Gems from Job

 I often feel like I have no clue what I'm talking about, especially in my new position as Department Chair.  9 out of 10 times I'm confronted with a task, I am completely lost and have no clue where to even start tackling it.  To make matters worst, our Administrative Assistant, on whom I completely rely, has announced her retirement, effective May 7th...exactly 2 years before my term as Chair is over.  I am feeling so overwhelmed by her decision to leave, that I am pushing the thought aside, pretending is not happening, avoiding talking about it, hoping she'll change her mind at the last minute...

At any rate, my point here is, most of the time, I feel like I'm full of garbage...pretending to sound knowledgeable, when in reality, everything is above my head.  

Reading through he book of Job, I wonder if his friends ever felt like that too...even if just for a fleeting moment.  Remember how right on they were at the beginning of the book, in chapter 2, when they first showed up and just sat with Job in silence for like a week?  That was exactly the right thing to do.  But then...things got sour when they started to open their mouths. By chapter 13 we have Job exploding, telling them to their faces basically that they are phonies...full of empty words and speeches...and my favorite:

Your maxims are proverbs of ashes;
your defenses are defenses of clay.

“Keep silent and let me speak;
then let come to me what may. Job 13: 12-13

Job is expressing the despair that he is experiencing as he finds himself in the bottom of the pit. From that place of desolation, the words of his friends sound hollow and crushing. He doesn't need the recrimination he hears. He doesn't need the preaching. He needs to come to terms with what is happening to him, and for that, he needs silence and supporting presence, so he can process and think. It is then, when we witness one of the most important verses for the soul that cries out to the Lord:

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; Job 13: 15

Like Bible Commentator, Jon Course said, "here is the moment when Satan lost."  This is Job's expression of absolute trust in the Lord.  Though in  his humanity, Job's resolve falters, in this words are contained the most brilliant gems of wisdom we ever need to contemplate in our moments of despair: it's OK...I'm broken up, but in my brokenness, I still hope in You...I still trust You...I love You and I rest in Your Shadow, My God and My Lord.

I know I will continue to spin garbage for as long as I work in the position I have now, because wisdom is going to elude me in my struggles...but I hope I can keep this passage in mind when I encounter a suffering soul along my way...I hope my maxims are not proverbs of ashes, and that I listen twice as much as I speak...like the old saying goes, right? "God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.