Year 2, Day 108: Job 14

Trouble Is Our Middle Name

There is much wisdom in Job’s opening lines.  What human being does not cause more trouble in this earth than there would have been had the person not been born?  So not each of us cause trouble for ourselves and others in this life?

Now I admit, that’s a rather negative perspective on life.  Hopefully we do also bring some good into life as well!  But honestly, who among us would even dare to claim that we bring more good in life than evil?  Who among us can claim that our day-in-day-out interactions with people genuinely bring about more good than bad?

Death

Then Job talks about death of a human.  When a human dies, it dies completely.  In this life, there is no rebirth as we see in other organisms that can regenerate lost parts.  Job gives us the example of a tree.  I’ll use the example of a dandelion.  Even if I go out every morning and pluck off every one of those dandelion heads while they are yellow – the plant will continue to just put up more heads. 

Or take many lizards.  Even if they should be in trouble and lose their tail, they can just grow a new one.  But this is not so with human beings.  When we die, we die.  When we lose an appendage, we do not grow one back.  Life is measured differently for humans than for many of the other forms of life upon this earth.

Now, we must be careful and not take Job’s words too far.  When Job speaks about a person dying and not coming to life again, Job is not talking about the resurrection of the dead.  Job is strictly speaking about time here on this earth.  When we die on this earth, we die.

This concept is very important for human beings to understand.  It is called “finitude.”  We must understand our human limitations.  We must understand that at some point our bodies will wear out and we will die.  We must understand that for a time this world will go on without us.  It is life.  It is also one of the hardest things to accept about life.

Yet, it is precisely our wrestling with finitude that sets us up for a proper understanding about eternal life.  We are not what drives life in this world.  We are a mere participant in life.  We have been blessed to be allowed to even live!  So it will be with respect to the resurrection of the dead as well.  We will not be the center of eternal life – God is.  We will simply be a glorious participant in eternal life.  We will be blessed to even be a part of it!

We are Self-Centered First

The end of this chapter paints a grim picture of the human.  In the end, we are all self-mongers.  Even the best parent will not be able to truly determine whether their children have come into honor or dishonor.  Because of our short life spans, this is even truer about the generations that will follow each of us!  Who among us will honestly know whether our grandchildren will be honorable or dishonorable?  What of their children?  No, in the end the only thing that we as human beings can genuinely know is ourselves.  The only person I can genuinely know with respect to honor or dishonor is myself.

As a human being, I will likely go on focusing on my own pain and my own joys.  I will yearn to be involved in the lives of others, but in reality I will only be a part of what the other person and I choose to come together on.  Since I will be a part of my own life all the time, my own life will naturally always take precedence.  Except by the grace of God, my pain will always trump the pain of others with respect to my attention.  Except by the grace of God, my life will always trump the lives of the other.

I think these final verses really bring Job’s pain to a great head.  Job feels hopeless in his current situation.  He also feels that because of the greatness of his pain, he cannot think of anything other than his own pain.  Remember, he has just lost all of his sons and daughters, too!  Unfortunately, it is when we are in great pain or turmoil that our selfishness truly comes out the strongest.

I hear the challenge of Job, but I wonder if any of us are strong enough to actually do anything about it.  Can any of us draw so close to God that even when great pain or turmoil should come our way we would not focus upon ourselves?  Can any of us be so close to God that even in the midst of unendurable pain and suffering we can still “love God and love our neighbor?”  After all, those are the first two commandments and as Jesus says upon those rest the entire law.  Can any of us hope to be so close to God as to still obey those even in spite of great pain?

Only by the grace of God, that’s for sure.

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