Day 10: The Book of Job

I’m still sick, so I know I haven’t been posting as often or as well as I should be, but I’m mainly just trying to survive at this point. Coincidentally, I just finished reading the book of Job in my quest to make it through the entire Bible this month, and I couldn’t help but draw a few parallels to my current situation.

So you’ve got this guy Job and he has it all—a big family, nice home, lots of livestock—pretty much everything a God-fearing guy from the land of Uz could ever want.

Job’s a stand-up guy, too. He’s not one of those sleazebags who made his fortune screwing other people over. He’s a good person: “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (Job 1:1) God is happy with Job, and that’s why Job is doing so well.

But you never can tell what God is going to do. Despite the fact that Job’s pretty much a model biblical citizen, when Satan challenges God, saying that Job will turn against Him if God takes away all the things that make Job’s life so easy, God jumps right in and uses Job as a divine guinea pig.

God lets Satan do whatever he wants to Job, as long as he doesn’t kill Job. So Satan goes to work, manipulating things. First, Job’s animals get stolen, and then his family members are tragically killed. But still, Job keeps his faith in God, saying, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

Since killing off all Job’s livestock and loved ones didn’t do the trick, Satan goes to the next level and starts attacking Job himself, giving him painful boils all over his body. Job isn’t too happy about it. He complains a lot, and keeps whining to his buddies about how unfair it is that he’s being punished even though he’s always been a good man. Still, he refuses to curse God, the way Satan thought he would. He keeps believing that God will eventually deliver him from the pain and suffering, saying things like “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.” (Job 13:15)

Job feels humiliated by what has happened to him. He knows he’s a righteous person, but he’s being treated the way a terrible sinner should be treated. He keeps calling out to God, asking for some explanation (and some relief). He says, “Days of affliction have seized me. . . . I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me. You have become cruel to me; With the might of Your hand You persecute me.” (Job 30:16–21)

Finally, God comes and says that Job shouldn’t be questioning His motives and actions, but because Job never turned away from his faith, he is rewarded. At the end of the story, we find out that “The Lord restored the fortunes of Job . . . and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold.” (What’s strangest to me about this part of the story is that Job gets a new set of seven sons and three daughters to replace the ones who died, which is all well and good for Job, but it would kind of suck to be one of the original, now dead children, don’t you think?)

Anyway, I’ve always hated the story of Job. It’s just one of many bizarre examples in the Bible of what seems to be God’s arbitrary cruelty. And I think I’m even more bothered by the whole idea of a good person suffering for no good reason right now because I’m kind of in a similar situation.

A few years ago, I was a little bit like Job. I had a great job, I made good money, I was married (okay, so I didn’t really like the guy, but that’s not the point of my story), and I had a cute house in a nice neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad life.

I won’t try and tell you that I’ve ever been “blameless” or “upright” like Job was, but really, I’m not a horrible person. I put money in the Salvation Army volunteer’s bucket at Christmastime, I clean up my dogs’ poop when I walk them, and I do my best to be nice to people, even when they’re being bastards who deserve a smart-ass response. So I always thought God was happy enough with me.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve been going through some trials that would probably make even Job get pretty pissed off. My great job ended when my company got bought out and moved to another state, so I’ve been living as the insecure existence of a freelancer ever since. Then I got divorced. Then the economy tanked and work became even more unsteady than usual, which made the cute house in the nice neighborhood way too expensive. And now, I’ve got this sickness that just won’t go away. Okay, so I haven’t reached the full-on boils all over the body stage just yet, but it’s still pretty awful.

So what do I do? Suffer in silence? Whine and bitch to my friends, like Job? Do I shake my fists and demand an explanation from God? The Bible says the answer is to trust in God, to believe that everything will work out in the end, if I really am a righteous person who deserves all the good fortune I had and then lost.

I wish it were that easy, but obviously, if my faith in God were all that strong, I wouldn’t be conducting this crazy year-long experiment to begin with.

So I’ll just try to suffer in silence (okay, maybe with a little bit of bitching to my friends), try to stay alive, and keep reading the Bible and trying to find some faith. Maybe God and Satan will stop playing around with me and I’ll have my fortunes restored, just like Job.