…is getting quite old.
So I decided to cease. Alas! I am not strong enough to be creative on paper 365 days in a row! Unfortunate.
Anyway, I am studying the book of Job this month, believe it or not. It’s an amazing book, but it always strikes me as so depressing. Like Ecclesiastes or Lamentations, in a sense. But in actuality, the ending is so incredibly happy. Everything is restored to poor Job two times over!
I wonder if I would endure the trials that he faced…. losing his wealth, his children, and his servants all in one day…. but that’s not even the worst of it. Then he develops hideous, oozing boils all over his body. Almost ridiculously unlucky, I would say. The worst thing about the book of Job, though, is that the loss he faced has nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with Satan! (in a round-about way, God also – he didn’t prevent it) Terrible.
And yet, Job endured. Sure, with doubt, questioning, stubbornness, pride, anger, depression, and haughtiness… but he endured it nonetheless. What kind of woman of God am I? Would i be willing to endure this? Jesus endured even more than the above. So what would I even complain about?
I’ve just been thinking about Job alot. I highly recommend that you read that book of the Bible. It challenges every view of God you have ever had, yet ties it in at the end to show who the one true God is in His omnipotence.
You might be interested in this online commentary “Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job” (http://www.bookofjob.org) as supplementary or background material for your study of the Book of Job. It is not a sin to question God, to demand answers from God. There is a time and a place for such things. It is written by a Canadian criminal defense lawyer, now a Crown prosecutor, and it explores the legal and moral dynamics of the Book of Job with particular emphasis on the distinction between causal responsibility and moral blameworthiness embedded in Job’s Oath of Innocence. It is highly praised by Job scholars (Clines, Janzen, Habel) and the Review of Biblical Literature, all of whose reviews are on the website. The author is an evangelical Christian, denominationally Anglican. He is also the Canadian Director for the Mortimer J. Adler Centre for the Study of the Great Ideas, a Chicago-based think tank.