Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 29 · January 29
Blessed Be the Name
“And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Look at the man's body before his theology. Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground. Torn clothes, a shaved head, a man face down in the dirt. All of that is the behaviour of somebody in agony, and the next thing recorded is that he worshipped, in the same sentence, with no transition offered.
Bless God for what Job says about him here. He knows the Sabeans took the oxen, fire fell on the sheep, the Chaldeans took the camels, and a wind off the wilderness brought the house down on ten children at a meal. Four messengers, one afternoon. He steps past every secondary cause and names one agent: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away. He will not credit God with the gift and excuse him from the loss.
The narrator signs it off: In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. Praise God the verdict is printed, because we would not have dared.
None of which makes the sentence a script that grief has to follow; two chapters on, the same man curses the day he was born. What stands is that there is a way of blessing the name of God that does not require the reasons to have arrived. Job found it face down, on the worst day of his life. Whatever posture you can currently manage, it is open to you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 29 is Fight the Good Fight (1 Timothy 6:12).