Job: Finding Peace On An Unpredictable Path | Dealing with Relationship Pain (Job 2:1-10)

When things aren’t going your way, does your family help you? Or make it harder for you? Are you and your spouse a team who can be strong when the other is weak and regularly encourage each other? Or do you sometimes panic or lash out and make it even more difficult for the other? Different people react to the same difficult circumstances in different ways. Job and his wife had very different
reactions to their difficult circumstances. Let’s see what we can learn from Job in how to deal with relationship pain and how can we learn to be stronger examples for our children.

Transcript

She had to be near him. She couldn’t bear her pain alone. With each step closer, her eyes wanted to look away. Her husband was so disfigured—his appearance matching his heart of tortuous grief. She sits in the dust beside him, but this is no moment to breathe. Rather, every breath exhales ache. Her life…over. The tears start running, the angry grief of bitterness. Her dear children are no more. Her life of joy now covered in the ashes of loss. Her heart is revealed. Believer though she was, suffering has a way of exposing where our hearts are looking for security. Her husband had taken the lion’s share of that. She lashes out, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!” She stares into the eyes of the man she loves dearly, thinking, “I’ve lost everyone else. I might as well lose you too.” As her existence looks like an ash heap of what once was she blames her husband Job. It’s what suffering does. It opens our eyes to see where we are searching for security, and whether we see the relationships in our lives according to our LORD’s wisdom. Because your relationships will dramatically affect how you endure unpredictable pain.

In our pain, we are wired to lean on relationships but it all comes down to what relationships are you leaning on and what’s their quality. This is so relevant, especially in our society where friendships are sadly so often just “social media friend request level” deep. We look to relationships for security and when they fail, the pain, panic, and verbal punches burst. Brene Brown in her best-selling book Daring Greatly explains this, “When we attach our self-worth to what we get from others, we turn relationships into transactions. And when the people around us don’t meet our expectations, we feel disappointed, betrayed, or even angry. The moment we stop getting what we want, we pull away—guarding ourselves rather than showing up vulnerably.” Have you noticed this in your own life? 

Many of our relationships are only skin-deep. We’re attracted to success, whether in wealth, humor, or some level of “you are giving me something when I’m with you.” We are attracted to the popular, the cool, the best, selfishly hoping we’ll gain something from associating with them. But what happens when that person becomes a net negative life effect? When not only they can’t give you anything but become a drain to you? That is where the relationship guts are revealed. A relationship’s integrity can only truly be seen when that person is nothing but a drain on you. We see this with Job and his wife.

Job’s wife had perhaps unwittingly fallen into the temptation to consider her husband her source of security. Was she looking to him as the spiritual leader of their home, yet a sinner like her who needed prayers and encouragement to spend time with God? Or did she see him as the man who could do no wrong? Was she looking at him transactionally or self-sacrificially? Suffering has a way of not only revealing our hope for security but also how we have prepared for suffering. Whether she realized it or not, when she lashed out at Job in her pain, she for better or for worse had trained herself for that response. What do I mean? You will shoot from the hip when you face suffering, and that reaction will have been honed in all those years before. In the depths of her pain, she’s trying to rationalize her suffering, and Job becomes her outlet. Maybe he was a hypocrite about his faith all these years! Maybe he wasn’t the man of integrity she thought he was! Again, her preparedness for suffering was based on her husband, and when he could no longer provide that safety net, desperation set in. How would you have reacted?

Are you looking to the people in your life as your security like Job’s wife did? Are you finding your value in how many people like you? Do you expect to have people at your side at your beck and call? Are you quick to ditch a relationship when it becomes work for you, or when you feel like you’re getting nothing out of it? Do you see who’s roaming in the shadows of that inner discussion? Satan of course, whose name means the “Accuser.” Do you see how he tries to use relationship pain to build his case against you? He will try to convince you to put your security in other people, and when those people desert you, ghost you, or aren’t there for you like you want them to be then he will try to connect the nonexistent dots and say, “God will desert you too.” See, you only love God because you’re not alone. Let’s see what you do when you’re alone in your pain, you’ll say forget you, God. You don’t love God for him.” His goal is for you not just to see others as net-negatives in your life, but to see yourself as a net-negative. How do we know that’s Satan’s strategy? Because that’s the plan he had for Job.

In Job 2, we again find ourselves in God’s throne room, and it’s almost word for word what happened in chapter 1, did you notice that? But this time, not only does the LORD beam with pride over Job, he uses sarcasm to show Satan again how he is nothing but a loser. “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” You can feel Satan’s resentment in his reply, “Skin for skin!” A man will give all he has for his own life. But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.” Now, when Satan screams “skin for skin,” this is what he’s getting at. He’s saying, “Only when you strike at Job’s life itself will you see what kind of a believer he really is. He has given up his possessions and he now has only his life, attack that and you will find that he will attack you, God, in the only way he knows how by cursing you.” And how does the LORD react, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.” He sets the boundaries and as Pastor Michael Ewart puts it, “(Satan) hates us so much and God so much that he will take every inch of what God gives him, every last millimeter of it.” And he does just that with Job.

As Job sits in ashes, torn robe, shaved head, now his body is ravaged. His appearance was beyond horrific. He endured the worst nightmares, had bad breath, worms in his skin, weight loss, chills, his skin was literally dying (necrosis). He’s so disfigured that people had no idea what to say to him. As he mourns, his wife sees him in her torment, and in her rawness she belittles Job and the core of who he was. She saw him as a net negative, but Job knew more. His intentional life of striving to be close to the LORD shows itself as he gently yet firmly says to his dear wife, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble.” He appeals again to God or in Hebrew, Elohim, the creator-God who knows the plan for the universe and Job submits to his will, especially in trouble. Does that remind you of another Sufferer? He placed his security into the hands of the transcendent God who is always so very near you. He suffered at the ultimate cost.

Remember what we heard in Luke 8? Jesus’ family thought he was crazy. He was a net negative relationship to them. They wanted to hide him away. Think about the disciples in Mark 8 when Jesus speaks of his cross and empty tomb, and Peter pulls him aside and essentially says, “Jesus you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Place yourself in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus in so much torment that he is sweating drops of blood, and his friends sleep through his suffering. He seemed completely alone, totally abandoned until you hear his prayer, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” His security was in his Father. Even though he knew his very life would be drained from him. He would not curse God. He would continue to submit. He had known this day of suffering would come, and he went into joyfully, because he knew through his pain, you would be his. Just like with Job, he knows the ash heaps you’re sitting on. He knows what it feels like to have every human relationship crumble around you in your time of need. He knows how often our sin reveals itself when we look to other relationships instead of him to carry us through. Yet, he continues to sit next to you, not to condemn you, but to heal you. He whispers through his Word, “I’m with you. See my cross. Just trust me.”

In your suffering, know that Jesus has identified you as his very own. The one relationship that will carry you through pain has been given to you. He will never revoke it. Even when your friends push you away. Even when you feel like a burden to everyone. Even when that person you thought you’d be there is nowhere to be found. Jesus is there and more than that, he knows what he’s doing. And when we can see him in the storm, even though torn apart, we praise him. Don’t hold back in rejoicing in God’s grace, and see in that grace the wisdom the LORD gives you to prepare you for suffering. He prepares you to be a part of shoving it in Satan’s face that he is a loser, not only in your own life but in the lives of your children, with the neighbors in every community and context you’re in, a relationship of victory. What does this look like? 

It starts with preparing for suffering. We all again react to suffering by how we’ve processed it in the past. So how would God have us train for suffering, so we keep our relationship with him at the forefront? Theologian C.F.W. Walther writes, “Christians must prepare themselves for suffering through the diligent study of Scripture and in prayer. To face suffering with courage and faith, one must be fortified in the knowledge of God's promises and the assurance of His presence.” You anchor yourself in that pursuit, and you know what happens? Your mind and heart become more and more filled with the Word of God to the point that you no longer see anyone as a net negative. Not yourself, or anyone else. Can you see how grace changes your life with that mentality?

You approach your kids far differently. You don’t look to shield them from every temptation (because that’s impossible), nor do you hand them off to others to raise them because you don’t trust yourself. Instead, you approach them just to love them, asking for the LORD’s strength, even if they don’t understand what you’re doing or why, even when they drain you, you love them even still to the expense of your energy and maybe at times your job or your social life. Why? Because you are a submitter to the LORD’s plan, and joy in him overcomes every loss. Or that friend who’s always down, that you repeat the same comfort over and over to but it doesn’t just seem to stick, you sit in the ash heaps with them, at the expense of your time and maybe even your sanity. Sometimes when for the good of the relationship or that person or yourself you have to place boundaries, you do it. And in moments of suffering, you reject pride and courageously bare your soul and say, “I really need you.” And how can you do all these things? How could Job respond so lovingly to his wife as she lashed out in her pain like we so often do? Because when you’re grounded in Jesus when you see the friend he is for you every moment of your life. When you see your friendship with him as the number one relationship in your life, it frees you to love people not because you’re afraid you’ll lose them, not because through them you’ll feel okay in life, not because you will get an emotional, financial, or social boost from them, but because you know by loving them you’re really loving your LORD. Like him, we’re not about skin-deep relationships, but heart-deep ones. That’s the beauty of God’s design for a church community. Even if you have nothing in common but the faith you share with the person sitting next to you, you are committed to being there for them, because that is who we are. Like Jesus, we choose to go into net-negative situations, so people can see that real life is only found in the LORD.

When we see how Jesus loved us to the end and back, it unlocks this joy to view every person as a net-positive because they are dearly loved by Jesus too and if he loves them, of course we want to love them too. Christianity has always been the religion of the ash heap, the sufferer, the net negatives. Back in the 1st century AD, many considered baby girls as deformed. People were permitted by law to leave them outside cities, exposed to the elements. But there were these people, despite facing being devalued and disdained who saw priceless treasure in what their society considered worthless. Christians would take those baby girls and care for them despite the cost. This is the legacy that’s been given to us. Our Christian ancestors before us went to the towns ravaged by illness when everyone else ran away, and they went into the warzones of history to give the hope of Jesus. This hope-filled legacy is yours too dear Christian. We sit in the ash heaps. We reach out to those suffering despite the cost. We serve others, speaking the truth in love, like Job even in the middle of the battle. Because our Jesus goes with us, a relationship of healing in a world filled with pain. “In life, in death, O LORD abide with us!” He will. Amen.