April 21: Of Tough Jobs

Job 1:1-3:26

1 Corinthians 14:1-17

Psalm 37:12-29

Proverbs 21:25-26

Job is tough for me.  A good man, a righteous man, and God permits all that to happen to him.  The magnitude of what he faces is, to me, incomprehensible. The loss of all he'd worked for.  The loss of all he loved, with the exception of his wife.  And the loss of his wife's support, when she counseled him to abandon his integrity, to "curse God and die".  A man seemingly, truly alone with tragedy.  

I suffer the stereotypical male characteristics:  I like to reason, and I like to fix problems.  Sometimes, though, as is is the case with Job, things just don't make sense.  Worse, they are also simply beyond my ability to even begin to address, much less fix.  What to do then? Or, what not to do?

Perhaps first, we ought not to deny the pain, the agony, be it our own or our friends'.  Job didn't.  Job cried out his anguish, wishing that instead he'd never been born.  Even our Lord cried out "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani?"  God knew Job's pain.  He knows ours.  We don't need to try and hide it from Him. 

Perhaps also we might not try to solve, to fix what is clearly beyond us.  To me, this is difficult, thoroughly, unsatisfyingly futile.  I want things to get better.  But often, in these situations, it is neither my place nor within my ability to make things better, to even decide what "better" might be.  

Perhaps it is at this point that we might try, instead, to remind - or to remember.  It is at this point that, when I am lost in despair, I need a friend.  Not one who will tell me to abandon all hope, to "curse God and die"; but one who will look me in the eye and remind me, with the same faith, the same conviction that my pain may have chased out of my heart, that God is in control.  That this, too, shall pass - no idea when, but it will.  And that, some day, this may all even make sense.  But today, it makes sense to God - and He is in control.  

Father, when my circumstances make it impossible for me to see You, bring me a friend who will point You out.  And when my friends have the same need, grant me the grace to do the same.