Thoughts on Job

 

I dove into the book of Job recently. It’s one book in the Bible I usually avoid because it always seemed unfair to me. It starts out with God and the Devil discussing Job and his righteousness. Satan is sure that if he can mess up Job enough than he will curse God and reject Him. God is confident in Job’s faithfulness and as such, gives the devil free reign to steel, kill and destroy. Presumably this is a bet between two beings over the fate of a puny human, like a Greek tragedy that the gods put into place. Job is a cursed man put through the crucible to prove his worth.

This is how I always imagined it. Somewhere I knew it couldn’t be totally true; it doesn’t line up with the loving God of the rest of the Bible. Yes, even the God of the Old Testament who gave the Hebrews a strict law but always gave them a way out of self -imposed misery.

Chapter 1 clearly describes Job as a blameless and upright individual that fears God and shuns evil. So why the attack on his family? I could say that maybe his son’s and daughters committed evil and their punishment was death. But that doesn’t help me understand Job’s plight. God is merciful and gracious and Satan is the destroyer. But if God signs off on the destruction, as is pretty clear in Chapter 1, it seems to show Him as vindictive. I don’t believe He is, but the story is written in a way that suggests God tests us though trials.

Maybe that’s the best way to understand Job’s plight, as reflecting the test of a loving God. He sorts Job out in later chapters by explaining how little he (Job) understands the things of God. ‘Can you draw out leviathan with a hook?’ or ‘Can you mark when the deer gives birth?’. These questions direct us toward the vastness of God’s plan. We aren’t meant to understand the reasons or times in which things occur.

The answer may lie with some sin that Job’s kids committed to bring destruction on themselves. It’s not a perfect example but it at least explains why they lost their lives. I thought this scene between Satan and God over the faithfulness of Job almost seems like a courtroom drama without a jury. Job represents himself to God (the judge) and Satan prosecutes some past wrong from Job’s family. The judge allows the punishment to go forward but sets a limit on how long it will be. This way he can fulfill the required judgement but not allow it to overwhelm Job (the defendant). Once the allotted time is up and if the defendant is faithful to the charge and still fears God, he receives a reward larger than what he lost. The blessing is God’s nature--a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.

The connection between trouble and sin is a tough one to undue though. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself temp anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown brings forth death.” (James 13-15)

Even Job’s friends assume some sinful behavior brought on the misery. The reason it fits here is that God permits Satan to destroy a man’s life. Seeing him recover and even prosper after the ordeal is small comfort to a father who just lost his kids, these kid’s that he made daily sacrifices for. Buy we know that not all calamity comes from sin. 

There isn’t a straight line that explains all loss. We have to open our thinking a little and consider how Christians or Jews in Muslim countries fare under pogroms against them. What trespass did they commit to endure the violence or theft or raiding of property? Car crashes kill record numbers every year, is there a hidden sin that permitted the destruction? Of course not.

The story of Job just doesn’t work for me any other way though. But understanding the eternal struggle taking place between good and evil forces us to realize the attacks on us raging at all times.  

 God doesn’t permit pogroms or massacres or wars against people, full stop. If we say that in certain situations he might allow disease and violence and looting to bring us closer to Him, then so much about our Heavenly Father from the rest of the Bible is surely wrong.

We don’t understand the times, the seasons or the way in which He brings about change, but we certainly understand His attributes. We can understand the natural laws that govern life and death; plants come back to life in spring after they’ve died in the winter. Back to James: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:16-17).

Like so many disasters in life we want a clean answer that may never come. But it isn’t because our God is inconsistent, He is the source to all answers and to fear Him is to understand wisdom. Job figures this out as well. “…I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42: 3)

We should always come before the Lord confidently, in the knowledge that He longs to teach us.