Job - Introduction Part I

Wondrous is the word that describes my experiences of late. God has timing down to a tee. Well of course He does, He created it! It seems everywhere I turn I'm getting little confirmations about my most recent thoughts & feelings regarding His children.

So I've been reading Job...slowly. For the first time, I am reading from "The Message" and am thoroughly enjoying it. Even the introduction was amazing. What follows is a direct quote - taken in excerpts.

Job's name is synonymous with suffering. He asked, "Why?" And he put his questions to God. He refused to take silence for an answer. He refused to take cliche's for an answer (way to go, Job!). He refused to let God off the hook. Job took his stance before God.

Job is important to us because he suffered in the same ways that we suffer - in the vital areas of family, personal health, and material things. Job is also important to us because he searchingly questioned and boldly protested his suffering. Indeed, he went "to the top" with his questions.

One of the surpises as we get older is that we see no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. We do right and get knocked down. We do the best we are capable of doing, and just as we are reaching out to receive our reward we are hit from the blind side and sent reeling.

This is the suffering that first bewilders and then outrages us. [It worked the same way] for Job. And it is this kind of suffering to which Job gives voice when he protests to God. Job gives voice to his sufferings so well, so accurately and honestly, that anyone who has ever suffered can recognize his or her personal pain in the voice of Job.

Job says boldly what some of us are too timid to say. He makes poetry out of what in many of us is only a tangle of confused whimpers. He shouts out to God what a lot of us mutter behind our sleeves. He refuses to accept the role of a defeated victim.

Job does not instruct us in how to live so that we can avoid suffering. Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery [which is] part of the even larger mystery, God. Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love, and praise. Suffering does not inevitably do that, but it does it far more often than we would expect. It certainly did that for Job. "We take the good days from God -why not also the bad days?"

While pictures and color changes help, the introduction is lengthy and I don't want to lose your attention. Therefore, I have decided to split this into 2 or three parts that I shall post over the next couple of days. Please don't give up on reading this introduction. It is so good!