A life in letters: Job, Book of

The book of Job in the Old Testament addresses the question of why good people – like Job himself - face suffering.  In the spring of 1980, a verse from the book had a powerful effect on me. I was suffering from severe anxiety and depression, and was staying for a few days at the building in Glasgow’s Prince Albert Road which had been the Glasgow College of Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade, and was still at that point owned by the Mission.

On the Sunday morning, in bright sunshine, I walked across Kelvingrove Park to the Sandyford Henderson Memorial Church of Scotland with some of the university students who lived at the Mission house, and sat down in the cool interior of the old building. The only thing I remember about the service was a verse from the book of Job in the Bible which the Revd George Philip quoted in a prayer – ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.’ (Job 13:15) I had never, to my knowledge, heard these words, this naked expression of faith in God no matter what, this apparently insane conviction that despite the incomprehensible darkness and pain all would be well.

The translators differ over whether the words George Philip quoted from the King James version of the Bible are in fact an accurate equivalent of the original Hebrew, but no matter. For me, that morning, they were the words I needed to hear, not just for that day, but for the days to come. I found I could identify both with Job’s sense of alienation and bleak abandonment, and with the faith in which he was able to say, in effect ‘I don’t know what you are doing, God. I don‘t know why your are inflicting this terrible pain on me like a malicious sadist, or at very least sitting back, it seems, a spectator in the arena of my suffering, but I believe. I believe you are love. I believe that somehow in this your love is present. I believe. Whatever happens, I believe.’

And as I gladly took those words ‘though you slay me yet will I trust in you’ and made them my own, I found an oasis of peace at the heart of the storm, where I remained throughout the day. Later, I reflected that those words of Job could so easily have been used by Jesus as he died, absorbing from God’s hand the judgement which the human race deserved. It was because of his perseverance and faith in the goodness of God when it seemed that his father had become his enemy that we, as his followers, can find a secure place, and draw near to the oasis.

That afternoon, back at the college, I sat in the library, much calmer. Out in the porch, venerable retired missionaries sat in the sunlight talking of the Lord’s goodness in their lives, and their level of spirituality seemed so much deeper than mine. And yet I was confident that I could trust God in the darkness, and for then, as for much of my life, that was enough for me.