{"id":14408,"date":"2023-11-30T01:23:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T01:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=14408"},"modified":"2023-11-30T01:23:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T01:23:00","slug":"reflections-on-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/14408\/reflections-on-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Hi Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">I want to write about our Job readings.\u00a0\u00a0This reading of Job has been so good; really transformative.\u00a0\u00a0Once, the story of Job seemed unreal, but I feel like we\u2019ve dug deeper than ever and made the story of Job so deeply real.\u00a0\u00a0Reading back on the Job notes, and reading what was said,\u00a0I was struck by how very real Job felt.\u00a0\u00a0Reading his words,\u00a0I found myself imagining how he must have felt going through his ordeal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Also, I love so very much when God began to speak to Job.\u00a0\u00a0How terrifying it would have been, but also, I could see nothing but love and correction in what God said to Job.\u00a0\u00a0Then to see Job\u2019s humble response \u2013 \u201cI have no understanding of things too wondrous for me.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This has been one of my all-time favorite verses, but now I love it more because it\u2019s more real.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Then I also think of Elihu.\u00a0 I was cheering for him all along and was so happy to find he was a good guy!\u00a0\u00a0I loved when he says, \u201cI will fetch knowledge from afar and to\u00a0<strong>my Maker<\/strong>\u00a0will I ascribe righteousness.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Oh, my soul loves this!\u00a0\u00a0I love Elihu.\u00a0I love that he looked to God\u2019s righteousness and\u00a0withheld\u00a0any\u00a0judgment when God had not spoken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Finally, I think of Job\u2019s three friends.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m reminded how when we started Job, you really made sure we knew they were not the bad guys.\u00a0\u00a0And they\u2019re not.\u00a0\u00a0But I think I forgot that along the way, and I will have to work on that a bit in my heart. Job\u2019s three friends really were doing the best of what they knew in that time period about righteousness \u2013 God was showing something new, but they were just not aware yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">But then,\u00a0when God finally spoke and told Job\u2019s\u00a0three\u00a0friends to go to Job and Job would pray for them, and they made offerings and God accepted the offerings and prayers of Job for his friends \u2013 I loved that,\u00a0too.\u00a0\u00a0What love of God all around!\u00a0And\u00a0the\u00a0love of Job for his friends, and they for him!\u00a0\u00a0What a good story!\u00a0\u00a0It makes me look at righteousness differently \u2013 it\u2019s all the righteousness of GOD.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">My only wish is that\u00a0at the conclusion,\u00a0God\u00a0would have\u00a0said something about Elihu.\u00a0\u00a0I wish I knew what God&#8217;s words for Elihu would\u00a0have been.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Thank you for the wonderful journey through Job!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Love,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Jenny<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Pastor John, I want to write about our Job readings.\u00a0\u00a0This reading of Job has been so good; really transformative.\u00a0\u00a0Once, the story of Job seemed unreal, but I feel like we\u2019ve dug deeper than ever and made the story of Job so deeply real.\u00a0\u00a0Reading back on the Job notes, and reading what was said,\u00a0I was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}