HOW LONG?

It wasn't COVID-19 that put the Bible's Job in the town dump, in utter physical and mental misery after losing his children, wealth and health. The Bible book bearing his name mentions painful sores from his feet to the top of his head. (Was it full-body shingles?) Devastated, miserable beyond words, he finally asks some friends a question of two penetrating words: How long.

Even common laborers, after working all day, get to sleep at night. But Job's pain keeps him awake. “The night drags on and I toss till dawn,” he says (Job 7:4), because of his unbearable suffering from this mystery disease. Then, in a more famous verse, he adds: “My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and they come to an end without hope” (v. 6).

How long? I've heard those same words behind the conversations about the coronavirus. How long before a vaccine attacks the beastly virus? How long before normalcy returns to life, without required masks, social distancing, and constant hand-washing? How long before the shadow of death from this virulent illness passes?

Maybe it's worth considering that Bildad the Shuhite, one of Job's so-called “comforters,” turned “how long” into a rebuke:

How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind. (8:2)

And Job rejects their so-called advice with other “how-longs” or similar defenses:

How long will you torment me and crush me with words? (19:1)

When we're up against something that is too big, too awful, and too hard, it's always good to submit to an attitude check. We don't always find the healing perspective in commiserating with other complainers and sufferers.

I grew up going to church and Sunday school, plus completed two years of “confirmation class.” And while I had some head knowledge about my faith, I realized how little I embraced when I got to college and had to take a required class in great literature.

Guess what: Job was in there along with other secular books like “The Prince” by Machiavelli. The college bookstore even sold Bibles for that class because that's where students could find “Job” in those pre-internet days! Well, I'd brought my old childhood Bible to campus, but never had tackled Job. I had a lot of learn. I still do.

I know now that after all the blaming and accusing dialogue between Job and his “friends,” the truth emerges when the voice of God enters the conversation. Just how that happened, I'll find out in Heaven. But Job caught a glimmer of hope almost exactly halfway through this inspired book of ancient poetry. When I read this passage, I also remember how it glistened as a vocal solo in Handel's oratorio The Messiah:

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. (Job 19:25-26)

The book of Job ends well: he's physically healed, his wealth restored, and more children born to him, including daughters who were the most beautiful of their times (42:15). I find that an interesting detail!

But I know I can't read Job as a prescription for my life. Suffering may come. I may even be a victim of this dreaded virus. I don't want to be, but I have to leave that to God. Because: I know my Redeemer lives—and someday I will see God.

In the meantime, I cherish scriptures like this one:

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever—do not abandon the works of your hands.(Psalm 138:8 NIV)

Such a perspective changes the whiny “why me?” and “how long?” into a trust that God knows—and that should be enough.