Year 8, Day 97: Job 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

What we have in this chapter feels like a pity party.  To be fair, it largely is a pity party.  Job goes on and on about how bad his life is and how better it would have been to not be allowed to have lived past his birth!  That’s a pity party to me.

To be fair to Job, remember all that ahs happened to him.  God lifted him up as a target.  Satan accepted the offer and stripped Job of his wealth, livelihood, family, and health.  His wife is encouraging him to curse God and die.  He has little form of support in his time of crisis.  I certainly can’t fault him for feeling a bit of frustration in the moment.

This is a great chapter to look upon humanity and learn.  Often our first response to tragedy is shutting down in hopelessness.  That’s where Job is here.  He feels hopeless because of the proximity to his troubles. He’s still getting used to his new status quo.  Hopelessness is to be expected.

Don’t forget to look ahead, though.  Job doesn’t stay here.  Job will move beyond hopelessness and actually become a bastion of faith against the arguments of his friends.  While he is in the midst of his pity party right now, he won’t stay here.  This is crucially important.  Hopelessness is natural immediately following a tragedy.  But we should not stay there longer than is necessary to get accustomed to the situation.  We must move beyond hopelessness in order to be able to speak faith into a world that needs it.

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