JOURNEY THROUGH JOB (PART 2)

In the last blog I shared some introductory insights into this great Old Testament book. Now let me share a gleaning from each of the chapters.

1. Verse 21 is one of the greatest proclamations of faith in the Bible. After losing everything, Job's first words were, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."


2. I wonder how many spouses have been successful in leading their mates to turn away from the Lord.


3. Job asks a question that is still prominent today: What's the point of life when it doesn't make sense?


4. The first speech by Eliphaz suggests that Job must have done something wrong to have gone through the losses he did.


5. "If I were in your shoes...." People suffering like Job usually don't need advice. They just need friendship and compassion.


6. Job is brutally honest in expressing his disappointment in his friends.


7. He is also brutally honest with God--"Don't you have better things to do than pick on me?"


8. Bildad's turn--full of advice. He believed Job's woes had to come about as a result of sin.


9. Job asks one of the most pertinent and profound questions ever asked: "How can mere mortals get right with God?"


10. Job, why don't you tell us how you really feel?


11. Job's friends meant well, even though a comfort, they really weren't.


12. Job speaks tons of wisdom when he can say in the midst of his suffering that God is sovereign over the universe.


13. Job has two requests for God: God, back off the trials. God, give me an audience so I can ask you some questions.


14. One of his questions is still being asked today--one of life's ultimate questions: If we humans die, will we ever live again?


15. Much of what Job's friends say is accurate. It's just that they act like they have life all figured out.


16. Job relentlessly gives his friends, God, and the earth a tongue lashing.


17. Job's mood seems to move from anger to desperate brokenness: "My spirit is broken, my days used up."


18. Bildad, Round 2--He's a bottom-line kind of guy. Very simply, he says, "It is the wicked who go down."


19. Even though Job has suffered pain, rejection, and hopelessness, he makes one of the most profound statements in the book--"Still, I know that God lives."


20. Zophar's speech reminds me of someone who is more hipped up on analyzing a crisis instead of being a friend to one in a crisis.


21. Job raises the age-old question: Why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer?
    
    

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