Job 3: Job’s Plaint
Saturday, October 26, 2019
If you have time over the week-end, spend some of it with this most important book of wisdom and a commentary. These are words we may all write from time to time in our pilgrim journey home.
Job, innocent of wrong-doing, has all taken from him – family – friends – wealth – health. There is nothing left and he is in turmoil because his friends advise him that all he need do to regain his former security and status is to repent of his wrong-doing. They chide him, assuring him that once he confesses his suffering will cease. In the OT, suffering is often sent as a form of punishment for straying from God, so even though Job might look for sins to confess in order to gain peace, he is helpless in his situation because . . . Job has done nothing wrong. He suffers because Satan plays a game with God. There is no reparation he can make. There is no problem to solve. No forgiveness to ask or receive. However, there is one thing which Job has – and perhaps his wife and friends do not – he has an enduring and persevering faith in his Maker. And so this is where he turns. And as he turns to this wondrous, awesome God, Job speaks from a broken heart.
Once when I was working through something deeply personal, I was lovingly haunted by a song by a Christian artist named Steven Curtis Chapman. The words are below, as is a link for the music. May they bring you peace when you find yourself writing your own plaint to God. And may you rest in the certain knowledge that we are never alone, we are never abandoned. We are constantly held, constantly loved.
Be Still and Know
Be still and know that He is God
Be still and know that He is holy
Be still, O restless soul of mine
Bow before the Prince of peace
Let the noise and clamor cease
Be still
Be still and know that He is God
Be still and know that He is faithful
Consider all that he has done
Stand in awe and be amazed
And know that He will never change
Be still
Be Still, and know that He is God
Be Still, and know that He is God
Be Still, and know that He is God
Be Still; Be speechless
Be still and know that he is God
Be still and know he is our Father
Come rest your head upon his breast
Listen to the rhythm of his unfailing heart of love
Beating for His little ones
Calling each of us to come
Be still, Be still . . .
You may also want to read Psalms 37 and 46 and . . . Be still . . .
Hoping you enjoy a long and peaceful week-end.
For the music that accompanies these words, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHlbnNUHQGI&noredirect=1
First written on October 10, 2008. Edited and posted today as a Favorite.
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Image from: http://angelaambroise.blogspot.com/2011/05/stillness-brings-forth-births.html
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