Daily Lesson for January 15, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 40 verses -0 through 17:


10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver[a] and a gold ring.
12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.

I believe it was one of our Duke professors Ellen Davis who first helped me to see the courage, the mighty, mighty courage, of this text.

Job lost everything, including all children, in the first chapters. Yet here at the end, he dares to open himself to having children once more.  He knows suffering. He knows just how painful life can be. He has loved and lost. And now, after who knows how long, he has somehow come through, and opens himself to love again.

Garth Brooks has a ballad about titled “Learning to Live Again” about a widower trying to figure out life again after loss. He’s dating again, he trying to live life again. He’s having to actually learn to live life again; but, he says, “This learning to live again is killing me.”

There is tremendous pain after. And it takes time. So much time. I don’t know if there really is ever “closure”.  But little by little, a day at a time, somehow Job survives.  He learns to live again.

He also knows he may lose again.  As my boyhood pastor John Claypool who lost his own young daughter to Leukemia often said, “Life is gift,” and it has to be received on its own terms. And death and pain are a part of the deal. But Job is willing to risk this. He’s willing to open himself to the risk of pain that he might also open himself to living again.

Ellen Davis says the names of Job’s second set of children are telling. The first is Jemimah, which means Dove, the second Keziah which means Cinnamon, and the third Keren-happuch which means Horn of Eyeshadow.  These are joyous names. They are delightful names. Job has opened himself to life again, he has opened himself to receiving its gift once more, and he has received it with joy and with delight.

We are continuing to read the whole Bible this year with our Daily Lessons. Tomorrow we will be back to Genesis, reflecting on Genesis chapters 12 through 15.