Takeaways from the Book of Job-
Despite all this, Job did not sin, nor did he blame God- Job 1:22 NASB
NO ONE actually LOVES the book of Job.
There are those who wax eloquent about the literary merits of the book. However, when pressed, even those folks admit there is little to love about the actual story. It’s just kind of sad.
It goes like this:
There’s this really awesome guy named Job. Job does all the right things. He loves God and his family. Job shuns evil and is honest. Job worries about the spiritual condition of his kids and does his level best to be an all-around stand-up guy in every area of his life (Job 1:1-5, Job 1:8).
God digs him.
Then one day, out of the blue, Satan rolls up uninvited to what appears to be some sort of an angelic roll call (Job 1:6). Satan informs God he’s been roaming the earth looking for decent people he can accuse of evil (Revelation 12:10). God proudly points to Job as an outstanding example of humanity. Satan immediately accuses Job of only loving God because God has blessed Job with all sorts of good things (wealth, property, good health, a great family). God tells Satan Job’s love for Him is genuine.
God and Satan make a deal.
God tells Satan he can take everything from Job except his life (Job 1:12). Satan gets the job done in short order. Job loses his wealth, his health, his home, and even his kids all in the course of a few hours. The only thing Satan doesn’t take is Job’s wife, which is kind of a bummer because she’s not exactly supportive. The most encouraging thing she does in the whole book is to tell Job to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9). Then Job’s friends, (the worst friends ever) show up to “comfort” Job. They accuse Job of all sorts of secret sins and give him oodles of misguided advice. Then, just when you begin to think they are never going to stop harassing poor Job, God shows up and sets everyone straight. (Job 38-41, Job 42:7-9).
The story does have a happy-ish ending
God restores Job’s fortune; his family shows up to comfort him and in time, Job is blessed with seven sons and three (really pretty) daughters. Job lives a long life and he continues to be an upstanding guy who pleases God (Job 42:10-17).
It’s good stuff.
Nonetheless, (in my opinion) the happy ending is obfuscated by the utter gloominess of the account. All that being said, Job’s story is in the Bible because there is much we can learn from it (2nd Timothy 3:16). The book has value whether we are going through something terrible or helping someone who is. Following are six take-aways from the book of Job:
There’s more to our trials than just pain-
Job teaches that all trials serve some sort of a purpose. Normally, the purpose goes beyond proving the devil wrong about something. God uses trials to teach us and mold us into the image of Jesus. We get the most out of a trial when we choose to keep our hearts soft towards God and continue to seek Him in the middle of our pain and confusion (Job 1:22, 1st Peter 1:3-7, James 1:2-4). We need to understand, like Job did, that the point of this life is to prepare us to spend eternity with God and sometimes trials bring about that end (Job 19:25-26).
Not all truth applies to every person or situation-
Job’s friends were jerks (Job 42:7-9). Nonetheless, they were not wrong about every single thing they said, they were actually right about a lot of things. However, none of what they were right about applied directly to Job (Proverbs 18:13, Proverbs 18:17) They were convinced God must be punishing Job for SOMETHING. Nonetheless, Job was one-hundred-percent blameless. The book of Job teaches the importance of truly understanding all the particulars of a situation before we make judgments about the people involved (Proverbs 18:21).
Sometimes it’s better to listen rather than speak-
Job’s friends made a mistake most people make at some point: they were quick to share their “wisdom” without hearing what was being said or understanding the particulars of the situation. When someone is hurting sometimes all they need is to feel understood (James 1:19, Proverbs 13:3, Proverbs 20:12). Once a person feels heard and cared for they will be more willing to hear and apply any advice that should be given.
God doesn’t always give answers but He’s still good-
Job had a lot of (really good) questions for God and God never answered a single one of them. Zilch. Zero. Nada. This does not mean God didn’t love Job or care about what he was going through. The book clearly teaches that God loved Job and blessed him for his faith and obedience in spite of some pretty gnarly circumstances. He does the same for us.
Praying for the jerks who hurt us pleases God-
It just does. Job 42:10 proves it. The second Job got done praying for his awful friends God blessed Job with twice what he had before. God hasn’t changed. He still loves it when we pray for awful people who don’t deserve our prayers.
And finally:
We should assume that our faith-filled response to pain is all God really wants from us when the very foundations of our lives are shaken (Psalm 16:8, Psalm 112:6, Hebrews 12:28). Job teaches that God richly rewards those who praise Him in the midst of the storms of life (Job1:21). God loves faith (Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 17:6) and there is no greater expression of faith than choosing to praise, honor and glorify God when there appears to be zero reason to do so.
