Scripture Focus: “My breath is offensive to my wife, And I am repulsive to the children of my own body.” — Job 19:17, NKJV
There are bad days, and then there are days when even your breath has joined the opposition.
I confess, I was not expecting Job 19:17. I knew about the boils. I knew about the loss of his children, possessions, health, and the arrival of three friends who apparently majored in Advanced Discouragement. I knew Job was sitting in ashes scraping himself with broken pottery while everyone tried to determine which terrible secret sin must have landed him there.
Then Job says, essentially, “And furthermore, my wife can’t stand my breath.”
Well.
When the book of Job starts documenting your halitosis, we have reached a fairly comprehensive level of misery.
The whole chapter reads like Job taking attendance and discovering that everyone who once occupied a place in his life has mysteriously called in absent. His relatives have failed him. His close friends have forgotten him. His servants treat him like a stranger. Young children despise him. His intimate friends abhor him. His wife apparently cannot get within conversational distance without regretting it.
At this point I almost expect Job to add, “And the dog has requested reassignment.”
It is funny only because Job’s description is so painfully human. Haven’t we all had days when one problem seems to send invitations to seventeen of its closest relatives? The washing machine breaks, the check-engine light comes on, somebody says something hurtful, dinner burns, and then you bite your tongue eating the dinner you burned. Somewhere around 8:30 you begin wondering whether locusts are next.
But underneath Job’s almost overwhelming inventory of misery is something that isn’t funny at all.
Job desperately needed someone to stay.
His friends were physically present, but somewhere along the way they stopped sitting with Job and started investigating him. They became more interested in explaining his suffering than sharing it. Because they were convinced there must be a reason for what was happening, they kept searching Job for one.
That is where this ancient story gets uncomfortably close to home.
Sometimes suffering makes us nervous. We want explanations. We want cause and effect. We want the story tied into a respectable little theological bow because unexplained suffering reminds us that life can hurt in ways we cannot control. So when someone else’s life falls apart, we can begin asking questions when what they desperately need is our presence.
There is a time for counsel. There is a time for correction. There is even a time to tell someone to buy mouthwash.
But there is also “a time to keep silence” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).
Job’s friends actually got that right at first. When they saw his grief, they sat with him seven days without saying a word. Their greatest ministry to Job may have happened before they opened their mouths.
I find that rather humbling.
We do not always have to understand someone’s suffering to love them through it. We do not have to solve the mystery, identify the lesson, or produce three Bible verses before the casserole has cooled. Sometimes faithfulness looks remarkably ordinary: pull up a chair, listen without interrogating, pray without preaching, and stay when the hurting person isn’t particularly cheerful, polished, or easy company.
Because suffering rarely brings out our most charming qualities. Grief can make people quiet, irritable, forgetful, exhausted, repetitive, and occasionally rather difficult to be around. Apparently, according to Job, it can even affect one’s breath.
But love does not require someone to be pleasant before drawing near.
Jesus certainly never required that of us.
Perhaps that is the little treasure hidden beneath one of Scripture’s strangest complaints. When someone’s whole world seems to be backing away from them, we have an opportunity to move in the opposite direction.
And if necessary, we can always bring mints.
If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.
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