Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul … - Job 3:20

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 19, 2015): Job 3

David Scott writes in “The Love That Made Mother Teresa” that there were maybe two Mother Teresa’s – a public Teresa and a private one. The one that we saw was the Teresa that always seemed to have a playful smile on her face. She seemed to look like there was a private joke that we just didn’t understand. This playful attitude seemed to be magnified when she was around children. Then she simply beamed with delight. So it is not much of a surprise that a lot of people who had the opportunity to spend some time with Mother Teresa came away saying that she was the most joyful person that they had ever met.

But the other Mother Teresa was one who suffered. Scott writes that “for more than fifty years following her initial visions and locutions, Mother Teresa was wrapped in a dark pitiless silence.” While she was smiling on the outside, on the inside she was going through a dark night of the soul. Teresa had come to believe that “the doors of heaven had been closed and bolted against her. The more she longed for some sign of [God’s] presence, the more empty and desolate she became.”

It is really hard to blame her for her almost disillusionment with God. After all, the pain that Teresa worked with on a daily basis was far beyond what many of us could stand. Serving the poorest of the poor, she must have daily struggled to understand the way that God moved. And she was probably in the best position to understand Job’s words in this passage.

Amazingly, in spite of the pain that Job had seen and had suffered, his thoughts were not centered on himself. Job’s thoughts centered on his relationship with God. He would have probably agreed with Mother Teresa, at this point in his life the doors of heaven seemed to be closed and bolted against him. And so he was left with a question – why is light given to those in misery, why is it that God remains at the center of his thoughts even though he seems to be so far away. And why is it that life was given to those who found its taste so bitter.

It is important to note that suicide was not an option for Job. He had already been tempted with that idea, his own wife had dared him to curse God and die (Job 2:9). But Job had refused the temptation. Life and death, for both Job and Teresa, rightfully belonged in the hands of God. He is the one who holds the keys of life and death. But that didn’t stop them from asking the question.

We still see suffering and we still ask the questions. I admit that I wish we had more answers that satisfied our struggles. But if there is a lesson that we can learn from Job and Mother Teresa, it might be that it is not a sin to question the suffering that we experience – and that even the spiritual giants at times have felt that “heaven was closed and bolted” to them. And yet even then they continued to serve their God, trusting that even though they did not understand suffering didn’t mean that God didn’t understand it – and they still trusted that God was worthy of being praised.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 4