Life Connections in the Recovery Bible - Job

[janbear]

Job 2:11-13 By sitting with him in silence, Job’s three friends probably performed a great service. As soon as they opened their mouths, however, they wiped out any comfort they provided earlier. We often act similarly when people close to us experience tragedy. Rather than simply being with them, listening, and loving them amid their pain, we try to fix, explain or justify what has happened. As with Job and his friends, we only make the sufferer feel worse.

[janbear]

Job 4: 1-5:27 Most of us would not tell people outright that their suffering resulted from sin in their lives. But when disaster strikes us, what do we sometimes say to ourselves? “I must have done something to deserve this.” “If only I hadn’t rebelled (or whatever) as a kid.” “Well, I guess God’s finally gonna get me now.” That kind of self-talk can be even more dangerous than listening to a lecture from someone like Eiphaz

[janbear]

Job 8:1-3 In the previous two chapters, Job expressed his feelings. Bildad’s response sounds a lot like the answers we may have gotten as children when we tried to express ourselves. First, Bildad tried to control: “Dont say that.” And second, he tried to argue with Job using logic and theology. These approaches mean little to someone in the throes off suffering. The effect is to say, “Your feelings don’t matter.” They do matter, and they need to be recognized

[janbear]

Job 12: 9-25 God’s ways are often far beyond our understanding. Though Job pleaded before God for an answer to his plight, he still had a keen sense of God’s infinite power and wisdom. His friends, however, clung to the simplistic view that sickness and tragedy are the direct result of one’s sinful actions. Like many codependents and adult children, they couldn’t accept that something was beyond their control.

[janbear]

Job 16:1-6 Job had enough presence of mind to be direct with his friends and say, “Stop it-what you’re saying is not helping me, it’s making me feel worse.” So often when we’re being criticized or treated with disrespect, we respond by lashing out in rage or by just taking it. Job opted to be straightforward, an approach we in recovery are learning to take.

[janbear]

Job 16: 19-21 When we take Step 5, we admit our wrongs to God, ourselves, and another human being. Why? Because we need the acceptance, understanding, support of a human witness God also has provided Jesus to be our “advocate” or intercessor. He is the perfect one to argue our case before God, since he knows what it’s like to be human, divine. As we take Step 5 in the presence of another recovering friend, we can also take comfort in knowing that Jesus, the ultimate advocate, is also listening.

[janbear]

Job 19: 1-4 Here Job found it necessary to enforce a personal boundary. He told his friends that they had no business trying to dig up or fabricate things he had done wrong. 4 thousand years later we still find codependents meddling in other people’s misdeeds, both real and imagined. That is God’s job, not ours. The 12 Steps ask us to conduct our own moral inventory, not anyone else’s.

[janbear]

Job 30:20-31 Job eloquently expresses the feelings we have had toward God on more than one occasion. Sometimes God seems painfully absent when we need him. Sometimes God seems painfully absent when we need him. Sometimes it seems God personally inflicts disaster upon us. Sometimes everything seems to go wrong for us and right for the bad guys. Before we rationalize any reasons, let us remember that it’s okay to express our feelings to God. Just as God eventually answered Job, he will also answer us-in his time and in his way.

[janbear]

Job 32: 15-20
Elihu poetically illustrates several characteristics of many codependents: First, we are uncomfortable with silence. We feel the need to fill up empty spaces in conversation. Second, we like to have the last word, usually because we believe others don't think our opinions matter very much. And finally, our need to speak up is a compulsive need we must act on to "find a relief". But the fact remains: sometimes its best to let the silence do the talking.

[janbear]

Job 38:1

When God dramatically rumbled a declaration of who he is, most of his illustrations were from nature. We learn much about God from the magnificent design, beauty and cycles of his creation. Everything in our world is ultimately subject to him. Interestingly, God never tells Job of his deal with Satan. Why? Perhaps that's the whole point:There are so many factors involved, both divine and human, that we can never know just why tragedy strikes some and not others.