Oh, dear Job, how my heart weeps for yours. I am just hanging on your every word, and each chapter just keeps making me think more and more and more and more. And this one especially reminds me of one of the instructors that taught during a week of a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Discipleship Training School. This instructor was a large South African man who probably would have looked a bit scary in a dark alley but actually was a big softy. One of the things he said often when he prayed was, “Give us more and more and more.” Even during our most intimate prayer and worship times, when I just didn’t think I could get any more and more, he would still pray, “Give us more and more and more,” like he knew he and everyone one of us around him could never get too much of the Holy Spirit. Reading through Job is much like getting more and more and more because each chapter just adds another layer to the chapters before, and while they say a lot of the same things, in essence, each stanza, each question, each phrase is critical in Job’s journey – in each of our journeys – of learning and knowing and receiving more and more and more!
So, I’ve said a few times that I keep thinking about different things while reading, and the above is just a small tidbit of everything Job has churned up within me the past few weeks, like this thought, for instance: remember how we’ve talked about how Job is wishing for a mediator, someone who can talk to God for him. Well, I hope many of you thought, as I did, “Why does Job need a mediator? He can and has been talking to God himself all along!” Well, verse 20 tells us why; Job thinks God isn’t listening. “I cry to you, O God, but you don’t answer. I stand before you, but you don’t even look.” Job is so desperate to bend God’s ear that he will do anything to get his attention. Except, now, he feels he’s used every last card he has, so he asks for a mediator. He asks for a Jesus. What he doesn’t realize, though, and what we know, is that God is listening and hears Job’s every plea and sees every tear. He never needed a Jesus, so to speak. Oh, that sounds bad, but in a way it doesn’t, and it makes Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s sending him to be sacrificed all the more powerful. They didn’t HAVE to do it! They did it because they wanted us to see – to physically see – how much God loves us and how much He would do for us and how far He would go to get our attention. What’s most beautiful in all of this, however, is that while God is watching all Job’s crying out to Him and asking Him and begging Him and focusing every last fiber of his being on Him, Satan is watching it, too.
Writing prompt: ignored
Have you ever been ignored or felt like you were being ignored. Write about how it feels to be ghosted.
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