For me the story of job provides many lessons and the more I read it the more I learn about God’s love, grace, faithfulness, kindness, power, fairness and much more. The story of Job has kept me for many years. I’ve endured many tragedies in my life, so I thank God for reminding me of Job every time I feel like giving up.

What I get from reading Job (I’ve been reading this story since I was seven years old, I’m 34 now… at 28 I realized that when I was seven I understood better. I then asked God to help me let go of my own understanding so that I can allow Him, His Holy Spirit to teach me.):

1) That God will sustain us!
2) The world can take everything, but not my soul that belongs to our Almighty God.
3) The Lord wants us to cry-out to Him… And when He answers we are to respect and honor him (submit).
4) His purpose is not ours, lets not question him but worship Him trough the good and bad (You give and take away but I will still worship You Lord!).
5) God will not give us anything we can’t handle. He knows me better than myself. better yet… he knows me better than my mother.
6) We are to pray for and with our friends, family, co-workers, etc. Not judge. Sometimes it is best to just stay in silence and cry with them.
7) God is patient… Not me.
God arrives in time! Not too late. Not too early.

I can go on and on… It is amazing how a verse can have multiple meanings. God’s word is everlasting. ) It truly is! I’m just sharing what I learned at a very young age.

May the Lord bless you all – with the love of Christ!

One of the biggest challenges we face when we are hurt and hurting is that of being so overwhelmed by what we are feeling that we are unable to stop our minds from going over and over and over it again and again. That’s normal. And also, that constant self-conversation makes hearing and paying kind heed to anyone else’s thoughts, including God’s, very difficult. I’m sure he understands that and takes that into consideration.

Personally, it is only after I have been able to get far enough along in a sorrow that I can get my mind to start to shut up a little about the injustices or pain I feel, that I am able to begin to emerge and really hear and engage in hupotassomai to my fellow human beings or to God without filtering everything they say or need through my own personal pain. It takes some time to get there. It is a process of emerging and seeing self and others more clearly and lovingly apart from my pain. (Whereas the modern meaning would imply that I was to acquiesce without argument while still fully consumed by my sorrow or pain. Very different.)

Anyway, understanding the difference between the modern and Greek meanings of the word made a difference for me.

Maybe because I haven’t had my “face-to-face” reckoning with God, it’s hard for me to actually accept as the reading that makes the most emotional sense. I’m still in a place of “you should submit even though it’s hard and doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

One passage from that record struck me a few years ago. He wrote of a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ he experienced there. I won’t post the whole thing here, though I can send it to you if you wish. What struck me most was the sentence at the end of the paragraph in which he describes the experience.

“[It] left in my mind the impression of love, for months that I never felt before to that degree.”

God is the master of giving that kind of love; the kind that frees the receiver from tendencies to feel hurt and alone or to respond with anger, deceit or withdrawal and instead encourages warm, loving response.

I think that when we read God’s response in the book of Job we read the words but we don’t experience the interaction between the two of them. I don’t see Job’s ultimate response as submission but rather as an increased comprehension of the nature of God that had previously eluded him and which ultimately leads him not to submission, but rather to reassurance, trust and hope.

At the beginning of the book Job clearly understand’s his own pain, the concept of justice and the unfairness of unmet expectations and what he perceives as God’s atrocious neglect and has certainly spoken at God about it all and seriously sought understanding, which eludes him. At the end of the book he has fully encountered not only God’s words (which we read) but also God “face to face”. And that, I think, is what changes Job’s ability to trust him.

Tea, interesting idea.

kaylana, I can definitely empathize with how you feel. The only reason I can consider trusting God again is because of how many blessings He’s thrown at me recently, but even then, I still struggle with the trusting most days.