The Job of Reading the Book of Job

Let me address this week's blog to everyone who has tried to read through the book of Job.  It is not an easy undertaking.  For most of the book it is a tragic story of cruel suffering and unanswerable questions. Three friends come to comfort Job but only confound him more.  They argue and debate but never seem to get anywhere.  It is a lot like real life.  It is real life.

This time as I am reading through Job in our challenge at Northside to read through the Bible chronologically, I have found some things that help. Job and his friend's perspective on life and suffering is, 'If you suffer you must have done something wrong because suffering is punishment on wickedness.'  Today, some might call it  'bad karma.'  Job struggles with this because he has done nothing wrong; his friends argue that he must have done something really bad to be suffering so much. 

In the end we find out the truth -  good people suffer too.  The world is not fair, it is a fallen place.  Too bad Job and his friends did  not know what happens in the first few chapters about what goes on in heaven before his suffering comes.  Then they would have known an even greater truth - we are all involved in the great struggle between good and evil,  the power of life and the power of death, God against Satan and Satan against God.  No one is immune.  It involves all of us.  Not all of us are like Job but all of us find ourselves involved nonetheless.

Another thing that helps is reading through Job like we are on a treasure hunt.  There really are some great lines in the middle of all the human debating.  Yes, a lot of the debating back and forth can be confusing.  There are elements of truth in what each person says but at the same time they are not seeing 'the big picture' either.  But there are some things to underline and hold on to.  Treasures like -

"I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth...yet in my flesh I will see him with my own eyes - I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!"
Or
"But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."

Look for these and you may find even more.

For the journey...