August 2024

It’s not just Job who must undertake these life journeys where the pendulum swings between despair and hope. The reality is that not all loss leads to renewal. Not all disillusionment and suffering have a happy ending. Recently, I watched a horrifying news segment showing a badly burned little girl on a hospital bed in Gaza after yet another bombing. Her silent screams were cries to heaven on behalf of a silent world. And it […]

The greatest lesson from this story is that God is in control—not evil or any other powers. From the very beginning, God is the central character! Job comes to know God’s power through a visual journey back to the origins of everything. What is astonishing (even to me!) is the extraordinary creativity and joy that God takes in what has come to life through His fingertips. From the farthest reaches of the cosmos to the

It’s not only from Job that I glean life lessons for myself; I also learn from his friends. Through their conversations, I realise how the right words at the wrong time can actually be harmful. Just think of all the wisdom Job’s friends shared; yet, towards the end of the story, God rebukes them sharply: “I am angry with you, because you have not spoken the truth about Me, as My servant Job has” (Job

Do you remember how, even after COVID restrictions were lifted, we kept talking about the so-called “new normal”? The need was great: we must not quickly forget the lessons we learned. For those who lost the most—not just possessions but especially the lives of their loved ones—nothing can return to the “old normal.” The price was too high. The last few verses (the so-called “postscript”) of Job’s life are a text that could easily fit

The drama began on an ash heap (Job 2:8), and it ends on an ash heap (42:6). As someone once wrote: we have a birth date and a death date, but our entire life unfolds in the dash between these two dates. For Job, the dates were reversed. In chapter 2, Job thought his life had ended. “Why was I not stillborn, buried without a second thought, a child that never saw the light of

How desperate (or perhaps foolish) Job must have been to declare with such bravado to his friends: “I have stated my case; now let the Almighty answer me” (Job 31:35). When he says, “I can account for every step I have taken; I can approach my opponent with confidence” (31:37), I wonder if Job was perhaps thinking of God as his opponent? It must be, because just listen to how God responds to Job (again

When I read Job 39, I can’t help but immediately think of the French composer Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals.” Each of the animals is masterfully depicted with musical sounds—the regal march of lions; nimble-footed goats; a slow tortoise; the graceful swan; even fish and fossils. It’s like sitting at a waterhole in the Kruger Park early in the morning: is there any place on earth where greater peace and joy can be experienced? Imagine

Each of us views the world through a specific lens. Not even the widest wide-angle lens can give us the full picture of reality. How often do we make statements about God as if we know the full picture? This is why the little word “but” is so important in the Bible. Just think of Paul in Ephesians 2:3-4, where he explains, “Because of our sinful nature, we were by nature deserving of wrath, just

And then God speaks! It immediately reminds me of how God appeared to Elijah. Elijah, fleeing for his life from Jezebel, laments his fate to God. Why does God allow these things when all Elijah wants is to serve Him? Then God comes onto the scene: “Suddenly there was a very strong wind that tore apart the mountain and broke the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the