Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." –Job 1:20
There was a conventional, destructive myth going around in Job's day that if you lived a righteous life, nothing bad would ever happen to you. Consequently, bad things only happened to bad people. In fact, the first thing Eliphaz said to Job after seven days of silence was, "According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble harvest it" (4:8). So, after all the adversities Job experienced, he, his wife, and his friends were forced to make sense out of why it all happened.
To Job's so-called friends, the conventional wisdom of the day was absolutely true all the time, no exceptions. In their minds, it was an airtight case to look at Job's difficulties and blame him, just as in the beginning it would have been easy to give "blameless" Job the credit for his "seven sons and three daughters...7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants" (1:1-3).
So, how did Job answer the conventional wisdom of his day? As painful, mysterious, and humiliating as it would have been, Job bowed before God and said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away..." (v.20). This is the statement of a humble man who had never succumbed to the belief that he had earned his wealth and family by being good. Job's attitude was he did not own any of his possessions. As far as Job was concerned, he didn't own anything, ever. He started out in his mother's womb with nothing; therefore, anything beyond that was an extra, undeserved gift from God.
Job never did figure out why all that difficulty happened to him. In the midst of it, he simply humbled himself, went back to his childhood, and remembered that nothing he possessed had he ever deserved. We would do well to remember the attitude of Job in our adversities. We may never figure out why it all happens, but in the midst of our trouble, we will find some relief if we humble ourselves and remember everything we have is an extra, undeserved gift from God.
