Job is a book many people avoid, but I find fascinating. (I think it belongs in the "poetry" kind of writing...you can ask me what I think that means, but it's not my point!) I don't particularly like the way it starts with God and Satan making deals about Job's very life--rather off-putting!
After all the tragedies in Job's life, three "friends" came: Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and for 7 days and nights they sat with him in silence, "because they saw how great his suffering was." True friends! When Job complained of his situation, the friends began to try to make Job understand what they believed to be true: Job must have sinned to receive such terrible consequences in this life. Their religion and culture taught that God gives us what we deserve, and if we are in agony, we need to repent as we must surely have sinned egregiously. Job continued to claim his innocence, which only increased the rhetoric from his friends.
In the middle of all of the negative, there is a ray of sunshine when Bildad says, "He will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." (8:21) Bildad makes this statement as a promise if Job will only confess his sin and repent.
In my search for joy, I have gone this route, analyzing my behavior, my thoughts, my motives, and confessing, repenting. Sometimes I experienced joy, but I didn't live there long. I have learned I needed to deal with long-standing, core trauma and pain before there was room for joy. My behavior, motives and thoughts are directly related to that trauma and pain...the ways I figured out how to cope with life situations.
Bildad was right --- God does fill my mouth with laughter and my lips with shouts of joy - as I receive more and more of His healing touch.
Yippee!!!!
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