Job 2

Job’s victory over his circumstances (and the devil behind them) is seen in the fact that God still boasts of his integrity as he did before calamity struck.  So, Satan pleads for more control.  The LORD gives him authority to touch Job’s body with painful sores.  That was only part of the strategy.  The other part is the reaction that Job would have to endure of his wife and his “friends.”  Most of the story is a description of the reactions of people around Job to the unfairness of Job’s problems compared to his apparent sinlessness.  Their conclusion was that Job must have secretly done something to cause his problems.  We know, however, that it was not like that. 

The seven days of mourning in silence and the dust on the heads are both signs that Job’s friends expected him to die (return to the dust).  Anyone who has ever sat with a friend who is dying of a terminal illness knows how they felt.  It is a difficult and painful thing to see a friend deteriorate before your eyes. Job was not the only one being tested.

When things went from bad to worse for Job, it was because Satan was losing.  Job was a hero of faith because he refused to accept what everybody else believed.  He clung to his relationship with God as an anchor.

LORD, help us to forge such a deep relationship with you that though the world turn against us, we can stay true.