Year 5, Day 97: Job 3

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.

Let’s face it.  Job is having one heck of a D₂ moment here.  Job has hit a serious low spot in his life and he is having to wrestle through it and process it.  I don’t have any issue with what Job is doing here in this chapter.

It’s completely natural for Job to focus first upon the pain and suffering.  After all, the list of health issues with which Job was inflicted would not have made for a pleasant life.  When we add to this the turmoil inflicted upon him in the first chapter with the loss of family and the ability to provide for himself, can there be any wonder that Job is in a dark spot in life?

Job does what we all need to do to get through dark spots in life.  He begins to process it.  In fact, I commend him for processing it with other people.  He needs to get the cesspool of emotional garbage out of himself so that it no longer consumes him from the inside.  So he lets it out.  He does what he needs to.  He puts voice to the feelings within him.  Note that to Job’s credit that he never once attacks God or God’s character while he does it.

However, let’s also note what Job is missing: vision.  Of course Job is missing it; who among us can ever see the end-game in a bleak situation like this?  Job cannot see the end.  He cannot see the bigger picture.  He cannot see past his own suffering right now.  It is vision that will eventually carry him beyond the natural short-sightedness of his pain.  Of course, he will need time before he is even willing to see that vision.  And in the end he will need grace to be forgiven of his natural self-centeredness brought on by this trauma.  But fundamentally, this chapter – and moments like this in each of our lives – are brought on because we simply lack the vision necessary to cope sensible with trauma in our life.  Job’s no different.  What he does here is completely understandable.

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