Job's Suffering

Read Job 29:7-30:31
 
Of all the characters we meet in the pages of the Bible, perhaps Job is the one we can most closely identify with. James Strauss calls Job our ‘contemporary,’ that is, we see our own experience, even if slightly less polluted by pain, in Job’s life, suffering and dialogue.
 
Chapter 29 begins with Job thinking back on what his life used to be like before it all came down. “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me.” He longs for the days when he “went to the city gate and took his seat at the public square.”  His misses those days when he was respected by the community and honored by the rest of man.
 
As he goes along he reminds his friends, one last time, how he helped various people during the course of their lives. Note now “whoever heard about me spoke well of me, and those who say me commended me because....” Because: he helped the poor who cried for help, the fatherless who had none to assist him, the dying man, and the widow. He led the blind and carried the lame. He helped the needy and the stranger. When someone was guilty of doing wrong he “broke their fangs.”  He was respected and listened to: “They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain.” Then one day it happened.
 
“But now...” But now things are different, things have changed. Now Job is no longer the same man as before. That was then, this is now. “But now they mock me.” That is all we need to see to understand the point. “But now their sons mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.”  All that Job had done in the past was now forgotten. It made no difference how much of a man he was, how righteous he was, or how well respected he was at the city gate. Now is all that really mattered and now was rather garbage like in its beauty. Now that God had “unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence.”
 
What a bunch of ingrates! They cared not a lick for Job. Perhaps inside they resented him all along and only now that he was afflicted could they justify their disdain. Whatever the case is they had no place in their hearts for gratitude and it hurt Job just as much as the physical pain he was enduring. Strauss calls it their “arrogant ingratitude.”
 
Job is suffering not only the painful life ebbing (16) trials of physical affliction, but he was enduring the “arrogant ingratitude” of people whose fathers would not have attended to Job’s sheep dogs (1). This was burden enough, but there was more: “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me” (20). This threefold burden was terrible for Job. I would be willing to bet that there are some of you reading this who have felt exactly the same way at times in your life. Remember how Job felt because of the treatment he received from his friends. When God is silent, and He will be, we need to be supportive and courageous towards those who suffer.
 
Prayer Thoughts on Job 29:7-30:31
 
Pray today with thanksgiving. Job’s ungrateful friends and neighbors needed a lesson in gratitude. Have an ‘attitude of gratitude’ today. Let someone know you are grateful for what they have done in your life. Especially do so to God.