“My Favorite Part of the Bible…Pt. 2“
Then Job throws shade at GOD. He challenges GOD to meet him in court. Job wants GOD to justify what has happened to him (Job 7: 20ff, Job 10: 2ff). This is the BULK of the book of Job: we find Job serving GOD with a summons, not “patience”! But we also find one of the most beautiful references to Jesus: “I know my redeemer lives. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh will I see God” (Job 19: 20-27). The impatient Job, even while sick, broken, falsely accused, frustrated, walks in the prophetic here, seeing his Redeemer as the One who stands, with a hand on Job and a hand on God, between him and God, making sure justice is not denied. It’s Jesus he’s talking about here.
That’s good stuff, right there.
But my favorite part, of course, is that GOD actually shows up in Job’s court. “WHO IS THIS WHO MULTIPLIES WORDS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE???” God demands (Job 38: 1ff). The second longest part of the book of Job is God lecturing Job: “Show Me your qualifications to summon Me. Show Me.” But Job doesn’t give up right away. Job essentially replies, “Well … I GUESS” to God’s lengthy list of His own qualifications (Job 40: 3-5).
God lectures Job some more. And this, to me, more than anything else in this book, shows the love of God. This lecture. (Parents will get this right away.) Why bother yellin’ at somebody you care nothing about? (Job 40: 6ff) Finally, Job agrees with his Divine Defendant. Finally, Job puts down his impatience, his indignation. “I repent,” he says (Job 42: 1-6). He and God are in relationship again. Toni Morrison says, “[Job] lay wracked with pain and in moral despair; [his friends] told him about themselves, and when he felt even worse, he got an answer from God saying, ‘Who on earth do you think you are? Question Me? Let me give you a hint of Who I am and what I know.’ […] But a peek into Divine knowledge was less important than gaining, at last, the Lord’s attention. Which… was all Job ever wanted. Not proof of His existence –he never questioned that. Nor proof of His power –everyone accepted that. He wanted simply to catch His eye.” See, Job didn’t know that he already had caught God’s eye.
But God is not finished with Job. Before he heals Job, God demands that Job pray for his stupid friends (Job 42: 8). Come on. Y’all have stupid friends. Tell the truth. Some of us are stupid friends. We need prayer. You reckon Job prayed for his wife? I hope he prayed for his wife. And the Lord restored Job “when he prayed for his friends” (Job 42: 10).
One of the most powerful reminders I get when I read Job is the fact that the Lord re-blesses Job, not because Job was perfect or “patient,” or because Job beat the Lord in court (because he didn’t), but because the Lord is God. He does what He wants to do, where He wants to do it, when He wants to do it, how He wants to do it. He is God, He is sovereign, and the details are His business.
Journalist Abraham Riesman says about the book of Job, “As I think about how to respond to the concurrent cataclysms threatening the nation and the globe, I at least want to be Job –not a person with divine patience, but one who cares so much for his fellow mortals that he will” confront the Lord even “to the very end.”
At the very end of the book of Job, even before he is healed, before his restoration, he is praying for his friends. After arguing with the Most High, he learns what prayer is: The cultivation of relationship, the kind of relationship he found with the Lord. I want that. I want conversations with God that are more than memorized prayers. I want a relationship where I come on boldly to His throne because I know He’s listening, and He will answer–simply because He can, and it is His pleasure to listen and answer --for me.
