Catch Your Breath

Sometimes it seems like too much has happened too soon, and I need to catch my breath.  I feel that way at the end of Chapter 1.  One chapter.  22 verses.  We met Job.  We saw God first hold Job up and then offer Job up.  We see Job’s fortune, then we see it entirely reversed.  All in just 22 verses. 

It’s like that, isn’t it?  Life.  And words.  And how we relate the things that happen.  Often, actual events require very few words.  Subject and predicate.  Noun and verb.  Something terrible – or wonderful – can be conveyed in just a few words. 

But the ripples of that subject verb agreement can alter time and life as we know it forever.  If you can stop and catch your breath for a second, you probably should. 

Spoiler alert:  the action isn’t over.  Collect yourself now as best you can.

Read the opening line of Chapter 2:  “One day when the angels came to report to God, Satan also showed up.”

One day … again.  We don’t know how much time has passed.  It could be days or weeks or months or years.  Has Job’s hair grown out? Has he started to rebuild his life?  Time is such a funny thing, all bendy and difficult to track.

But one day one day when the angels come to report to God, Satan comes with them again.   Cue ominous music.

“Perhaps,” we hope, “perhaps it’s just for Satan to admit defeat or for God to gloat a little.  Maybe it’s just the two of them settling the bet.”

God initiates a new conversation with Satan.  The beginning of this conversation follows the first one nearly word for word.  This sounds familiar … and not in a warm, fuzzy way.

The conversation starts out innocuously enough, but then God brings up the bet, points to Job again as a model of blamelessness.  It does sound a little like God is bragging on Job, and that didn’t go so well for Job the first go ‘round.

“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.”

God points out that Job has persisted in his integrity, even though Satan incited God to destroy him for no reason.

What do we make of the fact that God will let Satan destroy anyone – much less a famously good person – for no reason?  Is Satan smarter than God?  Can God be tricked?  What is God trying to prove here?

We all know there’s more to come.  Catch your breath, and buckle your seatbelt.  Here we go again.