Job’s Faith
I’ve been (on and off) reading through the book of Job lately. Sometimes I find it pretty difficult to understand. I mean, for one thing, who nowadays talks for paragraphs and paragraphs using crazy descriptive language and analogies nonstop and can even talk for that long without getting interrupted?? I never really understood before exactly what was the point of that story until now. I’m sure I still don’t fully understand it, but I think I’m starting to get the picture. Job’s entire life is destroyed in an instant; he loses his children, his flocks and his health. He is so incredibly overwhelmed by grief that when his friends come to see him they don’t even recognize him. And then, to top it all off, his wife and his closest friends betray him by giving him foolish advice. For almost the entire book, Job’s friends are trying to convince him that he must have been wicked for God to punish him so. Job knows that he is righteous, however, and even though he questions God, he never says a bad word against him. At last, God answers Job in what I think are some of the most amazing chapters of the Bible. He confronts Job for questioning Him and then goes on to point out all the incredible works he’s done. Job is basically left speechless. In the end of the book, God rewards Job for his faith and obedience and gives him back everything he lost times 10.
What I got out of it is that bad things can happen to anyone. The world is not just. But God sees everything that happens and He will reward us for trusting in Him, especially through hard times. And he always answers our prayers, even if it’s not the answer we want.
