Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible.  (Does that make me crazy?) It has all the makings of a great novel- character establishment, conflict, villains, and a happy ending.  When God finally answers Job, the prose is so beautiful. It reads like poetry.  The imagery is so vivid and moving.

This time, as I read along with our Old Testament reading plan, I had some different insight.  Maybe it’s the season of life I’m in. Maybe God is really trying to drill home a lesson to me. Maybe I’m lazy.

During the course of the book, Job loses his health, wealth, status, livestock, and family.  At the end of this extended period of suffering, God restores everything.  However, before God restored anything, He commanded Job to pray over his friends.  Job had to take action. He couldn’t passively stand there while God worked. His restoration hinged on him obeying this request. I can’t imagine the humility it took for Job to pray a prayer of blessing over these ‘friends’.  (I would have tried to work in at least ONE ‘I told you so’.)   God then restored Job’s family and friend relationships.  They each brought him a gift of money and a gold ring.  The Lord blessed him with additional sheep, camels, ox and donkeys.  He then blessed him with 10 additional children.

I would like to propose to you that all of this restoration took work.  Hard work.

Restoration of relationships takes work and effort.  It takes humility, communication, and sacrifice. Animals need care. Shelters probably had to be built.  Grain had to be grown to feed them.  Flocks needed tending.  He likely had to hire staff for this. Staff need to be managed and subsequently compensated. For Job to have 10 more children, he also probably needed to mend his relationship with his wife. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t come out full grown.  He started over with each one- newborns to infants to toddlers to teens. He had to do it all over again- times 10!

I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

The Bible tells us that “the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning.” Starting over again and doing the work again was the bigger blessing.  That’s the beauty of God’s upside down kingdom.  What we see as intensive and exhaustive is what God calls a blessing. Each blessing that God restored created more work for Job.  Hard work. Manual labor. Sleepless nights.  Our blessings are not always passive.  They don’t always make our lives easier.  We don’t just get to put them on a shelf and admire them. Blessings not only bring new responsibilities, but they also bring a deeper capacity for things of the Lord. I want to be able to see the blessing in things that cause me to work hard- not the frustration that I feel now.  I want the character and integrity that come with the work, but for me to get there, I have to do the work.

~Shiney

P.S Joyce George did a powerful teaching on why work is Biblical during our July bible study. I encourage all of you to watch it. It will help to change your perspective!