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lessons from a longsuffering saint
I keep this little booklet on my desk. I wish I could remember how and where I found it. It is a pocket-sized book of Job.
The other day, I was straightening up the mess on my desk, sifting through piled-up papers, sorting through unopened mail, and shelving a pile of books I have added to my library over the past couple of weeks, when I picked up this little fellow and read in it for the first time in ages.
I was thinking about my work, so when I spotted the book, I read Job with a short “o,” instead of a long “o”. The book suddenly felt less mystical and ancient, and more immediate and accessible.
It is easy to dismiss Job and other bible characters as either ancient history or fables and fairy tales. It is easy to dismiss their experiences, their trials and triumphs, their journey as irrelevant. After all, there were caves and camels, and this is the age of AI and TikTok.
It is also remarkable how familiar Job’s suffering is, if we stop to consider it. What things did he suffer?
The death of his children
I have close friends who have navigated these waters—and still are. There is no pain to compare with the loss of a child. We are not supposed to outlive our children. They bury us. We don’t bury them. But some do and the pain is excruciating.
Job buried all 10 of his kids in a matter of days.
The loss of his business
Job was the wealthiest man in his region. His wealth was tied up in livestock and land. He lost it all, along with his employees, in a short period. He went from incredible wealth to intense poverty, a total loss of assets. Everybody loves a winner. Nobody loves a loser. You can imagine how the fair-weather friends scurried for the door.
The loss of his health
Job developed an illness. He was covered in open sores. They hurt. They oozed. They itched. They were painful, isolating, and embarrassing.
The loss of his “person,” the one with whom he had those children and shared the good life
Job’s wife, angry, confused, hurting, and feeling abandoned and betrayed by God, encouraged Job to “curse God and die.”
Not exactly a “we got this” sentiment. Not a show of solidarity in suffering.
This often happens. Marriages crumble under the weight of stress brought on by suffering and grief. My wife’s aunt and uncle lost their daughter to suicide years ago. The grief was overwhelming. It took its toll on their marriage, which disintegrated. It ruined the woman’s health. She died prematurely in her fifties, overwrought by grief and overwhelmed by Diabetes.
The loss of empathetic friends
A small portion of the book of Job is devoted to what happened to Job, all the devastation. Most of its pages are filled with a discourse between Job and his three friends, who came to comfort him and instead accused him of sin and lectured him on his situation. These men rushed to Job’s side. When they saw how intense his anguish was, they mourned with him.
The best thing these dudes did was sit with him in silence for seven days.
Then, they opened their chops, and the Inquisition was on. Job surely must have some dark, secret sin to confess. He must have done something to anger God, something to deserve all this loss and misery. Job finds himself on the defensive, forced to deny their accusations.
Trouble at work. Losing loved ones. Marriage troubles. False accusations. Friends who feel like adversaries.
Does any of this ring a bell?
We can apply Job’s story to our lives in so many ways, but since I began this article linking the long “o” character and the short “o” employment, let’s go there.
What can we learn from Job that will aid us in not just surviving but thriving in the workplace?
When the odds are against you, when things are not going your way, how do you handle it?
Here is how Job did the job:
First, he kept his faith
He remembered where he came from and what he believed in
Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will return.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:20
Job put the loss into perspective.
“I started with nothing once. I can do it again.”
“Life has given me good things. I will learn to take the bad with the good and will not lose faith. I still believe.”
One of my favorite Christian evangelists, the late Dr. Bascom Ray (B.R.) Lakin used to say, “Never doubt in the dark what you have believed in the light.”
I once did this for my daughter, who was struggling with being afraid of the dark. I turned on her light and told her to look all around her room.
“See how it looks right now?”
I turned off the light. Darkness fell. I turned it back on.
“See? It is the same in the dark as in the light. Nothing changed. When you wake up, you will wake up in the same cozy room you fell asleep in.”
Darkness falls, but the truth of the light remains.
Even at work.
Second, he kept his integrity
So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. And Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes.
Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!”
“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?”
Job 2:9, 10
What is integrity?
Cambridge Dictionary defines integrity as “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change.”
Reputation is what people think you are. Integrity is what you and God know yourself to be. Integrity is what you are in the dark, when no one is looking. Integrity is what you do because you are who you are: honest, honorable, trustworthy, and reliable.
We sometimes talk about the integrity of things.
I asked Microsoft Copilot® to give me examples of what is meant when discussing the integrity of things. Here is the response:
Integrity, when applied to things, refers to their completeness, reliability, or structural soundness. Here are some examples:
Building Integrity: A bridge or skyscraper must have structural integrity, meaning it is stable, well-built, and resistant to damage from forces like wind, earthquakes, or time.
Data Integrity: In computing, this refers to data being accurate, consistent, and unaltered from its original state. If a database has integrity, it means the information hasn’t been corrupted or manipulated.
Product Integrity: A high-quality smartphone or car maintains integrity when all components work correctly, materials are durable, and the product performs as expected over time.
System Integrity: A security system or software program is said to have integrity if it remains secure against breaches, bugs, or malfunctions.
Material Integrity: A metal used in construction or aerospace applications must have integrity, meaning it remains strong under pressure, doesn’t degrade easily, and performs reliably.
The point is, we rely on the integrity of things every day.
How can we ensure that, even in adversity, we have the kind of integrity—“completeness, reliability, or structural soundness”—others can rely on? I can think of at least three key ingredients in that brand of integrity:
Belief in something strongly enough to cling to it in bad weather.
Commitment to who you want to be, no matter what.
Doing the right thing, no matter what. If the right thing to do is a hard thing, and it often is, do the hard thing when the hard thing is hardest to do.
Third, he kept his tongue
In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Job 1:22In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
Job 2:10
Job did not go off the rails and rail on God or anyone else. He felt it was better not to say anything than to say things that would damage his mind or corrupt someone else’s.
It was not that he did not feel the full blow of the losses. His mourning was deep and heart-rending, so much so that his friends could not think of a single thing to say to make it better.
Job refused to say things he would later regret. He did not lash out. He did not become irrational. He did not become bitter and say things to slice and dice the faith of others.
The leader of our Monday and Friday work calls often asks me to share some morsel of wisdom. This morning, I decided to talk about the NFL draft, the slide of Shedeur Sanders to the fifth round, and the truth that nobody really knows what a person is capable of until that person does it.
That is for a different story.
What I thought about sharing is what I want to say right here:
It is okay to think something and not say it. It is not okay to say something and not think it.
In other words, you don’t have to say everything you think or feel. Take a walk. Breathe. Let the matter marinate. Give time for cooler heads and clearer minds to prevail.
I have lived with the regret of missing an opportunity of getting in a real zinger and the regret of getting in one that devastated another person or decimated a friendship. I know which regret I prefer. What about you?
Think before you speak. That seems basic, but it is not as common as we might wish.
Fourth, he kept it real
Job 3 does not paint a flattering picture for those who want to paint Old Job as unflappable. In chapter three, he flaps!
After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. And this is what he said:“May the day of my birth perish,
and the night it was said,
‘A boy is conceived.’
If only that day had turned to darkness!
May God above disregard it;
may no light shine upon it.
Job 3:1–4
Ever hear someone say they rue the day they were born? Well, they weren’t the first. Job did, too, a long, long time ago.
Job did not repress his feelings. He expressed his grief. He let others see the struggle. One thing about Bible characters: they are flawed and human as heck. Raw and real. Like you and me.
You need someone to confide in. Job thought he had found his community, his support group. They proved to be unwise in their evaluation and advice. But Job let them have it, no whitewashing the pain or confusion.
Fifth, He kept going
The book of Job is 42 chapters long. Job’s ordeal was long and excruciating, but in the end, Job emerged, not unscathed, not unscarred, just unfettered. He did not lose in adversity what he had kept in prosperity. He kept his wits about him.
And in the end, the tide turned in his favor.
So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. He named his first daughter Jemimah, his second Keziah, and his third Keren-happuch. No women as beautiful as Job’s daughters could be found in all the land, and their father granted them an inheritance among their brothers.
Job 42:12
I am not saying this is how it works out for everyone all the time. I am saying that the best outcome depends on the best input.
You may do everything right and still come up short. BUT…you did it right. That is the reward. The rest is decoration.
