About 2 years ago I decided to start reading the Old Testament in the reading order of the Tanakh, the Hebrew bible. Recently, I came across the book of Job. This was one among the many books in the Bible I found hard to read or make sense of.
But as part of my journey into rediscovering the abundant yet hidden life in Him even all the seemingly strange books of the Old Testament start lighting up. Let’s keep in mind that Jesus, the Son of God, was announced by John as “the Word” Himself. What this encompasses for me is that whenever you read the Scriptures — fittingly called God’s Word — you are reading Jesus. So when we read the Scriptures with the mindset of young Samuel in the temple, saying “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening,” and staying on the lookout for Jesus we can surely expect to find Him anywhere in Scripture!
And thus, the book of Job started lighting up for me as a story about how to treat one another in suffering according to Jesus’ heart and the prayerful community of love (see Chapter 7 of “The Divine Conspiracy”). It illustrates what a Kingdom way of treating each other in bad times looks like and shows how to truly love a friend who is suffering a great loss.
What The Three Friends Get Right
When Job’s three friends hear about their friends great misfortune, they set out to find him, not leaving him alone. When they find him, they cry out in desperation. They sit down with him and share his fate — down in the dust, in the solitude, in the sickness.
We read they even stay with him in silence and fasting 7 days and nights. They don’t start by saying anything, they start by making themselves one with Job in his suffering, experiencing and feeling the same pain. When the conversation starts, they don’t start giving wonderful advice on their own. They let Job begin by sharing his heart.
Where They Go Wrong
They are not truthful. Just like Job, neither of them effectively knows why the trouble and loss came. But the three friends act as if they knew!
They try to justify God’s actions, speaking on His behalf motivated by fear. As if the Great One had any need for small humans hastily jumping to His defense! Of course God loves it when we honor Him and live out a deep reverence towards Him. But we cannot force others to do so. And more importantly, doing anything in our lives out of fear instead of trust is effectively sin.
They say tons of “right” things — but also out of fear, not out of faith: Each of them in their own way proclaims God’s faithfulness and loyalty towards the ones who stick to Him. One of them even prophecies that God will reward Job back with double what he lost — and at the end of the story this is even 100 % fulfilled! But their hearts are not right: They just try to stand on the right side of the argument instead of loving their friend by being honest.
The end of the story teaches us that you can say any amount of factually correct things that are legitimately right — but if your heart is not right, God will outright reject it! In the final chapter of the book, He even goes so far as saying:
I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has!
Ponder this for a moment: Job’s speeches are partially inconsistent, even contradictory about what God does or what God’s character is like. But for God it is Job in his truthfulness who speaks the truth instead of his friends who emit true facts without truthfulness, not speaking from a place of vulnerable honesty. This is what we also clearly see in Psalm 51 where David remarks that God “delights in truth in the inward being”.
It’s About Where God Is Speaking
And then the fourth friend appears: Elihu. He speaks from a point outside of the spectrum of Job and his friends. He is not trying to position himself somewhere along the lines of “God is always just” or “Job has never done any wrong”. Instead He finds the “third way” beyond their perspective, which is ultimately a perspective of extreme distance to God:
He approaches Job in a resolute yet loving manner. He talks to both sides about their rights and wrongs. And he emphasizes the point that this situation (and ultimately, all our lives) is not about who is right or wrong: It’s about God speaking to us through all of life’s circumstances and events.
We see the same pattern in John 9 with Jesus and His disciples when they walk past a man who was born blind: The disciples ask Jesus:
Who has done wrong that this man is suffering so much, his parents or he himself?
But then Jesus rightfully asks:
Wait a second — how did the idea enter your minds that this situation is about who sinned when and how? All this trouble is a way for God to show His glory!
And then He goes ahead, heals him and we truly see how “the works of God are displayed in him”.
We see that Job’s loss, the blindness and poverty of the blindborn, and the messes which are our own lifes are all about God constantly speaking to us, wanting to reach His goal of deep connection with us. My life is not about myself anymore but about learning to discern where God is working and speaking — and trusting that He is infinitely good.