Job 40:1-5: Arguing with the Almighty – Part II
Friday, January 31, 2025
When God seems distant to us we might pick up Job’s story, with its human drama of innocent suffering, to see how and where we fit into the tale. Are we the wife who urges her husband to curse God and die (2:9)? Are we the friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar who insist that Job repent for some nameless sin even as Job proclaims his innocence, saying that he knows not what he did to incur God’s wrath? Do we act as the Satan does in the opening chapters, do we roam the earth looking for mischief to create? How do we see God? As a sarcastic tyrant or as a faithful creator who only has our good in mind? How do we react when we feel estranged from God? With petulance, or like Job who admits at last that God is great and that God is good? Do we, like Job, finally put our worries aside knowing that God will handle them? Do we intercede when asked, as Job does, for the very friends who tried to lead us astray? Do we rely on God or on ourselves? Do we spend sleepless nights worrying about our own guilt and innocence, or do we move on to pick up the threads of a broken life as best we can? What do we do? How do we pray? Where do we turn for help?
In today’s reading Job agrees to put his hand over his mouth so that he might finally listen to Yahweh, and he does this after having made a full and cogent argument to his maker. If we follow Job’s example, we understand that we are meant to wrestle with God. We are created to think, reflect and re-think. We are created to know God and to serve God; and to do this well we must ask questions. These questions are followed by enigmatic answers from God that we struggle to understand and, at first glance, we see as unsatisfactory. Later, when we practice persistence and fidelity, we begin to understand God’s message. Therefore, as we put our questions to God, we must also remain patient and authentic. For it is with waiting and honesty that we acquire wisdom, a full and nourishing wisdom that comes through lengthy days of listening, reflecting and praying.
Tomorrow, God abides.
Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Job_and_his_friends.jpg
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