or maybe head angels, saints and of course Satan, who exists, apparently, and could, I guess, still can have conversations with God. So, during this convention, God tosses upon Satan the sentence, “What do you think about my servant Job?” We don’t know if God was trying to provoke Satan, or really was straight on asking for his opinion.  This became the question of the hours that migrates through this long difficult book in the Bible. We are watching the responses of a favorite of God who was blameless, upright and a man who shunned evil and loved God above all. One would think that would be the best of the best who would never have to suffer.

Suddenly, as Satan began to test this best of the best servant of God, hell rained down on straight, loyal, beloved Job. Usually, successful men have a king of strength that abundance has given him. But when Satan goes after an individual, twists them into knots and pain, it becomes a one-on-one experience of hell at its worst. And I’m sure Job in the moment as this began to happen to him, he kept gritting his teeth and saying he could weather it and stand it because he loved and trusted God, so surely, He would save him, as he always had. But when he slid out from under that promise, that praise, that security, there was a whole other world of misery, pain, confusion, and distress. 

Job was not really prepared for such a thing but he hung in there - first wondering why God was doing what he was doing to him, especial the part of losing all his possessions, the herds he had taken care of and multiplied, and then, whoops, his precious family, and to me, the most obtrusive and egregious part was these so called “friends” who thought they knew how to handle the situation as they attempted to explain what they felt God was saying. All though Job worried and wondered about why these things were happening to him, what had he done to upset God, how could he be redeemed, no answers appeared, and things just went from doable to pain and misery and wondering what he had done to offend God, whom He loved with all his heart. God was silent. Job’s big “Why” was not answered. God just didn’t seem to defend Job and therefore Satan smiled because he was on the way to proving the point of taking away a man’s benefits, good life, possessions, his everything, would be his disaster, his no more believing in God.
 
Now though Job’s figure got distorted, and he lost everything. and lived in pain, Job never never never denied or cursed God, instead he was trying to figure out where he went wrong.  And what could he do to please God, although he didn’t need all those possessions to make him happy. And if he could be restored to good health at least, then he could better save God. Meanwhile this trio of so-called friends who thought they were philosophers or experts or psychologists who could help Job, just got in the way, in fact were irritating and long winded, hard to read. Job trusted God through his pain and disasters, and everything was returned to him.

Job’s helplessness we see so often in the pain of young children - especially those in St. Jude Hospital - who have spent their young lives on tubes and in operations losing not only their hair, but their ability to be young and innocent and to play and smile and have dreams, as they suffer through all the excruciating pains of cancers that are unfair, and one wonders why God lets this happen to them. But I don’t think God is one who interferes into the human style of life and thought, while they are on this earth dealing with survival in its various levels along with goodness and badness. It doesn’t matter what part of the world is in a moment of stress, horror, war, violence, or have crawled upon a peace that is very rare and very hopeful. Nothing is a sure thing. God put man on earth to work it out. He didn’t say he would dictate how to run the earth in whatever part one lives. God’s only big movement to intervene was sending his Son down to earth to be born through a young teenager who was modest and precious and for as he aged, for three years, Jesus shared as much as he could about the greatness of God, the hope we all have, and the fact that no one will be lost from the heart of God, if not here on earth, there will be rewards in heaven.

Job’s lesson for us is that we don’t have to be perfect for God to love us. In fact, I would hope God loves the most those who have nothing, who are strangled by crime because it’s all they know or were trained since born, the poor, the helpless, homeless, sad and violent, the prisoner on death’s row, all belong to God. We are all his children, like it or not, and we must believe our neighbor is just as important as you are. God is everywhere above beyond below and on the corner. He IS!  He is the Way, the Truth, the Light. So, because He IS we are too, and whatever the task or challenge, we must persevere and believe and love God, who does no wrong.

 ~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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