Job 29

I miss the way I could run up steps without getting winded. I miss the way I could fall asleep in a couple of minutes after my head hit the pillow. I miss the way I had predictable hormones and patterns, predictable health. I miss waking up with energy. I miss being able to eat anything I wanted and still be a size four. I miss running because I loved it instead of running to stay alive. I miss my kids being little enough for me to pick them up and protect them from hurt or danger. I miss laughing. I miss that well-being feeling that comes with youth and health. I miss feeling fearless, indestructible, powerful. I miss driving fast on dirt roads. I miss roller skating. Age, time, circumstances, health, finances – these can all change over time, affecting the dynamics and details of our lives. I don’t roller skate anymore (much) because I now have vestibular migraines. Roller skates + Vertigo = Me, on the floor in pain. So, I avoid roller skating these days, and I miss it.

Job misses his old life. He has experienced the loss of many good things. Chapter twenty-nine outlines some of them. Job laments his losses one by one. Have you done this before, friend? Have you listed the things you miss? The things that used to make you who you were? The things that were good in your life? Even sweet times in your spiritual life can be missed – we can find ourselves wishing for the “good old days,” when God seemed so close, and blessings were abundant. Hear Job’s list of losses with compassion. We are not that different from the sorrowing patriarch after all.

“Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were all around me…”

Job 29:1-5

Do you hear it? The look back that brings loss into bitter focus? The vacuum where life once thrived? The spiritual brightness now dimmed? Job misses his old life. He misses the friendship of God! He misses how good it was between them. He misses his children. Ten of them, struck down, gone from the earth in a moment. Job misses who he was when God bathed his every step with blessing. Have you felt this loss, friend? A broken marriage, a child gone too soon, job insecurity, a friendship cut open and left to bleed out?

“When I went out to the gate of the city, when I prepared my seat in the square, the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood…”

Job 29:7-8

Job misses the respect he received in the public spaces. He misses the honor of being the man with the answers for the poor and the fatherless (v. 12), the dying and the widows (v. 13). He misses his good reputation as a man of righteousness. He wore it like a garment (v. 14). It was apparent to everyone who knew him. He misses helping people in need and those in danger. (v. 15-17).

“Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand, my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches, my glory fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand.'”

Job 29:18-20

Job misses the prospect of a good future! He had it all worked out. His future was secure and well planned. He was going to be comfortable in his last days on earth as an old man, all tucked in to his little nest. He was certain he would retain his good name and reputation. He was, after all, the man with the answers. He was the one people consulted on hard matters (v. 21). He was the one who offered guidance that refreshed the listener like rain (v. 23). He was the one who offered confidence and encouragement to the weary (v. 24). And now, he is the one who is weary. His backward glance offers nothing but miserable emptiness in his state of current loss.

We are not made for looking back too long. We are made for forward progress, for an upward and onward mindset. The past is gone; we can’t undo it. There is no reset button on past decisions or sins, no time machine to go back and “fix things” or redo them. But there is this moment right now, this decision, this step forward. We are not like Lot’s wife who, longing for her home behind her, her home destined for destruction, glanced back – just once – in disobedience, looked back and perished. Paul exhorts the Philippians to press forward without the backward look, to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-16). In chapter twenty-nine, Job has not seen it yet. By the end of the book he catches a glimpse of it…future goodness, future glory. What lies ahead is far more glorious than anything that could possibly be pulling our attention backward.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

II Corinthians 4:16-18