Year 2, Day 124: Job 30

Perspective on Job’s Life

In Job 30 we get a fairly honest perspective about life from Job.  At first blush it might sound like he’s being a little whiney.  It also might sound like he’s being a bit judgmental about people that he used to look down upon.  And if he is doing these things, then he should be rebuked.  But honestly, I don’t think much of this is really where Job is coming from.  I think in this chapter we see a man who has exhausted his logical arguments and he is finally worn down.  I think this chapter is by and large simply an emotional plea when there is nothing left to give.

Look at what Job talks about.  Job begins by lamenting over just how far he has fallen.  He has become someone who is looked down upon.  Even his friends have come into his midst to try and tell him just how much he is actually to blame.  There can be no doubt that with the decline in his health and the devastation to his family that Job’s community has begun to consider him an anathema.

The reality is that this is how it goes.  Communities should gather around those in need.  But so often when a person falls as Job has, the community stands around and mocks.  Or they assume guilt.  Or they laugh.  Or they take advantage of the person.  Or they talk about them behind their back. 

I think Job is speaking here about how genuinely worn out this experience has made him.  Look at what he says.  “My soul is poured out within me.”  Job is worn down.  It’s tough trying to understand what is happening when the people who should be helping to support you turn on you and treat you the way Job’s community has done.

Not only is Job emotionally worn down, but he is also physically in pain.  The blisters and sores on his skin have taken affect.  His skin is turning black and falling off.  That can’t be pleasant.  Job also talks about his bones aching.  No doubt his physical illness has wracked his whole body with pain.

It’s hard enough dealing with the emotional stress, but then when we add physical stress it becomes even more difficult to see any hope.  As human beings, so much of our attitude begins with physical health.  When we get a good night’s rest, when we have a nutritious diet, and when we can get outside and get some sun-filled exercise we can really help our emotional health out.  But with physical pain, lack of sleep, and little desire to go outside then the physical ailment only compounds the emotional stress.  Job laments how the physical and the emotional pain are having a cumulative effect.

But unfortunately, it doesn’t end with the emotional and physical pain.  Job also has spiritual stress in his life.  A fair bit of this spiritual stress is self-imposed – and made worse with the advice from his friends – and Job can’t help but wonder if God has humbled him.  He can’t help but think that God has cast him aside.  He can’t help but feel like when he cries out to God that God does not answer.  We know this to be untrue, but we should also be able to see how Job could think this way. 

Keeping Faith In The Dark Times

Through this chapter, I think we can get a feeling for one way that human beings find their spirituality being diminished.  I’m not saying that Job falls out of faith, certainly he doesn’t.  God will give us that verdict in a few chapters.  But we can see here how the combination of physical stress and emotional stress diminishes Job’s feeling of being connected to God.  As a human – filled with a limited perspective and flawed reasoning ability – we often can’t help having the real world negatively impact our spiritual connection to God.

Unfortunately, this is exactly opposite of how it should be.  Our spiritual connection to God should influence the physical realm, not the other way around.  God promises to be with us.  That promise should carry us through physical pain and emotional distress.  The spiritual should be the most important and it should be the spiritual that impacts the rest of our life.

But we are human.  It is far easier to let the perceivable world detract from the spiritual.  But thanks be to God that God knows this and works to remind us differently.  Job may be at a point in his life where he is emotionally and physically worn down.  God may even ultimately give him correction where it is due.  But God does not leave Job where he is.  God will work in spite of Job’s humanity and bring Job back to a restored relationship with Him.

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