I know that my redeemer lives,
    and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
    yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me! Job 19:25-27

DEVOTION

I’m writing this on a tough day. Two friends in Christ who can’t catch a break are facing acute medical emergencies. Each has been through years of medical hardship, and every time relief seems near, another crisis comes. These friends and their families are emotionally spent, with no relief in sight. Though they have an unwavering faith in Christ, they must wonder sometimes if the Lord has forgotten them.

These are the kinds of situations that prompt me to consider the wisdom literature of Scripture. Perhaps the most oft-read wisdom book is Proverbs, a collection of sayings that repeat a central theme: live wisely, and life will be smoother; live like a fool, and you will destroy your own life and the lives of those around you. 

Proverbs, though, is not the Bible’s only perspective of wise-living in a broken world because sometimes fools get a pass while the righteous suffer for no apparent reason. That is why we also have Job and Ecclesiastes to remind us that earthly inequities sometimes exist without explanation:  

 Sometimes godly people have bodies that fall apart. 

 Sometimes good kids come from bad parents, and rebels come from good parents.  

 Sometimes devoted Jesus-followers can’t pay the rent. 

 Sometimes unwed teens get pregnant, while couples who long for children face infertility. 

 Sometimes devoted parents have to bury their own children. 

How do we explain this, especially if we seem to be doing all the right things? How does Job help us make sense of a world that does not always submit to Proverbial maxims, even for the righteous?

A good place to start is Job’s early chapters, where Satan wagers that Job only loves God because of what God has given him. “Take the blessings away,” he forecasts, “and Job will punt.” 

But Job does not. Facing fourth and long, he holds on to the One he knows and loves more than anything else. After losing his possessions and ten children, he drops to the ground and worships God. When Satan showers Job’s body with sores and Job’s wife urges him to curse God, he expresses an acceptance of God’s mysterious ways, even when nothing but pain shows up.

Job’s responses can teach us something about lasting faith: we can either use God to get good, or love God to get God. We can choose to only trust God when he behaves, or we can persevere even in what we cannot understand, like those who hoped in God’s promises apart from enjoying their fulfillment (Hebrews 11:13, 39-40). 

Though Job would later question God, he would never stop talking to God, a mark of enduring faith. In the basement of his soul, he trudged through the muck of confusion, yet never caved to Satan’s predictions. Job had prepared for the horrors to come by training himself for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7-8) in times of ease. Though Job once enjoyed all this world could offer, his intimacy with God taught him to hold loosely to temporal stuff and to fix his gaze on his eternal prize (Job 19:25-27). 

If Proverbs is our only diet of wisdom literature, we risk despair when dark days come. But God has given us the gift of Job to remind us that bad things sometimes happen to good people this side of Glory, and yet God is still good, still ultimate, and still worthy of our trust. 

And if our trust is in Christ alone, if he is our ultimate prize, then we can face the world’s darkest days without losing an ounce of eternal hope.

Lance Ward

Pastor of Congregational Care

lward@crossings.church 

RESOURCES

• Unwavering series 
• The Story of Job teaching series
• “In Christ Alone” worship song