Readings for today: Job 6-9
Father, so often I get anxious in the face of suffering. I want to rush to solve the problem, relieve the pain, find some reason or rationale to explain it. Help me to manage my own anxiety so that I might truly sit with those who are hurting in the ashes of their lives and love them in the midst of it all.
“Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, 'A man is conceived...Why did I not die at birth, come out from the womb and expire?...Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul?” These are just a few of the gut wrenching questions Job asks. After experiencing so much misery. So much tragedy. So much pain. He finally reaches the point of utter despair. His friends are at a loss. They don’t know how to help. They are afraid for their friend. And as they sit with their friend in the ashes of his life, an anxiousness begins to grow within them. Every word Job speaks only increases their anxiety. Their feelings of helplessness. Their feelings of hopelessness. Finally, they can’t take it anymore and they begin to respond.
How do I know this is what Job’s friends are experiencing? Because it’s what I experience every time I walk into a similar situation with people I love. I have been in the emergency rooms with parents as they said goodbye to their children. I have been in the neonatal units watching infants struggle for every breath. I have sat at the bedside of those dying from cancer and tried to bring comfort to their loved ones. I have been in the developing world and seen life-threatening poverty. I have prayed over men and women whose condition is utterly hopeless because they simply do not have access to the resources they need to survive. In EVERY single case, I feel helpless. Inadequate. Afraid. Frustrated. These anxious feelings threaten to overwhelm me and, if I am not careful, can cause me to say things more for my own benefit than for the good of others. This is what we see playing out in Job’s conversations with his friends. They are experiencing all kinds of emotions as they sit with Job and eventually reach a breaking point where they feel they have to respond.
Eliphaz is the first to speak. “Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?” (4:6-7) Now this is a theologically true statement. The fear of God is our confidence. Walking in integrity with God is our hope. God promises to protect the innocent and the upright. These things are all true. At the same time, speaking these words to a man who has lost all he holds dear and who, even now, suffers from sores and wounds that are infected with worms is insensitive and superficial. What Job needs is not an answer to why he is suffering but friends who will simply sit and listen and let him process his pain for however long it takes. Yes, it is true that “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.“ (5:7) But for Eliphaz to suggest to Job that if they could exchange places, he would “would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number” (5:8-9) is patently absurd. Eliphaz simply has no idea how he would respond were he in Job’s condition and that’s why his words fall on deaf ears.
Job responds with a stinging rebuke. "He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams that pass away...They are ashamed because they were confident; they come there and are disappointed. For you have now become nothing; you see my calamity and are afraid.” (6:14-15, 20-21) He clearly sees their fear. He clearly sees their discomfort. He clearly sees their anxiety as they sit helpless before him. He knows they are struggling with how to respond. But he also knows Eliphaz’s answer is to far too simplistic. Suffering and sin do not exist in a one to one relationship. This situation has nothing to do with cause and effect. Eliphaz’s theology is far too superficial to explain why some people suffer in extraordinary ways when they have not extraordinarily sinned. Nor is it adequate to explain why some people prosper in extraordinary ways when they clearly are extraordinary sinners!
Once again, Job cries out to God. “What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning and test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit? If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be." (7:17-21) This is raw. This is real. This is the kind of honest emotion God invites from His children. We can talk to God about anything. Nothing’s off limits. Nothing scares God. He’s a big boy. He can handle even the deepest of our emotions. And Job’s words here in this passage invite us to share our deepest, most intimate thoughts and feelings with God.
But such raw emotion is too much for Bildad. He feels he has to rush to God’s defense. (As if God ever needs us to defend Him!) “Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation.” (8:3-6) Brutal. Harsh. Unloving. Uncaring. Your children died because they sinned? Chalk that one up to “things never to say to people who are in pain!” But Bildad goes even further, insisting Job has clearly sinned and therefore deserves what he has received. If only Job will seek God (as if Job hasn’t!!!), then he will be healed and restored.
Job clings to his faith. He continues to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times...How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser...If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse...For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.” (9:2-3, 14-15, 19-20, 32-33). Though Job is not “guilty as charged”, he understands his position before God. This really isn’t about guilt or innocence because again, suffering and sin do not exist in a one to one relationship. This is about Job’s pain not his purity. This is about Job’s suffering not his sanctity. This is about Job’s heartbreak not his holiness. He is hurting and out of his hurt, he cries out to God.
Where are you hurting today? What heartbreaks have you experienced in your life? Where have you found yourself crying out to God? Or perhaps struggling to cry out to God out of fear of judgment? Know He is there for you. He is waiting for you. He is sitting with you now even in your pain. Where have you been like Job’s friends? Struggling to find the right words to say when all you want to do is escape the situation? Have you ever said things more to ease your own conscience than to help the one in need? Repent. Confess. Ask for forgiveness and then ask God for the courage to have compassion. To sit with those in pain. To stand with those who suffer. To mourn with those who mourn.
Readings for tomorrow: Job 10-13