February 12 - Job & his wife

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February 12 - Job & his wife

Imagine, if you will, being married to a very wealthy person. Together you have seven sons and three daughters, thousands of head of livestock and a large number of servants. Your family is the greatest among all of the people in the land.

Your children hold immense feasts and party like crazy, but you and your spouse know how to deal with this. Your spouse sacrifices for them regularly to ensure that just in case they sinned, they are purified.

Everything is right in your world. Your spouse shuns evil and is blameless. A good, good person.

Out of the blue, messengers come in and tell you that two of the major types of animals are now all gone and servants have been killed. The next comes in to tell you that the sheep and servants have been burned up, then another comes in to say that the camels and servants are gone. Yet another comes in and all of your children have been killed.

These messengers were speaking to Job practically on top of each other. In the matter of an hour, devastation had occurred.

What would your response be? Honestly?

I have read about too many murder/suicides lately because of the loss of jobs. Wives leave their husbands, families fall apart at the slightest sign of pressure. I'll give Job's wife credit. She didn't leave him that first day.

Another day happens. Poor Job is sitting in the ashes and all of a sudden he is afflicted with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. I'll bet it wasn't even comfortable to sit. So, he had nothing else to do but to scrape himself with a piece of broken pottery.

She finally had it. Job 2:9 says "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"

But, Job would have none of that, "You are talking like a foolish woman (the word foolish actually implies moral deficiency). Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. (Job 2:10)

This woman endured as much loss as Job did and she said what would come naturally to most of us. How much easier is it to just die than to continue to endure the loss of everything that we have ever known. She had gone from the wealthiest woman, the wife of the most respected man in the land to a woman who couldn't be around her husband because his breath was so offensive (Job 19:17).

In Job 31:10, Job says that if his heart has been enticed by a woman, then may his wife grind another man's grain and may other men sleep with her. This implies that she did stick with him through all of it.

While we read that she was morally deficient in her outcry against the suffering, as humans we can hardly blame her. When Job was called upon to suffer for God, she was collateral damage.

Fortunately, the story of Job and his wife doesn't end with the intense suffering, it begins that way. The Epilogue in Job 42 finishes the story with an increase in blessings for Job and his wife. She gives birth to three new daughters that were more beautiful than any in the land and sons that also filled their lives. After the painful tribulation, Job was given 140 more years to live a full life with his family and his blessings.

Fury and frustration with the situation, frustration with your spouse. Will it end there? It doesn't have to. Job and his wife taught us that.