Job Moments

Our church is doing a reading plan together on a Bible App. We are reading through the Old Testament. Every day it gives you your chapters to read and at the end there is a place you can make comments and see what everyone has to say about the daily reading.

On Sunday morning I followed my normal routine of laying in bed, checking my email, the news, and then going to see what the daily Bible reading was for the day. We were starting the book of Job and I groaned and shut off my phone. I did not feel like reading Job. My husband was out of town and I was feeling physically sick. There was a bug running through the house and I had not escaped it. Job felt a little too close to home at the moment.

By lunchtime on Sunday I couldn’t pretend I was Ok any more. I climbed into bed and proceeded to have a fever and nausea and horrible sore throat for the next 24 hrs. My oldest took care of the household and everyone was fine, but I was miserable. Then the next day, my oldest got sick and I had to pass on responsibility to the next kids in line as I was still too sick to get out of bed.

Plans that we had made weeks in advance had to be canceled. Disappointment had to be dealt with. Groceries had to be ordered for delivery, as there was no one well enough to drive. And on the edge of all that was Job waiting to be read.

I’ve read Job many times before and each time I come away with something different. This time, I lay in bed, set my App to read aloud the passages for me and lay there kind of listening as my body ached, my throat was in agony, and I tried to fight off nausea.

For me, I think my simplest explanation of the book of Job is of a man who suffers horrible things, wants to know why he is suffering, has a bunch of friends give him a bunch of reasons for why he’s suffering, and then he finally talks to God, and walks away knowing that the “why” is not what he’s supposed to focus on. The focus is God and who He is. God’s ways are not our ways and we are not Big enough to comprehend it all. We are simply asked to trust him.

Reading Job while sick has been helpful. A good reminder to not sink into gloom and despair as all my carefully laid plans got unraveled with a rather horrible virus. My daughter was very upset about her special events having to be canceled and she wanted to know WHY DID I HAVE TO GET SICK NOW??? And of course there is no answer for that question. Rather, we can rest in knowing that our God is good and we can trust our lives in his hands.