I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of being afraid to read a book of the Bible, but when I came to Job a couple of months ago, I was definitely anxious.
I’d read Job before years ago, and simply didn’t get it. I felt it was confusing to read because of seemingly unreliable narrators and multiple points of view. The utter devastation Job went through seemed cruel. The ending seemed simplistic and rather dismissive of the trauma. It was a difficult book to read at a surface level, which is what I did about 12 years ago.
So when I sat down to give it another go recently, it was with careful attention and prayer. I didn’t want to have the same puzzling experience, dissatisfied with the conclusion and confused about God’s character. I wanted to discover something I hadn’t before.
I had to go back to the basics of reading Scripture to read Job again. I read with an eye of never having understood the text before. Thankfully, what I found in the pages was refreshing and relieving. But if I hadn’t gone back to basics to see Job with fresh eyes and a willing heart to receive something new, I might have let my previous impressions color the text, and introduced confusion about the character of God.
It is worth taking care in how we approach Scripture. It is always a good idea to pray for understanding from the Holy Spirit about what we read. Without the Holy Spirit’s wisdom guiding our perception, we can easily fail to recognize His Voice and what He wants us to know about Himself.
My past self would often let skeptical and critical interpretations of Scripture color my perception before I started. I would at times even read with a chip on my shoulder, as if daring the text to prove its critics wrong. I later learned that it was my approach that was all wrong. Without an openness to the Holy Spirit, and reading with a spirit of nonjudgment, it is very difficult to see God’s character clearly in Scripture. For me, I would get caught up in my own thoughts and questions and then give up in searching for an answer, or waiting for a Truth to touch my heart. An assurance of God’s character is something that I’ve repeatedly been so comforted by when reading the Bible, and part of me was afraid that Job would be the exception.
When I finished Job this week, I remembered all the confusion and the bewilderment of Job’s suffering I’d experienced the first time around. The major difference I noticed was that I have a different level of understanding of who God is than I did 12 years ago. The suffering and pain he went through didn’t absolve Job from the consequences of misunderstanding God’s character. I understood why I had felt lost in Job, but thankfully I now see it with a deep peace and certainty of God’s goodness, and Job’s need of God’s mercy toward him, too. I would encourage everyone to read Job at a meditative pace with prayerful posture. It is a masterpiece on faith in God and relationship with God. I now, like many others, see it as a foundational book in understanding mature faith.
May we all ask for and receive understanding from the Holy Spirit, as we read Scripture and allow God to minister to our hearts through it.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).
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