The book of Job - why a good understanding of this book is essential when life goes to shit

Neil Peart was one of the best drummers in the rock industry. His band, Rush, sold millions of records of a music style which is far from popular. Progressive Rock is not for everyone, after all. Rush admirers are a specific tribe, which I consider myself part of. The sophisticated instrumental part, combined with a very odd (at first) voice from Geddy Lee and poetic lyrics make Rush a special band in many aspects. And the lyrics were also the responsibility of Neil, as he was not only a nerdy drummer, but also a book worm beyond the normal level of literate.

But why am I talking about Rush when the post is about the book of Job in the Bible?

Neil went through a personal loss which very few of us can even start to relate. He lost his teenage-daughter on a tragic car accident and his wife lost the battle to cancer less than one year later. As a way to cope with a loss he could not bear, Neil decided to retire from Rush and took his motorcycle on a 'healing' trip across the US, Mexico and Canada. He registered his memories from the trip in his book called 'The Ghost Rider'.

And stories like Neil's are shocking and always remind me of the book of Job. The book of Job is by far my favorite book in the Old Testament. It is said to be the first scroll ever found and to this day inspires many good debates. In case you never read this amazing book, I suggest you do, but here's a short summary in my own words:

Job was on top of his game. He was super wealthy with a farm full of animals, grains and all a man could have then to feel rich. His personal life was also perfect. He had seven sons and three daughters and they all got along fine. A truly blessed life!

Meanwhile in heaven, our Creator calls all angels for a quick catch up (you think only you have Jour Fix with your boss?) Well, guess who also goes to the Creator to discuss his business? It's him, Satan!

Now, a quick side note before we move on: This part of the story is amazingly rich. As we know, the Creator created everything, even Satan, so he is only another servant doing Yahuah's work on Earth.

Back to Job's tale: The Creator tells Satan something like 'Have you seen my servant Job? he is truly faithful to me'. Satan, our accuser, does not miss his chance and answers: 'But of course he is faithful, you gave him everything! I bet if you take everything from him he will curse your name in no time, like humans always do.'

Yahuah decides to call! 'Very well. You can do whatever you want with anything he has, just don't touch him'. Satan wastes no time. Shortly afterwards, all Job's wealth is lost and all his ten children die at the same time.

Devastated but sober, when provoked by his wife, his answer is: 'Naked I came to the world and naked I will depart. Yahuah gives and now Yahuah takes. Blessed be His name.' (Job 1:21)

How many of us could go through something so horrendous and not turn against our Father? Our lives may not have such extreme tests like this, but it happens in other degrees as well. If it has not happened to you, you probably heard of people who went through that phase where they lose their job, their spouse leaves them and to top it off they crash their car. Does that sound familiar?

After Satan's actions on Job's life, he goes back to Heaven for his next meeting with Yahuah and his boss is rejoicing. 'See? my servant is truly faithful, even after you destroyed his life for no reason.' But Satan will not give up easily, for he is proud. ‘Let me now touch him and you will see, I will prove that he will curse your name.' And he gets his new chance, ‘ok, you can touch him, only do not kill him.'

Next Job had his health severely attacked. His skin was so full of sores that people started being grossed out by him and he was in a lot of pain. Let's imagine for a minute what happened to Job: He was rich, influential, full of friends and with a big harmonious family. He was a respected patriarch and all of a sudden he was poor, alone, even his wife against him and now he was in excruciating pain and full of sores.

Then three friends show up to mourn with him. Drowned in sorrow, Job understandably told his friends that he wished he was dead, that he wished he had never been born and wondering why he was going through so much pain.

What would you expect your friends to do, empathy maybe? well, in this part of the book, which is the biggest part, they start lecturing Job on how he is not right to question the Creator, that He is always fair and if Job is in this situation he probably deserved it. And this discussion goes on and on until they are interrupted. Guess what? Him, the ONE! the Creator Himself shows up inside Job's house with his voice inside a whirlwind because He was probably watching those guys' blah blah blah and decided to give them all a reality check.

In a nutshell, the Creator rebukes Job bringing to his attention that he was not there when He created the world. He also reminded Job that as a creature, he is not capable of creating anything. And being a creature, he could not understand what was in Yahuah's mind nor his ways. (Job 38)

Yahuah continues with what is for me the most sobering question of the Old Testament: '“Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?’ (Job 40:8)

Wow! How would you answer that?

The conversation continues and Yahuah is annoyed with Job yet he understands his frustration, for Job never, at any time cursed the name of Yahuah. In his complaining and sorrow, he was true and honest! Yahuah on the other hand was truly pissed off with the three friends, who did not help by lecturing Job and proved themselves to be proud and hypocrite. They were in trouble!

When you read the three friends point of view, they seem in line with the scriptures, so why was Yahuah so angry? Here are my favorite two comments on this topic:

According to Jack Kelley, ‘What upset God about Job’s friends is that they misrepresented Him completely. They argued with Job from the humanist position based on human experience, human tradition, and human merit. They were false in their logic and wrong in their conclusions. They believed that man must do things to earn God’s favor and therefore suffering is a sign of God’s displeasure.’

Peter Kreeft reminds us about the importance of not being ‘lukewarm’:

‘Job sticks to God, retains intimacy, passion, and care, while the three friends are satisfied with correctness of words, “dead orthodoxy”. Job’s words do not accurately reflect God, as the three friends’ words do, but Job himself is in a true relationship to God, as the three friends are not: a relationship of heart and soul, life-or-death passion. No one can be truly related to God without life-or-death passion. To be related to God in a way that is only finite, partial, held back, or calculating is not truly to be related to God. God is everything or nothing. Job thinks God has let him down, so that in a sense God has become nothing to him. That is a mistake, but Job at least knows it must be all or nothing. God is infinite love, and the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Job’s love for God is infected with hate, but the three friends’ love for God is infected with indifference.’

Once exposed to his littleness, Job repents and intercedes to Yahuah for his friends to be forgiven. And afterwards Yahuah restored Job's wealth and gave him even more than he had before. Job also got healthy enough to have more ten children. He died old and happy.

When faced with tragedy, it’s so difficult for us - given our rebel nature - not to question the Father’s ways. We need to understand, we need to make sense of the bad things that happen to us. Did we deserve it? is our Father evil and cruel?

What we should ask ourselves is: How much can we say we know about everything? do we know how things were created? Can we say we really know the truth? Maybe you have already heard the famous: 'Yahuah made us to be happy!' Did He really? The hard thing for us to acknowledge is that we do not know everything, we do not understand why things are the way they are and no amount of anger with the Father will make anything easier.

There are three ways that we can go: 1) we can complain and rebel 2) just get jaded about His existence or 3) we can accept that we are not in control of our lives, so that eventually we are able to see that not only the good things in our lives, but also the bad ones, are gifts from our Father, which are all part of His plan for us. And we can't chose to only have the good stuff.

Which of these three do you think will most probably bring you peace?

Neil Peart, mentioned earlier, was not what I would call a believer. He found his way to cope by riding, reading lots of books and writing. In his book he shares with us his grief, his anger and how important it was for him to understand how small he was in the bigger scheme of things. Fortunately, he eventually overcame his dark days, married again and had another daughter. Rush came out of their hiatus for another few years before he decided he really wanted to retire. Neil left us in January 2020.

May his spirit rest in peace.