Job’s story is extreme and his pain immense. The physical pain from the sores on his body from head to toe must be excruciating….open wounds, exposed nerves. I get queasy thinking that scraping open the sores is the only physical relief he finds. Then, mound on top of his physical pain, the emotional pain of burying all your children. I have stood beside many gravesides; the travail of parents burying their children seems particularly dark. Job experienced that ten-fold. Now layer on the loss of homes and farms and finances and livelihood and respect… and we begin to understand Job’s plight.
For the first time we see past his steeled exterior to the anguish below.
Like the blast of a volcano, Job’s heart explodes, cursing the day of his birth, wishing he had never been born.
Two thoughts percolate. First, I have an inkling that it was the gift of presence and support of his three friends who sat silently with him for seven days that eventually gave Job the strength to be honest and open with himself and his friends about his agony. Second, his spoken anguish is a first step toward the future.
I have met many people in general, and Christians in particular, who have some strange notion that a plastic smile coupled with an “I’m fine” response is how God expects us to handle the pain and injustice and junk of life. If Job shows us anything, it is that honesty with self, friends and God is the open door for God to work within a person’s life. Because I have read Job thirty or so times, I know that this is the first of many monologues by Job and his friends. And though the journey will be long, over time God breaks in. And it is the in-breaking of God that all of us, who live and deal with pain, need.
God, help me to be honest with myself… so that I can be honest with You and allow You into the deepest places and pain-filled places of my life… Amen.
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