Job 42 | Wayfarer

“My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:5-6 (NIV)

In this book, Imagine Heaven, John Burke summarizes his 30 years of studying people who physically died, were resuscitated, and claimed to have had an after-life experience while they were deceased. They are known as Near Death Experiences (NDE) and it is a fascinating read.

One of the common things that these individuals talk about is the beauty of what they saw on the other side. In particular, some mention that everything is so beautiful with colors a visual detail that they couldn’t quite describe in human terms because they’d never seen it before.

Nobel Prize winning physicist, Frank Wilczek, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago about how quantum mechanics work in our vision and hearing. He uses the metaphor that our hearing is like having a piano in each ear with its 88 keys that, depending on the pressure with a key is struck, can produce a dynamic range of sound for neurons to fire and our brains to interpret. Our eyes, on the other hand, should be thought of a poorly turned, three-string harpsichord because light vibrates faster than the mechanical engineering of our eyes can handle. There are distinct patterns of illumination created by different combinations of photons that our human eyes can’t discern. “In this way,” Wilczek writes, “we are all profoundly colorblind.”

I find it fascinating to ponder the possibility that those who experienced the heavenly after-life were seeing with eyes unbound by human limitations of the poorly tuned, three-string harpsichord. When sent back to their bodies, they returned with visions of things they couldn’t describe, because there are no human words to suffice.

In today’s chapter, we wrap up the Job story. God has spoken and Job has heard God’s message. What’s more, Job claims to have “seen” God, though from a human sensory perspective, only God’s voice in the storm is ever mentioned. Along my spiritual journey, I’ve had very distinct experiences in which my spirit suddenly perceives something I had not “seen” before. As Paul wrote to Jesus’ followers in Ephesus, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be en-lightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you….” (Eph 1:18 NIV, emphasis added).

There is physical seeing and there is spiritual seeing.

With the eyes of his heart en-lightened, Job understands that his human knowledge has not, can not, and will not perceive God’s power and purposes. Job is humbled by this. Ironically, sitting there on the ash heap of the local burn pile, he says he “despises” himself using a Hebrew word whose root means “trash.” He repents.

Eli the younger is not even mentioned in the epilogue. Having given Job and his three friends an ear-full, the young man must have moved on with his “perfect knowledge” to pass judgment on others and tell them how to solve their problems and fix the world from his omniscient perspective.

The spiritual contest prompted by the evil one is ended. Job did not curse God, though he certainly questioned God emphatically. God restores Job’s fortunes and doubles Job’s blessing. The three amigos, Eli, Bill, and Z, are chastised for proudly proclaiming to have knowledge about both God and Job that they did not have. They are told to repent and have Job offer the priestly act of making sacrifices and praying for them. One commentator I read made the point that Job spoke to God, while his three friends spoke about God.

From beginning to end, there is familiarity and an implied relationship between the Almighty and Job. Not so with his three friends. In the quiet this morning, that’s a big part of my take-away from this ancient story. I don’t simply want to know about God. I want to know Him each day of this earthly journey in a spiritually experiential way. I want to hear and see God with the ears and eyes of my heart, trusting that when this journey is over, I will trade in my poorly tuned, three-string harpsichord and actually see things I can’t even imagine and could never describe in human terms.

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

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.
Job 42:3 (NIV)

Earlier in our walk through the book of Job I shared some of Wendy’s and my experience with infertility. Many of Job’s questions echoed our own questions during the darkest days of our striving to have a child together. The questions still arise from within us at times, but it happens less frequently the further we get in our journey.

The truth of the matter is that I still don’t understand. I have made peace with the fact that we will never understand on this side of eternity. Some things we will simply never know or comprehend. I can choose to let it eat away at my insides until my existence becomes enveloped in bitterness, madness, or both. That’s not a great way to live.

Wendy was the last of her close group of friends to get married. She was 33 when we wed nine years ago. She shared with me some of her struggles with singleness, and she finally found a place to rest in it. “If God is good,” she told me, “and I believe He is, if God has my best interests in mind, and I believe He does, then I have to trust that there is purpose and a plan for what I’m going through even if I don’t understand it.”

That same logic helped us through our struggles with infertility. I still find myself repeating it from time to time when the scabs on the soul wound begin to itch. As I read today’s epilogue from the story of Job, it seems to me that Job came to the same conclusion, though he used different words. Sometimes you have to choose to believe. That’s called faith. Not only is faith required to believe that God exists, but also to believe that God has a purpose and a plan for me despite my present circumstances.