Year 5, Day 101: Job 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Vision 

• Vision: Vision is most needed when we are our most human. Vision is most needed when we have a typical D₂ moment. Vision is partnered by Time and Grace.

I feel for Job in this chapter.  Here is a man whose world is crumbling around him.  Furthermore, he has the misfortune of being surrounded by people who assume that misfortune equals trespass and error.  In some cases that’s true.  But remember that here Job is in this predicament because of his righteousness and not because of his sinfulness.  But it doesn’t change the fact that Job is in a miserable place in life and surrounded by people who are doing everything except casting a hopeful vision of the future.

Can there be any wonder that Job finds himself wallowing in misery and wishing that he was dead?

When we are in despair, it is vision that we need most of all.  We need someone to come along beside us and remind us of what the future might look like with God.  We need someone to come alongside of us and struggle with us while forcing us to pick up our head and look down the road.

When I read most of Job’s words, I hear the words of a man who has lost his vision.  It’s understandable, mind you.  He’s lost everything; why not lose his vision, too?  But that’s what he needs to regain to move forward.  He needs to remember that life is defined by God and God’s reality.  Life is defined by what God can make of the future.  Life isn’t defined by our finite human perspective – thank the Lord!  Life is defined by what God can make of life – even a life that has been reduced to rubble.

I wish someone had been there to respond to Job and tell him to not long for death.  I wish someone had been there to remind Job of the infinite capacity of God.  Here is a man who desperately needs vision.  What a great reminder for each of us that when we find people in despair we need to respond in some manner that incorporates vision into the mind of the one despairing.

<><