Year 8, Day 111: Job 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

We see Job begin to turn a corner.  Up until now, he’s been wallowing in his sorrow.  He’s been focused on the negative things that have happened.  While it may not be correct, it is absolutely understandable.  It is the human condition.  It is far easier for most of us to remember the last negative experience than to consider the future with hope.

What Job shows us in this chapter is how to turn the corner.  While it can be natural to focus on the negative, life is not best lived when we are doing so.  We need to push through the negative memory and look ahead in hope.  This is how we experience grace.

Look at how Job ends this passage.  What hope is found in Sheol, the place of the dead?  What hope is found in the earth that swallows the dead or the worms, flies, and animals that dispose of the body?  There is no hope to be found there.  If death is the final outcome, what’s the greater point of life?

Look at the great verse that allows Job to turn the corner.  Job 17:9 is a powerful verse.  “Yet the righteous hold to His way.”  This is how we turn the corner and get past the negative experiences in our life.  We turn to God and remind ourselves of how He wants us to live.  His way is a way of hope.  His way is a way of grace and peace.  Hs way is a way of forgiveness and love.  The righteous get past the evil around them and bring their focus back upon God.  It is God’s ways that allow us to move beyond the dark world that surrounds us each and every day.

<><