Tag Archives: suffering

job 41, an epilogue, epithumia

12 Feb
a leviathan

“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, (12) NIV

and…

‘Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.’(8) KJV

After a catalogue of His, the Lord God’s creations, ( both great and small ) Job is given, handed, the Leviathan, a sea monster to consider.

A most fearsome creature – Job is to see and touch; to hear and to imagine anew.

An entire chapter (41) is devoted to this Leviathan, this monster and its limbs. Why?

Because we all, have monsters who have scared us. And we, in our fears, in our suffering, treat, recreate these monsters as sacred relics, as idols that we worship in both fear and love.

We epithumia – over love – over fear – by our natures. https://www.blogos.org/exploringtheword/GG-epithumia-desire.php

I have ‘over loved’ the concept, the desire, of being seen, loved, heard and touched.

Job hears of all his monster’s limbs. This Leviathan is now his. His worst imaginings have shape and form. It is his and he also belongs to this Leviathan.

I belong to my desire. And it couldn’t be stated better for me than in Proverbs 19: 22,

“What a person desires is unfailing love”

Betrayed by parents, wife, church, friends, my own body, I so desire love, an unfailing love. My desire is epithumia; a desire that could my a wonder, but also can – and has been – a white whale, a Moby Dick.

How can Job, and I, deal with Leviathans? Verse 8 tells us to reach our hand out, to touch him. By doing so I identify my fear, know it, face it. Then, I must remember my past battles with my monster.

I don’t have to live in the past; but I must be able to remember how they felt. How they still, at times, feel. But I ‘do no more.’

They are there, a memory, but no longer an essential part of me, an all controlling desire. An epithumia. It is …

There, there, but not my heart, my mind, my life.

Job was becoming his suffering. But the Lord God speaks to him about the Leviathan last of all creation. He speaks so Job can heal. In Job’s last and only words to the Lord, he heals by saying,

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’

    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

    things too wonderful for me to know.

“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’

My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job has seen and heard beyond his desire: he sees God, not the Leviathan. Not himself.

The blind, see; the deaf, hear.

And I have to do no more than see Jesus.

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questioning job, answered, reborn -part 1 of 2

6 Feb
Job’s eyes, wide, shut

The Book of Job begins with angels and Satan before God in the heavens. A question comes, ‘Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Our Lord asks, asks a question of which he surely knows the answer. Satan has been probing, roaming, the earth. And he has been watching Job. And then, then, Lord asks Satan another question,
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

What is God saying?
He is saying – Adam fell; Eve fell with him; Cain was overcome, mastered by sin; Abel fell, murder in his innocence; sin roams the earth. Noah’s earth needs a washing, a cleansing. Why?

Sin was in “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time”. ( Genesis 6:5 )

Satan is covering all the earth with evil. His evil. All is touched, all, except for Job.
Job fears the Lord, lovingly. Job shuns, shakes off evil, he belongs to God, wholly, and without a question.
But the Evil One believes that evil begets more, even greater evils. He believes that he can plant questions in ‘the thoughts of the human ( Job’s ) heart.’ And these questions will beget more questions:

  •  does the Lord God truly love me?
  •  why are all these horrible things  happening to me?
  •  why is there suffering, death? here?        why? 
  •  why?

and so, God gives Job over to Satan’s heart, to the Evil One’s thoughts, devices, imaginings. Only for a time and Job’s life is be safe. But his life becomes now one of questions, questions without answers.
Job will need, require an answer.

Tomorrow in part 2 of ‘questioning job,’ we will feel the answer. Feel it with Job.

We will be with Job.

with job.

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