If this looks familiar, I apologize. I accidentally posted this blog on February 23. Now is when it should be coming out.

No putting it off…here we go into everyone’s favorite Old Testament book: Job. No? I’m with you. It’s a tough read, especially the first two chapters when Job loses his wealth, his health, and his children despite:

Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1.8, NKJV)

Blameless, upright, fears God, shuns evil. Wow. Then he shouldn’t have to suffer, right? Wrong. As Eugene Peterson puts it in his introduction:

It is not suffering as such that troubles us. It is undeserved suffering.

Almost all of us in our years of growing up have the experience of disobeying our parents and getting punished for it. When that discipline was connected with wrongdoing, it had a certain sense of justice to it: When we do wrong, we get punished.

One of the surprises as we get older, however, is that we come to see that there is no real correlation between the amount of wrong we commit and the amount of pain we experience. – from Introduction to Job in the Message Bible, emphasis mine

As I write, I’m coming out of a long “pause” between June’s fall on December 7, and my bout with an enlarged prostate beginning January 17. I read about Job, and I think, “I shouldn’t complain. Others have it way worse.” I said that to a pastor who had called to check on me, and he responded, “Yes, but that doesn’t help, does it?” He’s right.

So over the next weeks, we’ll catch some of what God wants to say to us through the story of Job, but I need to say one more thing before we start: do you know what Santa Claus Theology is? Stay tuned.

Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1.20, 21, NKJV)