Job Grieved: Devotionals In the Book of Job During A Time of Loss

By Scott Douglas

The Bible Never Says It Will Be Okay.

The Bible is largely silent on the topic of grief, which surprises most people; contrary to popular belief, the Bible never says things will be okay-that the pastures greener on the other side. Further, the Bible never says God won't give us anything we can't h

• Language: English
• Publisher: SL Editions
• Release date: Nov 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781629177182

Book preview

Introduction

The Bible is a book that evolves as you journey through life; characters who resonated with you in youth take on different meaning in adulthood. For me, that is especially true with the Book of Job.

In my youth, Job was a Sunday school story that felt at times more like a fairytale; in college, it was a book with symbolism and powerful themes; in adulthood, it became a book about grief.

In 2013, I said hello and goodbye to my only child. For nine months, my wife had had a healthy pregnancy, and our little boy, Mordecai, was destined for great things. This changed suddenly when my wife went in for a routine stress test to determine if labor should be induced; the heartbeat that had been so strong a mere three days before had disappeared.

A lot of things went through my head; notably, why put my wife through nine months of pregnancy when we wouldn’t even be able to hear the cry that most parents take for granted? Why not just give her a miscarriage early on in the pregnancy—which, no doubt, would have been painful to endure, but at least we would have been spared months of hope. There wouldn’t have been a room ready for a baby—cards ready for an announcement—reminders everywhere we look of what would never come.

The Bible is largely silent on the topic of grief, which surprises most people; contrary to popular belief, the Bible never says things will be okay—that the pastures greener on the other side. Further, the Bible never says God won’t give us anything we can’t handle. That’s a proverb man made up. When it seems hopeless there’s a reason: this might be a trial we cannot handle. It’s natural to feel bleak about the future because the future is one thing God never promises will be better—better on Earth, at least.

The Bible is, of course, full of people undergoing hardship; but there’s never a formula for getting through those hardships.

So as I dealt with my own grief, I turned to the one book in the Bible that, while not having all the answers I wanted, at least understood my pain: The Book of Job.

The Book of Job did something thousands of years ago that broke the mold of grief: it said bad things don’t happen because you did something bad.

Sometimes we experience loss because of our own human error—a miscalculation causes an accident where someone dies; sometimes we experience loss because of someone else’s bad judgment—a drunk driver strikes another car and kills the driver; but sometimes bad things happen…just because.

It’s that last one that really can sting. Having a reason for lost doesn’t take away the pain, but it can help the process of grief. When we have no reason, sometimes we create a reason that it was our fault; thousands of years ago, this was actually the traditional thing to do in Judaism. Why did a horrible thing happen? Because you’re a bad person, of course—somewhere, somehow, you sinned.

The Book of Job was radical in that it took out the logic of loss—it said don’t look for the logical argument for why bad things happen; look to the healing.

If you are seeking the why you will not find the answers in Job; you will not find it anywhere in the Bible. But if you want to heal your soul, then there’s a powerful message reading how Job deals with grief.

Part 1: How Job Grieves

Introduction

Job. He’s a bit of a mystery. If you haven’t read the Book of Job, you more than likely at least know the gist of the story: that all his children were killed in a single blow, his life essentially crumbled before him, and he was put on a trial of sorts by his friends, who wanted him to admit he had did something horrible to cause all of it.

But who is Job? There are lots of characters in the Bible remembered for their great accomplishments in the name of God—Moses brought the Israelites out of the promise land; David was a great a great king; Elijah was a great prophet. Job—unlike most Bible figures—pops up out of nowhere and does nothing for the people of Israel.

There are a few other places in the Bible and apocryphal works that reference him, which tells us that he is real.¹

The author of Job and when Job actually lived is also a mystery. There’s lots of speculation, but no certainty.

So aside from what the book itself tells us about Job—that he was a prosperous family man—we