Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?  (You can also listen to an audio recording.) It only takes a few minutes and you will be blessed.

Day 11 – Job 29-31 (and then the words of Job ends)

 Today is the end of Job speaking until his confession in the last, short chapter. (Next up is the #4 “Friend” who waxes eloquent for four chapters!!!)

In chapter 29, Job remembers “the good old days” before all this tragedy fell on him.  It was the days when, “God watched over me,” when “the friendship with God was upon my tent,” when “my children were all around me,” and “my steps were washed with butter.”  WOW.

Job goes on to reminisce about when he was respected and honored, when, at his presence young men withdrew and aged rose and stood.  Ahhhh, those were the days, my friend; I thought they’d never end….. (You can almost hear him sigh.)

He lists all the good he did for neighbor and country. He bemoans the time when men “listened to me and waited and kept silence for my counsel.”

“But NOW… (in chapter 30 he tells how things have changed).  “now they laugh at me.”  “I have become their song, a byword to them.”  And even, “they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.”  What a downfall, what a humbling: to see how it is when men forsake you.

But his anquish is worse when he turns to his God.  “God has cast me into the mire….”  “I cry to You for help and You do not answer me; I stand and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me….”

Have you ever been in such dispair?  Have you wailed against your God?  I confess, I have not. I’ve complained and whined. God has sometimes seemed silent and distant to me. But never like Job.

Then in chapter 31, it’s as if he gathers himself, straightens up a little and begins to claim his righteousness, how he is undeserving of such a fate. Beginning with verse five, he lists a dozen or more  “if-then” scenarios.  If I had done such and such… then may such and such befall me.

At one point he says “Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!)

Whoa, Job. Be careful what you wish!

Tomorrow we will endure Elihu (4th friend) going on and on. THEN…  God will speak.