#678 Summation of Job (Happiness and Joy)

The first chapter of Job starts with a description of the man who lends his name to this book. He is described as being upright and blameless, a man that other men would be wise to use as an example. Job is a man of great means, a man with a wife and family, and with all these things he is quite happy. He is a man who prays to God and attributes his blessings as from Him. His children live well and in happy communion with each other, yet for all that goes so well with him materially, he is not lax in his tributes to God. Job even acts as the priest to his family, making sacrifices against sins known and unknown. 

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. Ezekiel 22:30

Then there is a conversation that occurs in the heavens, between the great Leviathan and the One Who made him. "Consider My servant Job", and what follows this becomes an argument against the very fabric of human religion and philosophy at that time. God allows the devil to test Job, to see whether he will curse God or not. To the devil, Job is faithful because he is blessed, a rich man with a good family life, many servants, livestock, land and other holdings. He is Your dog because You feed him well. He regards You because he is happy. This is a contest between happiness and joy, the battle between darkness and knowledge, the material and faith. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul. If you see riches as the great end, comfort and the guard against the ills of poverty, then money may find you happy for a moment. If you see health as the greatest gift, then the God you think has given it to you, is to you a God worthy in deed. Men chase after happiness, drink to it, play for it, roll it up in paper and smoke it, but that is all fleeting, temporary. 

When the young man heard this, he went away in sorrow, because he had great wealth. 23Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”…Matthew 19: 22-24

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15: 13

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, James 1:2

There is a temptation in the temporary, to elevate it into and above eternity. Many false prophets put the happiness they find in money, sex, human honor and prestige, above the joy that rests in God alone. All these things have been made, yet men cannot seem to count them in there place, and elevate them to the here after, a heaven that brings them many virgins and a god more like that jolly fat man at Christmas, that to them is pure joy. They cannot account for the songs of Paul and Silas, the chorus that comes from those beaten and imprisoned for the gospel's sake. It cannot reconcile that smile that breaks across the face of the child of God, who though in constant pain, through stained glass windows, still manages to glimpse a Sovereign God. There is a comfort that His children find in the knowledge that in whatsoever state they may find themselves, there is reason to be content, more than this, there is reason to feel blessed. He is there in the gloomiest of days, that dark is only the shadow of His wings, for He will never leave you or forsake you, and all the riches of this dying world cannot compare to the love of God. Happiness is fleeting, it is smoke, a warm embrace, the strength to run the hills, fight the enemies of your ego, and hold a moment of what you think is joy. Joy is the assurance of salvation, the relationship you have with the Creator of the universe, and she is different from her sister, happiness, for joy has overcome the present and rest safe inside the eternal. 

In Job we find a man of faith, integrity, and a man who is broken yet unwilling to curse God. He is challenged, as his friends are, in that they relate the wealth of this world to their merit with God, yet Job, who God has spoken highly of, is now left without children, without livestock, poor and of poor health. His friends judge him as the wicked, for to them there can be no other explanation then that Job has committed a great treason against the Creator of the universe, otherwise he would not have lost his estate. Humans should judge by merit rather than by color, sex or any outward appearance, but God is even above merit, for He is holy and we are not. Job's friends would suspect that God should live in a box that takes the tokens of merit and spits out the objects of desire, but God owes no man such a system. Job comes to hear him out of the whirl wind and finds himself without so many words. He comes to see himself as inadequate and begging for a mediator.