job description

 “…yet will I hope in him.”

(Job 13:15)

The book of Job is one of those books in Scripture that makes you realise the Bible is not a tame book.  It doesn’t hide behind the hard realities of life. Someone has said of this book, “It is a storming, laughing, raging, mocking, sarcastic, weeping, praying, near-blasphemous, worshipping book. The language is beautiful and violent, haunting and a slap in the face, ecstatic and deranged. Above all, it’s mostly poetry, pouring out of the author’s innermost being, full of stunning images and metaphors and parables. Its pace, voltage and energy matches its subject: a godly man struggling with the spiritual despair of cruel, undeserved suffering.”

Here we have a godly man struggling with the spiritual despair of cruel, undeserved suffering. Viewed from that perspective it is a book that expresses the struggles Christians have faced in every generation. We all carry in our hearts unanswered questions about life and faith. And that is ok. We are not second class Christians if we have doubts and questions about our suffering and trials.

Job teaches us how to handle our suffering. As we listen to Job’s complaints we discover that he isn’t simply talking to the air. He is praying. He is talking to God. He is complaining about God but he is talking to God about it. Job encourages us to pour out our doubts, fears and anguish to God.

The conclusion that I believe this book comes to is found in the line of a Rend Collective song - “In the questions, your truth will hold.” God is bigger than our biggest question. His truth can hold the weight of our doubts and fears.

Back in 2009 our family visited the city of Toronto in Canada. The unmissable landmark in that city is the CN Tower. The CN Tower dominates the Toronto skyline at 1800 feet. The central pod has a glass floor from which you look down 1100 feet to the ground! But that glass floor easily support your weight. Signs say that multiple elephants can stand on it without it giving way. It will hold. 

The book of Job is saying that in our questions, God’s truth will hold.

Even though Job expressed his questions and grief in the strongest terms, he stayed with God. “…yet will I hope in him.” (Job 13:15). May God give us the grace to do the same.

(Picture - Glenfinnan)