Blessed Be the Name

"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 Job's body before you look at his words. "Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped." He tears his clothes, shaves his head and falls face down in the dirt, which is what a person in agony does. And in the same sentence, with nothing in between, the Bible says he worshipped.

Bless God for what Job says about Him here. Job knows that the Sabeans took the oxen, that fire fell from heaven on the sheep, and that the Chaldeans carried off the camels. He knows that a great wind from the wilderness brought the house down on his ten children while they were eating together. Four messengers came, one after another, on a single day. Yet Job steps past every one of those causes and names only one: "the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away." He will not give God the credit for the gift and then excuse Him from the loss.

Then the book gives its verdict: "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." Praise God that the verdict is written down, because we would not have dared to say it ourselves.

None of this turns Job's sentence into a script that grief has to follow. Two chapters later, the same man curses the day he was born. What stands is this: there is a way of blessing the name of the Lord that does not wait for the reasons to arrive first. Job found it face down, on the worst day of his life, and the name he blessed belonged to the One who had given him everything in the first place. Whatever position you can manage right now, standing, kneeling or face down, that way is open to you too.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 29 is Fight the Good Fight (1 Timothy 6:12).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two