Those reading who rightfully understand biblical literature, study and usage to a greater/more grounded degree/basis than I, may find that the title of this piece in-and-of-itself prompts a bit of internal eye rolling, because the answer is obvious!
The Book of Job IS part of the wisdom literature, and that is why it cannot be extricated from that genre!
Silly me!
But…then there is the question of linkage to the prophetic books, which, might arguably be a basis for further discussion.
Spoiler alert…I cranked off this title based solely on my own thought process at the moment, apart from even reading a word of Job 20 (which it seems I’m supposed to be commenting on next in this oddly unfolding series here…), and, before looking up to make certain which books are in fact, part of what get categorized as the wisdom books of the bible.
I need wisdom now, in a number of things in my life and situation. Offhand, I know that the book of James tells us, “if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God…who…um…(let me think….)…abundantly gives to all without showing partiality or favoritism???” (now, I will look up that prooftext for asking God for wisdom and see how far I botched it in my internal memory of shelved verses)
“ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
James 1:5 NIV
Ahhh, yes.
I seem to have recalled that when we ask Jesus “what should I do next?” He promises to generously (albeit from a human standpoint seemingly obtusely, confusingly perhaps…definitely questioningly, by ourselves and others…) and without finding fault (um…that’s a tough one to accept, as it is human nature to generously find fault with ourselves and others) give us said wisdom which we lack.
But, I seemed to have conflated into that verse other parts of the book of James, for who knows what reason. Probably because I am tense, weary, on hyper-alert, focused, typing quickly, frustrated, and generally heart-broken under it all, on any given day.
I recall clearly thinking and telling a few friends (and myself) during and following my first divorce, “I’m wanting a life that is not always about loss.“ Or maybe I stated it, “I’m trying to make my life not always about loss.” Or probably I thought or said at some point, “My life (thus far) seems to always be about loss.”
OK, loss. Let me reach quickly for some prooftext about “loss.”
“I count all things but LOSS (have suffered the loss of all things) except for knowing Jesus Christ my Lord…”
Let’s see how closely I came to that verse…
“ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,”
Philippians 3:8-10
I was recently in a social situation that started with superficial conversation topics with someone I did not know. I really was trying to avoid anything too personal, such as my current personal and family life and situation or how I came to Pennsylvania, and where I’m originally from (Delaware), and how I got to Alabama for 8 years, and how and why I ended up in East Berlin, PA after taking a six month temporary detour back in my home state (along with 4 cats and most of my life and business in boxes during a worldwide pandemic) or how my sons have essentially, endlessly and mercilessly critiqued and otherwise disciplined and censured me for a number of things, leaving me to “find my own community,” or fail, in rebuilding my life, and how my younger took some detour into the transgender cult and at least at one point told me he actively practices and delves into occult practices and witchcraft and…and…um…I just didn’t want to talk much (or maybe I really did, who knows…) about how I became a Christian, when I became a Christian, how I found the church I’ve been visiting, what I do for a living or any other matter…really…because…as this obvious run-on sentence shows in bold relief: it is too much.
Too many details. And certainly, not normal.
Normal? Peaceful? The very idea of that leaves me seemingly ebbing further and further offshore…
But, in that social setting, I was asked a question.
And, like our friend Job, the minute I opened my mouth to make some statements in answer to something I may have said (I can’t recall) about my sons and their whereabouts…I slowly devolved somehow to mention my grandbabies and how I became permitted to know their names through my first husband by text the evening of Thanksgiving 2022 after a day here alone, being given their names (one middle name incorrect) and birthdate (August 5, 2023) after my request that I might at least “know the names of our grandchildren in order to pray for them by name…” and eventually getting to see them one time, for the first time and possibly for the last time…who knows…given all things…) in a park in Delaware for about two hours on April 22, 2022…I just didn’t want to try to summarize it.
Yet, I did. And probably not well. I well know how beyond the pale it all sounds…as they say, “I can’t even…”
The person listened, and as I went on I tried to apologize and somehow end the broken dam of everything without feeling foolish already…I recall then quoting a scripture that is very meaningful to me, and has been for awhile:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
The full, accurate verse is:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12, NIV)
I stand by this.
I stand by this despite the words this person then spoke to me, assuredly and emphatically, perhaps more than once even, no doubt wanting to COMFORT me.
They said something along these lines…the first sentence exactly…the remaining a composite gist:
“But our hope is NOT deferred. The hope of JESUS is already. He is our hope. In this world we have tribulations. Our hope is NOT deferred.”
Do readers see what happened there?
I quoted a scripture that I identified with very personally, a scripture expressing my own sorrow and grief, and the listener attempted to contradict this scripture itself with other biblical truths derived from other scriptures…
Now, she spoke true things. Our King Jesus has come, hope fulfilled.
Off the top of my head as I type, I think of the hymn, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.”
She was right. Those who follow Jesus, as well as those who do not, suffer all sorts of tribulations in this world.
But, she missed the point.
Like Job’s comforters, she not only used/referred to other Judeo-Christian truths and/or scriptures, she missed where she could have paused, after taking in just 1% of my very real griefs and losses, and simply said something like, “I hear you. And I am sorry that your hopes of rebuilding your life, which include healthily interacting with your sons, since you told me you have little other family, and now include wanting to hold your grandchildren and watch them take their first steps, and that the things in your life that have accumulated as the result of all these continued happenings now leave you without any seeming hope of meaningful recovery. Hopes and dreams and the losses thereof do in fact, make our heart sick. I know the scripture you speak of, and I sense your grief and heartsickness. I’m so sorry.”
But, no. She had something in mind (actually seemingly a number of spiritual things she wanted to communicate to me) and, who knows this person’s inner wounds, how long they have been in Christ or how truly familiar they are with scripture and especially the entirety of it–the whole counsel of God, as some might say–everything from wisdom literature to Old Testament family dramas, to Israel’s Kings and Prophets, on through the gospels and contemplations on what it was that John saw and wrote of on the island of Patmos.
I also recall saying back to her, “I am quoting a scripture” (I thought to myself, perhaps she doesn’t know of that Proverb) and her acknowledging that she knew that, but yet, she pressed on. A sister in Christ I met/conversed with for the first time ever in a social situation, felt the liberty to respond in that way.
Part of me wants to apologize for writing all this.
Like Job, I too will eventually be silenced by God! Along with all my readers, friends, family…the supporters and the naysayers alike!
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On Saturday and Sunday, I felt led to listen to the Book of Ecclesiastes. In fact, as I worked over the weekend, I likely listened to it in my Audible Old Testament Book (NRSV) possibly 10-15 times. Sometimes, I let it play on through the book of Song of Songs and into the first several chapters of Isaiah.
Before re-winding it again back to Ecclesiastes. I wanted to drink in that book so very deeply. What a book to turn to, hoping to find some hope!
And today, I have resumed listening to the Book of Ecclesiastes, as I also resumed work on a very difficult portrait of five young girls
I resumed listening, after other deep ruminations and questioning this morning. Though my thoughts over coffee and getting my mind cranking are my thoughts, the bass note of them, whether directly voiced or not is, “What is it I am to do now, Jesus? Today, Jesus. What are You asking of me, leading me to do, TODAY? In this very moment?”
I think of the song I’ve known for years…
“Oh God, you are my God and I will ever praise You…and step by step You lead me, and I will follow You all of my days.”
What is the next step Jesus is telling me to take?
I could be wrong, but I’m thinking of at least two things I should next turn pragmatic attention/intention toward:
Go onto my bookshelf and remove many theology, self-help books, etc that you keep just because you once bought and read or browsed them. You have Audible now, you won’t touch these again, really. Keep your older Bibles, of course, and for now, art related books on many techniques, etc. Do this quickly, don’t overthink. Like pulling off a band-aid, just do it quickly, since there are a number of associated forms of loss with this. Take the pages of the book and put them through your paper shredder to make more home-made cat litter! Then, yes, think through more your plan to auction your grandmother’s china. And, that would make an interesting blog piece, BTW.
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As I listen to Ecclesiastes, I am struck by a number of themes that seem, to some degree, to also permeate the Proverbs (and actually many Psalms) and the book of Job.
It is interesting as I’m writing this, I am partially smiling. Perhaps, Jesus is giving me a little secret joy and peace that passes my current understanding of things. It can feel good to perceive the next thing that one might actually DO to keep moving forward and fix very real problems.
That letting go of these things for my own reasons, at this moment in time, is actually something I can receive the grace to do, since the fulness of time for me to consider this seems at hand. The interesting thing about both the book of Job as well as many statements in Ecclesiastes seems to be the mystery of what the actual situation is or entails, behind-the-scenes, and the number of disparate thoughts/responses of the onlookers. The logical discussion about whether the person experiencing such public display of ongoing losses (think of Job, and think of the labors of both the wicked and the righteous coming to the same end in Ecclesiastes) has done or not done (or partially done) things to deserve such happenings and consequences actually gives me an amount of comfort.
My tendency, as all of us do, is to want people to know the nitty gritty things. The facts, the texts, the words spoken…the moments we work, we endure, we pray, we love…we do many things in secret….alone…with Jesus as our only witness.
For a moment, I mention my current social media cover photo (part of a watercolor I did years ago of Bleeding Hearts) with a little verse reference tucked in the corner…”Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…tell her that her warfare has ended…and she has received double from the Lord’s hand for all of her sins…”
(I will let the reader who wants the exact words look that one up…simply, it speaks to me…it speaks to me of my own weariness…my own longing to enter in to the promised lands of this life…whose fruits seem ever beyond my full reach, with many a seeming curse coming to me…continued and ongoing losses that might make me wonder about my sins and weaknesses that have left me in such condition…asking…who will speak tenderly to me? And then strengthening my feeble knees and saying, my Jesus…my Jesus speaks tenderly to me…in the watches of long, difficult nights…He breaks through into my world, speaking tenderly to me…)
Jesus too, endured many things alone, and if not for the testimony in the gospels, we would not know that which He prayed in the Garden, and of His moments of great trial.
Today I also thought at one point of a Greek word I’ve heard over the years and I admit, I don’t know if those who explained it had the right understanding of it. As I recall, I was taught there are two words (probably more?) in Greek and/or Hebrew, translated as “word” – and those are logos and rhema.
Logos being the written (?) Word of God, and rhema the spoken (?) word, that is of a more personal nature. I’m about to Google this, but as I recall, the takeaway is that we can (and most definitely should) read scripture in terms of its original context, meaning, audience etc (for example the prophetic literature of the bible) but the “rhema” word is the “living and active” part where God takes something from scripture and uses it in our lives in a very personal, specific way.
I do believe that many times there are some unproveable, even questionable, experience(s) believers have where there is some internal process where we receive very real help, comfort and guidance from some verse or book/passage that is very specific to us and our situation. It could very well be borne of the same natural process that allows ten thousand people to hear the same love song or deep poetry and all think some word or sentence is speaking about them, personally, in some situation…even hundreds of years later.
Like the works of Shakespeare…and the immediate line popping in my mind: A rose by any other name would be the same!
That. That phenomenon.
And now, since technically this ranting, rambling of a commentary series was begun last year with intention of marching straight the book of Job in some meaningful, cogent manner, I should probably find out what is actually in Chapter 20 (NIV).
Zophar
20 Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:
2 “My troubled thoughts prompt me to answer
because I am greatly disturbed.
3 I hear a rebuke that dishonors me,
and my understanding inspires me to reply.
4 “Surely you know how it has been from of old,
ever since mankind[a] was placed on the earth,
5 that the mirth of the wicked is brief,
the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.
6 Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens
and his head touches the clouds,
7 he will perish forever, like his own dung;
those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
8 Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found,
banished like a vision of the night.
9 The eye that saw him will not see him again;
his place will look on him no more.
10 His children must make amends to the poor;
his own hands must give back his wealth.
11 The youthful vigor that fills his bones
will lie with him in the dust.
12 “Though evil is sweet in his mouth
and he hides it under his tongue,
13 though he cannot bear to let it go
and lets it linger in his mouth,
14 yet his food will turn sour in his stomach;
it will become the venom of serpents within him.
15 He will spit out the riches he swallowed;
God will make his stomach vomit them up.
16 He will suck the poison of serpents;
the fangs of an adder will kill him.
17 He will not enjoy the streams,
the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
18 What he toiled for he must give back uneaten;
he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.
19 For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;
he has seized houses he did not build.
20 “Surely he will have no respite from his craving;
he cannot save himself by his treasure.
21 Nothing is left for him to devour;
his prosperity will not endure.
22 In the midst of his plenty, distress will overtake him;
the full force of misery will come upon him.
23 When he has filled his belly,
God will vent his burning anger against him
and rain down his blows on him.
24 Though he flees from an iron weapon,
a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him.
25 He pulls it out of his back,
the gleaming point out of his liver.
Terrors will come over him;
26 total darkness lies in wait for his treasures.
A fire unfanned will consume him
and devour what is left in his tent.
27 The heavens will expose his guilt;
the earth will rise up against him.
28 A flood will carry off his house,
rushing waters[b] on the day of God’s wrath.
29 Such is the fate God allots the wicked,
the heritage appointed for them by God.”
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