“And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”
Job 26:14 (NIV)

I am surprised that I’ve never seen anyone try to stage the book of Job. 

Job and his three friends remain sitting on the ash heap where people burn their garbage. What a setting.

Job, emaciated, almost naked, and covered head-to-foot with festering sores, continues to scrape at his scabs with pieces of broken pottery. His friends, healthy, hardy, and dressed in their fine robes sit silently around him. What a visual. 

For twenty-two chapters, Job and his friends have gone back and forth in contemplation of his tragic circumstances and intense suffering. With Bill’s brief words in yesterday’s chapter, the friends appear to have nothing further to say. In today’s chapter, Job replies specifically to Bill. The Hebrew pronouns Job uses are singular rather than plural. 

It appears that Job is at the end of his patience with his friends as the conversation wanes. Job’s reply drips with bitter sarcasm:

“How you have helped the powerless!

    How you have saved the arm that is feeble!

What advice you have offered to one without wisdom!

    And what great insight you have displayed!

Who has helped you utter these words?

    And whose spirit spoke from your mouth?”

Job then proceeds to poetically contemplate God’s immense power that lies beyond human understanding. It feels as if he is talking more to himself than to his three friends. If I were directing this as a scene on stage, I would block it in such a way that it became clear Job is delivering his words to himself, to the audience like a soliloquy in Shakespeare. Why? Because he alone is privy to the depth of this insight. He sees God revealed in creation: the vastness of space, the rage of a thunderstorm, and the untamed seas. Job then recognizes that all of this is but “the outer fringe” of God’s power. He foreshadows the words of Paul who describes God as the One who can do “exceeding, abundantly, beyond all that we could ask or imagine.”

What is fascinating about Job’s beautiful description of God’s power that lies beyond imagination is that back in chapter 11 his friend Z accused Job of being unable to fathom the mysteries of God. In ten verses, Job has proved Z wrong. It is fitting that we don’t hear from Z again. In his painful cries out to God, Job may not even recognize that his suffering is giving him depths of clarity and insight to the divine that his friends will never fathom. There are spiritual insights learned amidst suffering that cannot be learned by any other means. This is why suffering is a requisite for spiritual maturity. This is why I believe Job’s is speaking to himself; He is speaking to me.

Throughout Job’s story, if I am willing to see it, I am witness to his spiritual maturation. His friends, confident in their status, education, and false sense of security, remain unchanged.

When I was a young man, I thought I had things figured out. Then life happened. Moral failure, financial failure, and divorce were among the many things that sobered me up to just how little I actually knew. Job’s suffering was perpetrated by the evil one. My suffering has largely been perpetrated by my own poor choices. Nevertheless, along my spiritual journey, suffering through the consequences of my own actions, I have humbly realized that all that I know is but the “outer fringe.” God is exceeding, abundantly beyond all that I can imagine. I am the bleeding woman simply trying to reach out with my finger to make contact with that single piece of thread dangling off the hem at the bottom of Jesus’ robe. I feel Job reaching for it, as well.

And, just that touch changes everything.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.