Lifesaver

What would you give up to save your life?

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the Lord, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ The Lord said to Satan, ‘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.’ Then Satan answered the Lord, ‘Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.’ The Lord said to Satan, ‘Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.’ But he said to her, ‘You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. -  Job 2:1-13

Today's reading from the Book of Job is troubling on a few different fronts.  First, God seems to be played for a fool by Satan, who gets God to allow him to cause Job to suffer physical pain.

We don't want to believe God would do this to us just to prove a point.  In This case, the point is that Job would stay loyal.

It is also troubling that Job's wife tells him to curse God and die.  Of course, she is distraught.  She has lost her whole family. and now the man she loves is sick and in pain.  How should she feel about God?

The main point of this story is that there is no end to the torment Job suffers without turning against God.  Perhaps one thing we are missing in this is the fact that everything Job loved, except his wife, is gone.  You could say he has nothing left to live for, so why fight to save a life that has no value?

I think this could be the reason so many people continue to live in horrible situations.  They can't see themselves in anything better.

We need hope to seek a better life.  Without hope, there is no point in living, so we do nothing to get out of bad situations.

The lifesaver for all of us is hope.  Once we have hope, we fight to survive.

More to come...