So why does the writer include this part of the story? Because now Job delights in and gives to the least strategic creatures. Now he is gratuitously good. He is uncontrollably generous. He is irrationally loving. He gives for no reason at all. Does this remind you of anybody?
Satan was dead wrong about old Job. The central question in Job is, can a human being hold on to God and faith and love even in the dead of winter?
One can. One did.
Job could not see the upper stage. Job did not know that his faithfulness had meaning beyond his wildest dreams. He did not know that something cosmic and eternal was at stake in his transitory life.
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Sitting on an ash heap; scraping boils off his skin with shards of broken and discarded pots; feeling broken, sick, mocked, confused, and hopeless — Job discovered what people in pain sometimes learn better than anyone else. He was not alone after all. Not even in winter.
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From God is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg. Copyright ©2005 by John Ortberg. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishers.
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John Ortberg is Teaching Pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, CA.
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Sources
St. John of the Cross: "Song of the Soul that delights in knowing God by faith," from St. John of the Cross: Alchemist of the Soul: His Life, His Poetry, His Prose. Edited by Antonia T De Nicholas. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1989, 131.
Martin E. Marty, A Cry ofAbsence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.
" I cry to you for help": Psalm 88:13-14 NIV
C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed. NewYork: Bantam Books, 1976, 4.
"In the land of Uz" : Job 1:1 NIV Subsequent quotations of Scripture in this section, apart from paraphrases, are from Job 1-3 N IV
Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999, 49-50.
"Mourn with those": Romans 12:15 TNIV
Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read, chapter 2.
Where Is God When: A play on Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977.
He will wipe every tear: See Revelation 7:17; 21:4.
"You gave us up": Psalm 44:11-12, 17 NIV
Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. Boston: Cowley Publications, 2001, chap. 10.
"You crushed us": Psalms 44:19, 23-24; 6:3 NIV
Lewis Smedes, My God and I. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003, 133.
"If only I knew": Job 23:3-4.
"Then the LORD answered": Job 38:1 NIV
Davis, Getting Involved with God, chap. 10.
"Who cuts a channel": Job 38:25-27 NIV
'A land where no one lives": Job 38:26 NRSV
Ostrich: Job 39:13, 18 NIV
Hippopotamus: See Job 40:15-24, quotations from NIV, NASB, and paraphrase.
Wild oxen: Job 39:9-12
Wild donkey: Job 39:5-8.
Mountain goats: Job 39:1-4.
Leviathan: Job 41:33 NIV
Annie Dillard: From Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in Three by Annie Dillard: The Writing Life, An American Childhood, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. NewYork: HarperCollins, 1990, 135.
'And when I begin": Mallory Ortberg, unpublished manuscript.
"My ears had heard": Job 42:5 NIV
"Man of sorrows": Isaiah 53:3, various versions of the Bible.
"We considered him": Isaiah 53:4 NIV
"My God, my God": Matthew 27:46, various versions of the Bible
Nicholas Woltersdorff Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987, 61.
Karl Barth: Quoted in a taped lecture by Nicholas Woltersdorff, n.d.
"I am angry": Job 42:7 NIV
Names in the Bible: See, for example, Herbert Lockyer, All the Men of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958; and Herbert Lockyer, All the Women of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967.
